White Limozeen Pours A Cup of Ambition
At Nashville's over-the-top rooftop hotel bar, complex cocktails sneak their way into the party.
Welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:
Cover Story: At Nashville’s White Limozeen, beverage director Demi Natoli serves Champagne Jell-O shots, strawberry-lemongrass Cosmos, and other cocktails that match the rooftop bar’s fun feel.
Weekend Getaway: Download your copy of our Field Guide to Nashville! This 42-page dining guide is formatted for your phone and includes a curated four-day itinerary with 30+ recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks.
The Order: There’s a little steam burger in Portland, Oregon that you can’t miss.
Weekend Reading:
on one of his favorite spots in Memphis, on a hidden gem in the shadow of Wrigley Field, and offers up an itinerary for a Catskills getaway.‘You’re Not Getting This on Broadway’
NASHVILLE, TENN. — I have not had many memorable Jell-O shots, but that’s because most of them are not the Champagne Jell-O shots at White Limozeen in Nashville. Made by combining Champagne with gelatin and a fruity housemade cordial, the shots are topped with glittery sugar and presented in pink candy paper cups — they are as beautiful as they are delicious.
“We have made those since day one,” says beverage director Demi Natoli of the $4 edible shots. “They went from something we thought would be a fun thing that maybe somebody got to selling 200 to 300 on weekdays and 400 to 500 on weekends.”
Start with a round of the shots, since they’re a good way in to a cocktail menu that suits the aesthetics of White Limozeen, a rooftop bar at the Graduate Hotel that’s named for a Dolly Parton song (you can’t miss the giant sculpture of Parton outside) and an interior design that’s pink, plant-filled, and glittery. Everything here is pretty, including the drinks.
“When I worked at [Chicago’s] Lost Lake, [co-owner] Shelby Allison used to say, ‘The first sip you take of your drink is with your eyes.’ White Limozeen is really fun and a place where you have a good time celebrating and that’s what I wanted the drink program to look like. I knew that being on the rooftop and how beautiful and glam it is inside, our cocktail program had to match. I want people to see a cocktail on their table or the table over and say, ‘What is that drink? Why is it blue? What is that flower? I have to have it.’”
But the cocktails aren’t just pretty — they’re thoughtful and well-balanced, like the Anti Hero, made with vodka infused with strawberry and lemongrass, strawberry-lemongrass syrup, Campari, pineapple, and lime. “It’s a cosmo build, but I switched out the curacao for Campari, and cranberry for pineapple, and instead of simple syrup, it’s the strawberry-lemongrass syrup.” Natoli says. “It’s a little tart with fruit punch flavor and the lemongrass gives it this bright note you weren’t necessarily expecting. The Campari ties all those flavors together but is not super bitter.”
“Yes, this is a party atmosphere, but we want to give you the good stuff.”
— White Limozeen beverage director Demi Natoli
Natoli, who worked at lauded Nashville bar The Patterson House before moving to the Graduate, creates cocktails that play off classic builds (“The construction and foundation works for a reason”) and finds inspiration for her drinks in music. “A lot of times a cocktail will come to be because I’m listening to a certain song and I change the flavor in a cocktail to match the way I feel about this song,” she says. She took inspiration from Cherry Blossom, a Kacey Musgraves song, to create the Cherry Blossom Baby. “I made a cocktail with cherry blossom tea and a cherry syrup with orange oleo,” she says. “That’s a fancy bartender thing, so I don’t put that on the menu. That way it's approachable to our guests, but behind the scenes I know I’m making this fun, cool thing.”
Natoli is also inspired by food. I still think about her Avocado Daiquiri, a drink created for a pop-up she did at Lost Lake. She tapped avocado oil and bay leaf simple syrup for a drink that draws on her Cuban heritage as well as her Florida upbringing and expertise in tropical drinks (the recipe is on Punch if you want to try it). While the drinks at White Limozeen aren’t really savory, they do pull in a range of housemade ingredients, like sesame orgeat, tinctures, and tea blends.
“I try to go outside the norm a little at White Limozeen, but I don’t think I push the boundary too far,” she says. “I make sure what we’re doing is fun, cool, and approachable. I’ll put a little absinthe in things, do a little saline solution, and some of the gastro stuff, like a milk punch that tastes like a green apple martini.” For Natoli, the program is about connecting with both visitors to Nashville and the local community. “We’re not just a pink rooftop, we have cool drinks and a diverse wine program with natural and biodynamic wines from France,” she says. Those wines are available in a “Chambong,” basically a shooter for bubbly, and the bar offers a pét-nat, a sparkling rosé, and a biodynamic Champagne. Natoli says, “Yes, this is a party atmosphere, but we want to give you the good stuff.”
In addition to White Limozeen, the Graduate Hotel has another bar, Cross-Eyed Critters Watering Hole, a karaoke bar with an animatronic band. Creating the cocktail list here is a different beast. “The drinks are not the star of the show,” Natoli says. “We see the guests as the star when they’re singing karaoke. I think about this as a toned-down version of White Limozeen.” That means a menu of five cocktails plus shots and boilermakers. “There’s a martini with celery bitters that’s pre-batched so it’s easy to pour. We do an old fashioned in flavors like banana. We do a fresh green tea shot where instead of using schnapps we use higher-end eau de vie — you’re not getting this on Broadway.”
Moving from the Midwest to a growing city in the South has allowed Natoli to explore what hospitality means. “We have an influx of people all the time,” she says. “My favorite thing has been trying to define what Southern hospitality looks like.” And it goes both ways. “When I first moved here, I didn’t have any friends, and had one family member who lived here. But when someone opens a new bar, we’re all there. Everyone is very supportive of each other.”
And moving to a new city has meant getting to explore its bar scene. “There are so many options,” Natoli says. “If you want to go dancing, you can go to Flamingo [Cocktail Club], if you want to go to a dive, you have Lucky’s [3 Star Bar]. Cool kids go to Schulman’s. If you want tropical drinks, there’s Pearl Diver. I’ve had some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had in my life at Fox Bar. There’s so many wonderful bars, whatever your mood is. I don’t think you can say that for a lot of cities.”
101 20th Ave N, Nashville, TN | @whitelimozeennash
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A Serious Slider
PORTLAND, ORE. — We love a good burger here at American Weekender HQ. And the little steam burgers at Gabriel Rucker’s fun Portland restaurant Canard are worth seeking out when you’re in town. A play on White Castle sliders, these beef patties are seared and added to a bun with American cheese, a spicy pickle mixture, onions, and mustard. Then the burgers are steamed, which melts the cheese and softens the bread.
You can get one for $5.50 (we recommend one per person if you’re going this route) and sample some other items on the menu (we also recommend the oeufs mayonnaise, another Canard staple, which come topped with trout roe, bacon, roasted garlic, and maple). Or, if you’d just like to eat a bunch of burgers, you can do that too — a tray of six is $30.
734 E Burnside St, Portland, OR | @canard_restaurant
TENNESSEE
He Went There on Business: Over on Last Call,
wrote about some of his favorite places in Memphis and specifically Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Hog & Hominy. It’s “the kind of place where strangers and new friends might join you at the bar or pull a chair over to join you at their table to share a slice of pie,” Parsons writes. He also gives shout-outs to Memphis barbecue joints like Central BBQ, Charlie Vergos Rendezvous, and one of our favorites: Cozy Corner BBQ.ILLINOIS
Baseball Season’s Underway: Writing at Guys Drinking Beer,
tips his cap to a craft beer bar that has somehow remained a hidden gem in the shadow of Wrigley Field. Lucky Dorr “is, in my estimation, one of the best yet least-discussed beer bars in Chicago,” Klockars writes. He chatted with Lucky Dorr’s Amy Biller about the bar’s focus on exclusive collaboration beers and the challenges of operating just eight months out of the year. If you catch a Cubs game this summer, save time for a beer or two before the first pitch.NEW YORK
Come On, Let's Bounce: Reader Dave Wilson wrote in a few months back to make sure The DeBruce was on our radar and I really hope to get out there sometime soon. The folks at
have even put together a whole itinerary centered around a weekend stay at the Catskills hotspot. Have you been? Tell us what you thought in the comments!— Compiled by Kenney Marlatt
Want more? Chat with us on Substack, download our Field Guides, check out our archives, or follow us on Instagram @americanweekender. We’ll be back next week.
Drooling