Map Your Cocktail’s Flavor with Omni’s New Flavor Origins Menu

Cocktail menus can be confusing, even for the more dedicated booze hounds of us. (I'm here to admit there are still ingredients or spirits I come across that baffle me. But like anything, practice makes perfect ... or something like that. So, I press on and taste all the things.)

The last thing you want on a date or, heck, even among friends, is to have to ask a million questions before ordering a cocktail, and then being surprised by an unexpected bitter element or heat source.

So, to help even the playing field, Omni Hotels across the country are giving us the chance to drink by number ... kind of.

They introduced their Flavor Origins menu, a menu offering the chance to order by flavor profile.

The menu offers 24 cocktails in three categories — fruit, earth and botanical — then offers the main flavors for each cocktail.

They even supply a flavor map (left) to guide guests to the perfect cocktail. I'd say this is one of the easiest-to-navigate cocktail menus I've seen in quite a while.

The cocktails are on the simpler side, most with three to four ingredients — most of which you can easily pronounce.

But the more appealing element to this menu is that most of the cocktails are also being offered in non-alcoholic versions. Take the apple-pear whiskey sour, their fall-friendly version of a whiskey sour with stone fruit notes and a hint of brown sugar.

You can get it as-is on the menu (Maker’s Mark, Barmalade Apple Pear, fresh lemon) for $14, or go boozeless (Seedlip Spice 94, Barmalade apple-pear, Monin cinnamon, lemon juice, Angostura bitters) for $11. That truly offers something for everyone.

Locally you can find this menu at Texas Spice (at the Omni Dallas Hotel).

Texas Spice (at Omni Dallas Hotel), 555 S. Lamar St. (downtown)