At David Burke’s Primehouse, a weeks-old steakhouse in Chicago, the house vodka martini is garnished with a lollipop — a lollipop made from “reduced olive brine, olive flavoring and salt crystallized in isomalt” that is stuffed with blue cheese, according to its creator, Eben Klemm. The restaurant’s house manhattan is made with leather-infused bourbon, sweet vermouth and a bitters-spiked maraschino purée, dropped into the drink as a liquid that coalesces into a “gumdrop” when it hits the side of the glass.

Mr. Klemm, director of cocktail development for B. R. Guest, which owns Primehouse, is one of a handful of freethinking bartenders who have taken to the idea of employing the techniques of avant-garde cooking to their work behind the bar, a trend that’s being called “molecular mixology.”
—Peter Meehan, “Two Parts Vodka, a Twist of Science,” The New York Times, May 10, 2006