Drinking Wyoming: Sheridan’s Frackelton’s Is Back— Again — With Elevated Cocktails

SHERIDAN — Guess who’s back, back again?

No, it’s not Slim Shady.

The Frack Pack is back — and how.

The Frack Pack is what some of Frackelton’s longest-serving employees like to call themselves. Their return to the Sheridan scene signals a return to some of the old favorites that people came to know and love at the beloved bar and restaurant before it reopened, then suddenly closed, then reopened again.

But don’t expect this group to stand still. Moving ahead and innovating is part of Frack Pack DNA. 

Many of the Frack Pack have trained under some of the best in the food and beverage industry, and they aren’t afraid to mix it up. They’re also there to push newcomers to their group, ensuring they, too, can roll with the flow.

The vibe is particularly prominent in the bar, where the bartenders are not going to quibble with you about your ideal drink just because it’s not on their menu. 

You say you want a smoky Manhattan?

Well, all you had to do was ask. It will be the bartender’s pleasure to dream it up on the spot. 

“When you bartend long enough, you just kind of start to learn what goes well together,” Michael Holden told Cowboy State Daily. “So, I just made that up on the fly. It was easy.”

Holden put a bit of cherry juice, sweet vermouth, liquid reserve bourbon and angostura bitters in the drink, then popped the drink into the magic smoker box that they’ve been using for a little drink they call the New Fashioned. It’s an Old Fashioned with a new, smoky twist.

Out came a clear box, thick with cherry wood smoke. So thick the drink itself could not be seen. 

The spectacle caused quite a scene. People in the restaurant literally stopped what they were doing to stare at the smoky box, and groups could be heard talking about it and wondering what was going to come out of the box.

The customer who ordered the drink wasn’t in any hurry to satisfy their curiosity, though. He wanted to give the smoky flavor time to work its magic on the drink.

Finally, after what seemed like an interminably long time, the customer opened the box and pulled out a freshly smoked Manhattan, like a rabbit out of a hat. 

Everyone was still watching as the customer took a long, slow sip of the drink. The smile on his face told the story. The drink was perfect, and he was grinning as though the box he’d just opened was a Christmas present.

The diners slowly drifted back to their own meals and their own little worlds, but the sweet smell of cherry wood smoke lingered for a while. Tickling the senses. 

Shark Tank Style Drink Selection

Moments like these are part of what had long made Frackelton’s a go-to place for Sheridan’s cocktail hour.

“It’s one of my favorite aspects of working for this bar,” Tahseana Smiley told Cowboy State Daily. “I’ve worked for this bar about eight and a half years, and it is hands-down my favorite. And one of the biggest reasons is because creativity and inclusivity is really encouraged with our bartenders.”

The drink menu is changed on a regular basis, Smiley said, and the new drinks are dreamed up “Shark Tank” style. 

“We have a big like Sunday meeting where everyone comes and tries out whatever cocktails the bartenders have come up with,” she said. “And that really pushes creativity. Drinks can get repetitive if you don’t try really hard to come up with something new and innovative.”

Staff will vote on their favorites and, typically speaking, each bartender will end up with at least one drink on the new menu.

“That’s really fun, too, getting to see something you’ve created with your heart and soul and passion printed on the menu in a restaurant that’s really high profile in our community and really well respected,” she said. 

Smiley’s favorite cocktail though is an old classic. The Boulevardier — it’s a bourbon version of the Negroni.

“The bourbon is in lieu of gin, and then I prefer my Boulevardier with Aperol, which is the slightly less bitter cousin to Campari, and then a good, sweet vermouth as well.”

The cocktail relies heavily on the bartender’s sense of taste, so it’s one that Smiley uses to assess the bars she visits.

“It’s a cocktail that can be really messed up if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Smiley said. “So, I love to test a bartender’s capability when I’m traveling based on their Boulevardier.”

Unusual Liquors Find A Home In New Cocktails

Frackelton’s also aims to carry a selection of liquors that aren’t found just everywhere, giving the bartenders a wide palate of flavors to work with.

“We keep a bottle of Green Chartreuse,” Smiley said. “Which you’re going to find in a decent amount of elevated restaurants, but it is a bit of a rarity. It’s an acquired taste and it’s an interesting liquor to work with.”

The liquor is made by steeping 130 different herbs and plants in alcohol, making it very green, very herbaceous, very complex.

“We’ve had a handful of people who come in and know what that is,” Smiley said. “So, getting to teach that to people in the community who otherwise wouldn’t have access to certain elevated cocktails and liquors is a really fun experience.”

They also carry a number of high-end liquors, like Macallan and Dalwhinnie 15. One of Smiley’s personal favorites is a ginger liqueur from France.

“Right now, we’re doing a fall-themed cocktail menu, with some drinks that are elevated, as opposed to your basic pumpkin martini,” she said. “And one liquor that’s in a couple of those drinks and is one of my favorites to work with, and it’s really underrated, is called Domaine De Canton.”

The ginger liqueur is used in a drink called Harvest Moon Pearfection, which marries High Noon bourbon with the Domaine De Canton and Lillet Blanc.

“We’ve got a house-made pear lemon juice and some rose sage bitters,” Smiley said. “And then it’s garnished with fresh pears and a thyme sprig. It’s got that really beautiful fall vibe to it, without getting into any of those kinds of boring overplayed flavors.”

Food Is Also Elevated

Not all of Frackelton’s new staff are part of the old Frack Pack. The restaurant has also brought on some new people, including Executive Chef Tim Krieg, who has worked in both Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri.

Krieg told Cowboy State Daily his goal is to bring back some of the old Frackelton’s favorites, as well as compliment them with some new ingredients to elevate the flavors as time goes by.

“We’re trying to upscale things a little bit as we go, very slowly,” he said. “The dishes will be just a little more refined than what you normally see in Sheridan, with maybe a few ingredients that people have not seen, a little bit of higher end stuff including some seafood.”

Krieg considers his signature Frackelton’s dish to be the bison bistro tenderloin with a blackberry demiglace. He also loves to make Chicken en Croute, which is tenderized chicken wrapped in puff pastry and stuffed with mushrooms, garlic, bacon and shallots, then topped with a white wine sauce. 

“What we want to do is take dishes that people know they’ve seen, and then just put a little twist here and there to make them a little more sophisticated,” Krieg said. “We want to elevate the flavors that people already know and then slowly introduce them to the things from ingredients maybe they don’t.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.