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.
A side project, an experiment or just a simple curiosity that turned into a delicious phenomenon that we're still serving to much delight at our bar, barrel aged cocktails explore the gentle manipulation of a drink's flavors over time. This post details the inspiration, the history and the methods behind my barrel aged cocktails.
My problem with homemade tonic water has always been a flavor profile that was too esoteric for the general audience. This recipe takes some of the positive qualities people have come to understand from commercial tonic water and updated them with fresh ingredients.
Turned off by the glop you find in the grocery store, and unable to endure another long egg and cream whipping session, I set out to build an egg nog recipe from the ground up that retained the character of the orginal formula, was easy to make in a few minutes at home or at the bar, and tasted absolutely delicious. See if you agree with the result.
One question I'm often asked is "Do you have any drink-related book recommendations?" Well, funny you should ask, I've compiled a list of the ten books every professional bartender or home mixologist should own. I keep every one of these close at hand and have read most of them several times. I suggest you do the same.
The problem with living in Oregon is the absence of little wooden shacks by the sea that sell cases of fresh ginger beer stacked on back porches. But with some readily-available ingredients, a recipe I've been revising for several years - and a few free minutes - I can easily transport myself to a little fishing boat on the ocean as I sip a Dark and Stormy made with fresh, house-made ginger beer.
It's always mojito season somewhere, so this advice is timely in your area about half the year. Wether you're making them or simply enjoying them, this advice will help you look like a pro in no time at all.
The flavors of the Richmond Gimlet are imbued with sunshine. Fresh mint mingling with the herbaceousness of gin and the tartness of lime have made this drink a Eugene classic for many years now.
You'll get a lot of snarky advice on this site about how to make a proper drink, but if you ever need to know what not to do, this is the video for you.
Not to be confused with the Spanish wine-and-fruit-based alcoholic beverage sangria, sangrita (meaning "little blood") is a traditional accompaniment to a tequila served completo; a non-alcoholic sipper that cleanses the palate between fiery doses of agave.
The world of booze can be mystifying to people that don't work in bars or around alcohol all the time. I hear a lot of assumptions about the industry I'm in that are - much like 90% of what you hear in bars - completely false. Here are a few you've probably heard yourself.
The traditional garnish for a Pisco Sour is a couple of drops of bitters in the foam, but I've never been particularly impressed with the way these few paltry drops of bitters sat in their little egg-white mattress and didn't play along with the rest of the drink. I envisioned a Pisco Sour with a uniformly-distributed bitters-scorched foam: slightly crisp as the fire burnt the sugars, and slightly warm as the foam insulated the rest of the frosty cocktail from the heat. A pisco creme brulée in a glass!
I get so many visitors looking for tips on how to write a bartending resume that I thought I should finally post a tutorial on how to write your own. Click the headline to read more.
I always love showing up to a party with a gallon jug of pre-mixed margaritas, so I've decided to share my recipe. This margarita recipe is the perfect blend of strong, sweet, and sour. But be warned: this recipe packs a serious punch.
There isn't much I can say about this video that hasn't been said already. If you've read anything I've written about cocktails, you'll understand why this video symbolizes everything wrong with the state of bartending in America today. Watch and learn, but be warned: this one isn't for the feint of heart.
About Me
My name is Jeff Morgenthaler and I'm the head bartender at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon.
I've been tending bar since 1996 and writing about it since 2004. Mixing drinks has become something of a passion for me in recent years, and I strive to elevate the experience of having a drink from something mundane to something more culinary.
The writing I do here is intended as a work in progress. My recipes are like my opinions: they are constantly being revised and refined as I work them through my mind and my fingers. Comments and participation are encouraged, so please don't feel the need to tread lightly here.
I finally released a new cocktail menu that I’ve been working on since just before I left for Las Vegas. It’s not completely finished yet, but I really wanted to get something new out there, and it’s pretty close.
I’ve spent weeks testing and refining these drinks, and I think it’s my best menu yet. Stop in sometime and try one out, or make one at home. I promise I’ll have every one of these recipes up here soon.
Very nice beverage menu!
I think you found an ideal balance between this pompous beverage explanation and the minimalistic bullet point listing of ingredients- well done!
I’ve created last year more a bible of a menu – but my understanding changes now slightly and I prefer now more a more a smaller selection of mixed drinks, which is changing more often… may be supported by the complete list!
Dominik, I’d love to see your menu sometime, you should drop me an email through the contact for if you have it on a computer! I have a big collection of cocktail menus from around the world and am always interested in seeing more.
As for the drink descriptions, I prefer the minimal yet informative method. I get tired reading huge descriptions, “Cosmopolitan – Grey Goose vodka, triple sec, a squeeze of lime juice and a dash of cranberry, shaken and served up in a chilled martini glass with a wedge of lime” seems more like a recipe than a listing on a menu.
And, yes, I copied that verbatim from one of the menus in my collection. Yikes.
Take the Richmond Gimlet, for example. My customers know that a gimlet is a lime-based cocktail, so I tell them that it’s a) made with gin, Tanqueray 10 to be specific, and b) different because it has mint. End of story!
This weekend will be the big test. We’re about to see if everyone likes the drinks and, more importantly, if the two of us can knock them all out in a timely fashion. Wish us luck!
Nice menu. I’m working on a new one right now too. I’m going to send it to you for some back-and-forth. When it’s done, I’ll post it at the cocktail hour.
Looks good, I’m going to print it out and have a good look at it today.
Wow, thanks, everyone! I still feel like I’m a couple drinks shy of where I want to be, but when we’re not cranking them out by the hundreds, we’re searching for the right new flavors. I’ll post my findings if and when I get my act together.
01 Apr 2007 at 1:09 AM 9. A.
The menu looks lovely, and the drink selection looks wonderful (given my limited experience therein). And as an almost absolute teetotaller (what’m I doing here then, I know), thank you for having so many options for people who don’t want to have alcohol. Pomegrante juice is very yay.
Oops! And here I pride myself on catching stuff like that, thanks for actually paying attention.
I’m reprinting the menus tomorrow, when I add another drink to the list: the Tomato Daiquiri.
You heard me.
08 Jun 2007 at 4:41 PM 13. Summer Murphy
Just a note –
I think the menu looks wonderful! But I’d add a caveat that many people on this side of the Pond make this same mistake:
You list Whisky and Whiskey; Irish, American, and Scotch. That’s rather redundant.
The DRINK is scotch whiskey, the nationality is SCOTS, or so my Grandda Ross always insisted. But then, he also insisted that anyone who drank ice with their whiskey was a Sassenach (English)so and so.
jeffrey, i like your menu. a good mix of classics, classics re-interpreted and house-made inventions.
curious why you didn’t list the ingredients on the pisco sour. using the traditional method, i’d assume you use egg whites… knowing egg whites turn people off for fear of salmonella poisoning, i’m sure you left out the ingredients for that reason. is that correct?
also, what makes the Brisa a Brisa and not a Greyhound…?
You’re exactly right! I wanted people to open themselves up to something new, and I was afraid of alienating people with egg whites. We of course use them in the drink, wouldn’t be a traditional Pisco Sour without them!
The Brisa is equal parts vodka, orange liqueur (we use Patron Citronge) and grapefruit juice – up.
I’ll have to check in the next time I’m in Seattle, an old dear friend of mine tends bar at the Virginia Inn. If you’re ever there, tell Freddy that Morgenthaler sent you.
Thanks, Shawn! I fixed your URL, there, looks like you forgot a ‘w’.
04 Dec 2007 at 9:16 AM 19. ND
Yep, the correct spellings certainly aren’t redundant (even in the US!). Scotch is always spelled “Whisky”, and Irish is always spelled “Whiskey”. Not sure about the others, but there you go.
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30 Mar 2007 at 5:34 AM 1. Dominik MJ
Very nice beverage menu!
I think you found an ideal balance between this pompous beverage explanation and the minimalistic bullet point listing of ingredients- well done!
I’ve created last year more a bible of a menu – but my understanding changes now slightly and I prefer now more a more a smaller selection of mixed drinks, which is changing more often… may be supported by the complete list!
Cheers!
DMJ
30 Mar 2007 at 7:24 AM 2. Jeffrey
Dominik, I’d love to see your menu sometime, you should drop me an email through the contact for if you have it on a computer! I have a big collection of cocktail menus from around the world and am always interested in seeing more.
As for the drink descriptions, I prefer the minimal yet informative method. I get tired reading huge descriptions, “Cosmopolitan – Grey Goose vodka, triple sec, a squeeze of lime juice and a dash of cranberry, shaken and served up in a chilled martini glass with a wedge of lime” seems more like a recipe than a listing on a menu.
And, yes, I copied that verbatim from one of the menus in my collection. Yikes.
Take the Richmond Gimlet, for example. My customers know that a gimlet is a lime-based cocktail, so I tell them that it’s a) made with gin, Tanqueray 10 to be specific, and b) different because it has mint. End of story!
This weekend will be the big test. We’re about to see if everyone likes the drinks and, more importantly, if the two of us can knock them all out in a timely fashion. Wish us luck!
30 Mar 2007 at 8:26 AM 3. Dan
The Nacional sounds quite tasty.
Nice menu!
30 Mar 2007 at 8:32 AM 4. Jimmy
Hi Jeff,
Nice menu. I’m working on a new one right now too. I’m going to send it to you for some back-and-forth. When it’s done, I’ll post it at the cocktail hour.
Looks good, I’m going to print it out and have a good look at it today.
Cheers,
30 Mar 2007 at 12:19 PM 5. Phil
Brilliant.
31 Mar 2007 at 12:17 AM 6. kevin ludwig
really nice list. i like the inclusion of the origins. gets people thinking. Great site, by the way.
31 Mar 2007 at 9:33 AM 7. Darcy
Very nice. I like the limited “classics” with the twists.
Darcy
31 Mar 2007 at 12:48 PM 8. Jeffrey
Wow, thanks, everyone! I still feel like I’m a couple drinks shy of where I want to be, but when we’re not cranking them out by the hundreds, we’re searching for the right new flavors. I’ll post my findings if and when I get my act together.
01 Apr 2007 at 1:09 AM 9. A.
The menu looks lovely, and the drink selection looks wonderful (given my limited experience therein). And as an almost absolute teetotaller (what’m I doing here then, I know), thank you for having so many options for people who don’t want to have alcohol. Pomegrante juice is very yay.
02 Apr 2007 at 11:05 AM 10. your little sister
I’m so glad to see Coors Light made the cut.
08 Apr 2007 at 8:04 AM 11. Redthought
Excellent options, I’d have a hard time deciding.
I’m glad to see the whisk(e)y spit up like that. Nice.
I small editing note: you don’t use dollar signs throughout, except with the beer list. Intentional?
I can’t help it, sorry if it’s out of line to edit the menu…
08 Apr 2007 at 7:34 PM 12. Jeffrey
Oops! And here I pride myself on catching stuff like that, thanks for actually paying attention.
I’m reprinting the menus tomorrow, when I add another drink to the list: the Tomato Daiquiri.
You heard me.
08 Jun 2007 at 4:41 PM 13. Summer Murphy
Just a note –
I think the menu looks wonderful! But I’d add a caveat that many people on this side of the Pond make this same mistake:
You list Whisky and Whiskey; Irish, American, and Scotch. That’s rather redundant.
The DRINK is scotch whiskey, the nationality is SCOTS, or so my Grandda Ross always insisted. But then, he also insisted that anyone who drank ice with their whiskey was a Sassenach (English)so and so.
Slainte!
10 Jun 2007 at 10:20 AM 14. Jeffrey
Thanks, Summer! But I don’t understand why it’s redundant, I have Irish Whiskey, American Whiskey, and Scotch Whisky, is that not right?
13 Jun 2007 at 10:08 AM 15. keith waldbauer
jeffrey, i like your menu. a good mix of classics, classics re-interpreted and house-made inventions.
curious why you didn’t list the ingredients on the pisco sour. using the traditional method, i’d assume you use egg whites… knowing egg whites turn people off for fear of salmonella poisoning, i’m sure you left out the ingredients for that reason. is that correct?
also, what makes the Brisa a Brisa and not a Greyhound…?
gonna have to make a trip to Eugene soon
cheers
keith
13 Jun 2007 at 12:41 PM 16. Jeffrey
Keith
You’re exactly right! I wanted people to open themselves up to something new, and I was afraid of alienating people with egg whites. We of course use them in the drink, wouldn’t be a traditional Pisco Sour without them!
The Brisa is equal parts vodka, orange liqueur (we use Patron Citronge) and grapefruit juice – up.
I’ll have to check in the next time I’m in Seattle, an old dear friend of mine tends bar at the Virginia Inn. If you’re ever there, tell Freddy that Morgenthaler sent you.
16 Jul 2007 at 4:46 PM 17. Last Barman Poet
I like it alot Jeff, Good Work.
17 Jul 2007 at 12:51 AM 18. Jeffrey
Thanks, Shawn! I fixed your URL, there, looks like you forgot a ‘w’.
04 Dec 2007 at 9:16 AM 19. ND
Yep, the correct spellings certainly aren’t redundant (even in the US!). Scotch is always spelled “Whisky”, and Irish is always spelled “Whiskey”. Not sure about the others, but there you go.