Jakub Ondříšek feels like experimenting. The owner and head bartender of lauded Prague cocktail bars Parlour and Back Doors is talking to me about the Beton, a Czech cocktail that traditionally combines tonic water, ice, a slice of lemon and Becherovka, a digestif made with the supposedly curative thermal spring waters from the northern Bohemian spa town of Karlovy Vary and a secret recipe of herbs that tastes like the essence of a coniferous forest. Some like to say it’s a Czech version of the Gin & Tonic.
In order to explain the science behind his variation on the Beton, Ondříšek is looking to do something radical. “I’ve never thought to combine Becherovka and bananas. Why in the world would anyone combine these two things?” he ponders, scrunching up his face like he’d just tasted something putrid. “But it turns out banana is a volatile compound for Becherovka—one that adds tension and complexity. That’s always a good idea when it comes to cocktails.”
He’s right. After marrying equal amounts of banana liqueur with Becherovka in a shot glass, he hands it to me, the taste oddly congruent, a nice balance of sweet and bitter with a creamy texture. “This approach to cocktails, even classic cocktails like the Beton, can really cross the boundaries of flavor to create something truly great.”
But in order to see how we got all the way to looking up volatile compounds, let’s start from the beginning. The Beton was invented for the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal. The Czechoslovak pavilion featured an exhibit on famed Bohemian glassware, so the government decided it would be fitting to come up with a cocktail to go inside the glasses. The rub? There were no cocktails associated with the country.
As Miroslav Černík, vice president of the Czech Bartenders Association, puts it, “We’re a beer and wine culture. Historically, we don’t make many spirits.” In the 1960s, he says, the then-socialist country had limited resources and lacked sexy drinks like the Negroni or Manhattan. So when it came to trying to figure out a decidedly Czech cocktail, using Becherovka was really the only option. “The simplicity of the cocktail reflects our poverty at the time,” he says.
The word “beton” means “concrete” in Czech, but the only thing cement-like about the drink is that, at 38 percent ABV, if you drink too many, you might fall down on your way home and smack your face on the concrete. “Beton” is also a portmanteau of the two main ingredients, Becherovka and tonic.
I tried a classic Beton at Hemingway Bar in Prague, made by head bartender Ondra Hnilička, who says he doesn’t want to mess with the original version. The bittersweet quinine of the tonic, he says, marries well with the clove, anise, ginger, cinnamon and other herbs in Becherovka’s secret recipe to create a refreshing drink that packs a more flavorful punch than a classic Gin & Tonic.
But that hasn’t stopped other bartenders in the Czech capital from making more dynamic variations of the cocktail. At Alcron Bar, just off of Wenceslas Square, Slovak-born head bartender Lukaš Matulik, formerly of Sips in Barcelona, gives the drink a summer-inspired spin, using citrus-spiked Becherovka Lemond (a lighter, lower-ABV version of the liqueur), Greek tonic water, a splash of homemade fig leaf cordial and a Collins spear ice cube. “It took me about 10 times to get the balance right,” says Matulik. “Eventually I found a nice harmony between the herbiness of the Becherovka and the sprightliness of the fig leaf cordial.”
At the just-opened Golden Eye on the top floor of the new Fairmont Golden Prague, bar manager Jiři Vošahlík makes an alternate version of the classic, the Beton Bitter, with the addition of a few sprigs of basil, to perk up the palate, and a couple of ounces of KV14, an extra-bitter herbal liqueur from the Becherovka family. “Becherovka and basil is one of my favorite combinations,” he says.
Which brings us back to Jakub Ondříšek. He is finally ready to show me his take on the Beton. He slides a highball glass toward me. The usual slice of lemon is absent. I take a sip, and refreshment fills my mouth. A strong hint of lime emerges.
“I understand why they used lemon in the 1960s: because it was accessible in the socialist economy and lime was very difficult to get,” he says, but nowadays, “it actually makes more sense to use lime instead of lemon.” After studying the volatile compounds of Becherovka, Ondříšek settled on a combination of citric and malic acids to create an essential oil of lime peel that is much more scientifically congruent with the Beton.
Based on the Betons I’d been sampling in Prague all week—versions with basil, fig, lime and more—bartenders in the 2020s have figured out a few things that their predecessors from the 1960s either had not or could not because of economic and technological constraints of the time. But that means that today’s bars, in Prague and beyond, have a lot more room to explore.
Ondříšek’s particular experiment was over, but I was ready for another Beton.
