As the general manager and chief mixologist at ¡Salud!, Kiana Newman finds her muddler — a short, wooden, blunt-ended bar tool used to crush fresh fruit and other ingredients — perhaps the most valuable instrument of her craft.
“We use all fresh ingredients,” she said of the lineup of colorful and imaginative cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks she created at the newly opened bar at The Palace Modern hotel downtown. “For instance, in our strawberry paloma, we use fresh, muddled strawberries and house-made syrup. I find the fresh flavors really accelerate that.”…