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Monday, October 27, 2014
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Gin
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| Because it is the only thing you ever need. |
At Bistro 63 at the Monkey Bar, we have nineteen different gins. Gin is, and this is a directly used phrase in almost every literature I have ever seen on proper bartending, the quintessential cocktail ingredient. Without gin, there is no bar. For comparison, we have only 7 vodkas, and half of those are infusions or flavored distillates. Why do we have so many gins when vodka is the popular spirit of choice for most Americans? The short answer is that popular America is stocked with timid, misinformed drinkers who are afraid to try anything that has too much English on it. But let's take a look at the long answer.
Gin has origins dating back to the mid-twelfth century at the very least, when Italian monks would create a juniper based elixir that was supposed to aid in kidney issues (such as Bright's disease, which is a complication of the kidneys named in the early 19th century.) Of course, inhabitants of Europe had for many years used alcoholic herbal infusions to create various potions and remedies for the ill, but it was not until the Dutch began to shape and refine distillation (something I will get to in more detail for a later post) that the juniper based elixir began to take its spirit form. The Dutch became famous for their juniper based elixir known as genever, a musky, aromatic and extremely juniper forward spirit still produced today.
After the English aided the Dutch in the Thirty Years War, it is supposed that it was soldiers that brought back the genever as a tonic for both the health and the nerves. It turns out, it is much easier to run screaming onto the fields of hell with a nice buzz than stone-cold sober. Nonetheless, it was then the English who took the genever, recreated the recipe and re-labelled it as "gin."
Gin has an even more fascinating history from there, which I encourage my readers to indulge in elsewhere as I do not presently have time or space for a full historical workup. The short of it is that gin became very cheap after a spell due to England's isolationist climate and lax laws on distillation, making it wildly popular (and often times, wildly toxic) in England. Eventually, some of the English changed the recipe further, giving rise to a style known as "London dry gin," an unsweetened, no-nonsense version of the spirit. Some common London drys are Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire, and Van Gogh, Tanqueray. All of these are common and popular choices for gin and tonics, where the subtle notes of the dry gin blend with the sweetness of the tonic without becoming overpowering.
There are a few other main types of gin. "Plymouth," is the next most popular, and according to old English law must have been made in the city of Plymouth, although I believe laws on that are a bit more lax nowadays. Plymouths are aromatic-over-juniper; that is, while they do not contain the same dryness as London dry, they possess a distinctly aromatic and botanical sense with underlying juniper. Genever, by contrast, is juniper-over-aromatic, as is a particular gin called "Junipero" (Junipero is a US Dry Gin.) Each of these has different flavor profiles that will grossly change the overall effect of a gin drink. This is obvious in something like a martini, meant to showcase the gin, but surprisingly relevant to classics like the negroni (eq. parts gin, Campari, sweet vermouth). The choice of gin in a negroni makes the drink. Plymouth, with its citrusy, aromatic notes, makes a great choice for a negroni - by comparison, the London dry can often feel flat and uninteresting in the cocktail. Again, I encourage you to indulge on your own and try this out.
A third and much less well known style is called "Old Tom" gin. This is a style of gin created in the 18th century, supposedly named for the sign of a black cat from which illegal pours of gin were served. Old Tom is slightly sweeter than its London counterpart, and often dark in color. A point of confusion that should be avoided is that its color is not a result of barrel aging, as is the case in most spirit productions (especially whisk(e)y.) Old Tom's color is the result of the combination of the sheer amount of intense botanicals crammed into the production process and the pot still used to refine them. The pot still style, tear dropped shaped and famous for its utilization in Macallan's distilleries (again, I will be doing a later post specifically on distillation), retains more oils and heavier volatiles than the more modernized column stills used for distillation today. This theory also makes me think that older gins were probably darker in color than their modern day counterparts, which are usually translucent. Original Old Tom style gin also had simple syrup added to it in the bottling process, increasing the sweetness and enhancing its palatability.
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RECIPE: Dickinson Sour*
1 oz. Ransom Old Tom Gin
1.25 oz. Nardini Aqua di Cedro
0.75 oz. lemon juice
0.25 oz. pure maple syrup
Hard shake, strained up in a coupe. No garnish.
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There are still further types of gins and gins unclassified entirely. Genever could count as its own classifcation; Old Raj (dry) is considered "mid-pungency" by Hellmich; there is an apparent style known as "Naval," which are usually overproof, and then there is a whole slew of modern creations not even really categorized. Some interesting examples of these are the St. George's Dry Rye, Botanical and Terroir, or Monkey #47 dry gin, or Beefeater 24, which involves tea in its brewing process. There is sloe gin, which is made with blackthorn root, there is plum gin by Averell, and there is even barrel-aged gin (Berkshire Mountain's Ethereal Barrel Aged is one of my favorite spirits to drink on the rocks.) Gin also had a particularly notorious place in the era of prohibition, but again I will need to make a separate writeup entirely on that point.
To date, there are more classic cocktails with gin recipes than any other single spirit. The Martini is and always has been a gin drink. In fact, many classics Americans have come to familiar with as vodka drinks were originally gin - the martini, the gimlet, the Greyhound were all originally made with gin and pirated by 1950s Americans to become vodka based travesties. With the resurgence in barchemistry in artisan establishments, gin is finally starting to make a comeback. I've had at least a dozen arguments about the definition of a negroni in the last two weeks, one row that will always be music to my ears. People are still ordering "bone dry" martinis, but at least many of them are daring to ask for Tanqueray instead of Grey Goose. At our bar, we work with gin as a primary. When I make a cocktail, I (perhaps too frequently) go straight to my gin section for the base. It is an incredibly versatile liquor and has more use than any other single spirit behind the bar.
So this week, stir yourself a martini with some Beefeater, sit back, light up a smoke, and remember the history that your poured into your glass. Just don't expect it to cure your kidney disease.
_theBarchemist
*Copyright Rabib Rafiq at Bistro 63 at the Monkey Bar
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Bar Set-Up
Arguably the most important aspect of the bar is the tools, equipment, and layout of such. In this post I will attempt to explain the fundamentals of the essential bar. A bar set-up consists of a several basic pieces of equipment that come in various styles and sizes to suit the barchemists needs: (1) the shaker, (2) the mixing glass, (3) mixing spoons, (4) the muddler, (5) strainers, (6) glassware, (7) measurement tools (jiggers.) While there are dozens more pieces to a complete set up, these are the basics that the essential bar must have to commence in mixological endeavors. Let's begin:
2. The Mixing Glass
A mixing glass can be any round glass large enough to fit your ingredients and your ice. Typically stirred cocktails consist of only spirits together in a glass; popular ones are martinis, manhattans, and negronis. The goal of stirring, as with ice, is to move the ice altogether as one unit (that is, all of the ice must remain stationary in relation to itself, the entirety of the ice making revolutions in the glass.) Most bars I've seen use pint glasses for this purpose. They are a fairly ideal size for mixing, but concentrate the ingredients and the ice together. For my mixing glasses, I use 500 mL mixing glasses that are wide and completely cylindrical instead of the conical shape of the pint. This gives a greater contact area between the ice and the spirit mix, helping cool the spirit much more quickly. A good rule of thumb for the length of stirring is twenty-five revolutions, more or less depending on how much ice melt one wants in their drink. As the drink is stirred, heat transfers from the spirit into the ice, chilling the mixture and melting the ice. The goal is to strike a fine balance between watering down the cocktail and creating a properly chilled cocktail. In this sense, it is best to begin stirring directly after adding ice, as letting it sit will lean the drink towards the watery side. This is, in essence, a thermodynamic optimization problem tackled by the barchemist daily. Constant attention and adjustment should be paid to mixing to find the optimum results.
3. The Mixing Spoon
To go with the mixing glass one requires a mixing spoon. Typical bar spoons are approximately 30 centimeters and feature a corkscrew handle and a small nub on top for two-handed control. These spoons are good for a two-handed stir. The seasoned barchemist, however, requires longer spoons and usually stirs with one hand. Thus, the length of the spoon should be geared towards the number of revolutions one plans to make with a stir. My spoons are 40 cm teardrop weighted copper plated mixing spoons (also acquired from Cocktail Kingdom) which allow me to do twenty five revolutions from bottom to top. The weights on top provide a counter balance for the revolving motion of the spoon.
4. The Muddler
A less used but still critical bartool is the muddler. A muddler is used to pulverize and express ingredients that require crushing in the glass. Typically they are eight inches to a foot long, some featuring spikes on the end for increased tearing. The classic old fashioned recipe calls for muddling together cherries, an orange slice, a sugar cubes, and bitters. Citrus peels, slices, fruits, leaves (such as basil or mint) and dry herbs are frequent choices for muddling. When choosing to muddle an ingredient, always make sure to provide a liquid base with the ingredient (most often simple syrup.) The "liquid base," known to chemists as a "solvent," provides a medium for the ingredient to be expressed into, e.g., using simple syrup as a solvent to absorb the essential oils of mint that are released when muddled. As an additional tip, any leaves that are to be muddled should be rolled between the fingers first to break up the more resilient fibrous parts that are better snapped than crushed.
5. Strainers
Strainers serve the primary function of allowing gravity to separate the mixed and chilled drink from the ice used to cool it. These are used primarily for drinks served up, meaning a drink without ice in it. Again, martinis and manhattans are a big part of this family, but really all sorts of drinks are done "up." Additionally, a number of cocktails call for straining onto fresh rocks if the drink is on the rocks at all, or onto some other medium of ice such as shaved ice (we'll get into swizzles later.) From the left, above, we have a hawthorne strainer, a fine strainer, and a julep strainer. The Hawthorne is the most classically used strainer; the spring around the the rim allows it to fit nearly any sized mixing glass or shaker. The liquid strains through easily, catching the ice in its original vessel. Fine strainers, also known as coco strainers to some, are usually used in conjunction with the hawthorne to catch any additional small bits the hawthorne won't. For instance, in a muddled mint cocktail, tiny mint bits will pass through the hawthorne strainer but get caught in the coco strainer. Rarely are fine strainers employed on their own. Lastly, a julep strainer was invented to catch crushed ice from a mint julep. Essentially, these were actually employed by the drinker rather than the bartender; keeping one on top of your drink as you drank your crushed ice drink prevented the snow-like ice from tumbling onto one's face. Since then, they've found uses as replacements for hawthornes in stirred cocktails, but are not especially popular. Some claim that a julep strain fits a mixing glass better than a hawthorne, but I consider that generally untrue considering the varying size of the hawthorne. Still, whatever works best is what is most often used.
6. Glassware
Glassware comes in many different shapes, sizes, and with different utilities. For the moment I will simply list off glassware common to the bar; a more detailed post will focus specifically on glassware, its history, and its purpose, with corresponding picture.
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| A dimly lit photo of my personal set up. From the left: jiggers, spoons, cobblers (shakers), and mixing glasses.
1. The Shaker
The shaker is one of the most frequently used tools in bartending. It is used to shake ingredients which cannot be incorporated by stirring and that need an especially cold result. A good rule of thumb for this is anything very dense (such as Lillet or other chilled, fortified wines) and for all citrus drinks. Shakers come in two fundamental styles: cobblers, which are three piece units consisting of a mixing tin, a straining lid, and a cap to seal the strainer during use, and shaking tins, also known as "Boston" shakers, more popular for their price point, which consist of a large metal tin capped by either another, small mixing tin or a pint glass. While I originally learned to shake with a mixing tin and a pint glass, but I find that the balance of shaking with these makes a proper shake quite difficult. There are two fundamentals of shaking technique: first, the ice should move within the shake as a single unit, bouncing off the walls of the shaker all together. Second, the shake should be started slowly and speed built up to prevent the ice from instantly fracturing during the first shake. For these reasons, I prefer to use cobblers over Boston tins. I use Usagi Japanese heavyweight shakers, 500 mL. Mine are copper plated and were purchased from Cocktail Kingdom. Shaker technique will be described in greater detail in a later post.
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A mixing glass can be any round glass large enough to fit your ingredients and your ice. Typically stirred cocktails consist of only spirits together in a glass; popular ones are martinis, manhattans, and negronis. The goal of stirring, as with ice, is to move the ice altogether as one unit (that is, all of the ice must remain stationary in relation to itself, the entirety of the ice making revolutions in the glass.) Most bars I've seen use pint glasses for this purpose. They are a fairly ideal size for mixing, but concentrate the ingredients and the ice together. For my mixing glasses, I use 500 mL mixing glasses that are wide and completely cylindrical instead of the conical shape of the pint. This gives a greater contact area between the ice and the spirit mix, helping cool the spirit much more quickly. A good rule of thumb for the length of stirring is twenty-five revolutions, more or less depending on how much ice melt one wants in their drink. As the drink is stirred, heat transfers from the spirit into the ice, chilling the mixture and melting the ice. The goal is to strike a fine balance between watering down the cocktail and creating a properly chilled cocktail. In this sense, it is best to begin stirring directly after adding ice, as letting it sit will lean the drink towards the watery side. This is, in essence, a thermodynamic optimization problem tackled by the barchemist daily. Constant attention and adjustment should be paid to mixing to find the optimum results.
3. The Mixing Spoon
To go with the mixing glass one requires a mixing spoon. Typical bar spoons are approximately 30 centimeters and feature a corkscrew handle and a small nub on top for two-handed control. These spoons are good for a two-handed stir. The seasoned barchemist, however, requires longer spoons and usually stirs with one hand. Thus, the length of the spoon should be geared towards the number of revolutions one plans to make with a stir. My spoons are 40 cm teardrop weighted copper plated mixing spoons (also acquired from Cocktail Kingdom) which allow me to do twenty five revolutions from bottom to top. The weights on top provide a counter balance for the revolving motion of the spoon.
4. The Muddler
A less used but still critical bartool is the muddler. A muddler is used to pulverize and express ingredients that require crushing in the glass. Typically they are eight inches to a foot long, some featuring spikes on the end for increased tearing. The classic old fashioned recipe calls for muddling together cherries, an orange slice, a sugar cubes, and bitters. Citrus peels, slices, fruits, leaves (such as basil or mint) and dry herbs are frequent choices for muddling. When choosing to muddle an ingredient, always make sure to provide a liquid base with the ingredient (most often simple syrup.) The "liquid base," known to chemists as a "solvent," provides a medium for the ingredient to be expressed into, e.g., using simple syrup as a solvent to absorb the essential oils of mint that are released when muddled. As an additional tip, any leaves that are to be muddled should be rolled between the fingers first to break up the more resilient fibrous parts that are better snapped than crushed.
5. Strainers
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| From the left: Hawthorne, coco (fine), and julep strainer. |
6. Glassware
Glassware comes in many different shapes, sizes, and with different utilities. For the moment I will simply list off glassware common to the bar; a more detailed post will focus specifically on glassware, its history, and its purpose, with corresponding picture.
- Collins: Often the same as a highball glass, a collins is tall and thin, often used to serve simple built cocktails, or complex cocktails that require a lot of ice.
- Rocks: A rocks glass the traditional short glass, often used for neat pours or small drinks; sometimes even drinks served "up." No stem, by tradition.
- Coupe: A coupe is a small, stemmed glass most popular during and just after prohibition. The original champagne glass, it is wide and short vessel with a decently tall stem. These have been adapted by bars today as the most frequent choice for "up" drinks.
- Manhattan glass: Small and conical like a martini glass, but often with a sharper conic slope. Used for manhattans, primarily.
- Martini glass: Very well known glassware. Used specifically for martinis, it is a wide, pleasing shape. People often use these for up cocktails in lieu of having other glassware.
I'm going to cut glassware short, here. There's too much to say about it for this introductory post.
7. Jiggers
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| 2/1 oz. Leopold style jiggers on the left, followed by Japanese style jiggers. |
The jigger is arguably the most fundamental tool for the bartender; it is their measurement apparatus and as such is the heart of the bartender's kit. They come in several styles, primarily focused as two opposing cones. Some jiggers, such as Leopold style jiggers (pictured above), are more bell shaped. All jiggers are sized specifically for their use, and often more than one type of jigger is necessary during bar service. Good jiggers have demarcations on the inside to indicate smaller amounts than what the full jigger calls for; in the case of the 2/1 ounce Leopolds, there are 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz., and 3/4 oz. demarcations in the 1 ounce side and a 1.5 ounce demarcation on the 2 ounce side. This is incredible important not only for proper cocktail building but for consistency between cocktails and especially between bartenders. Always measure everything exactly to the meniscus when using a jigger. I often use up to 8 jiggers before I get a chance to wash and reuse any, so having a number of them around, especially good ones, can make or break the full-service barchemist.
8. Miscellaneous bar tools
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| From the left: microplane, peeler, absinthe spoons (then top to bottom): paring knife, channel knife, and forceps |
There are a number of other useful bar tools essential to the well-trained barchemist such as peelers, squeezers, forceps, spatulas, microplanes, and a slew of other tools too numerous to list here. These will crop up as I discuss cocktails further, and especially as I begin to post recipes. It is also important to remember that it is almost impossible to have all of your bases covered at any given moment, and that if you can't find the tool you need, you'll have to find something close. As many of you begin to build your home bars, you may find yourself replacing expensive tools with cheap, on-hand substitutions. This MacGyver style of bartending has a place in the home, but not in the workplace. For best results, collaborate with your coworkers and your manager to ensure you have all of the tools you need to mix the best drinks you can.
That's it for today, chemists. Get studying.
_theBarchemist
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Barchemistry 101
The most frequent question I hear as a chemist behind the bar is "does that all really matter?" The shaking technique, the counting of revolutions for stirred drinks, and the compulsively precise jigger measurements all seem like superficial (for the engineers out there, "negligible,") adjustments to a cocktail that could not possibly have a distinguishable effect on the cocktails final form. As an engineer, I understand the impulse towards this method of thought: the difference in ice melt, or the difference in flavor due to 1/16 oz. difference in citrus added can be so small that it is ignored. Mixology is like the Peng-Robinson equation for cocktails: for most people and most situations, the ideal gas law (i.e., normal bartending) is acceptable and even useful. For the well-defined palate, however, PV = nRT just does not provide a strong enough model. Sometimes, you need to take out the big guns.
Cocktails are like paintings where the tongue is the canvas. Combining a series of spirits and modifiers using different equipment in tools is the same as combining different colors onto an easel using a series of different brushes. It takes time and experience to develop both palate and taste for them. One must constantly be adjusting and experimenting if they are to unlock the true experience of a proper manhattan or a martini, just as the artist produces a prolific amount of work before they are satisfied with a final product. Unlike wine, beer, and scotch, however, they are not treated as a cultural experience - people drink cocktails most frequently to get drunk, and get drunk easily. People think of cocktails as simple mixed drinks to help the medicine go down, and they're not entirely wrong. During prohibition, cocktails were often invented just to mask bad moonshine and bathtub gin, making what was completely undrinkable into something that could be drank and could get one drunk. Alcohol is no longer illegal, however, and is produced in methods both massive and artisan, with no need for over-the-top mixers just to mask a foul taste. Now, cocktails are designed to produce a specific taste rather than hide another, and the results are deep and layered.
The cocktail drinker needs to have a wide palate and a good mind for his own taste. The difference between the two is that your palate you are born with; it is how your taste buds receive flavors and how those flavors are processed by your subconscious mind, eventually making it to your conscious mind as a corollary memory. Taste comes completely from the conscious mind and is a result of one's own personality and decision making. What someone chooses to like can be just as important as what their tongue tells them they should.
For instance, "dirty, dry martini" is a frequent order. Now, it's probably best to get the basics out of the way for my non-bar-educated reader right now. A martini is exactly one thing, and one thing only: gin and vermouth stirred, strained with either an olive garnish or a twist garnish (more classically olives.) A martini is not made with vodka. A martini is not made with olive juice. These are optionally adjustments that completely change the nature of the drink. A dry martini is a martini which has a higher ratio of gin to vermouth. Martinis are almost exclusively ordered dry. At this point, most people tend towards bone dry, meaning either no vermouth at all or the lightest splash the barchemist can manage. Martinis I make nowadays are essentially stirred gin. I have never had somebody order a martini "proper" from me (a martini made with the original spec for vermouth.) Why is this?
The answer seems to lie in the heart of taste over palate. Many drinkers out their know they like gin because it suits their palate, and consequently drink martinis. Here we arrive at a subtle psychological point: the drinker orders a dry martini because they are interest in ordering a "dry martini," not just a "martini." People like to say aloud "I'd like a Hendricks martini, dry, dirty, up," so the other patrons at the bar, and the bartender, can hear them say it. It's the same effect as walking into a coffee shop and ordering a "wet, flat, cortado with two shots of soy" (a meaningless drink.) In part, they are paying to be seen and heard with their booze. That's where their taste plays in over their palate.
Myself, I prefer a martini in its original form, or a bit dry. I do not like gin straight (unless I'm doing a tasting), and consequently I prefer the vermouth to be stirred in. I stir my martinis exactly twenty five times, but that can change depending on the ice quality. Ice with a lower surface area to volume ratio will need to be stirred for less time as the ice will melt faster upon adding internal energy to the solution.
Cocktails, like any well thought out drinking endeavor, take time and experience to gain a full understanding to. Enough attentiveness, however, and a level of complexity and diversity becomes apparent to the drinker, their palate finally beginning to understand the way the different ingredients in the cocktail coalesce to provide a unique experience. Each spirit or liquor is like paint, and the tools used by the bartender are the brush. The ultimate product is a result of the combination of those paints and brushes, and if enough practice and thought is put into it, with a bit of spirit, a true masterpiece can be created. So yes, "it all matters." Every stir, every flamed zest, every lash and every drop all paint the canvas differently. It's simply up to the drinker to notice.
_theBarchemist
Cocktails are like paintings where the tongue is the canvas. Combining a series of spirits and modifiers using different equipment in tools is the same as combining different colors onto an easel using a series of different brushes. It takes time and experience to develop both palate and taste for them. One must constantly be adjusting and experimenting if they are to unlock the true experience of a proper manhattan or a martini, just as the artist produces a prolific amount of work before they are satisfied with a final product. Unlike wine, beer, and scotch, however, they are not treated as a cultural experience - people drink cocktails most frequently to get drunk, and get drunk easily. People think of cocktails as simple mixed drinks to help the medicine go down, and they're not entirely wrong. During prohibition, cocktails were often invented just to mask bad moonshine and bathtub gin, making what was completely undrinkable into something that could be drank and could get one drunk. Alcohol is no longer illegal, however, and is produced in methods both massive and artisan, with no need for over-the-top mixers just to mask a foul taste. Now, cocktails are designed to produce a specific taste rather than hide another, and the results are deep and layered.
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| The bar at night |
For instance, "dirty, dry martini" is a frequent order. Now, it's probably best to get the basics out of the way for my non-bar-educated reader right now. A martini is exactly one thing, and one thing only: gin and vermouth stirred, strained with either an olive garnish or a twist garnish (more classically olives.) A martini is not made with vodka. A martini is not made with olive juice. These are optionally adjustments that completely change the nature of the drink. A dry martini is a martini which has a higher ratio of gin to vermouth. Martinis are almost exclusively ordered dry. At this point, most people tend towards bone dry, meaning either no vermouth at all or the lightest splash the barchemist can manage. Martinis I make nowadays are essentially stirred gin. I have never had somebody order a martini "proper" from me (a martini made with the original spec for vermouth.) Why is this?
The answer seems to lie in the heart of taste over palate. Many drinkers out their know they like gin because it suits their palate, and consequently drink martinis. Here we arrive at a subtle psychological point: the drinker orders a dry martini because they are interest in ordering a "dry martini," not just a "martini." People like to say aloud "I'd like a Hendricks martini, dry, dirty, up," so the other patrons at the bar, and the bartender, can hear them say it. It's the same effect as walking into a coffee shop and ordering a "wet, flat, cortado with two shots of soy" (a meaningless drink.) In part, they are paying to be seen and heard with their booze. That's where their taste plays in over their palate.
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| My other bar. |
Cocktails, like any well thought out drinking endeavor, take time and experience to gain a full understanding to. Enough attentiveness, however, and a level of complexity and diversity becomes apparent to the drinker, their palate finally beginning to understand the way the different ingredients in the cocktail coalesce to provide a unique experience. Each spirit or liquor is like paint, and the tools used by the bartender are the brush. The ultimate product is a result of the combination of those paints and brushes, and if enough practice and thought is put into it, with a bit of spirit, a true masterpiece can be created. So yes, "it all matters." Every stir, every flamed zest, every lash and every drop all paint the canvas differently. It's simply up to the drinker to notice.
_theBarchemist
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
A Thermodynamicist Walks Into a Bar
He says to the bartender, "Mix me a martini, but keep the increase in internal energy minimal."
The bartender says, "What kind of vodka do you like?"
The thermodynamicist replies, "Gin."
The above is a classic example of what happens in many places across this country (minus the unnecessarily technical thermodynamicist.) Americans have come to know a martini as containing vodka, often even shake. Bit of a tip: the original James Bond as written by Ian Fleming, Bond was a bit of a buffoon and thus showed his inner rube by ordering his martini "shaken, not stirred." The bit about the thermodynamicist was simply a clever segway to my next point.
Fortunately, there is hope. A growing number of bars, primarily focused in cities like New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, have bar programs intensifying in their mixological academia and attempting to revive and modernize craft bartending. Bars such as Employees Only and PDT in New York City have helped to bring both prohibition and preprohibition style cocktails back to modern bars. Restaurants with serious food programs across the country are integrating serious bar programs in as well. And in response, bartenders have increasingly had to become human encyclopedias o their trade, memorizing hundreds to thousands of details about spirits (and wine and beer, though less for use in the cocktail aspect of the bar.) More attention is paid to technique and precision, prompting the use of well calibrated, graduated measurement apparatus and higher quality mixing tools. Bartending ceased to be simply a quick hand and a cursory knowledge of alcohol that could be learned in some six week course; it became an academic artisan endeavor known as "mixology."
Mixologist is surprisingly not a new term. It is evidenced to have been in vogue in the late nineteenth century, but eventually came to be a term of high class exclusion, the more famous bartenders eventually forming social clubs and cliques. Professor Jerry Thomas, famous for the bitters produced in his name and his bartending guide, may have been referred to as a mixologist. Personally, I am not a fan of the term. Having gone to the trouble of studying thermodynamics, I see "mixology" as the study of the thermodynamics of mixing. However, if a bartender is truly rigorous in their mixological pursuits, I am willing to accept their usage. For my personal preference, however, I have devised the term "barchemist." (Pronounced with the accent on bar, like in "alchemist.")
The intention of this irregular periodical is to discuss, record, and publish my pursuits as a chemist behind a bar. While it is an intense intellectual pursuit, the business aspect of the trade is fundamental to the barchemist, most especially at a fast-paced service bars. I work two separate service bars with two differently focused programs, and the difference the the ultimate mechanics behind each bar is distinct. I will attempt to shed some light on the nature of individuality behind a bar as well as the coalescence of bar and restaurant together. I welcome reader feedback and criticism.
I apologize in advance for the quality of photos in the early phases; I need to gain access to a better camera to get across the true detail of the work.
Let's begin.
_theBarchemist
The bartender says, "What kind of vodka do you like?"
The thermodynamicist replies, "Gin."
The above is a classic example of what happens in many places across this country (minus the unnecessarily technical thermodynamicist.) Americans have come to know a martini as containing vodka, often even shake. Bit of a tip: the original James Bond as written by Ian Fleming, Bond was a bit of a buffoon and thus showed his inner rube by ordering his martini "shaken, not stirred." The bit about the thermodynamicist was simply a clever segway to my next point.
Fortunately, there is hope. A growing number of bars, primarily focused in cities like New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, have bar programs intensifying in their mixological academia and attempting to revive and modernize craft bartending. Bars such as Employees Only and PDT in New York City have helped to bring both prohibition and preprohibition style cocktails back to modern bars. Restaurants with serious food programs across the country are integrating serious bar programs in as well. And in response, bartenders have increasingly had to become human encyclopedias o their trade, memorizing hundreds to thousands of details about spirits (and wine and beer, though less for use in the cocktail aspect of the bar.) More attention is paid to technique and precision, prompting the use of well calibrated, graduated measurement apparatus and higher quality mixing tools. Bartending ceased to be simply a quick hand and a cursory knowledge of alcohol that could be learned in some six week course; it became an academic artisan endeavor known as "mixology."
Mixologist is surprisingly not a new term. It is evidenced to have been in vogue in the late nineteenth century, but eventually came to be a term of high class exclusion, the more famous bartenders eventually forming social clubs and cliques. Professor Jerry Thomas, famous for the bitters produced in his name and his bartending guide, may have been referred to as a mixologist. Personally, I am not a fan of the term. Having gone to the trouble of studying thermodynamics, I see "mixology" as the study of the thermodynamics of mixing. However, if a bartender is truly rigorous in their mixological pursuits, I am willing to accept their usage. For my personal preference, however, I have devised the term "barchemist." (Pronounced with the accent on bar, like in "alchemist.")
The intention of this irregular periodical is to discuss, record, and publish my pursuits as a chemist behind a bar. While it is an intense intellectual pursuit, the business aspect of the trade is fundamental to the barchemist, most especially at a fast-paced service bars. I work two separate service bars with two differently focused programs, and the difference the the ultimate mechanics behind each bar is distinct. I will attempt to shed some light on the nature of individuality behind a bar as well as the coalescence of bar and restaurant together. I welcome reader feedback and criticism.
I apologize in advance for the quality of photos in the early phases; I need to gain access to a better camera to get across the true detail of the work.
Let's begin.
_theBarchemist
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