A D.C. Cocktail Bar Takes on Taboos

"The more you tell people they can't have something, the more they want it."

One of Washington, D.C.'s best cocktail bars is Silver Lyan, the only U.S. outpost for award-winning British bar maestro Ryan "Mr Lyan" Chetiyawardana's cocktail empire. The bar, which is located inside a subterranean vault in a bank that has been converted into a chic downtown hotel, is renowned for its elaborate techniques, its cleverly referential cocktails—one recent drink was designed to mimic a half-smoke, Washington, D.C.'s signature chili dog—and its themed menus.

Over the summer, the bar unveiled its newest menu, devoted to exploring taboos. On this menu, there are drinks devoted to cannibalism, nipples, unspeakable words, and outlawed substances.

For example, there's the Banned in Boston, which consists of Patrón reposado tequila, pawpaw amazake, cornflake Froyo, white cacao absinthe, and silver pepper mix. Even if you aren't familiar with most of the ingredients, all you need to know is they're all part of a high-concept story in a glass.

The drink was inspired by the so-called forbidden fruit effect. As a post on the bar's Instagram feed explained, "Multiple psych studies have shown that limiting access to something only makes it more desirable—the more you tell people they can't have something, the more they want it—and the allure of the unattainable has been exploited by canny marketers for centuries." And thus, multiple ingredients in the cocktail are derived from substances that have either been banned or have been associated with the Garden of Eden, where Eve was tempted to eat a fruit from a particular tree after being told not to.

Pawpaws, for example, are Missouri's official state fruit, and Missouri is where members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe the Garden of Eden existed. The pawpaws in the drink come from a farm in Ohio, however, and are combined with mango, banana, koji rice, and vodka. And that's just one part of the drink.

The cornflake Froyo, meanwhile, is a nod to John Harvey Kellogg, a Progressive leader in the late 1800s and early 1900s who advocated abstinence from sex, insisting it provided health benefits. For the drink, cornflakes and whole milk are combined into cereal milk, then added to Greek yogurt, which is then garnished with peppercorns.

If this sounds exhaustingly elaborate, have no fear; the drink itself is creamy and chilled and layered with delicious, unexpected flavors. It's so unusual, and so good, that it's not too hard to imagine the drink being, well, banned in Boston, a mid–20th century phrase that achieved meme status referencing the New England city's historical propensity to ban books, music, movies, and other artistic works with supposedly objectionable content.

The good news? The Banned in Boston is available for drinking in Washington, D.C.