How come nobody ever talks about orange blossom water? It’s like, “Hey, welcome to the internet. Here’s a thousand articles about a bunch of bitters that you’ll never use, and no information on orange blossom water.” Okay, sure. There’s really only one classic cocktail that calls for orange blossom water, the Ramos Gin Fizz. But let me posit this to you: do you think there might be more contemporary classics out there if most of the commercially available products didn’t suck?

My favorite were always the A. Monteux. Those of you who have been doing this for a while will recognize the bottle, as seen above. They were everywhere and then suddenly they disappeared. A quick search reveals that Mr. Monteux finally retired from the business at age 90. Good on you, sir. But, I mean, could you not have left the business to someone, instead of just shutting the whole thing down?

There really wasn’t a huge public outcry, because as I quickly learned, people are much more excited about pretty much anything else than they are orange blossom water. I picked up a few bottles when I heard the news, and when my supply ran dry a few years later, I started looking for a suitable replacement.

I’m not going to get into a discussion where I slam some of the more ubiquitous brands out there. Let me just offer a blanket tasting note for you: they all kinda suck. Here are the two problems I’ve found with most of the commercially available brands:

Half of them taste like nothing and you end up using thirty drops in your Ramos Fizz just to get any sort of orange flower essence to come through. You’re like, how did you make these, did you just squeeze a few drops of orange juice into some water? What the heck? These are the ones you find from the States, typically.
The others are super fragrant, earthy, and oily. They don’t just overpower your cocktails, they take over your drinks to the point where your tongue is coated in the thick, perfumed air of some sort of movie set bazaar. Scouring the Mediterranean markets is how you find these.

But I’m so pleased to say that I’ve found a brand that is a) commercially available b) deliciously French. The Theodule Noirot Orange Flower Water is the one you want. I’ve tried them all, and this is the only one I can honestly recommend.

I guess you probably want a recipe, then. Okay. Here’s our house Ramos Gin Fizz. Feel free to make it at home. Hint, hint. (That means don’t come ask for one on a Friday night. Get it?)

RAMOS GIN FIZZ

1½ oz. London dry gin
½ oz. fresh lemon juice
½ oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. rich simple syrup
½ oz. lightly beaten egg whites
4 drops orange flower water
1½ oz. half-and-half
1 oz. club soda or sparkling mineral water, chilled

In a cocktail shaker, combine the gin, lemon and lime juices, rich simple syrup, egg whites and orange blossom water. Shake until egg whites become frothy, about 15 seconds. Add the half-and-half and a few ice cubes to the shaker. Shake for 10 to 12 seconds, or until the drink is chilled. Pour the club soda (or mineral water) into the shaker, then carefully strain contents into a chilled 12-ounce collins glass. Serve without garnish.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Orange Blossom/Flower Water

Happy New Year! I hope the holidays treated everyone well, especially you professional bartenders out there. I think the only folks who have it harder than we do during December are our friends in the retail business, so now that we’ve moved on to January, let’s all raise a glass.

Hey, there are a lot of spaces for people to get together and talk about cocktails online. I, for one, was raised on the classics: the Hotwired Cocktail site, the DrinkBoy Forums, and eGullet. These days, there is a great little community over at Reddit, and recently they asked me to participate in an AMA, an “Ask Me Anything” chat session where I got to answer some great questions from a bunch of really cool and passionate folks.

I recently stepped away from Facebook, which used to be a source of cocktail connectivity for me but has slowly devolved into a morass of political posts, so Reddit is a welcome refuge of old-school cocktail discussion. I hope you’ll join me over there and contribute to this terrific group of cocktail enthusiasts!

Read the entire AMA here.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

My Reddit AMA

The newly rediscovered interest in slushy cocktails has resulted in me being inundated with questions about how to properly operate a slushie machine. And so, as has always been my mission with this website, I’m here to try to help. You see, for the longest time operating a slushy machine was a lengthy experiment every time I attempted it. My process typically looked like this:

1. Make a big batch of cocktails.
2. Adjust the recipe to taste.
3. Pour it into a slushy machine.
4. Wait many, many, many hours for it to get cold enough and hope the texture was right, fingers crossed.
5. The texture isn’t right. Shit.
6. Try adding some more water. Now we need to get it back down to the right temperature. Wait an hour.
7. That made it too watery. Try adding some simple syrup. Wait another hour.
8. That seems better. But it’s still kinda chunky-looking.
9. Add some alcohol. Wait another hour.
10. Okay, now it tastes too strong. Maybe if I add a little more simple syrup, a splash of water, and a little juice. Wait an hour.
11. That kind of seems to be working, but now I’m a little drunk from tasting this thing ten times.
12. Oh, the event is starting in ten minutes.
13. Good enough, I guess.

Obviously that’s a lot of steps, and way too much trial and error to make it a feasible thing to do regularly. But there has to be some sort of formula, right? Well, I did some research, and it gets really confusing, really quickly. There are formulas, there are opinions, there are arguments online, and there is a whole lot of puzzling contradictory info.

I talked to bartenders, and they’re even confusing. There are some who claim to be experts, but after some gentle prodding you discover they’re using the trial and error method I was trying to avoid. And finally I found someone who knows what he’s talking about, my good friend Cameron Bogue. You see, Cameron oversees a shit-ton of slushy machines at the massive restaurant group in Canada he works for. And he told me exactly what you need in order make your slushy drink work. Ready?

It needs to be between 13 and 15 Brix.

And that’s pretty much it. Brix is the unit of measurement of sugar in a water solution. One brix is equal to a gram of sucrose per 100 grams of solution. And, of course, there’s a whole lot of other complicated shit that you can read about that goes along with the topic, but as someone who’s going to put a Daiquiri in a slushy machine, all you need to know is that your Daiquiri needs to be between 13 and 15 Brix.

And how do you figure that part out? Easy. First off, go get yourself a portable refractometer. They’re cheap, and they’re actually kind of fun to use. Once you’ve received your one piece of specialty equipment in the mail (uh, yeah, other than the slushy machine, I guess) then you’re ready to whip up a batch of frozen cocktails with no trial-and-error required.

First, figure out your recipe. You can do this by using the methods I outline in Chapter 9 in my book (shameless plug), or you can throw caution to the wind and just do it to taste. I’ve done it both ways for use in slushy machines and it does not matter. The only two things that matter are that the drink taste good, and that the sugar content is between 13 and 15 Brix.

Next, you need to dilute the drink a little. Drinks are pretty rough at full strength, and you’re likely going to have to do it anyway once you start checking the brix, so go ahead and throw some water in there. I like to start with 20%. Want an easy way to do that? Figure out the volume of your cocktail (real easy to do if you’ve got it in a big measuring container) and multiply by .2 – That’s the amount of water you’re gonna want to add.

Okay, now the fun part. Take the pipette that came with your refractometer and grab a few drops of that cocktail of yours. Put it on the glass and close the slide cover.Hold the refractometer under a light and look through the lens. Read the total brix.

Now this is where you’ll make adjustments. Honestly, if the drink tastes balanced, it’s probably pretty damn close. If it’s not, well, maybe making balanced drinks isn’t your strong suit. That’s okay, we’ll fix that now.

Brix number too high? Just add a little water to the mix, a bit at a time, until you come in between 13 and 15 Brix. (Don’t forget to stir.) Brix number too low? Add some simple syrup, a little at a time, until you come in between 13 and 15 Brix. This is what you’ll see when you look through that refractometer, by the way:

I like to chill the mixture overnight, if I can. Getting it as cold as possible means it will take less time to come to temperature once you pour it in the machine, but if you can’t do that, it won’t negatively affect the taste or texture of the drink, it’ll just take longer to coldify. Once you’re ready, pour it in the machine and turn the machine on. This takes a couple of hours, at least. But once it’s nice and cold, you will have a perfectly slushy cocktail, provided you got it between 13 and 15 Brix. Your drink will look like this and you will be something of a hero.

And that’s pretty much it! A few notes, just off the top of my head:

1. Yes, I’m aware that straight vodka does come in between 13 and 15 Brix. Alcohol does register as sugar on the portable refractometer. Bear in mind that I’ve never tried dumping straight vodka into a slushie machine to see if it would slush. Someone please report back and let me know if it works.
2. Sours are the best drinks to experiment with at first. So, Margaritas, Daiquiris, Sidecars, etc. They’re basically built to come in at the right Brix number already. Once you’ve gotten a feel for making slushy sours, then I would recommend experimenting with the trickier slushy drinks, like Manhattans, etc.
3. I know lots of you have been wanting a slushy Negroni recipe. Sadly I no longer have my notes from the last time I did that a few years ago, but here is the version I make in a blender at home. Feel free to scale it up and adjust for Brix:
   

   1 oz gin
   1 oz Campari
   1 oz sweet vermouth
   .75 oz 2:1 simple syrup
   juice of 1 orange
   2 oz water

Have fun!!

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Use a Slushie Machine

And please post your answers in the comment section.

1. Paula is 42 years old. She weighs 127 pounds and is 5’-8” tall. If she consumes one Grey Goose and soda every 40 minutes for 3 hours, how many seconds does it take for her to scream “Opa!” when the bartender accidentally drops a pint glass on the floor?

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2. Greg’s bar tab is $157.30. If he wants to leave the bartenders an 18% gratuity, plus an extra $1.50 for each drink he received on the house, how long after he’s left the building will it take for the barback to notice he took the signed copy with him?

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3. Susan has one 6-oz glass of wine and four 10-oz glasses of water over the course of the 2 hours she spends at the bar. Assuming she makes one trip to the restroom for every 15 ounces of liquid consumed, how many trips will it take before her creepy Tinder date makes a rapey comment about slipping a roofie in her drink while she was away?

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4. Chad does not believe in washing his hands when he uses the restroom. If he consumes 8 pints of Coors Light over the course of 3 hours, and eats 2 olives from the bartender’s garnish tray for every trip he makes to the toilet, how many people can he get sick in one night? (Assume 120-seat restaurant for this problem, and show your work.)

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5. Kyle, Aidan, and Madison have been cut off by the bartender and are planning to share an Uber home. If Muhammed is 4.7 miles away, traveling at an average of 28 miles an hour with very little traffic, how long does the group have to make inappropriate comments about his ethnicity before he arrives to pick them up at the bar?

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6. Tristan has been tending bar for exactly three months. He can serve the following number of guests over the course of the next week:
   

   Monday: 37 people
   Tuesday: 45 people
   Wednesday: 62 people
   Saturday: 119 people

   Assuming these totals are the same as the mean averages for the next three weeks, how many people will pretend to care about the housemade birch bark bitters he’s working on?

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7. Kayla is walking to a neighborhood bar located .73 miles from her house, at a pace of 2.39 miles per hour. Last call is in 2 hours. If she reads a Dr. Oz article about wheat allergies right before leaving the house, how many times will the bartender be informed that Tito’s is the only gluten-free vodka before closing?

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8. Leaf, McKenzie, and Willow split a four-course meal with cocktails and wine, and their bill is $187.50. Assuming they calculate a gratuity of 1g of marijuana per every $20 spent, how much money will their server need to collect from her other tables in order to pay her rent?

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9. A 12-person bachelor party has chosen a Tiki bar to spend the night drinking in. If the bar carries 127 different types of rum, and each member of the party can consume one glass of rum every 22.6 minutes, how many times will the best man ask the staff about the availability of Pappy Van Winkle?

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10. Cody is a professional athlete. He weighs 223.81 pounds, is 6’ -1.22” tall, and has a BMI of 29.21. His yearly salary is $242,000, which makes his weight-to-dollar ratio $1081.2743 dollars/pound. Solving for X, how many pounds per square inch of pressure will he be able to apply to the bartender when asking for a free birthday shot for the girl he just met?

BONUS QUESTION

11. Hayley has a ticket up for 1 Ramos Fizz, 3 Mojitos, 1 Pisco Sour, and a well vodka tonic. Assuming she can make an average of one drink every 45 seconds, how many minutes will she spend running around the restaurant looking for all the components for the herbal tea someone just ordered?

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Bartender Story Problems

Man, there are few things out there more polarizing to people than creamy drinks. And it’s funny, you know, because I think it’s a pretty universal thing that our mouths just water at the sight of a creamy cocktail. Look at a properly made Ramos Gin Fizz. Or a White Russian. Or Egg Nog. How delicious do they look?

But then there’s this guilty feeling that I think kicks in for most people, where it’s like, “I can’t justify drinking something that contains a bunch of fucking cream.” And I get it, I totally do. Personally, I also try to save up those points and spend them during the holidays.

But there’s no getting around the delicious factor. So what about alternatives? I like almond milk in my coffee. I even make my own at home. But one creamy substitute that I can’t live without in my life is horchata. See the previous post for more on that. Anyway, as someone who has been making drinks for almost half of his life at this point, I had to try making something with horchata.

My partner in crime at Clyde Common is a gentleman named Benjamin Amberg. But we all call him (among other things), simply Banjo. Banjo and I have a great way of working on cocktails together. It’s very collaborative, and nobody gets too attached to an idea if a better one comes along. (I wrote more about this process for Playboy, check it out)

And so it happened that we started working on our new horchata cocktail. And, of course, we broke out all of the typical formulas that we’d both seen on menus before: aged rum and horchata; aged tequila and horchata; variations on a White Russian with horchata instead of cream. And none of them were working, and we were about to scrap the whole idea.

But then we had a thought: what if instead of a flabby, creamy drink, we did something more bright and citrusy? We certainly hadn’t seen that done before, and we know rice milk isn’t going to curdle the way cream would. And suddenly, within minutes, we’d assembled what is quickly becoming one of our most popular new drinks, the Southbound Suarez. Named after our favorite song on our least favorite Led Zeppelin album, I like to think the same stands of a reminder of just how tough this one was to create.

Southbound Suarez

1½ oz. reposado tequila
½ oz. agave syrup
½ oz. lime juice
1 tsp. Becherovka
1½ oz horchata

Combine ingredients with ice cubes and shake until cold. Strain over fresh ice in an Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a lime wedge.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Southbound Suarez

Okay, first off. I’ve gotten a lot of shit from those of you (you know who you are) who seem to think I don’t post here enough. Well, I’ve been busy. But I am listening to you, and I’m trying to fix that. Because I owe a lot to this blog, and to all of you guys, and so I’m making a conscious effort to add more content. Third post this year, WTF!

But listen, if for some reason you can’t get enough of me, you can always buy my book (and read it, hopefully), check out my regular column Easy Drinking on Food Republic, or my weekly column for Playboy. There’s lots of ways to get your dose of cocktail snark and helpful advice, is what I’m saying.

Anyway. You know what I love? Horchata. There is nothing in the world like a giant Styrofoam cup filled with pebble ice and sweet horchata while you nosh on greasy tacos from a street truck. Coming from California originally, it is one of life’s great pleasures. And since I’m obsessed with all things drink related, it got me thinking that I should really know how to make this delicious non-alcoholic beverage (and super awesome cocktail ingredient) at home.

Whenever I embark on this sort of thing, I always try a bunch of different versions from around the web and from my ever-growing home cookbook collection. And, of course, I’m never 100% happy with any of them. And so, I take the best parts of the recipes I do like, and throw them together with everything I know about technique, and after a few tries I usually end up with what I’m looking for.

There are many articles out there about Horchata, the history of it, and all of the different variations available. For our horchata, I wanted to stick to a few rules:

1. Our horchata should be as simple as possible. A long series of complicated steps would be a failure here.
2. Our horchata should have as few ingredients as possible. No almonds, sesame seeds, barley, or tiger nuts. Just the simple, spiced, sweetened rice milk you’d find at a taco truck.
3. Our horchata needs to be made from simple, natural ingredients. No flavors, powders, or store-bought rice milk allowed.

What I ended up with was a simple, natural, delicious horchata that could be made with a minimum of tools and prep. Bear in mind, you will need some specialty tools to make this one, but they’re the sort of thing any serious bartender will usually have on hand. Anyway, there are just three simple steps to making great horchata.

1. Pre-soak the ingredients.

You’ve got to soften up the ingredients first, in order to combine those flavors and make it a little easier to pulverize that rice. So I start the night before and combine the rice, cinnamon, and sugar with hot water and let it sit overnight.

2. Grind up that rice.

Once everything is nice and soaked, the next step is to put the whole mixture in the blender and get it as smooth as possible. Hopefully you’ve got yourself a good blender. I mean, a normal household blender will work fine, but you’ll just have to run it on high for a really long time to grind up the rice. I’ve got a super fancy Wolf blender at home, of course, so it’s a snap. The Vita-Mix blenders we use at work do a beautiful job as well.

3. Fine-strain the whole mess.

Horchata is naturally a little chalky, but you definitely don’t want yours to be gritty. Even the finest of fine mesh metal strainers aren’t going to work here. You need to get yourself a nut milk bag. They’re cheap, they’re reusable, and quite frankly they’re a lifesaver when you’re filtering anything with a fine grind. I use mine all the time, I even make almond and cashew milk for home with it.

That’s it! Could that have been any easier? I doubt it. And once you chill it or pour it over some ice (or both), you’ll be enjoying the best horchata you’ve ever had outside of your favorite taco truck. Here’s the recipe.

Horchata

1 cup California long grain rice
3 cups hot water
1 three-inch long Ceylon soft cinnamon stick broken into pieces*
½ cup sugar**

Combine all ingredients, stir to dissolve sugar, cover, and let rest overnight or for up to 24 hours. Pour entire mixture into a blender and blend on high speed until rice is pulverized, about a minute. Strain through nut milk bag into a bowl and refrigerate. Horchata will separate, stir before serving.

*Don’t be tempted to use that rock-hard cassia bark they sell at the supermarket. Get yourself some soft, crumbly soft stick Ceylon cinnamon at your local Latin grocery, or online for cheap.

**I’ve tried all kinds of sugars, from agave syrup to plain white, and I’ve got to say that I prefer the plain white baker’s sugar. It doesn’t come to the party with any of its own flavors, so the rice and cinnamon can really shine through.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Make Your Own Horchata

Ladies and gentlemen, the Sazerac. A drink that originilated in New Orleans.

1. Get a mixing cup to get your ingredients in there.
2. Be old school and add an ounce of brandy (note: this makes approximately half a drink)
3. Add six times the amount of sugar normally called for.
4. Get those Picard bitters in there.
5. Add ice and then grab some abstinenthe. Abstinenthe is a blue version of absinthe and tastes like mouthwash.
6. Placing a bar spoon upside down in the glass, stir until it’s nice and chill.
7. Skip the always-specified lemon peel and garnish with an orange peel for some unknown reason.
8. Serve in a cocktail glass.
9. Profit from the fools who enroll in your bartending school.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How Not to Make a Sazerac

Cocktails that you can actually Drink

Contrary to what many trendy bar programs are pushing, I have always considered it to be a massive failure when a bar is full of people sitting around smelling their cocktails and quietly posting them to Instagram. That sort of deep reverence for the liquid gold found in the glass screams failure to me, as the true sign of a healthy bar is the sort of place where people are talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves first, and paying attention to the nuanced aromas of their cocktails last. Cocktails that people can drink really help create that sort of atmosphere and as a decades-long veteran of the business; I can assure you that the vast majority of guests enjoy cocktails they can actually drink.

Drinks People Love to Hate

I’ve gotten a lot of praise and a fair amount of criticism for the way I’ve embraced so-called ‘terrible’ drinks over the past few years. The Grasshopper, the Amaretto Sour, and the Blue Hawaiian are all extremely popular in my bar. But the reason we champion these drinks isn’t simply because we enjoy being anachronistic. It’s because we firmly believe that there are no bad drinks, only bad bartenders. And as more of us take up the cause of redeeming all cocktails, not just those pre-Prohibition classics we all know and love, it’s going to be harder and harder to defend the stance that a certain style of drink is no good. Especially when there’s a bar down the block turning out craft Strawberry Daiquiris to an eager crowd.

More Flavored Whiskies

Speaking of terrible drinks, here’s one we can probably all agree to dislike, though there’s nothing we can do about it. Some of you might remember the 1990s and easy 2000s, when there was a new vodka on the shelf every week. Well, the marketing machine has officially moved off of vodka and onto the very spirit we all worked so hard to re-popularise: whiskey. We’re already seeing overly expensive ‘craft’ whiskies, all sorts of flavored whiskies, and we’re only going to see more of this. Education is going to be paramount, because the consumer is about to become very ill-informed by every brand seeking to make a buck. Sure, when this dies out we’ll be left with a handful of decent options and about a hundred that didn’t make the cut, but that will be driven by consumers, not bartenders.

Less Gimmicky Vodkas

There is an upside to spirits companies putting all of their energy into terrorizing whiskey, and we can safely predict a return to well-made, flavorful (though less ‘flavored’) vodkas. Let’s face it: none of us who know what we’re talking about ever hated vodka, we just hated hearing and having to talk about vodka all the time. There are fewer pleasures greater than a frozen glass full of ice-cold, rich, creamy vodka placed between yourself and a towering Olympus of chilled shellfish. I know it, you know it, and your guests know it. Welcome back, vodka.

Fun Bars

We’ve been hearing this one for years now, from bartenders all over the globe. “I just want to open up a dive bar with good cocktails.” Am I right? The fault in this idea is that it continues to polarise bars as one of two possibilities: dive bars, and bars with good drinks. But there are so many other types of bar out there, and your average cocktail bar seems to think that any place that doesn’t stock twenty different amari is a ‘dive’. As someone who worked in a dive when getting started in the business, let me inform you that a true dive is a terrifying, unsafe, horrid place to work. What’s really on the horizon is a more relaxed atmosphere with a return to entertainment, games, and music. Look at Prizefighter in Oakland, California. Look at Good Times at Davey Wayne’s in LA. Look at the Tiki craze. People are getting tired of walking into dark recreations of Prohibition-era saloons. Drinks have always been about fun, and the tide is turning: pretending it’s 1922 isn’t fun anymore. You’re going to see more juke boxes, more bowling lanes, more shuffleboard tables, more music. A nice game of pool with a Belgian beer in hand and Zeppelin on the jukebox shouldn’t be that hard to find. And we’re not talking about the sort of pitted, slanted, felt-torn pool table you’d find in a “dive”.

Fast Casual

We’ve already seen a dining revolution in the fast casual model, and I have a strong suspicion that we’ll be seeing a similar pattern in the bar business. The current system of $16 cocktails that help pay for two hosts at the door, a team of educated cocktail servers, and the other sorts of amenities that are the trappings of a fancy cocktail bar isn’t going to last forever. We’re now seeing an order-at-the-bar model that does away with all of the formality that has crept in during recent years, and these sorts of places are packed on a nightly basis.

Because at the end of the day, a good cocktail, a delicious spirit, and a solid bar shouldn’t solely be reserved for special occasions or date nights. These things have always been, and should always be, accessible to everyone. And accessibility has always been a trend that will never go away.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

2016 Drink Trend Predictions

So after much deliberation, I decided to print this question and my response, as it’s a question that I get from you guys at least once a month. And therefore I think it’s important. So here we go:

Hey Jeff,

I’m new to the bar, but not our company’s restaurant group. I’ve done my research and understand how important fresh juice is, but have already had negative feedback from the bar manager when he “caught” me juicing lemons with my own juicer before my shift off the clock. In addition, I’ve been told they like my enthusiasm, but apparently only on a per case basis. I asked them for some new bottles to make some great classics with as well as modern favorites (I was told I could get whatever I wanted) three weeks ago and haven’t heard word one.

Our place lies somewhere in between volume driven and quality driven, is a block away from a world-renowned cocktail bar as well as three other decent cocktail programs, and I feel that we aren’t keeping up in a VERY ritzy neighborhood that’s only getting bigger.

I understand that not everywhere can be a great cocktail bar and not all places are meant to be, as well as the fact that there are many other variables here, but am I wrong to think that we should be trying harder to grab some of that market share?

Thanks, man.

Jim

Hey Jim

It’s tough to try to swim upstream when you’re working someone else’s program. As a bar manager, consistency is key and to have guests want to come in on your nights because you use fresh juice as opposed to other nights when the rest of the bar doesn’t, well, that’s just not good business for the bar. I know it sounds counterintuitive and I’m sure that someone is going to comment here that fresh juice is better than sour mix, to which I say – “Yeah. We know. That’s not really the point here.”

You’re going to burn a bridge if you keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole at your current bar, and is that what you really want? I know you’re thinking of yourself as the guy who makes the delicious drinks at the crappy bar, but I can almost guarantee that you’re really known as the prick who can’t follow the rules. And that’s certainly going to hurt your career – I know, I’ve had my share of those bartenders on my team over the years, believe me.

Look, I feel for you, man. You want to get better at what you do, and the situation you’re in isn’t letting you do that. That’s a really tough place to be, and I’ve been there before. But as I see it, you’ve got two choices: move on to another bar that serves the sort of cocktails that you’d like to make, or stay at your current establishment and step in line. Anything else would be career suicide.

Sorry if that sounds kind of harsh and wasn’t the answer you were looking for, but this is real talk. I want you to have a healthy career, I want you to learn all you can and become a better bartender, but I just don’t want you to shoot yourself in the foot while you’re trying to do so.

Good luck.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Ask Your Bartender: Job Insecurity

I was having this conversation with a writer about my new book on cocktail technique last week, and she got on the subject of bar tools. “A lot of this stuff is really expensive,” she said, “Do you have any advice for home cocktail enthusiasts who don’t want to spend a ton of money?”

And I was thinking, you know, like – she’s right. Bar tools are super expensive, and there are some places where you can skimp, and some places where you can’t. Like, you just won’t find a substitute for a good 18/8 stainless steel cocktail shaker. A cheap one from the liquor store just isn’t going to do the job.

But there are other areas where you can have great bar tools for not a ton of money. Like, my first piece of advice when I’m posed this question is to use a plastic chopstick from a Chinese restaurant instead of an expensive bar spoon. They’re actually easier to use, and they cost very little (free, if you just steal one). Sure, they’re not very stylish, but they’ll do the job every bit as well as a $30 bar spoon.

But then I remembered my favorite muddler – the one I made myself. See, there are all sorts of wonderful muddlers made of exotic African hardwood out there that will set you back $40 if you want to go that route. But the best, easiest to use, most stylish wooden muddler in my bar bag cost me all of $5, which is about as cheap as those pieces of shit they sell next to the register at pretty much every liquor store in the world. And that, my friends, is my ten inch, maple, French rolling pin muddler.

This couldn’t be easier to do, seriously. Get yourself an inexpensive 20 inch French rolling pin. The kind with the tapered ends.

Measure halfway, ten inches from one side.

Then, simply cut it in half (ask an adult for help with this, kids).

Lightly sand both cut ends until smooth, and then finish with food grade mineral oil. You’ve just spent $11.26 on two muddlers that will last you years, and you can split the cost with a friend if you’re extra broke.

You’ve got a narrow end for lightly muddling herbs, and a wide end for mashing the heck out of some limes for a tasty Caipirinha.

There you go, cheapskates! The good news is that you can allay some of your shame with the knowledge that this is seriously one of the best muddlers you’ll ever use. Enjoy.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Build a Better ($5.63) Muddler

So, for the past couple of years I’ve gotten a lot of emails from people who have visited this site, and many of them read something like this:

To: Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Subject: Web Form Submission
From: Some Loudmouth
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Message-Id: <20140412235755>
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2013 16:57:55 -0700 (PDT)

When are you going to post more? I’m tired of not getting free shit on the regular.

Well, have I got news for you: I wrote a book, and now you can see what you’ve been missing over the past two-and-a-half years while I worked on it in my free time, between running two bars and writing a weekly column for Playboy. So let me tell you a little bit about what the book is about.

Whenever I train new bartenders, the first thing I tell them is that there are three things, in equal measure, that make a great cocktail:

1. The recipe you follow.
2. The ingredients you select.
3. The technique you employ.

Now, as I see it, there are a million books out there that have been written about recipes, and the history of recipes. Slightly less so, there are books out there about spirits, liqueurs, and other ingredients. But I couldn’t think of any books that really delved into the technique of making a great cocktail. So I set out to do just that.

This is a cocktail book that doesn’t talk about booze. There’s no chapter on rum, there isn’t a chapter of tequila cocktail recipes, and there definitely aren’t a hundred something recipes of my personal creations, with glossy photos of each one. This is a book that shows you exactly how a professional bartender does every last thing pertaining to the making of a quality cocktail, from handling citrus, to exploring simple and compound syrups, to shaking, stirring, infusing, garnishing, and even using a blender in the proper way.

Throughout the text, I’ve included tips, techniques, and recipes from some of the best bartenders in the country. Folks like Jennifer Colliau, Daniel Shoemaker, Jon Santer, Todd Thrasher, Murray Stenson, Joseph Brooke, and Dale DeGroff all contributed valuable information for me to share with my readers.

The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique is available now, wherever books are sold. I hope you’ll pick up a copy.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

I Wrote a Book!

Ever since I wrote on How To Price a Cocktail Menu like a million years ago, I’ve gotten requests from bartenders, bar managers, and bar owners for some guidance on how to perform inventory and calculate pour cost. Which is, like, super surprising to me since there are few tasks more reviled in our business than the dreaded monthly inventory. Regardless, I figured it was high time I shared.

I never would have admitted it at the time, but I feel pretty lucky for the rude awakening I had back in 2001. I’d just come off of working in the clubs, and was immediately thrown into managing a little cocktail program at a new restaurant. It was awesome until about two weeks in, when my bosses informed me that I would be taking inventory every two weeks, and that there would be a sit-down meeting once a month to discuss my numbers. My what, now? I didn’t know the first thing about numbers, other than getting girls’ phone numbers. But I did it, respectfully yet begrudgingly, because it was my job.

Usually performed late at night after the end of a busy service, or early in the morning before service begins, inventory is a necessary chore that allows us to understand how a bar is performing financially, once we calculate pour cost. That pour cost number paints a very real picture of the bar’s financial health and reveals things like theft, poorly-priced menu items, and pouring accuracy. Without it, you have absolutely no idea what is going on in your bar.

But first you’ve got to know a few things:

1. How much you spent during some time period
2. How much you sold during that time period
3. How much booze you started with at the beginning of the period
4. How much booze you’ve got on hand at the end of the period

Items 1 and 2 you should either know already, or be able to find easily. If not, stop reading now; there’s no point in doing this if you have no idea how much you bought or sold. Items 3 and 4, I will help you find.

First you’re going to need to put together a list of every single bottle you carry at your bar. I’ve given you a head start by providing you with a simple spreadsheet I created just for this purpose. We’ll pretend this is from an imaginary bar with the world’s worst liquor selection ever.

Download my inventory spreadsheet and pour cost calculator here.

Get every bottle you carry entered into that spreadsheet, along with each bottle’s price. Note that the size of the bottle isn’t needed here, just the name and the price. Do it now.

Okay. Now we’ve got to get a beginning inventory so that we have a place to start from. Inventory numbers are worthless without a beginning and ending inventory so you’re going to have to go through this shit twice, once at the beginning of the period, and once at the end. The bigger your back bar is, the more you’re going to hate it. Trust me on this one.

The simplest method that doesn’t involve weighing bottles or whatnot is to visually take note of how much liquid is in each bottle. Now, sure. This isn’t the most accurate system in the world, but it’s the quick-and-dirty method that’s used by bars all over the world that aren’t huge corporate establishments. If you want to weigh your bottles and do it that way, be my guest. You’re going to have absolute accuracy, and that’s pretty rad. The rest of you, come this way.

Take a look at your bottle and break it down into tenths in your mind. Decide where the liquid line falls and make an educated guess about the contents. Here’s a picture to illustrate what I’m talking about:

Make your decision and enter that number into your spreadsheet. Repeat until you’ve recorded every single bottle in your bar.

So, over the course of the next, say, month, you’re hopefully going to sell a bunch of booze, and probably buy a few bottles as well. Keep a record of every penny you buy and sell from the moment you finish that initial inventory until the moment you begin your ending inventory. Oh, and don’t buy or sell anything while you’re actually doing that inventory. This should go without saying but doing so will screw up your numbers. Which means you’ll have to do this while the bar is closed. Sorry, sucker! You’re the one who wanted to own or manage a bar in the first place, so don’t blame me.

Do inventory again at the end of the period, and enter those numbers into the spreadsheet I gave you. Now you’re coming to the table armed with all four numbers you need: beginning inventory, ending inventory, total alcohol sold, and total alcohol purchased.

Okay. Now that you’ve got all the numbers you need, it’s time to calculate your pour cost (I’m such a nice guy I’ve even included this in the spreadsheet I’m letting you download, but I’m going to show you how it’s done anyway)

Pour cost is calculated thusly: it’s how much booze you had when you started, plus how much you spent, minus how much you have on hand, divided by how much you sold. Multiply that number by 100 and throw a percent symbol at the end of it, and you’ve got your pour cost. Now keep in mind that this post only tells you how to get that number. What number you’re supposed to be at, what you’re supposed to do with that number, and so on, is the topic of a much lengthier article.

At any rate, I hope this spreadsheet is of some help to at least a few of you out there. If there’s enough interest in this boring topic perhaps we can get a conversation going in the comments section about what to do once you’ve actually figured out what that number is. You know, in the interest of service to our fellow bar managers everywhere. Thanks for reading, as always.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Take Inventory and Calculate Pour Cost

Our good friend Erick Castro recently posited a question on Facebook about bartenders’ footwear of choice, which got me thinking about mine. So I thought I’d share my experience with you in the hopes that folks could chime in and build a discussion that might be of help to other bartenders out there.

About thirteen years ago, after years of working on my feet in normal, uncomfortable, black dress shoes, it became nearly impossible for me to stand. It happened pretty quickly over the course of opening a new bar I started working in. The long hours on my feet spent getting the place off the ground, combined with new lengths of walking quickly developed into the most excruciating foot pain I had ever experienced.

A visit to the doctor informed me that I’d fallen prey to the ailment suffered by so many of us who work on their feet, plantar fasciitis. And holy shit does it hurt. There’s really no way to describe the pain other than a hot needle being shoved into my heel every time I took a step.

A friend and longtime server suggested I try a change of footwear, a hideous clog I’d seen before but would have ever considered placing on my own feet: Danskos. The footwear of choice for midwives, alternative bookstore employees, energy healers and vegan baristas everywhere, these monstrosities have literally changed my life.

But not at first. See, after just a week or so after adopting Danskos behind the bar, my symptoms had disappeared and I was running around again, stoked to be able to walk without pain. So I switched back to my normal, uncomfortable, black dress shoes. And then it happened: while running into the kitchen I hit a patch of wet, oily kitchen tile and landed flat on my back. And it occurred to me then and there, lying on my back on a greasy kitchen floor in the middle of a busy service, that those ugly Danskos I’d been wearing were totally non-slip.

The next day I switched back to my Danskos and I’ve never worn anything else behind the bar. My plantar fasciitis has never returned, I’ve never slipped on the floor since, and my lower back — subjected to years of abuse from lifting kegs and cases of liquor — is still in great shape. You can get a pair here, and I highly recommend the oiled leather finish as they’re much easier to break in than their other offerings.

Since a large percentage of you reading this are bartenders, I’ll put it to you: what do you wear behind the bar to combat foot pain, slipping, and lower back issues? On behalf of other service industry workers out there, your advice is appreciated.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Bar Tools for Your Feet

Here’s a fun little game you can play. Go ask someone – preferably someone not wearing arm garters or quoting Jerry Thomas – and ask them what’s in a Hot Toddy. The more people you try this game with, the better, because you’re going to get a lot of varied answers. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you’re gonna hear a few of the following ingredients: Lemon… ginger… honey… cinnamon sticks… cloves… cayenne pepper.

The funny thing is that if you look at the earliest Hot Toddy recipe as it appears in Jerry Thomas’ 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide, it contains none of these things. Here’s the recipe:

1 tea-spoonful of fine white sugar
1 wine-glass of brandy

Dissolve the sugar in a little boiling water, add the brandy, and pour boiling water into the glass until it is two-thirds full Grate a little nutmeg on top.

Water, sugar, brandy, nutmeg. Not even a lousy lemon peel. If you can’t think of anything less interesting or appetizing to drink, take a look at the recipe for the Hot Gin Toddy sometime. Anyway, as I was trying to standardize our Hot Toddy recipe for the bar a few years ago, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to stay true to the historical recipes while still offering a drink I felt our guests would enjoy. In the end, I decided to tell Jerry Thomas to take a flying leap and came up with something much more reflective of the style of cocktail we serve.

So, sure. We came up with a nice recipe that uses ginger and lemon, big deal. But during recipe testing something consistently came up that I felt was a common problem with Hot Toddies offered in many bars these days: they’re never hot enough. So I devised a solution: enter the Bartender’s Bain-Marie.

The technique is simple: fill a shaker tin halfway with very hot water, and build the drink sans water in a second tin nestled in the bottom shaker. Stirring the ingredients for a minute will raise the temperature to the point where we’re no longer serving cold or room temperature ingredients mixed with hot water. The now-warm drink is added to a preheated glass and finished with piping hot water.

Easy to do, and a hell of a lot safer to do at home than heating alcohol on the stovetop (note: do not heat alcohol on your stovetop). Here’s the recipe I landed on for those who want it:

Hot Toddy

1½ oz bourbon
1 oz ginger syrup*
¾ oz lemon juice
1 tsp allspice or pimento dram
3 oz boiling water

Stir bourbon, ginger syrup*, lemon juice and allspice or pimento liqueur in Bartender’s Bain-Marie until warmed through. Transfer to preheated mug and top with boiling water. Garnish with orange peel.

Ginger Syrup

I always refer to this as the “San Francisco Ginger Syrup” method, as I stole it from Jon Santer, who I believe learned it from Thad Vogler, who probably didn’t steal it from anyone because Thad is a genius. At any rate I’ve rarely heard of bartenders in other cities doing it this way and when I have, it’s because they’ve learned it from someone from San Francisco. It’s easy to make, and delicious to use.

Simply combine cleaned (no need to peel the ginger) and roughly-chopped ginger (each piece should be about the size of your pinkie-tip) in a blender with equal volumes of sugar and boiling water. For this I’ve used 8 ounces of chopped ginger, 8 ounces of sugar, and 8 ounces boiling water. Blend on high until mixture is smooth, and then fine-strain through a sieve.

That’s it. Enjoy, and stay warm.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Hot Toddies Suck – Long Live the Hot Toddy

Sometimes when I put up a new post on this site, it’s because I have what I think is a good idea and I want to say, “Hey world, here’s an idea I came up with and I’d like to share it with you.” Other times I put up a new post because I want to say, “Hey, quit emailing me and asking me how to do this.”

So, like a million years ago I put up a couple of blog posts on this site, one about making your own ginger beer, and one about bottled carbonated cocktails, both which require some pretty tricky methods for making bubbles: one that called for using ever-unpredictable yeast, and one using a device that was recalled shortly after my post for exploding. Oops.

So about once a week I get an email from someone asking me how to do one of several things:

1. Carbonate cocktails in a way that won’t result in exploding equipment.
2. Carbonate ginger beer or other mixers without resorting to yeast.
3. Carbonate cocktails for draft delivery.

So here are the two systems that can do all of those things. Here we go.

Thanks to the fine folks at my local homebrew shop, I was able to put together a kit that takes less than five minutes to assemble, cost me around a hundred and fifty bucks to build, and costs next to nothing to operate. A bit cheaper than a top-of-the-line SodaStream, but with a lot more versatility (you can carbonate more than just water with mine) and a hell of a lot cheaper to operate long-term. Here’s what you need:

A Regulator

You need a regulator in order to do this. What a regulator does is maintain an exact pressure coming from your CO2 tank. If you’re not using a regulator, you’re dumping the contents of your CO₂ tank into your container, and your container can explode. Don’t ever think of hooking a CO₂ tank up to anything without a regulator, okay? They cost about $60 bucks and you can buy one here.

A Carbonator Cap

This is about the coolest thing ever. It’s a device that screws on to any two-liter bottle and allows you to carbonate whatever’s inside that bottle. I have this system at home and use it primarily for soda water (I’m a nut for bubbles) and sometimes sparkling lemonade, but you can also use this to carbonate cocktails. It’s especially handy for making bigger batches of bottled cocktails, and sometimes in the summer I’ll make a case of Americanos for backyard parties. Anyway, it’s part of the system I’m describing, so you need to pick one up here.

Carbon Dioxide

There’s one good way to get carbon dioxide (CO₂) into a beverage, and that’s by using a tank of the stuff. It’s cheap, it’s plentiful, and it’s real easy to find. I’m not going to tell you to buy it online, though if you want an empty tank that you can have refilled cheaply at a homebrew shop any commercial gas place, pick it up here for around $50 bucks. Otherwise, hit up your gas dealer or homebrew shop.

Putting It All Together

Getting the tank connected to the Carbonator Cap is easy, you just need a few small things. First off, get yourself a Quick Disconnect to attach to the Carbonator Cap. This allows you to take the hose on and off the bottle with ease. They’re like ten bucks and you can get one here.

Next, you’ll need some hose and a couple of hose clamps to secure either end to your equipment. I use about five feet of hose for flexibility, and I found one online that actually comes with two hose clamps, which will save you a trip to the hardware store.

Now all you need to do is connect one end of that hose to the quick disconnect, and the other to the hose barb. Use those hose clamps to get it good and secure on either end, and then screw the regulator to the CO₂ tank. Open up the tank, flip that valve on the regulator so that it’s parallel to the hose, and crank your PSI up to 35.

Time for Bubbles!

Get your empty two-liter bottle and fill it with the beverage you want to carbonate. The most important thing here is that your liquid is as cold as possible, because carbon dioxide is much more soluble in cold water than in warm. So chill your drink overnight in the fridge if you need to.

Once that puppy is cold, screw on the Carbonator Cap, connect the quick disconnect to the cap, and make sure everything is on there good and tight. Now, while the tank is connected, you’ve got to shake the shit out of your bottle. Shaking will increase the surface area between the gas and the liquid, which is where the transfer of CO₂ happens. Shake it hard until you can’t feel or hear any more gas being delivered to the bottle. This usually takes between thirty seconds and a minute.

Disconnect the Quick Disconnect valve and you’re done. If you’re only carbonating water, then you can unscrew the Carbonator Cap and you’re ready to go. If you have anything with sugar in there (and yes, booze and fruit juice all have sugar in them) then you’ll want to unscrew that cap really slowly so that it doesn’t fizz up all over your counter.

And that’s it! Now you can pour it out into glasses, or fill some bottles and cap them if that’s the route you want to take. For reference, here’s your shopping list.

1. CO₂ tank: $68.40, $15 to refill.
2. Tap-Rite Regulator: $58.99
3. 5 feet of hose and two hose clamps: $5.24
4. Ball Valve Quick Disconnect: $9.99
5. Carbonator Cap: $12.65
6. Empty two liter bottle: $0.05

Total cost: $155.32

Draft Cocktails

Now, if you really need to serve cocktails on tap, then this system isn’t going to work. For that you’ll need what’s referred to as a “Cornelius Keg”, which is a five-gallon keg typically used for soda. They’re great for this because they have a nice wide opening that makes them a cinch to clean.

I had a whole thing written where I went through the individual parts for you, and then I realized you can just buy a complete system online. It’s around $200 and includes everything you would need to serve cocktails or soda on tap (I do own this system as well). Now, if you’re hoping to connect this to your draft faucets in a professional bar you’ll need some additional connections, but if you’re at that level I’m going to assume you know how to navigate the back-end of your system and get the right connections from the homebrew shop.

Once you’ve got that all assembled, then the method is the same: mix up your drink, get it very well chilled, shake the hell out of it until there’s no more gas running into the container, and you’re almost ready. The one difference with the keg system is that once you’ve reached your full 25 or so PSI of carbonation, you’ve got to turn down the pressure coming from the regulator to about 8 PSI, otherwise you’ll be firing foam all over the place (that’s what she said). You can do this by pulling the ring on the top of the keg to release pressure while turning the regulator knob counter-clockwise until you’ve landed somewhere around 8 PSI.

That’s it! I hope this helps those of you looking to add some bubble to your beverages. I’m starting my 2014 (and my eleventh year of writing this blog!) by helping myself to a nice, cold glass of sparkling water. Cheers, you guys.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Build Your Own Carbonation Rig

I have, like any bartender who’s done this sort of work, a ton of stories about times I’ve kicked people out. A lot of them are kind of sad, a few of them are really scary, but most of them are pretty hilarious. Here’s one of my favorites that I shot for my friends over at Small Screen Network.

I hope you enjoy it. I had a great time telling it.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How *Not* to Kick Someone Out of a Bar

Last year, my boss came to me with some very tragic news. News that shocked me to my core, and left me standing there, unable to speak, barely able to breathe.

“We’re going to start serving brunch on the weekends.”

Now, brunch is a tough prospect for any bar manager. The crates of oranges that need to be stocked in an already-full cooler. The cases of prosecco. And the dreaded Bloody Mary conundrum.

Offering a Bloody Mary at brunch presents the cautious bar manager with a bit of a pickle, no pun intended. Here’s the problem: Ideally each Bloody Mary would be made to order, à la minute, from scratch. But doing so would be far too time-consuming when the bar is busy. We want people to have drinks in their hands quickly. Doing so makes people happy, and we’re trying to be in the business of making people happy.

So, the obvious solution is to make a huge batch of Bloody Mary mix, have the bartender throw it on top of some vodka in a pint glass, and there you go, right? Well, the question is how much to make. If we make too little, the bartender ends up having to make them to order anyway. If we make too much, then we’ve got a bunch of Bloody Mary mix getting dumped at the end of each Sunday, because lord knows that shit ain’t gonna be fresh a week later (I’m looking at you, half of the sports bars in the country). And that ends up being a huge waste of money. And we’re also trying to be in the business of making money here.

And what about the Caesar? I happen to love the national drink of Canada, and wanted to offer it on my menu as well. But of course, nobody could predict how Portlanders would take to zesty clam-flavored tomato drink (turns out they love it) and I didn’t want to have yet another batch of mix to throw down the drain every week

What to do, what to do… And then it hit me: if we took the majority of the labor-intensive components and separated them from the tomato or tomato-based ingredients, we’d be left with something so salty and acidic that it would be (refrigerator) shelf stable for well over a week. The result is a mix that’s easy to make, totally versatile, and turns making a Bloody Mary or Caesar a simple three-ingredient process.

Bloody Mary Premix
Makes one 750ml Bottle

12 oz lemon juice
12 oz Worcestershire sauce
1½ tsp finely-ground black pepper
1½ tsp celery salt
1 tsp Tabasco sauce

Mix all ingredients together and bottle. To make a Caesar or Bloody Mary, combine 1 oz premix, 2 oz vodka, and 4 oz tomato juice or Clamato in a pint glass, mix well, garnish and serve.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Bloody Mary Conundrum

Anyway, as part of my continuing work with the Small Screen Network, I’ve put together my rebuttal and a quick demonstration of what I think a proper mint julep should be. Seems like a lot of people liked the last one, so I hope this one is just as satisfying. Click the image below to head over to Small Screen and check it out.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Sorry, lady, but that is definitely not a Mint Julep.

Well, regardless, in order to commemorate this very special event I’ve teamed up with the Small Screen Network to shoot what I hope will be a series of informative, but also very different sorts of videos. Rather than the traditional format of standing behind the bar and lecturing you about drinks, these are a bit more narrative and exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from me (minus the swearing).

For this first installment, we’re shooting a response to the now-famous Daiquiri video that made the rounds for several years before being taken down. Rather than discuss the disputed history I’ll just show you how to make the damn thing, and quite well, might I add.

I’m stoked to be working with Small Screen Network, and to be up there with such an impressive roster of talent – the people that I’ve looked up to for years in this business. So without further ado, here’s the video:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Not Fuck Up a Daiquiri

In my opinion, one of the greatest triumphs of the cocktail renaissance is the rediscovery of the classic Old Fashioned. I’ve often spoken of how at some point after the repeal of Prohibition, the Old Fashioned became lost and possibly confused with a long-forgotten drink called a Smash (basically a tarted-up Mint Julep covered in fruit), a mere husk of its former, glorious self.

For decades, bartenders just like me served a limp, weak concoction consisting of a half-muddled sugar cube, a mashed-up neon red cherry and orange, a splash of whiskey, and some soda water drowning the results.

With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, that’s all changed with the renewed interest in classic cocktails. Now at any given night at my bar you can find literally a dozen people sipping on two ounces bourbon touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters, garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes.

But don’t try to pull that bullshit with the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin, where the Brandy Old Fashioned rules supreme. It’s not the same drink as above, it just shares a name. And if you make it right, really right, it’s a damn delicious cocktail and worthy of examination.

Being located in a hotel, we’re used to serving folks from all over the world. And the first time I witnessed a guest from Wisconsin stare blankly as one of my bartenders handed over two ounces of Cognac touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters and garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes, I knew some further training was in order.

So in the name of making cocktails – all cocktails – with as much of our hearts as we can offer, I present to you what I believe to be the perfect Brandy Old Fashioned… Wisconsin-style.

I start with an old fashioned glass I’ve chilled in the freezer. Call it a tumbler, call it a double rocks glass, or call it a bucket, it’s a glass you’re familiar with. To that I add two dashes of Angostura bitters and a teaspoon of sugar. If I’m in a hurry I use a 2:1 simple syrup, but if I’m going to spend some time, I use a sugar cube. The sugar cube is preferable here because it’s going to add some friction to the muddling we’re about to do. Brace yourselves, cocktail “nerds”.

Next I’ll take a thick-cut orange wedge, and a cherry. The usual suspect here is a grocery store maraschino cherry, but I always choose a brandied Amarena cherry. Remember, you’re going to get out what you put in, so a quality cherry is going to make the drink that much better.

I muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to touch the orange peel too much as it’ll bring unwanted bitterness to the party – just work around the peel and pulverize that orange meat.

Your standard Brandy Old Fashioned brandy of choice is Korbel: cheap California brandy. Considering the hundreds of thousands of cases they ship to Wisconsin every year, it might be considered sacrosanct to use anything else. But if you want to do this right, really right, then do yourself a favor and use some good Cognac. I have my preferred brandy, you have yours.

At this point your typical Wisconsinite barkeep is going to add ice and finish the drink in one of two main ways: sweet or sour. Those who take it sweet will ask for a splash of Sprite or 7-Up, those who take it sour get a dose of Collins Mix or Squirt. To me, it’s just a way of watering down the drink, so I leave out the soda and take a more… cocktail-y method.

Crushed ice is a must for me whenever I whip up a Brandy Old Fashioned. I always skip the soda and let the tiny shards of ice do the work, taming those strong, sweet flavors and turning this into a drink you can sip slowly.

As for a garnish, most will throw a “flag” of an orange wedge and a cherry spiked through with a wooden toothpick, but my take here is that those things are already in the drink, so I skip ‘em. Besides, how pretty does that look without the goofy fruit salad perched over the top?

You know, it’s something to enjoy sipping on while you cook up some bratwurst and onions in a boiling kettle of beer before everyone comes over to watch the Packers game. Drink accordingly.

Brandy Old Fashioned

1 sugar cube or 1 tsp 2:1 simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 orange wedge
1 cherry, preferably Amarena or Maraska
2 oz brandy or Cognac

In a chilled old fashioned glass, muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to work the orange peel. Add brandy or Cognac, stir, and fill glass with crushed ice and serve.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Brandy Old Fashioned

A couple of years ago, like so many other bartenders around the world, I implemented a daily punch program at my bar. It’s been well received by our guests, who enjoy exploring a different, interesting and inexpensive tipple every night. And my staff loves it, because it’s a drink that can be poured and handed over to the guest in absolutely no time at all, but provides a daily conversation piece to interact with the folks across the bar.

One of the key components to a classic punch, as we learned from our friend David Wondrich in his book Punch, is a proper oleo saccharum. The process involves peeling citrus (usually lemon) and gently muddling it into superfine sugar, letting it rest for an hour or more. I always recommend stirring the mixture occasionally until the sugar essentially melts from the citrus oil as it leeches from the peels. What you’re left with is a sweet, aromatic base for a tasty bowl of punch.

The problem? Well, the biggest drawback has been having to haul myself in to the bar every morning for the past two years and preparing the oleo saccharum, then mixing the punch and chilling it before the evening’s service. I’d prefer to hand over the duty to my daytime prep bartender, but tending to an oleo saccharum every day would have been one additional duty that he just didn’t need. In Wondrich’s own words, “This process is admittedly time-consuming and to some degree a laborious one.”

If only there were a quicker way to prepare oleo saccharum, a method that didn’t require any stirring or tending, a method that could be prepared ahead of time without fear of spoilage or evaporation, so that a delicious punch could be prepared quickly by anyone with a recipe.

Here’s our solution: superfine sugar and lemon peels are immediately placed into a vacuum seal bag and sealed. Over the course of four to six hours, the lemon oils in the airtight environment leech out and perfectly dissolve the entire mass of sugar, without any need for a watchful eye or constant agitation. Once the process is complete, the bags are dated and refrigerated, and ready for use. We prepare a week’s worth at a time, and the last bag is every bit as fresh as the first. We use the inexpensive FoodSaver vaccum sealer ($50 on Amazon), and quart-sized bags ($20 for 44) at our bar.

And, if you’re really into this kind of stuff, and I don’t know why you wouldn’t be, here’s a video of me saying pretty much exactly what you just read, but with a bunch of swearing and bleeps and stuff:

One of our favorite punches from David’s book is the classic Philadelphia Fish House Punch, updated with his kludges, and re-updated here using the vacuum seal oleo saccharum technique.

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

Adapted from a recipe by David Wondrich

1 pound superfine sugar
12 lemons, peeled

Place sugar and lemon peels into a vaccum-seal bag and seal according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Let rest at room temperature for four hours, or overnight, until the sugar is soaked in lemon oil. When punch is ready to assemble, pour contents into an eight-quart container and add:

16 oz Appleton V/X rum
8 oz Smith and Cross rum
12 oz Hennessy VS cognac
3 oz Briotette creme de peche
9 oz Laird’s applejack
16 oz lemon juice, finely strained
6 pints cold water

Makes approximately 5½ quarts.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Vacuum Seal Oleo Saccharum

I have a confession for you: I can’t remember how to make a Mai Tai. I’m serious, I can’t. I mean, I know what goes in one, I know the legend of the drink, the names of the supposed creators, and the importance of the Mai Tai in modern cocktail culture. I can even conjure up the flavor and texture of the three most perfect Mai Tais I’ve ever had as if they were sitting in front of me.

But for the life of me I can never remember if it’s a half ounce of orgeat and a quarter ounce of simple syrup, or a quarter ounce of orgeat and a half ounce of simple syrup. Honestly, I probably get about five Mai Tai orders a year at my bar, so there’s a lot of time to forget exactly how to make one.

So, rather than just guess at it and risk screwing up my guest’s drink order, I simply swallow my pride and reach for a book that I’ve kept in my back pocket for the past six years: a Moleskine Address Book that contains every drink recipe I deem worthwhile.

It’s the most important tool I own, and I never set foot behind a bar without my book. The alphabetical tabs make it quick and easy to look up a recipe, and inside I’ve got years worth of classic cocktails, house recipes, syrup and mixer recipes for prep or to share with guests, variations, and layer upon layer of correction fluid and margin notes. It’s absolutely indispensable to me.

I also keep a second copy behind the bar, with every house recipe and house version of classic cocktails for my bar staff to consult when a menu drink from two years ago comes across the bar. Additionally, I present each new bartender with their own blank recipe book on their first day behind the bar, and we’ve all spent many late nights sharing with each other and transcribing the recipes we’ve discovered during our travels.

It’s the first thing I mention when aspiring bartenders ask me what my ideal tool kit would be. With a good book, the rest of what we do can be improvised. Pick one up for yourself here.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Most Important Bar Tool You’re Probably Not Using

No, really. I’m serious. In case you think I’m joking, or that you read that wrong, let me go on the record right now:

I make the best Amaretto Sour you’ve ever had in your life. No ifs, ands or buts about it, my Amaretto Sour dominates and crushes all others out there. And now, I’m going to share my secrets with you.

There are two things that impede all other Amaretto Sours from challenging mine. First off, the obvious: they’re too sweet. One does not simply use an everyday sour recipe to make a world-class Amaretto Sour, it must be adjusted for this particular liqueur.

Second, and this is a big one: amaretto isn’t strong enough on its own to stand up to a bunch of other ingredients. It’s weak. It needs help. And for this, I enlist the assistance of an old friend. One that knows amaretto’s strengths and weaknesses. Or, mainly, its weaknesses. One that works with amaretto, to complete it like Jerry Maguire completes Rene Zellwiger’s character, whatever her name was. And that, my friends, is cask-proof bourbon.

Behold, the recipe:

Amaretto Sour

Makes 1 Awesome Drink

1½ oz amaretto (I love the Lazzaroni amaretto, but DiSaronno works well here, too)
¾ oz cask-proof bourbon (I use Booker’s, from the Jim Beam distillery)
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp. 2:1 simple syrup
½ oz egg white, beaten

Dry shake ingredients to combine, then shake well with cracked ice. Strain over fresh ice in an old fashioned glass. Garnish with lemon peel and brandied cherries, if desired. Serve and grin like an idiot as your friends freak out.

The Video

on Small Screen Network

My friends at Small Screen Network and I made a little video about the Amaretto Sour in my apartment a while ago, for a series we’re calling The Morgenthaler Method. Click below to watch the video:

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

I Make the Best Amaretto Sour in The World

I guess I’m getting old. I don’t say this because my fortieth birthday is approaching like a speeding bullet, but this: I know that cocktail carbonation is the hot new thing right now, but if someone hands me another carbonated Manhattan I’m going to cry into it, I swear.

Believe me, I’m all for innovation in this little business of ours. I mean, crap, I’ve made quite a name for myself capitalizing on it. But just as I don’t think we need to run around barrel-aging every god damn liquid out there, I fail to see the longevity of a glass of carbonated Barolo, and I’ll be damned if I want my Sazerac full of bubbles.

That said, there’s nothing like a little fizz on the tongue. I’ve always been enamoured with the sorts of long drinks you find in European cafes: the Americano, the Aperol Spritz, and the Bicyclette. These afternoon refreshers share a common structure of a low-alcohol bitter base, a measure of fortified wine, some citrus oil, and a sparkling component for length. They’re light, palate cleansers, appetite awakeners, and thirst quenchers. God damn they’re delicious.

What if… okay, what if we could take a café cocktail, which traditionally relies on just a splash of sparkling water or wine for its fizz, and carbonate the whole thing: base spirit, modifier, lengthener, garnish and all? And what if we could keep it bottled and perfectly chilled to control dilution by omitting the ice? Now that, my friends, might be a reasonable use of a carbonator.

Born from the Jerry Thomas era and inspired by a brown-bagged Pisco and fruit juice variation I tried at Aviary in Chicago last month, the bottled sparkling café cocktails we’re currently serving at Clyde Common are tailor-made for our particular beverage program. There are benefits from a service standpoint to the pre-bottled cocktail, of course, but we also have some very specific reasons why these café coolers work well in this carbonated format.

• They are, essentially, spirit-driven, so there is no need to worry about spoilage.
• The entire drink is carbonated, providing a more complete experience than simply adding a sparkling finish as one would do when building these drinks à la minute.
• And the whole bottle is pre-chilled, eliminating the need for ice and maintaining perfect dilution from beginning to end.

Anyway, there’s the reasoning behind it, let’s begin:

UPDATE: The Twist and Sparkle has been discontinued. An easier and more consistent method for carbonating your cocktails can be found here.

You’re going to need some equipment to get started here, the primary piece of equipment being a carbonator. At at home and in my bar, I use a very inexpensive carbonator called the iSi Twist ’n’ Sparkle (it’s like $35 on Amazon). Next you’re going to need some empty bottles (we use clear 187 ml Champagne bottles at my bar, check your local homebrew shop for other options, just make sure they’re crown-cappable), a bottle capper, and some bottle caps.

The Twist ‘n’ Sparkle will carbonate three cups of cocktail at a time, so use this basic formula for three cups of Americano:

UPDATE: The Twist and Sparkle has been discontinued. An easier and more consistent method for carbonating your cocktails can be found here.

Bottled Carbonated Americano

6 oz sweet vermouth (something drier than Carpano; think Cinzano, Dolin Rouge or Martini and Rossi here)
4.5 oz Campari
13.5 oz water
1 orange, peeled with a vegetable peeler, zests squeezed into the mixture to express the oils

Carbon dioxide is much more soluble in cold liquid than warm, so you’ll need to get this mixture cold. I typically make a batch a day ahead of time, and then store it in the fridge. Your call.

Fill the carbonator and carbonate according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Once it’s done doing its business, you’re going to need to fill some bottles, and rather quickly before the carbonation dissipates.

I have a small funnel attached to a piece of plastic tubing that has been trimmed to fit my bottles’ height exactly. This is going to allow us to fill the bottles from the bottom, and avoid a big, bubbly, heady mess (those bubbles mean carbon dioxide is escaping your solution). Slowly fill each bottle and cap using your handy bottle capper.

We serve these drinks to our guests in the bottle, with no glass or ice alongside. I think a fun part of the experience is sipping them directly from the bottle, enjoying the maximum amount of fizz as the drink hits your tongue and releases its bubbles. It’s playful, it’s whimsical, sessionable, drinkable, and fun. And, as you can see from the video below by our friends at Small Screen Network, it’s easy.

Cheers.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Bottled Carbonated Cocktails

One advantage I have in my career – and believe me, I thank my lucky stars every day for my good fortune in this regard – is that I travel a lot. And when I do travel, I get to visit the greatest bars in the world and spend time picking the brains of the world’s greatest bartenders.

The most recent drink to grace our cocktail list is the result of my travels.

Taking inspiration from many sources, my initial interest in bitter, sour and sweet with a distinctly tropical bent was taken directly from the ever-brilliant Giuseppe Gonzalez and his now-famous Trinidad Sour.

While I, and the rest of the world, was taken by the combination of bitter, herbal, sweet flavors, it never really struck me as a an extensible sort of drink style until I came across Andrew Bohrer’s amaro-based Mai Tai variation called the “Elena’s Virtue”. Now here was a drink with legs, and a hint of what was to come in the world of cocktails, in my humble opinion.

But what New York and Seattle do well, San Francisco often does better, and usually with a lot more Fernet Branca, and that’s the conversation I had with Josh Harris while competing in the Domaine de Canton finals in St. Maarten this spring. And after tasting his simple concoction of ginger liqueur, pineapple and Fernet Branca I knew it was time for me to get my feet wet and try my hand at the herbal tropical sour.

The result has been a smash hit at the bar, as it very much follows in the style of our restaurant bar, a reflection of the crafted European style of cooking that emerges from the kitchen on a nightly basis. In other words, earthy, sour, herbal flavors do very, very well where we work.

Put all of this together, throw in a desire to explore the dusty, neglected bottle of Drambuie, and an early morning racking one’s brain to come up with a drink name (the original intent was Brixton Club) and a star was born:

Kingston Club

1½ oz Drambuie
1½ oz pineapple juice
¾ oz lime juice
1 tsp Fernet Branca
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake ingredients with ice and finish with 1 oz soda water. Strain mix over fresh ice into a chilled collins glass and garnish with an orange twist.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

The Kingston Club