Fragments: on mixology

I'm in the process of putting together a training session on cocktails and mixology. It should - hopefully - fit into our standard 2 hour session format, and it follows six weeks of spirits and liqueur product knowledge. Here's a couple of excerpts from the work in progress.

There's a difference between making cocktails and creating cocktails. The toolkit is the same - techniques, ingredients, and ingredients - but the name of the game is pattern recognition.

...

Disappointingly, it's so improbable that anyone can do anything genuinely groundbreaking outside of current toolset as to be indistinguishable from impossible. So, what then? Well, let's start playing with our tools.

It's quite simple, really

(Via Martini Groove.)

On wine

I've been tasked with presenting a wine training course at work in a couple of weeks time. With that in mind, I decided that I should put some effort into discovering more about wine - y'know, expanding my knowledge so that the sessions don't seem like I've copied them from a book. Here's what I've learned so far: Wine fucks you up.

The enemy

Sure, they come in a tasteful glass bottle, just like some kind of prohibitively expensive seaweed facial scrub. They're all kinds of pretty pastel colours, but don't let that fool you. These pre-mixes from Stirrings have as much relation to cocktail making as tabloid newspapers do to actual news.

SATC Soirée: The Cocktails (via Tastespotting)

If there's lessons to be learned

A while back, the massed ranks of bartending glitterati at the Barbore Speakeasy had a discussion about mistakes made while working. I'd include a direct link, but they've just updated their software and I can't find it. That and I didn't really look for one. You'd have found out the truth sooner or later. Anyway, one poster mentioned that while running a bar at an MTV Awards show in Australia, one of his charges had prepped up a bunch of mojitos with coriander instead of mint. He goes on to explain that a spot of crushed ice and an apple juice float saved the day.

Just to be contrary, I'm not sure I'd class that as a mistake. It's a great save, for sure - it could've gone so very, very wrong but it didn't. Let's put that one under in the pile marked Opportunity - right after Jennings Cox running out of gin. If bartenders didn't make mistakes and create workarounds to overcome them, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun working in bars.