The Curious Bartender E-Book

Tristan Stephenson

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 350

Beschreibung

Preparing a first-class cocktail relies upon a deep understanding of its ingredients, the delicate alchemy of how they work together. In The Curious Bartender, Tristan Stephenson explores and experiments with the art of mixing the perfect cocktail, explaining the fascinating modern turns mixology has taken. Showcasing a selection of classic cocktails, he explains their intriguing origins, introducing the colourful historical characters who inspired or created them. Moving on, he reinvents each drink from his laboratory, adding contemporary twists to breathe fresh life into these vintage classics. Stay true to the originals with a Sazerac or a Rob Roy, or experiment with some of his modern variations to create a Green Fairy Sazerac topped with an absinthe 'air' or an Insta-age Rob Roy with the 'age' on the side. Also included is a reference section detailing all the techniques you will need, making this an essential anthology for the cocktail enthusiast.

Leseprobe

THE CURIOUS

BARTENDER

VOLUME I

Designer Geoff Borin

Editor Rebecca Woods

Head of Production Patricia Harrington

Art Director Leslie Harrington

Editorial Director Julia Charles

Publisher Cindy Richards

Prop Stylist Sarianne Plaisant

Indexer Hilary Bird

First published in 2013

This updated edition published 2016

by Ryland Peters & Small

20-21 Jockey’s Fields

London WC1R 4BW

and

341 East 116th Street New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

20 19 18 17 16 15 14

Text © Tristan Stephenson 2013, 2016

Design and commissioned photographs

© Ryland Peters & Small 2013, 2016

All photography by Addie Chinn, apart from:

Peter Cassidy: backgrounds on pages 1, 3-19, 57, 155-157, 160-166, 168-171, 174, 177-178, 181, 184-187

Laura Edwards: backgrounds on pages 59-62, 65-69, 72-74, 76-78, 80-81, 85-87, 89

Kate Whitaker: backgrounds on pages 111-114, 116-121, 124-125, 127-131

Illustration credits:

page 3 © istockphoto/aleksandarvelasevic; page 10 © istockphoto/whitemay; page 15 © www.victorianpicturelibrary.com; page 16 © www.victorianpicturelibrary.com; pages 18-19 illustrations © Selina Snow; page 21 © www.victorianpicturelibrary.com; page 87 © istockphoto/Duncan 1890; page 100 © istockphoto/nicoolay; page 121 © istockphoto/nicoolay; page 150 © istockphoto/Grafissimo; pages 172-173 © istockphoto/ilbusca; page 177 © istockphoto/nicoolay; page 185 © istockphoto/nicoolay; page 195 © istockphoto/nicoolay

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

eISBN 978-1-84975-906-9

ISBN: 978-1-84975-437-8

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

US Library of Congress CIP data has been applied for.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

How to Use This Book

Fundamentals

The Science of Flavour

The Flavour Map

•

TECHNIQUES

Ice, Shaking & Stirring

Seasoning Cocktails

Infusion & Extraction

Hydrocolloids

Juicing, Drying & Dehydrating

Clarification

Dry Ice & Liquid Nitrogen

Smoke

Foams, Airs & Eggs

Rotary Evaporation

Ageing Cocktails

•

THE COCKTAILS

Gin

Vodka

Brandy & Cognac

Whisky & Whiskey

Rum

Tequila

Glossary

Equipment & Suppliers

Index

Acknowledgments; About the Author

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome. Hm realty glad you could make it.

Contrary to the common public perception of the service industry, the art of bartending is not a simple one. This book focuses on much of the science involved in mixing drinks, but I think it’s important to stress from the start that bartending itself is an art. Science can be learned and recipes can be memorized, but that’s only half the struggle. The other half of the job is playing the raconteur, providing the service and, of course, making it look easy. That kind of stuff is difficult to learn and very hard to teach. Much of it comes with confidence (as it did with me), but there needs to be a certain spark there, the desire to entertain, the ability to engage in mindless mundane chat and the will to do it again and again. Some special people like Dave, the 50-something pub barman I worked with in Cornwall when I was 18, have perfected their craft over decades of standing, pouring, chatting and hosting, to the point where the whole act is entirely seamless.

That said, the facts and know-how do come in handy. I have spent the last ten years gathering as much knowledge as possible about the craft of the cocktail, and this book is a culmination of those efforts. What follows in this introduction is the pared-down story of how my career has developed, along with the people who have influenced me and the discoveries that have shaped me.

THE START

I didn’t ever plan on being a bartender. I recall my career meetings at school being more centred around graphic design, performance and movie making. But I suppose that the profession I ended up joining isn’t actually a million miles from my original aspirations. Just like a graphic designer, I get to be creative, to shape something from a concept through to reality. Like a stage actor, I have a platform from which I can preach and perform. And like a director, I am the puppet master - a kind of night-time engineer.

After dropping out of university, I wound up back in my home county of Cornwall working in the local pubs and restaurants. Despite feeling like a bit of a failure, all was not lost. What I didn’t know then and I do know now is that over the following five years I would be lucky to have a succession of managers and bosses who would allow me almost complete creative freedom and the chance to develop. After spending over a year as a commis chef in a local pub, I moved on to a newly opened restaurant in Polzeath, Cornwall, called the Blue Tomato. I was 19. The aim was to improve my cooking and move up the ranks. Sadly, the kitchen turned out to be fully staffed, so I ended up working on the bar. There were only two bartenders in the operation and I was the lower- ranking one, so when the bar manager walked out after only two days of trading, I was immediately promoted. After less than a week of getting stuck into my new occupation, I was managing my first bar; my career as a cocktail bartender was off to a flying start!

The one major drawback to my promotion, however, was that I had no-one to show me the ropes. I was literally reading cocktails from specification sheets and making them for guests, on my own, for the first time. I was writing order sheets and shut-down procedures without templates, or, in fact, any certainty that order sheets and shutdown procedures were even a real thing! I didn’t know it at the time, but the 16 drinks that the restaurant owner had picked at random for the list could not have been a better selection of classic cocktails to cut my teeth on. Everything from the Martini, Manhattan, Julep, Old Fashioned and Whisky Sour were on there - all drinks that I still love to make and that are included in this book. One morning, I got to work early since I planned on making the entire list of drinks as a means of learning them off by heart. Two hours later, the bar looked like a bomb had hit it, but there were 16 perfectly presented drinks to show for it. My boss walked in and I remember her saying, ‘Well, I think we’ve found our cocktail bartender.’ Without that encouragement, I’m not sure I would have stuck at it.

And I must have been doing something right - the bar got busy and the drinks were received very well. All of my time became consumed with perfecting the cocktail list, researching new drinks and reading lots of cocktail books and bartending manuals. I started featuring a cocktail of the day, which, to begin with, were pulled out of Simon Difford’s original Sauce Guide to Cocktails(2001), but after around 18 months, and 500 cocktails later, I began creating my own cocktails and selling them instead. The buzz of conceiving, mixing and presenting a drink, then seeing someone enjoy it and maybe even order it again was an addictive feeling for me. I worked with the chefs in the kitchen to use unusual (at least for the time) ingredients, such as kaffir lime leaves and coriander and caraway in my drinks. I also began using boutique vodkas, specialist liqueurs and Japanese whiskeys (which were all but unheard of in the UK back then).

THE MIDDLE BIT

After two years and two busy summer seasons at the Blue Tomato, I was ready to move on. Fortunately, the fates had conspired and Jamie Oliver was set to open the third branch of his Fifteen restaurant chain in Watergate Bay, Newquay, a 30-minute drive away for me. I applied for the bar manager job, which was probably the top bartending job in Cornwall at the time, but might as well have been the top bartending job in the world at the time as far as I was concerned! After the interview, I phoned to make sure I had made the right impression and the job was offered to me there and then. I was incredibly excited to be working at such a high-profile venue along with, I assumed, other like-minded people. The project had cost around £1.5 million, and I’d have my own shiny new bar, complete with eager bar team and even more eager guests!

It turned out that the bar had been badly designed and that I didn’t actually have a team at all (just me again), but these were issues that I overcame over the opening months. After all, it’s challenges such as those that set you up for opening your own venues, which at that time was the most inconceivable of dreams. I pulled in a couple of friends who had worked for me at the Blue Tomato and we set about getting the drinks programme off the ground. The best thing about Fifteen was the access to incredible, locally sourced seasonal ingredients. After only five months, I had redesigned my initial cocktail list to include a selection of mostly original, seasonally inspired ingredients. I had use of a local forager who would furnish me with wild burdock, scurvy-grass, sea buckthorn and nettles, to name a few. The restaurant also sourced ingredients from nearby biodynamic producers, who supplied me with a whole range of edible flowers, including mallows and borage. I got obsessed with ingredients, provenance and organic produce, even to the point where I had my team manufacturing our very own ‘healthy’ soft drinks range, including cola, dandelion and burdock, ginger beer and lemonade. I also worked on food and drink pairing projects, developing dishes with the Fifteen chefs to match classic and contemporary cocktails. Furthermore, I developed a deep and abiding love for the world of coffee. Working closely with Origin Coffee in Cornwall, I trained and perfected my craft, which a few years later resulted in me harvesting, processing and roasting my own coffee from the Eden Project in Cornwall. In 2007 and 2008, I competed in the UK Barista Championships, being placed seventh and third respectively.

There was much more to learn on the cocktail side of things, but the late nights were getting the better of me (and my wife Laura). After two and a half years at Fifteen, I was offered a brand ambassador job at the world’s largest premium spirits producer Diageo. Many people told me I would be crazy to leave Fifteen. After all, I had managed to get Jamie Oliver to make one of my drinks on TV, and appeared on a few TV shows myself - fame and fortune were potentially just around the corner. But the new job would allow me to meet new people, learn and develop.

The job was quite an undertaking, since it meant that I would be training bartenders from some of the top bars in the UK. I remember anxiously asking Thomas Aske, a fellow brand ambassador (who would later become my business parter), how he handled the bartenders who were really clued up or knew more than he did. Thomas reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. I made sure of that fact by immersing myself in books on spirit production, flavour chemistry, cocktail history and history in general. I set about contacting distillers and archivists in order to equip myself with as much knowledge as possible, and I became more and more capable of answering even the most difficult questions posed by bartenders.

In my spare time, I began brewing beer and cider at home, and I transformed my garage into a distillery, complete with a 30-litre/8-gallon stainless steel still that I blew my first year’s bonus on. I put into practice my limited plumbing knowledge, gleaned from a previous summer job, and plumbed in cooling and heating circuits for my brewery/distillery setup. Meanwhile, I became a member of a beer-tasting panel at the then quite small Sharp’s Brewery in Rock, Cornwall, learning as much as I could from the Head Brewer, Stuart Howe, about yeast and fermentation science. During the same period, I was lucky enough to visit dozens of distilleries across the world, including facilities in France, Mexico, the Netherlands and Scotland, further improving my understanding of how spirits are made. I also began to tentatively investigate the hot topic of ‘molecular mixology’, a phrase that I later grew to hate!

From the start, I realized that combining forward-thinking gastronomic techniques with timeless, classic cocktails was going to be fun. It had the wonderful attraction of fusing science with history - bringing both the modern and the classical together, and allowing the drink to tell a richer story. What could be better? During that early inception period, many of the techniques, such as the often-abused foam and the over-applied spherification, were receiving criticism from the classical bartending fraternity, and I could see their argument. But for me, it always seemed obvious that many of the modern practices could work in harmony with classic cocktails without upsetting the DNA too much. All it required was the correct, sympathetic application.

One of the main things I took from my time as a brand ambassador was an understanding of bars in general. I trained at Michelin-starred restaurant bars, huge nightclubs, grand hotel bars, boutique hotel bars, dive bars, classic cocktail bars, pubs and pretty much any other type of bar you can think of. I got to see how they managed operations, what worked, what didn’t.

THE BEGINNING(AGAIN)

After two and a half years (see a pattern here?) at Diageo, I was ready to move on again. But this time it was different. My ever-understanding wife Laura and I would need to move out of Cornwall and up to London. It was time to open my own bar and, along with Thomas Aske (my former Diageo colleague), that’s exactly what we did.

Having been spectators for the years leading up to Purl’s opening, Thomas and I had seen some amazing drinks produced by some of the world’s best bartenders. A lot of those drinks had been presented during cocktail competitions, but few of the most fantastic cocktails made their way onto actual lists in bars. It seemed to us a shame that normal consumers never got a chance to try modern ritualistic drinks, or cocktails served in vintage glassware or original drinks with a real story behind them. We set about to put this right, and in opening Purl attempted to create a haven for cocktail lovers.

Purl was designed to be somewhere that oozed historical cocktail appeal, with nods to Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book,‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas and many other influences from across the years. Our first cocktail list was half classics done right, and half forward-thinking, ultra-modern drinks with all the techniques available at our disposal (a bit like this book, actually).

We took steps to ensure that we could produce these technically advanced drinks night after night. The bar turned into a kitchen with mise en place commencing in the late morning, hours before we were due to open. We had portable fish tank pumps fitted to all three stations (see page 49), cream whippers (see page 32) and soda siphons in speed rails, liquid nitrogen (see page 44) on tap and 10 kg/22 lb. of dry ice being delivered a day. We got through a 20-kg/45-lb. block of crystal-clear ice each day, hand cracking it with ice picks, and we upgraded our Hoshizaki ice machine three times to keep up with our ice requirements. Purl was a huge success and quickly became renowned as one of the top bars in the UK as a result of the theatricality, innovation and creativity of the cocktails we served.

Following Purl, we opened The Worship Street Whistling Shop in London’s Shoreditch, modelled on a Victorian gin palace and equipped with its very own lab for ingredient preparation and drinks development. Here, I worked closely with Ryan Chetiyawardana, developing new and exciting ways of unravelling and reconstituting cocktails at a molecular level. We built stills out of pressure cookers and glass funnels, used rotary evaporators (see page 52) to cold distill delicate ingredients and utilized all manner of acids, salts (see pages 27-29) and powdered ingredients in the quest for making the best drinks we possibly could.

This was a great time for me - it was like learning about cocktails for the first time again. I avidly began researching the science of flavour, from the compounds in food and drink that provide taste and aroma, right through to the human nervous system, multi-sensory flavour perception and the neuroscience of flavour. My research led me to the work of expert chemists, biologists, psychologists and flavour scientists such as Tony Blake, Charles Spence, Hervé This, Gordon Shepherd and Harold McGee.

My curiosity piqued, I inevitably started to conduct my own controlled experiments, too, furthering my understanding of the factors that affect cocktail enjoyment.

PRESENT DAY

This book aims to bring together the core values of what I believe makes a great cocktail. As with most subjects, we have to look back before we can look forward. The history and culture surrounding spirits and cocktails is as rich and diverse as any other topic you could care to mention. Much of my inspiration comes from days gone by, whether it be from the drinks themselves, the surroundings in which they were drunk, common folklore, anecdotes of the era or even something as simple as a glass that may be unique to the time. Combining the history with an eye on the science is the tricky part. Bartenders have long debated between the traditional way of doing things and the right way of doing things. How is it possible to retain the identity of a drink that may be over 100 years old while messing with its components in the pursuit of perfection? There are many drinks in this book that I have aimed to improve through the careful use of specially selected ingredients and techniques. The goal was to keep the function the same but to create a better user experience, employing all of the modern tools and materials available to me. Naturally, my idea of a perfected drink may be someone else’s nightmare; as with food, we all have our own unique flavour preferences born out of positive experiences in the past. Recreating those experiences is the key to meeting or exceeding expectations.

Some of the recipes in this book are long, but hopefully that won’t put you off reading and enjoying them. The aim is to take you, step by step, through the thought processes and (hopefully) leave very little to chance. I have certainly found over my career that understanding the little details gives you a greater view of the big picture. This book, unlike any other cocktail book, will delve into those details. It might be that you attempt to accurately recreate some of the recipes in the book - I’d love it if you did. Or it might be that you pick and choose the pieces that interest you or are relevant to one of your own drinks. Either way, I hope you find the information contained within these pages useful and inspiring.

Cheers!

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The book is broadly separated into three sections - techniques, recipes and a glossary of terms, equipment and suppliers. This is not a simple encyclopedia of recipes; it is in some parts a manual and in others a documentation of drinking history and the methods of a modern bartender.

The Techniques section covers all of the classic bartending practices, from how to stir a cocktail or select an ingredient, right through to clarifying fruit juices and using liquid nitrogen. Many of the subjects will be referred to within the Cocktails chapters, so you can use the Techniques pages as a reference.

The recipes are ordered according to spirit category - meaning that, for example, all of the vodka-based cocktails are grouped together. I have, however, also produced a flavour map of the drinks in this book (see pages 18-19). The map plots every classic cocktail to an axis of flavour, meaning that you can select which drink you would like to make based on a specific style of cocktail or occasion.

All of the cocktails in the book are grouped in pairs. Some of the drinks have been created specifically for the book, others began development almost a decade ago and some are among the first drinks that I ever made behind a bar (and are a great starting point for any amateur cocktail enthusiast). There are 33 classic drinks, with details on history, creators and recipes. Every one of these cocktails can easily be made at home with only a small selection of bar equipment (and sometimes even that isn’t required!). Each classic cocktail is paired with another drink, one that I have created myself based loosely on its classic counterpart. Some of these original cocktails have been deemed by me to be seriously advanced stuff, impossible to replicate without the necessary kit. I have included them, as they make fascinating reading for the amateur, and have provided enough details so that they may even be attempted by other bartender readers. These drinks are labelled ‘Mixology Impossible’.

Unless otherwise stated, each recipe makes one serving. You can, of course, double, triple or decuple (multiply by ten) the ingredients to create more - just make sure that all of the ingredients are treated equally! There is a handful of recipes that produce in excess of 20 servings, and this is due to the fact that they may need batching up and barrel or bottle ageing, or that they are traditionally served in a larger container, like a punch bowl.

Many of the recipes in this book also have subrecipes - a recipe within a recipe. More often than not, the sub-recipe will produce a large enough quantity for multiple individual servings of the finished cocktail, and I provide notes on storing these homemade ingredients. The recipes are listed in the order in which they need to be constructed. It’s always worth checking through all of the ingredients needed for every stage before you start. For example, the CL 1900 (see page 174) has three different elements that are made in the order that you need them - the 7X Flavour goes into the Cola Formula and the Cola Formula is used to make the finished drink.

As you are reading this book, it is a given that you will own the basic equipment - shaker, jigger, etc. Any specialist equipment that you may not have at home is flagged up in bold within the method, so you can see at a glance what you might need to complete the recipe.

FUNDAMENTALS

Even though this book contains some complicated recipes and advanced techniques, it is also designed to be used by the amateur home bartender or cocktail enthusiast. With this in mind, I have written this section, which covers the fundamental elements of the bar craft. So whether you’re picking up a shaker for the first time or you’re years into a bartending career, it’s possible that there’s something to learn in this section of the book. Enjoy!

BASIC EQUIPMENT

These days there are virtually no limits to the range and variety of bar equipment available to bartender and enthusiast. Contrary to what you might think, you really don’t need a lot of equipment to make great drinks. At least half of the drinks in this book can be produced with a cocktail shaker, mixing beaker, barspoon, jigger, strainer and ice only. If you want to give yourself a bit of a head start, I’d add a good set of digital scales (particularly if you want to experiment with some of my original variations), fruit peeler, decent knife and a large syringe. I have travelled the world with little more than the above items and still managed to knock together some crowd-pleasing cocktails when the circumstances required me to.

It’s easy to assume that the quality and price tag of your equipment will reflect the quality of your drinks. But we’re not building a house here; some of the techniques that the modern bartender uses can have complex elements, but most of the equipment we use to achieve them need not be such a high specification. Lemons and limes don’t have to be squeezed with a fancy geared citrus press (also known as a Mexican elbow), and instead of silver ice tongs, any combination of finger and thumb will suffice.

When bartending on shift at one of my bars, I will, of course, present drinks using the arsenal of tools available to me, as this is an important part of the theatre of the bar. But when making a tasty nightcap, illuminated only by the glow of the fridge door, you had best believe that I’ve called upon some unconventional equipment to achieve standard tasks. Below is a list of common bartending equipment and their uses.

BARSPOON

If you are going to spend some money on a nice piece of bar kit, let it be this. Barspoons come in a variety of lengths and breadths, and some have flat discs on the end, others have a kind of pitchfork and some have nothing at all.

The disc is designed to aid in floating liquids on top of one another. Many bartenders use it for muddling instead, but this is something I would not advise, having seen the effects of metal shattering the side of a highball glass.

The pitchfork end is somewhat of an anomaly. Logic would tell us that it’s for picking up olives or cherries etc., but in reality, it’s certainly not a replacement for a pair of tongs. Some Japanese bartenders (which is from where this type of spoon originates) have informed me that it is literally for visual effect, flashing light as the top of the spoon spins around.

JIGGER

Jiggers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but they all do the same thing - measure liquid. The size you go for is really a reflection of how big you like your drinks, since any cocktail can be made with any jigger (egg cup, thimble), as long as the ratios of the ingredients are kept the same.

The fashionable way to go at the time of writing is a double-ended cone-shaped jigger. One side will typically hold 50 ml/2 oz. and the other 25 ml/1 oz. There are, of course, smaller and larger versions to suit all drinks (some with smaller increments included inside) for adherence to local spirit measurement law enforcement.

Some bartenders prefer to use chef’s measuring spoons, a set of six or so common measures on a keyring. While these are excellent for accuracy, they are a little fiddly to use and to clean.

The best compromise is a couple of steel jiggers that have graded measurements on the inside. This should allow you to measure a whole range of quantities easily and accurately.

SHAKERS

Just like jiggers, shakers come in a lot of styles. If you can track down one of the books that documents shakers from different eras, you will undoubtedly be impressed, and perhaps even a little perplexed, with the variety of contraptions mankind has conceived for the simple practice of shaking ice and liquid together.

Nearly all modern shakers are made from stainless steel. Steel is a reasonably good material for a cocktail shaker, since it is inexpensive and doesn’t tarnish easily. Steel also has a lower thermal conductivity than copper, aluminium and silver, so it won’t cool down or heat up quickly. For a cocktail shaker, this is a good thing: it means that the chilling power of the ice is being used to chill the cocktail, not your shaker and the air around it. Using a shaker made from silver, copper or aluminium would do the opposite: much of the chilling power of the ice would be quickly absorbed into the shaker walls, ultimately resulting in slightly more dilution in the cocktail.

There are some metals that have recently been used to construct highly non-conductive shakers. Titanium is one of them, since it has around 1% of the conductivity of copper. At such a low level of conductivity, it almost behaves like an insulator. Titanium is also highly chemically resistant and highly resistant to corrosion. Obviously, there are associated expenses with buying a shaker made from expensive materials such as titanium, so you can expect to pay in the region of £150/$230 for one of those beauties! A plastic shaker would achieve even lower levels of thermal conductivity and cost a lot less. Perhaps the ultimate shaker, which to my knowledge doesn’t currently exist, would be made from styrene foam. Styrene foam is used commercially as an insulator, since it has virtually no thermal conductivity. You won’t look very cool with a plastic or styrene shaker, mind you!

The volume of the shaker may have some bearing on the degree of aeration and/or emulsification (where using surfactants or egg whites - see pages 48-51) that goes on, with larger shakers, having more air space, being the more effective at this. Obviously, larger shakers can also fit more drink in them, too, which is always a good thing in my book!

(See Ice, Shaking & Stirring, pages 22-26, for more advice on the relative pros and cons of different cocktail shakers and the science behind shaking and stirring drinks.)

MIXING BEAKER

Back when I first picked up a barspoon, mixing beakers were few and far between. Stirred drinks were generally made in the glass part of a Boston shaker, which is silly, because a Boston glass has no lip to pour from, so it meant that you had to pour quite quickly to avoid the drink flowing down the side of the glass!

These days there is a variety of mixing beakers available, ranging considerably in price. The two most important things when choosing a mixing beaker are how well it pours and how well it suits your stirring action, with the former being crucial, since stirring action can be adjusted but a poor beaker will never ever pour well.

Mixing beakers are generally constructed of glass or crystal. Recently, Japanese Yarai mixing beakers have become popular due to high-quality construction and good functionality. They do come at a high price, but hey, you only need to buy one.

Gallone (gallon) mixing glasses are also popular. Hand blown, they are made on the famous glass-producing island of Murano, near Venice, Italy. They are especially useful, as the lip curls over the top of the glass in a way that prevents ice from exiting the glass. This not only means that you can pour the liquid out without the use of a strainer, but you can also stir the drink by simply swirling the beaker - so no barspoon required either!

GLASSWARE

Even though you will see me write extensively about the importance of good-quality, relevant and varied service ware, if the truth be told, 90% of cocktails can be served in one of three glasses - the coupe, highball and old fashioned. Settle on a sensible-sized coupe that can handle both a tiny Martini or a shaken higher-volume drink like a Sidecar - 150 ml/5 oz. is usually about right. It won’t look like a half-full bucket when serving a Martini, and it won’t be full to the brim when mixing a Cosmopolitan. Your highball and old fashioned will usually be around the same volume, only one will be taller and more narrow (highball) and the other more squat and wider (old fashioned). Think about what drinks you like to make the most and consider which size will suit them. I’m a fan of sticking to a glass that fits the need, rather than shopping around and varying the collection.

All that said, I have been known to quite contentedly consume cocktails from tea cups, egg cups or mixed directly back into the bottle. If the drink tastes good, it tastes good; most often the service ware is there only to improve the experience and enhance the environment. If that environment is a camping trip, then why not drink a Manhattan from an enamel camping mug - what vessel could possibly be better suited?

For chilled cocktails, the glasses should always be chilled before use. Serving a cold cocktail in a room-temperature glass is like serving a curry on a cold plate - the food cools down a lot quicker, and likewise, a drink will warm up a lot quicker. Ideally, use glasses directly from a freezer.

You can also chill glasses on the fly by adding a few lumps of ice and some water, then quickly stirring for a minute or so. Taking the time to ensure the glass is at the correct temperature can have a profound effect on your guests’ drinking experience.

INGREDIENTS

All ingredients are equal, but some are more equal than others. While some cocktails require highly specific brands or styles in them, most of the time the exact product that you choose won’t be of critical importance. It’s a common understanding that a cocktail is only as strong as its weakest link, but in reality not all links in the chain are of equal size or importance.

Take a Dry Martini, for example; the gin is an important consideration, as it is at the forefront of the flavour profile, so a little more care in selection is required. In a cocktail such as the Negroni, however, where the gin battles against far more powerful flavours than that of dry vermouth in the Dry Martini, there is clearly less need to be fastidious about the brand of gin. In fact, unless you’re using a gin with wildly extreme botanicals, or one that tastes bad, in all likelihood your Negroni will taste nice with most brands of gin. I liken it (like a lot of things) to cooking. If you’re making spaghetti alla Bolognese, for example, the exact cut of minced/ground beef is not as important as the quality of the pasta or tomatoes, or the cooking time. If you’re grilling a steak, however, the cut of beef becomes a very important factor. Which is more important in a Bloody Mary - the brand of vodka or the quality of the tomato juice? (See pages 106-109.)

What I’m trying to say here is that in most cases it’s ok to select a single brand from each of the main spirit categories (vodka, gin, rum, tequila, whisky, bourbon, Cognac) and stick with it for the majority of your cocktail making. This practice will save you a lot of space and expense, and ensure that your spirit cupboard or back bar doesn’t contain a bunch of dusty, neglected bottles. My main piece of advice is that you make sure you pick one that is versatile, of a premium quality and pleasing to drink neat. In this book I will usually stick to one or two brands of booze for each category, but I will also point out any drinks where I believe that a specific style, age or brand of liquor is required. This is most relevant to the rum category where the cocktails are as diverse as the rum category itself.

Likewise, with the dry or fresh products listed in this book, sometimes I will emphasize a need for quality, but in understanding an ingredient’s contribution to the drink, you should get a fair idea of how important the ingredient’s quality and, where relevant, style is to the final outcome.

THE SCIENCE OF FLAVOUR

There’s a lot going on when you take a sip of that Martini. Tongue, mouth, nose, eyes and even ears work in harmony to glean every ounce of relevant information about the drink that you’re sipping on. In fact, flavour is among the most complex perceptions created by our brains. Let us first see a description of how flavour is produced, taken from the 1825 book Physiologie du Goût (‘The Physiology of Taste’) by flavour psychologist Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin:

Man’s apparatus of the sense of taste has been brought to a state of rare perfection; and, to convince ourselves thoroughly, let us watch it alt work.

Gs soon as an edible body has been put into the mouth, it is seized Upon moisture, and all, without of retreat.

Lips stop whatever might try to escape; the teeth bite and break it; saliva drenches it; the tongue mashes and churns it; a breathlike sucking pushes it toward the gullet; the tongue lifts up to make it slide and slip; the sense of smell appreciates it as it passes the nasal channel, and it is pulled down into the stomach (...) without a single atom or drop or particle having been missed by the powers of appreciation of the taste sense.

It’s common knowledge that as much as 80% of flavour is deciphered by the nose, not the mouth. This is mostly true, though it’s difficult to quantify exactly how much the nose does in comparison to all the multi-sensory inputs that the brain utilizes. The brain’s ability to combine taste, touch and smell into a unified flavour image is called synaesthesia.

SMELL

Much of this ‘flavour mapping’ work is conducted through retronasal smell, that is ‘backward’ smell, through the back of the nose. As we gargle, swill, masticate and swallow, tiny aromatic molecules only visible on an atomic level are exhaled up through the throat and out of the nose. As they pass through the nasal passage, they come into contact with the olfactory epithelium - the nose’s direct hard-wire to the brain. The olfactory epithelium sends minute signals to the olfactory bulb, which converts signals into a smell image, the main component of flavour.

Contrary to whatever bad publicity you may have heard about the human sense of smell, it is truly an incredible thing - better, in fact, than even the most advanced molecule-detecting equipment that our brains have been able to devise.

TASTE

Taste and the palate also play an important role in flavour perception. Taste begins with taste buds, a collection of sensory cells, each with fine hairs that respond to stimuli. Taste buds are located within the tiny visible folds on the surface of the tongue, known as papillae. The different receptors in taste cells detect five primary tastes - salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury-like taste common in tomatoes, soy sauce and Parmesan cheese). These tastes are detected all over the tongue, though some areas have higher concentrations of specific receptors. Signals are sent to the brain for processing, along with other sensory input.

The tongue and mouth also conduct the important role of detecting mouthfeel. Although more relevant to eating than drinking, mouthfeel can have a profound effect on our appreciation of cocktails. Mouthfeel is not a wholly understood science, but it is known to include such sensory submodalities as touch, pressure, temperature and pain, each of which affect the image of flavour in different ways. Ever noticed how flat cola and fizzy cola taste different? That’ll be the pain receptors in your mouth altering the flavour image when triggered by the tickling of CO2 gas in the bubbles.

VISION

In the most basic way, our eyes tell us whether something will fit into our mouths, and whether or not it’s likely to hurt us. But going deeper, the way that a drink looks plays a huge part in how we determine its flavour. I’m not just talking about pretty garnishes (although they do help), but fundamental things such as colour, size, glassware and temperature indication (frost, steam). My favourite experiment, which I have conducted on more than a few occasions, is feeding someone blue tomato juice (made by agar-agar clarification and blue food colouring - see pages 41-42). Even though the taste and aroma have not been altered at all, most subjects fail to recognize the drink simply because the colour has no relevance to the fruit. Once a lady that I gave blue tomato juice to told me that it tasted like laundry fluid - clearly she was heavily influenced by the bright blue colour.

SOUND

Even sound has an important part to play in the discovery of flavour. The French playwright Molière described in his 1666 play, The Doctor in Spite of Himself,the sound of wine as ‘glouglou’:

How sweet from you, My bottle true;Haw sweet from you, Your little glouglou.

And it is true that red wine has an entirely unique sound over other liquids. The ‘gloug-gloug’ sound of wine as we swallow is the muscle activity in our throats processing red wine’s unique texture. The sound of ice clinking in a cocktail shaker or a stream of liquid flowing into a martini glass should not be underestimated as important elements of the overall drinking experience.

OTHER FACTORS