A drink target could involve an objective property of the drink being designed: flavor (spice, citrus, basil), glass-type (cocktail, highball, solo cup), color (red, clear, orange), garnish-use (onion, brussel sprouts, licorice)… really anything that describes some aspect of the drink.

Another drink target could be a concept, feeling, or vibe that the drink should impart.  This type of criteria is trickier because it is inherently more subjective, but it is often my most effective method when mixing for those I know and love the most.  Since I’m a home mixologists, most of my guests are in this category.

As an example of designing a drink by feeling, I have two recipes for the same feeling.  The two recipes are nice because they illustrate differences of interpreting the same mandate, and because one is simple, the other complex.

EE said to me one Thursday, when making omelettes – something she’s very, very good at –  ”I’d like a drink that tastes like herbs, like in Provence.”  Nevermind that neither of us have been to France outside Paris.  I thought I got the idea: fields of lavender, soft skies, not too sweet, not too anything. 

In my head, at least, I saw something like this:

Fields of Provence, with lavender flowertops and soft light, is a good example of a concept or feeling a drink can seek to capture.

The result was the light and relatively simple:  

Flowertops:

Ingredients

1 lavender-infused gin

1/2 Dolin blanc vermouth

1/3 St. Germain’s elderflower liqueur

5 drops lemon bitters

couple leaves of mint

Shake vigorously.  Serve up.  Garnish with a flower, piece of fresh lavender, or any herb you have around (you know, make it pretty).

Unfortunately (but not that unfortunately, as come on, we’re talking about mixology here), this isn’t what EE had in mind.  She refined her request by saying, “No, no, it needs to be red and yellow too!  Like a tablecloth.”  She was thinking of vibrant, Provence-style linens, and of something much more earthy.  Ah!  Got it.  The concept of rich, aromatic soil is a much more challenging flavor, because it is quite complex. 

The Provence-style linens EE was thinking of, to complement her omelettes.

Still Provence, but more earth, and red soil - the Terroir.

The result was a drink that got high marks for meeting the desired target, and for just being a great drink:

Terroir de Provence (Cheesy name, yes, but there are enough ingredients to merit the grandiosity.  As I say, I’ve never been there, so there’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek involved in this whole project):

Ingredients:

1 lavender-infused gin

1/2 sweet vermouth

1/2 St. Germain’s elderflower liqueur

1/3 basil-infused bourbon

1/3 Bols genever

splash of brandy

whisper of dill-infused vodka

a little freshly grated ginger

Stir.  Serve up with an herbal garnish (EE voted for a rosemary sprig).

Two great drinks (Flowertops for me, Terroir for EE) to accompany a simple meal at home. 

Bon apetit.

My grandparents’ home bar, off their living room.  (Entrance in the hallway. No doorknob – pull the painting) Midland, Texas

I can’t honestly say that my grandparents’ home bar inspired my mixology habit from the time I was a child (most of the time its crystal-lined shelves were simply a liability as we ran around the house), but it has always been my standard of the sweetest addition to a living room.  Separated from the living room by a shining stainless counter and hidden door, their bar was always a mysterious land of adult-things.  At this point, it strikes me as simply awesome.

Why is this relevant?

Because this Christmas (like most Christmases of my childhood), I’m hanging out at my grandparents’ house in Midland, Texas.  And because I want to inspire people with a variety of home bar styles (my way is not the only way), I will be conducting home bar/mixology station tours periodically.  Hopefully these tours will show a range of home mixology styles.  If you want your station featured, invite us over!

Now, if you’re not familiar with Midland, Texas, it does have a lot of the attributes you might imagine: oil rigs, ranch houses, Suburbans, more than a few people in Western hats and boots, tumbleweed, mesquite, and – my favorite part – a big, wide open sky.

My Granddad was kind enough to give me a quick tour of the bar – and more importantly, to share a little of his cocktail-drinking history, from age 12 to present.  Things were different in his childhood home in southern Louisiana back then:

Another view of the bar.  My Grandfather was the artist’s model in the painting next to it.

A little more detail on the bar and the home cocktail lifestyle it was created for:

When my Grandparents built their home in 1976, they entertained frequently, and they still do.  Their entertaining is a mix of informal and family events, as well as structured dinner clubs, bridge clubs, and other such social clubs that thrive in a place where restaurants just aren’t a big deal.  Wine was less common, and most of their entertaining would involve liquor-based drinks.  Given the circs, a decent bar was a natural feature to include in the design.  My Grandmother now thinks the architect and designer may have gone a bit overboard (that a simpler mixing station along the wall would be sufficient), but she brushed aside offers to include shutters so the bar could be hidden from “churchy friends and pastors.”  She figured since they were certainly going to serve alcohol, people may as well see where it came from.  Lesson: don’t hide your bar away!  Let it shine!

The drinks of the day were simpler mixes than many of the drinks commonly featured on this blog: whiskey with water or Coke, vodka and 7Up, Crown Royal on the rocks.  Though they did have a friend named Gus who made his own martinis.  Guests were encouraged to mix their own drinks.  Interestingly, rum wasn’t very common, despite my image of tiki drinks being popular during the era.  One favorite, though was frozen margarita mixes (the kind in a cardboard-wrapped can that comes frozen).  I think I would have followed Gus’s lead.

Bertessa with his Granddad in the home bar.

(And yes, with any luck, I will look just like him in  about 50 years.)

Coordinated variations on a strong milieu are good for any party, whether at a home, a restaurant, or somewhere bigger and grander.  The Plaza’s setup allowed for a calmer, well-lit, introductory space with gorgeous architecture in which to have a drink and settle in.  Guests could then move up to a darker, swanky lounge and nightclub atmosphere – complete with a bar made out of ice!

Did the ice bar really add a lot?  Was it worth reviving memories of sea-sickness in cruise ship casinos?  I’m not sure, but it definitely beats the perfunctory folding table covered with cheap white linens.

The ice-encased cocktail menu atop the bar made of ice

I had high hopes for the home of the fabled Oak Room (which I like extra because they have a website background similar to ours here), not to mention of ELOISE.  I was a bit disappointed, but the mixology was definitely a step in the right direction.  There was a cocktail menu (encased in ice) – a clear sign that someone’s heart is at least in the right place.  The menu tended toward the sweet, vodka, and champagne.  None of these are my thing.  No worries, they had a full bar, so you could call your drinks, almost.

If you, gentle reader, should soon find yourself with the task of negotiating a hotel bar package:

It is unfortunate that even the home of such a great bar can’t pass my simple dive-bar sizing test with their party bar package.

In classic “full bar package” fashion, there was plenty of great booze, but no liqueurs, bitters, digestifs, aperitifs, fresh fruits or juices.  One of the bars managed to not have dry vermouth (they were very ashamed of that, to be fair).  I don’t believe that hotels should be allowed to sell bar packages without guaranteeing at least a bottle of Angostura bitters.  This one correction would open a world of simple classics any bartender should be able to make.  Imagine what would happen with the introduction of Campari.

This is the kind of detail over which to get serious.

Brides, grooms, and mother-in-laws to-be, listen up! Bertessa says: Bitters and Campari at the bar(s) = better than flowers in the bathroom.  Not that they were present at my my own reception (the Campari, not the flowers – which were most certainly there).  But I have since gotten a little bit older and a whole lot wiser, maybe…

For all the shortcomings of hotel bar packages, it is fun to see more people wandering around with martini glasses (even when filled with green apple martinis – I was really shocked to see that early ’00s trend) than beer bottles.  We are heading the right direction.  And the Plaza is a sweet place to party.

Why I love this Austrian restaurant SO much is a little mystifying to me.  Maybe it is because I once had a blissful weekend skiing in Austria?

Maybe it’s because I love EE in Wolfords?

Austrian hosiery rules. (EE agrees.)

Actually, I think I like the elegant, simple style and high functionality.  These things come through in the food and drink – they’ve got you covered, but nothing overwhelms. 

Anyway, we started with cocktails while waiting…

I had a Fig Manhattan, which was a really good idea.  They infused bourbon with fig, made a Manhattan with it, and then garnished with half a fig.  I wouldn’t have thought to put fig in a Manhattan, but the sweet earthiness worked perfectly.

WOW! Teaches me not to be ashamed of taking pictures in restaurants!  It’s hard to find an attractive picture of a fig… 

They do look better in Manhattans, I promise.

The ladies had Aperol Sours, which were simple (and apparently very much enjoyed) combinations of Aperol, lemon juice, and sugar.

What impressed me most about the Wallse cocktail menu is that it was relatively short, at about eight drinks, but represented a wide range of flavor profiles.  From their Peppar Tomato (like the essence of a Bloody Mary – lovely if you want to kick your brunch up a notch), to Fig Manhattans, to Aperol Sours…  I consider this a nice change from the many restaurants with lots of drinks relying on the same or similar ingredients, and having a similar taste.  Additionally, all of the drinks were pretty simple in terms of ingredients, which allows patrons to anticipate what’s coming and receive their drinks quickly.

Finally, we had wine with the meal.  I don’t normally write about wine because plenty of others do, but this was notable.  Wallse’s wine list is all (or close enough to all) Austrian wine.  We chose the cheapest Pinot Noir-equivalent because the waiter recommended this section of the list.  It was spectacularly tasty – a perfect combination of fruit, bite, earthiness, etc.  Lange leben österreichischen Wein!  Specifically this stuff:

Weingut Brundlmayer
St. Laurent. (Type of grape)
Ried Ladner 2003

Prost!

Cranberry-infused Gin with Tonic (plus some squirrel candles)

EE and I are uber-excited to be hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year!  Because we live far from our families, and because I’m working on Friday, we are staying in Manhattan.  This will be our first chance to see the parade, and our first major holiday together without the presence of relatives.  (Relatives that may be reading this: we are very sad not to see you.)  To make the best of the situ, we have teamed up with pals to build a guest list that is an ideal mix of friends, friendly colleagues, relatives of guests, and people we haven’t met.  I’m particularly fond of the last guest category as having people who I’ve never met at the table seems very in keeping with the sharing and giving themes of the holiday.

The most surprising aspect of planning for this Thanksgiving has been the manner in which people seriously consider the invitation to come over.  We kept hearing, “Sounds great, but I’ll only come if I can make and bring X, Y, and Z.”  This response has been a huge relief, because I’m not pressured to provide people with the special dish they associate with giving thanks.  For my part, I love the traditional Thanksgiving spread: turkey (ours is a bronze heritage bird raised on pasture upstate by Wendy), stuffing (I’m making oyster stuffing with my Grandmother’s recipe), pie (I can’t bake to my own standards - luckily others are providing this), etc.

The one aspect of the feast that isn’t embedded in any childhood traditions: a concept of perfect Thanksgiving cocktails.  This is an amazing opening for the home mixologist, and I’ve been working on ways to fill the void.

A few general principles I’ll be mixing by:

1. Have fun
2. Don’t judge; serve people what they want
3. Honor the season, somehow
4. If not the season, a well-worn concept of the Thanksgiving holiday

There are some challenges to consider:

1. Large groups
2. Diversity – just because you may be related, doesn’t mean you like the same drinks
3. Long time-periods (waiting for the turkey to cook)
4. Crowded kitchens

Some tactics I’ll be trying:

1. Infusion – easily (I promise, see below) handles principles 3 or 4.  An infusion allows a novel drink without too many ingredients to mix.
2. Long drinks – they’ll help people keep pace, be refreshed, and stay out of the kitchen.

Cranberry-infused Gin & Tonic

Infuse the gin

Buy some raw cranberries.  Take a jar, fill 1/8 with cranberries, just cover the cranberries with gin and muddle (basically just pop most of the cranberries).  Fill jar with gin.  Leave overnight to 24 hours.  Strain out the cranberries.

Use the infusion to make a Gin and Tonic as described here, but garnish with frozen cranberries instead of lime.

Refresher course on making a Tessin Gin & Tonic

Turkey Carver

Ingredients

1 Bourbon

1/4 Maraschino liqueur

1/8 Fernet Branca

1/8 Kahlua

Squeeze lemon juice

Stir the ingredients in a tall glass filled with ice and top with tonic.

Kitchen Commander

Ingredients

1 Rum (whatever you’ve got)

1/2 Stone’s Ginger

1/4 Cointreau

a few cranberries (frozen or otherwise)

Shake (have to break down the cranberries a bit).  Pour in a tall glass filled with ice.  Top with sparkling water.  Garnish with frozen cranberries.

160 Degrees (or Is The Turkey Ready?)

Ingredients

1 Bourbon

3/4 Stone’s Ginger

1/3 Pimms

dash Anisette

2 drops Peychaud bitters

Stir, strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lemon twist.

160 Degrees

Of course, wine will be served with the meal, but I’ll leave wine blogging to others.  Hopefully some of these drinks may inspire a cocktail or two at your festivities this week!

Some fun pics of the squirrels (they are way too fun; I can’t wait to light them):

I’d settle for aeroplanes having cocktail shakers, but I wouldn’t mind an aeroplane shaker…

I’m not exactly a frequent flier, and I don’t usually drink when I fly, but an overnight trip to Chicago gave me the opportunity to see what I could do with American’s coach beverage selection.  Since American also has wi-fi onboard, I can also write this blog (very awesome except that the people next to me get a sneak peak).

Making drinks in coach is no easy feat.  An evaluation of the circs:

Ingredients

• surprising range of basic liquors
• multitude of  high fructose corn syrup-based mixers
• citrus in tiny chunks (though I’ve never seen such tiny pieces of lime elsewhere)

Obstacles (freshness and quality complaints about the mixers aside) – lack of…

• Vermouths
• Liqueurs
• Bitters
• Hardware (mixers, muddlers, strainers)
• Garnishes (beyond those little citrus chunks).

On the big plus side, the flight attendants are way more accommodating than I feel they should be.  Their primary responsibility is passenger safety, they have a lot of people to serve, and yet they will humor some dude asking for random drink ingredients.

I understand that they don’t have room for everything on that cart, but really, just a little vermouth would open up a whole range of possibilities.  I’m sort of shocked that they haven’t started selling little martini sets in plastic shakers.  For $10 you could get a little souvenir shaker that comes with  gin and a tiny packet of vermouth.  They could provide the ice and a twist from the cart.  Some airlines are venturing into this realm, but my trip is for business, and hence getting where I need to go, on time, was my main consideration.

While the TSA’s 3-1-1 rule would easily allow for a baggie with ample liquor and vermouth to make drinks, we’re having fun here, not being weirdos.  Aside: EE preemptively forbade me from carrying around my own bitters, as some do with Tabasco, pepper mills, and artificial sweetener - actually not something I had thought of, and not a bad suggestion.

Drinks On A Plane – What I Came Up With

• Scotch & Ginger Ale.   I made this on the way out, last night, using Dewar’s white label, Canada Dry, and lime.
  1. Pour 1/3 the scotch over ice
  2. Top with Ginger ale
  3. Squeeze some lime
  4. Stir
  5. Repeat until the scotch runs out
  6. Resist the urge to drink the remaining ginger ale – it isn’t a good chaser

• Gin & Cranberry.   A classic.  I made it on my flight coming home tonight, using gin, cranberry, and lime.
  1. Fill 1/3 the glass with gin
  2. Top with cranberry juice
  3. Squeeze lime
  4. Stir
  5. Maintain the 1/3 gin, 2/3 juice ratio

Of course many other classics are possible on a plane:

• Gin & Tonic – always possible, but typically lacking enough gin to tonic.  An ideal situation, when traveling with 2 people, is to get 3 little gins and 1 tonic to make a drink for each of you.   For whatever reason, this feels more right to me on a train.  A discrete trip to the snack car and a return with 2 little G&Ts is a very sweet gesture, or so I’ve been told.
• Rum & Coke – debatable as to its classic cocktail merits, but it is definitely a good way to go if you just caught a flight for warmer climes.

Maybe I’ll be more prepared with ideas when I start my holiday travels.  Maybe there’s a reason I tend to abstain on planes.

If you’ve ever been to a Mexican food restaurant, then you should be familiar with the margarita.  Anyone who has lived in Texas for any period of time should be familiar with this simple masterpiece.  Falling into both camps myself, I am very familiar with the margarita. Very.

Here’s the good news: margaritas are simple and customizable.  I truly don’t believe there is one specific way to rock the rita (but there are some wrong ways).  We all have different tastes, and indulging our individual tastes is part of why home mixology is so fun.

Sadly, I am disappointed in most restaurant margaritas.  They normally contain artificial sour mix, which honestly grosses me out (high fructose corn syrup plus citric acid just isn’t lime juice).  But whatever, if that’s your thing, or the place you go makes them with real ingredients, then more power to you.

The frozen branch of the margarita family doesn’t happen to be most appealing to me, though I’ll allow they play an important role in warmer climes.  I think frozen ones are best when they’re from one of those big stirring machines, which is not commonly done at home.  You can rent one (which I’ve done), or you can buy one from Sur La Table, but you risk causing the nation’s economic collapse.

Furthering the need to make margaritas at home: regrettably, not all parts of the world offer convenient Mexican restaurant options.  We faced this situation living in London, and I hear from a trusted source that Israel has the same issue.  But most parts of the world do provide access to the ingredients you need to make your own.

One way not to customize a margarita is by adding aloe vera juice to the mix.

blechhh

I read about all these possible health benefits of drinking aloe juice, and thought I’d give it a try.  My adventurousness was ill-considered.  The liquid smells like Bactine, and I can’t tell you what it tastes like, because it was far too nasty to keep in my mouth long enough for my mind to work out a description.  I got a bit down, but I don’t feel any better for having done so.  EE actually spit it out. 

I had thought aloe might play well with a margarita by being a relative of the agave plant (they’re both in the order Asparagales).  I was wrong.  Nothing could play well with aloe.

Agave (l) and Aloe (r) seemed similar enough to be good together.

Luckily, a classic margarita was able to right my wrong.  Margaritas have always been common around here, but I’ve recently been making a lot of Ginger Margaritas.  They have a little more zip, but don’t lose the beautiful balance inherent in a margarita.

How can you share in this bounty? Like so:

Ingredients

1 tequila (pick it yourself; everyone has a different taste)

3/4 Domaine de Canton’s ginger liqueur

1 lime’s juice

Combine in a glass and stir with a few pieces of ice.  Fill glass with ice.  Garnish with wedge of lime.

The classic margarita simply replaces the ginger liqueur with orange liqueur (Cointreau is probably most classic, but I’ll allow that Grand Marnier is common as well).  I’ve made one here:

As stated above, ritas are customizable.  If you want it up, serve it up.  If you want it on the rocks, serve it on the rocks.  If you want salt, add salt.  If you want it frozen, serve it frozen.  If you want it sweeter, add more Cointreau.  If you’re into tequila, use more tequila.  If you don’t care about tequila, use cheap tequila.  If you’re making for others, give it the way they like it.

Margaritas rock.

* P.S.: Mad props to Sur La Table for embracing the South Park episode and linking to it from the Margaritaville machine page

Ingredients

1 Gin (typically Sapphire)

0.9 Aperol

0.7 Cointreau

The absurd measurements above are not because the drink requires that much precision.  I’m just saying:

As much gin as you want

A little less Aperol than gin

A little less Cointreau than Aperol

Combine in a shaker and shake!  May be served up or on the rocks.

Problem: bars don’t have Aperol.

Solution: substitute Campari.

Ingredients (BAR VERSION)

1 gin

1 Campari

1 Cointreau

When out on the town, transform the drink a bit by asking for equal parts gin, Campari, and Cointreau.  The Campari is more bitter, but the extra Cointreau counteracts it.  Overtime, people who started out disliking Campari will grow to enjoy it.  At that point they will be ready for the Negroni – a classic so spectacular everyone should be able to enjoy one.

I was Dick Tracy for Halloween in second grade.  I had style.

Since then, honestly, Halloween has not been my best holiday.  I’ve never gotten arrested, beaten-up, or improperly drunk.  Maybe it’s for the lack of such events that I’ve found Halloween a bit of a let-down.

Luckily I now have a blog, and blogs can fix anything.  How might Tessin Rinpoche pull this off?  I have as many option as a super-hero’s tool-belt (yeah, blogs are just as awesome as yellow belts over spandex), but I’m only dealing with one of them today: the Vampire’s Tan.

Maisie the Halloween cat guarding a Vampire's Tan

Ingredients

1 white rum

3/4-1 Stone’s

3/4 Aperol

1/3 Cointreau

dash Peychaud

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and shake!  Alternately, if making pitchers, feel free to just stir like crazy.  Serve it up or on the rocks.  Garnish with a piece of black licorice.

Why this is a great Halloween Drink:  It…

1. is orange – people can find it through the eyeholes of their masks
2. tastes good – almost swillable, but not quite so lethal as the Nevermake
3. is resilient – you can just pour it into whatever receptacle you have handy
4. is orange – yet it doesn’t use orange juice, which is typically yellowish anyway
5. uses white rum – a special request from a bride with wedding rum to burn (but not BURN)
6. has a cool name – people have to ponder it a bit (ok, maybe only dorks like me will think it’s a good name)

All in all, I think this is a great, simple winner.  The only downside is that it may be a bit much for a long party, especially if people need to drive home.  This is Halloween, though, so driving is a bad idea no matter what.  You can solve this simply by partying with your neighbors (they’ll be wearing masks anyway – you can pretend they’re your normal friends).

Cheers,

Count Poche

EE and I attended the Employees Only “Tales From Behind the Bar” seminar.  It was spectacular.  Jason and Dushan told the entire EO tale, which they punctuated by serving drinks relevant to particular points in EO’s history (drink-making was assisted by Steve and Vince).  In all, we ended up being served six* drinks (ok, seven, but only because we hung out and sweet-talked Steve).

First we had a vintage recipe Manhattan:

Bourbon (Maker’s)

Vermouth

Grand Marnier

Bitters

After a bit of Manhattan (or the whole thing for the guy next to me), we were onto the EO Provencale:

Lavender Infused Plymouth Gin

Herbs de Provence-Infused Vermouth

Cointreau

Had some Provencale (guy on next stool got it all down again), and it was time for a Mata Hari:

Courvoisier VS

Chai-Infused Vermouth

Fresh Squeezed Pomegranate Juice

I didn’t really like the Mata Hari.  I think I dislike pomegranate juice (guy next to me apparently does like pomegranate juice – he got it all down again).  EE thinks that the next drink was the Billionaire Cocktail:

Bakers Bourbon

Lemon juice

Homemade Grenadine

Absinthe Bitters

I don’t remember much of the Billionaire, assuming EE is correct that we had it (and guy next to us had it all – maybe he drank mine?), but more importantly, all previous drinks were then eclipsed.  We received the most amazing drink of the day, a Gimlet:

Gin

Lime Cordial

I’ll explain the Gimlet’s magnificence more a bit later (guy next to me seemed to enjoy all of it as well – I had to join him for the Gimlet), but we were then refreshed with the final cocktail, whose name I do not know.  This drink is supposedly new and recently invented by one of the apprentice bartenders who was not present.  It might have been called a Quiet Storm (I got up to use the WC at the point they introduced it).  Regardless, it was great.  It involved ginger beer and seemed like a relative of a Pimm’s Cup.  Look for it on the EO menu.

That’s a wrap!  We mulled about sipping and chatting.  But this is a bar, and chatting led to discussions on drink-making, which led to EE asking about scotch-based cocktails.  Naturally, a sample had to be produced.  The currently trendy (at least based on Twitter) Blood and Sand resulted.  I liked it, EE didn’t, but not my favorite way to drink scotch.  I just don’t like OJ.

A bit more on the Gimlet.  I’ve had gimlets; I’ve made gimlets.  Gimlets were always a somewhat lame combination of gin and lime juice, if the maker was snobby about fresh ingredients, or gin and Rose’s if not.  Apparently, that’s not what gimlets were meant to be.  EO created a lime cordial that does not exist in the market currently, but was commonly made back when the gimlet was born.  The lime cordial has bite from using the peels of the limes in addition to the juice.  The EO Gimlet was a truly revolutionary cocktail experience.  Luckily for all us sinners, EO is going to be releasing a line of products for public consumption – they’re including the lime cordial.  I’m just hoping it gets to stores before my graciously gifted little home stash runs out.

MCC was not all tastings and history, though!  There was a bar at the Astor Center where everyone gathered from the various tastings and seminars at different bars around town.  Anyone who attended could have sampled the aformentioned lime cordial in some of the drinks on offer.  The MCC bar and Astor Center were lovely, but cocktail hour just isn’t the same following an afternoon of cocktails.  It seemed like we weren’t the only ones who had been cocktailed-out, but I think it would have been great to go back to Astor Center today for the party.

Overall, the event was spectacular and I encourage anybody who can to attend in the future.  Jason and Dushan’s talk also helped me refine my Theory of the Cocktail a bit.  They reinforced my ideal that drinking should be fun, and that a large part of the fun is bringing new creations into the world.  This seems obvious, but it’s not.  As soon as I started paying more attention to my fellow mixologists I started seeing lists of drinks “every bartender should know.”  While it’s true that a bartender should know those drinks (I do like being able to order and know what I’ll get), I don’t think the rest of us should know them.  We should make things we like for the joy of creation – an idea I have now embedded in the Theory.

So why do I write the blog if everyone should make their own drinks?  Inspiration.  Standing on the shoulders of giants (EO, not me) and all that jazz.

Have fun.

* There is some debate as to how many drinks were served, the order of those drinks, and in what glasses they were served.  EE is probably correct, but it’s hard to say – I mean there were more than five for sure.