Jeffrey Morgenthaler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brandy Old Fashioned

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

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

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I’ve said this before: I’m a lazy guy, and yet I’m a perfectionist. I want my cocktails perfectly-prepared, but I’d really rather not work too hard. With that in mind, I present my latest in perfectly-prepared cocktail ingredients for slackers like you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philadelphia Fish House Punch

Adapted from a recipe by David Wondrich

1 pound superfine sugar
12 lemons, peeled

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

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

Makes approximately 5½ quarts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behold, the recipe:

Amaretto Sour

Makes 1 Awesome Drink

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottled Carbonated Americano

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kingston Club

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

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

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Contrary to what you may have heard, there’s more to my job than coming up with cool mezcal cocktails and bitching about having to write the schedule. At the end of the day, I’ve got to approach this career as a professional, with an eye on business. One of the more challenging parts of my job is designing a cocktail menu that is not only constantly fresh and on the cutting-edge, but also satisfies my two cruel taskmasters: our guests, and the guy who signs my paycheck.

My guests need to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth when they’re spending it at my bar. My restaurant needs to make a certain margin in order to pay purveyors, sign payroll, and maintain bills. The beauty of my job lies in that place in between, where guests are happy and the business is healthy. That place in between is where a successful bar lives.

There is some simple math involved with pricing a cocktail. At the core, all you need to do is figure out how much the drink costs to make, and multiply by your targeted pour cost (if you’re unsure what this is, ask your boss or bookkeeper; the industry standard usually lies somewhere between 18% and 24%). It’s that easy, but it can get a little tricky sometimes. And so…

Download my fancy cocktail pricing calculator here.

Over the years I’ve developed a lot of spreadsheets to help make my job easier, and I’m going to share my simple cost calculator with you here today. All you need to plug into the formula are the following pieces of information: the cost and size of each bottle you’re pouring from, the cocktail recipe, and your target pour cost (all highlighted in yellow). The spreadsheet will calculate the rest.

Keep in mind that this is pricing at its most simple. The orchestration of a full cocktail menu can be a beautiful and complex thing, or it can be as simple as using the spreadsheet above. A simple list would have all of its drinks priced according to the formula I’ve given you. A complex list – like the one I currently curate – takes into account some other factors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’ve got a two-drink cocktail menu, consisting of Drink A and Drink B.

Drink A is a complex cocktail that requires a little more attention from the bartender and uses some more obscure, expensive ingredients. It costs $10 but comes in at a 32% pour cost, but it’s designed appeal to a smaller segment of the customer base, and therefore you only sell ten of them a night. You make up for this with Drink B. Drink B costs $8 but comes in at a 17% pour cost. It’s appealing to a much larger audience, and therefore you sell 150 of them a night. Drink A is called a loss leader and it keeps your bar on the cutting edge, is there for the cocktail geeks, and helps stimulate the sale of Drink B by bringing in a constant flow of new guests to the bar. And the good news is that you can calculate all of these percentages with the spreadsheet I’m providing you.

I hope this spreadsheet helps and is of some help to at least a few of you out there. If there’s enough interest in this boring topic I’ll be happy to post some of my other formulas in the interest of being of service to my fellow bar managers everywhere.

Download my fancy cocktail pricing calculator (in metric) here.

As a last-minute addition, I’m including a metric version of this spreadsheet for our friends outside of the United States. I think I’ve converted everything successfully but if anyone notices any problems (yes, the default currency is in Euros but that shouldn’t have any bearing on the final numbers) please do let me know.

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Note: This was originally posted on April 14, 2010. I’m updating the original post for our New York Times readers who might find their way here. Welcome!

Inspired by a visit to see Tony Conigliaro at the unnamed bar at 69 Colebrooke Row in London last fall, where Manhattans are aged in glass vessels to sublime and subtle effect, the barrel aged cocktails I’ve been serving at Clyde Common this year are a decidedly American curiosity.

The rub of aging cocktails in a glass bottle is that the whole premise is built upon subtlety, as we know that spirits aged in glass or steel do so at an unremarkable pace. Being from the United States, where – as everyone is aware – bigger equals better, I pondered the following question: what if you could prepare a large batch of a single, spirit-driven cocktail and age it in a used oak barrel?

A hundred some-odd dollars in liquor later, I was nervously pouring a gallon of pre-batched rye Manhattans into a small, used oak cask whose previous contents were a gallon Madeira wine. I plugged the barrel and sat back in anxious anticipation; if the experiment was a success I’d have a delicious cocktail to share at the bar – if it was a failure then I’d be pouring the restaurant’s money down the floor drain.

Over the next several weeks I popped open the barrel to test my little concoction until I stumbled upon the magic mark at five-to-six weeks. And there it was, lying beautifully on the the finish: a soft blend of oak, wine, caramel and char. That first batch sold out in a matter of days and I was left with a compelling need to push the process even further.

We procured a small number of used whiskey casks from the Tuthilltown distillery and proceeded to fill them with a large batch of Negronis; and that’s when the magic of barrel aged cocktails grabbed our attention. After six weeks in the bourbon barrel, our Negroni emerged a rare beauty. The sweet vermouth so slightly oxidized, the color paler and rosier than the original, the mid-palate softly mingled with whiskey, the finish long and lingering with oak tannins. We knew we were on to something unique and immediately made plans to take the cask aging program to the next level.

Negronis are now prepared in five-gallon batches and poured into multiple bourbon barrels. Robert Hess’ ubiquitous Trident cocktail is currently resting inside single-malt barrels. The El Presidente (à la Matt Robold), Deshlers, Remember the Maines, they’re all receiving the oaked treatment in a little storage room in the basement of the restaurant that I refer to as my “office”.

Once the cocktail is aged long enough for my taste, I then drain the bottle, straining out any charred bits of wood, and bottle the contents for use by my bartenders. To order, the cocktail is then measured out and poured over ice in a mixing glass, stirred, strained into a cocktail glass, and then garnished with the appropriate garnish. It’s quick and simple, as all of the real work has already been done by the barrel.

Anyway, on to the recipes. As simple as it seems to do, I figured not everyone is going to want to do the math to get started on some of these recipes, so here are a few I’ve figured out:

Negroni

Makes Three Gallons

128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) dry gin
128 oz sweet vermouth
128 oz Campari

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel. Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

Manhattan

Makes Three Gallons

256 oz (approximately ten 750ml bottles) rye whiskey
128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) sweet vermouth
7 oz Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel (I prefer a barrel that has previously stored sherry, Madeira, or port wine). Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

Trident

Makes Three Gallons

128 oz (approximately five 750ml bottles) aquavit
128 oz dry sherry
128 oz Cynar
7 oz peach bitters

Stir ingredients together (without ice) and pour into a three-gallon oak barrel (I prefer a used single malt barrel). Let rest for five to seven weeks and pour into glass bottles until ready to serve.

And be sure to check out this video of the barrel-aged cocktail process, courtesy of our friends Grant Achatz, Craig Schoettler and Josh Habiger at Alinea in Chicago:

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