Fresh tangerine, cardamom, rose water & muddled curry leaves — Rania D.C.
Rania in Washington D.C. is chef RJ Cooper and team's exploration of South Asian flavours through a fine-dining lens. Their Spirit-Free section is treated with the same precision as the cocktail programme — each drink engineered for complexity without alcohol. Curry Kick is the spiced citrus anchor of that list: fresh tangerine juice brightened with cardamom and rose water, then grounded by muddled curry leaves and finished with prickly ash salt on the rim. Prickly ash (a Sichuan-adjacent berry native to the Himalayas) creates a mild numbing buzz that makes the drink feel electric on the palate.
Tangerine is sweeter and less acidic than orange — if substituting orange juice, reduce simple syrup by half and add 5ml extra lemon juice to balance. Fresh curry leaves are essential; dried leaves lose most of their volatile oils. Prickly ash can be found in Indian grocery stores (timur pepper) or substituted with ground Szechuan pepper.
Rania in Washington D.C. serves modern South Asian cuisine with a political capital's eye for precision and prestige. The mocktail programme is particularly celebrated — alcohol-free drinks built with the same depth and complexity as the cocktail list, using ingredients like rose, vetiver, cardamom, and mango to create drinks that hold their own at a high-end dinner table.
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