photograph by bruce vanwyngarden
Maggie McLendon with a “Borderline Sour.”
I feel fortunate that I grew up in the last analog generation. No one was keeping track of where we were all the time,” says Maggie McLendon. “There was no GPS on everything. My family lived in Louisiana, and as kids, we could be outside in nature every day. We did a lot of camping and hiking together, and even now, the majority of my travel is for hiking trips. I’m a nature geek.”
That love of the natural world eventually led McLendon to a job at the Memphis Zoo after graduating with a fine-arts degree from the University of Memphis. “I was a bird-keeper and it was really my dream job,” she says. “Or, I thought it would be.”
After a time, McLendon says, the work began to wear on her. “It was hot, manual labor, and it didn’t pay well, so I got a part-time job at night as the ‘bread girl’ at Erling Jensen. I soon realized I could make three times the money there, working half as many hours. So I quit my dream job and started taking bread to people,” she says with a laugh.
As she sets the cocktail on the bar, I’m struck by its deep color — and the apple slice poking above the rim of the glass. It almost looks … healthy. It’s a fruity, spicy, complex cocktail, and quite good.
It didn’t take McLendon long to move up the food chain at Erling’s.
“When they [installed] the bar, they asked me if I wanted to be the bartender. I told them I didn’t know anything about mixing drinks, but they said, ‘You’ll figure it out.’ Fortunately, this was long before the craft cocktail era. Then, it was really just about making a martini or a Manhattan or a Dewar’s on the rocks. There wasn’t all the stuff there is now, where we’re always infusing or ‘washing’ something, where it’s like you’re an alchemist.”
McLendon has now been at Erling Jensen for 16 years, and she’s something of an institution herself. Acknowledging that her job is part mad scientist and part entertainer, she calls herself the “ringmaster of this show,” adding, “It’s a cliché, but this really is like a ‘Cheers’ bar. We have so many regulars and everyone knows each other. I’ve made so many friends here.”
photograph by bruce vanwyngarden
Some of those friends have helped McLendon land various day jobs through the years, including her current one as librarian for the Margolin Hebrew Academy. “It’s quite an interesting dynamic to go from reading to little kids all day to coming here,” she says. “But I love it.”
And she loves her twin 14-year-old daughters. “They attend White Station Middle School,” she says, “and I feel really blessed to have two spectacular girls. They’re so artistically talented, and such great kids. The reason I’m only working two nights a week now is so I can be with them more.”
Erling Jensen, the Restaurant has long had the reputation of being a great “special occasion” venue with an elegant and eclectic menu created by one of the city’s most renowned chefs, but McLendon says the bar has allowed the restaurant to offer more casual fare.
“Some people aren’t aware of the bar menu,” she says. “It’s a more accessible option, with $30 entrees — and a $35 filet — and happy-hour specials.”
She turns and gives me a quizzical look, knowing she is going to craft a cocktail for me, and asks, “Do you care what I make you?”
“I do not,” I say. “Your choice. And thank you!”
“I have a drink that you’re probably not familiar with,” she says. “We call it a ‘Borderline Sour.’ It’s a variation on a ‘New York Sour,’ with the red wine float, only instead of whiskey, we use Cazadores Reposado tequila. And the wine is a mixture that I infuse with allspice dram, cloves and cinnamon, and Granny Smith apples. The apples start out green and become a deep red. I add a slice as a garnish. … You’ll see. I can’t stop eating them.”
As she sets the cocktail on the bar, I’m struck by its deep color — and the apple slice poking above the rim of the glass. It almost looks … healthy. It’s a fruity, spicy, complex cocktail, and quite good.
“I’d order one of these again,” I say. “Did you come up with this?”
“I did,” she says. “I make drinks like I want them to be. Would you like another slice of marinated apple?”
“Yes, please.”
There’s probably an “apple a day” joke there somewhere, but I refrain, choosing instead to quietly savor my delicious ‘Borderline Sour’ as Maggie McLendon goes about prepping her workplace for the evening show. You should join her one of these days. She’s a natural.
Erling Jensen, 1044 S. Yates Rd.
