#241: Hermanas

The Bar

Hermanas. 1100 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/2/2026 @ 5pm.

The Drink

Date Old-Fashioned. Casa Mexico añejo tequila, date + orange turbinado sugar, mole bitters. $18.

Buckle up, because there are a lot of drinks to come. 

Since I was the very first customer (more on that below), the discussion of "what is the drink that best represents the bar" was a little more fluid than usual, if you will pardon the pun. I was given two main options, and between them the bartender selected Old-Fashioned #21 as the first round. I will pull out the (semi) standard rating scale for this one:

• Base liquor: 6/10. Tequila, huh? This continues the proud tradition I've experienced ever since Café Josie's "Mezcal Manhattan" of bartenders using the name of a standard cocktail to make whatever the hell they want. By definition añejo is aged, and therefore has a softer flavor than other tequilas. While fine in itself, this is not actually what I want in an Old-Fashioned, so it left me wanting more. 
• Other ingredients: 9/10. Props on using the flavor of date, as its caramel sweetness perfectly complemented the turbinado sugar. 
• Preparation: 9/10. Nothing but skill here. 
• Value: 8/10: This is $13 in 2017 dollars, which is fine. 

The overall drink was good but so laid-back and subtle that I had a weird reaction to it: if I hadn't been told that it was an Old-Fashioned, I would have said "man, this is really drinkable, another round please!", but as an Old-Fashioned it just didn't have the "this is a stiff drink" factor that makes you order one in the first place. I have since learned that the date Old-Fashioned is a well-recognized riff on the classic, but I think it should rebrand and stand on its own. It turns out that expectations matter, and there can be a lot in a name!

Makrut + Arbol Daquiri. Union mezcal, makrut lime, arbol infused curaçao, agave. $15.

This runner-up for the "drink that best represents the bar" that I ordered for round 2 was my actual favorite drink, although as above it was also only very loosely related to its namesake. A standard daquiri is rum + lime + sugar, but if you swap out the rum for mezcal, the sugar for agave, and add just a hint of arbol spice in a splash of curaçao, then you get... something pretty great, actually. Makrut lime, also known as kaffir lime, is ubiquitous in Thai cuisine, and it gave the mezcal a delicious citrus tang. I was really tempted to order another of these but was persuaded to broaden my horizons for round 3. Amusingly, this was actually quite close to the drink that Ah Sing Den served me nearly 10 years ago, so perhaps some spirit of the spirits remains in the walls of this establishment. 

Mango + jasmine white negroni. Casa Mexico añejo tequila, Suze bitters, lillet, mango fruit + jasmine tea tincture. $16.

Yet again we have a highly enjoyable cocktail that is related to its textbook definition in name only. A negroni is gin + sweet vermouth + Campari liqueur, but just between us, let's say it was tequila, bitters, fortified wine, and jasmine tea - would it be so wrong to call it a negroni anyway? Assuming you said yes, you would be rewarded with an excellent drink. The refreshing jasmine tea flavor in the tincture really stood out; it reminded me of Austin Beerworks' delicious Eastern Philosophy specialty beer that they need to make more of. 

It was while drinking this "negroni" that my discussions with the bartender centered on the role of creativity in the cocktail crafting process. I mentioned that I had really enjoyed The Treasury's use of carrot juice in their cocktails, and she mentioned that she had a bunch of cabbage, so we started riffing on how one might use it as an ingredient, whether fresh, boiled, fermented, extracted, etc. So if you show up here in a few weeks and there's some bizarre sauerkraut or kimchi cocktail on the menu, I will accept partial responsibility.

Chang Classic lager. $7.

After 3 rounds of cocktails I needed a cooldown drink. Fitting neatly into the Southeast Asian part of the restaurant's theme, Chang, which means "elephant" in Thai, is evidently legendary for its "Changovers" if you get the volatile domestic version in Thailand itself, but the export beer you see above is a  tame and reasonable 5% ABV. Thailand's domestic economic landscape is quite colorful in part due to its unique situation as the only Southeast Asian nation to never be colonized, and so there is apparently a tale behind Chang's battle for market share with rivals Singha and Leo, but as that is obscure to an oblivious American drinker like myself, I thought it was a solid malty lager regardless of provenance. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Replacing the suddenly departed OKO, which in turn replaced Ah Sing Den, Hermanas (Spanish for "sisters", it has several more personal meanings for the restaurant) is brand new - so new, in fact, that with this stop I achieved a rare and singular honor: I was their very first customer! I have never gotten in on the ground floor of a venue like this before, which is why there are so many drinks up above. Hermanas is a high-end Thai/Mexican fusion restaurant that has an interesting lineage, and represents another step forward in the ongoing upscale restaurant redefinition of East Sixth even as the understated interior (basically the polar opposite of the opium den theme of Ah Sing Den) made it appear to have been here for quite some time. I didn't eat here, but as I was drinking my way through their cocktail menu the bartender and I discussed how neighborhoods grow and change and what that meant for East Sixth as distinct from Dirty or West Sixth. Cultural districts don't just fall from the sky, they are gradually accreted and refined through the same creative destruction processes that govern other economic sectors, and little by little this stretch of Sixth Street east of I-35 is becoming ever more noteworthy for its drinking and dining scene. As you can tell by how unique and creative their drinks were (and their food looked too), there is still plenty of room for new ideas in Austin, and Hermanas is a welcome part of the ongoing story.