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.
Now, three gallons of Negroni might not be practical for the home enthusiast, but the average bar or restaurant should be able to afford that sort of quantity quite easily. For those of you trying this at home, try searching the internet for one-gallon charred oak casks (stay away from the fancy lacquered kind meant for display in dens and 1980s wine bars) and be sure to let us know what you find in the comments section below.
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 laMatt 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.
Feel free to leave any questions in the comments section below.
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.
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 debate rages on: Should we try to look cool and crack open the Boston shaker or be tidy professionals and use the Hawthorne strainer the way God intended? Be sure to leave your two cents in the comments section.
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 grew up in California in the 1970s and 1980s. I never really understood water when I was growing up. Water was in the ocean, but you couldn’t drink it because it was too salty. There was water in the garden hose, but that was for hooking up to a sprinkler and playing in. My mother would take water from the tap, but then mix it with instant lemonade powder, or Kool-Aid or something like that. Water wasn’t really something you drank on its own.
It wasn’t until the bottled water craze hit in the late 1980s that I ever considered drinking water – plain water. Because, when you opened up that kitchen faucet in California, you got a nice cold glass of liquid that you couldn’t see through. Liquid that wasn’t colorless, and very possibly might have had little bits of toilet paper floating in it. It didn’t look like something you’d want to put in your mouth.
One of the first times I visited Europe, I found myself in Zurich, Switzerland – dying for a glass of water after a long climb up a hill to the hostel I was staying in. Against my better Californian judgement I poured a glass from the tap and to my surprise found it more than drinkable – it was quite delicious. I remember coming home and telling everyone that would listen that the most incredible thing I saw while there was that you could actually drink the water in Switzerland from the tap! I’ve since moved to Oregon, where the water is pretty good and we all drink it from the tap with only the mildest of reservations.
I’m really not a fan of cheesy marketing gimmicks and am always a pretty skeptical guy, especially considering I work in the drinks trade. So when I met the people from Martin Miller’s Gin in New Orleans this summer, my cynical side kicked in and I told them I loved the gin but wasn’t buying the whole Icelandic water bit on the back of the bottle. Later they invited me to come to Iceland and drink a glass of water with them.
And I found that Icelandic water really is pretty incredible. Apparently the closest you’ll find to the original recipe of two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen, there is something along the lines of 5 parts per million other stuff in there with the H and the O. I drank it in my coffee in the morning, I filled bottles from the tap and took it on excursions with me during the day, and guzzled it at night with dinner to stay hydrated after all those Martinis. I even sat in it while snowmobiling.
They took me to the site of their spring, where the water flows out of the mountains and into an aquifer, which is then pumped (note the little shed) to the bottling plant in Borgarnes. And then the gin is shipped to the US and the UK, which is where the story of Martin Miller’s gin ends.
It’s simple, really. It’s amazing gin made by a brilliant distiller, cut with really excellent water, and sold by some really good people. Not a bad way to spend a week.
I lived in alaska for about 15 years, and if I’m not mistaken, Anchorage had the cleanest tap water of any municipality in North America, so I understand the value of clean water.
That said, I think this is still just marketing. For the price of shipping their gin round trip to Iceland, they could take water from the London sewer system and via reverse osmosis and various other filtration and distillation methods, bring it to a contaminant level of about 5 parts per trillion and use it to cut their gin. Thats about the purity level of the water steam plants use to generate electricity. (It’s cheaper to purify the water before boiling it off than clean the scaling that develops on the walls of the boilers if you don’t.)
But, maybe Martin Miller wants to fly me to Iceland to convince me I’m wrong.
18 Sep 2008 at 3:50 am 2. Donny
I grew up in a small mountainside town in Australia where the air and water were extremely pure. Now I live in a majopr European city and boy can you tell the difference…I don’t think i will ever get used to that chlorine taste and chalky mouthfeel.
How many other brands market on the pureness of their water???? I know 42 Below Vodka does.
I have to say: the worst experience I had so far was at TOC in New Orleans.
The tap/gun/ice cube water (you can’t really avoid it if you want a chilled drink) in New Orleans is so full of chloride taste, that I went for beer rather than cocktails at the end of that week.
TOC was having Gin & Chlorid instead of Gin & Tonic. I was happy there was some Fever Tree around…
The best tap water I’ve come across was in Vienna, Austria (ca. 1,5 million inhabitants). They have an aquifer pipe system that collects water from 7 springs in the Styrian mountains and channels it over a couple of hundred miles right into the city.
Iceland definitely has one of the least polluted environments. I remember doing a rafting trip there, where our guides stopped at a hot spring. They brought out some chocolate powder and served us hot chocolate with the water, that was coming right off the ground. It was amazing. Probably something you should have had on the glacier, Jeffrey.
rhesuspieces00 – I suppose it would be marketing, if your idea of marketing is not saying “Made from sanitized London sewer water.” One other benefit of bottling in Iceland, I learned, is that they are able to ship to both the United States and the United Kingdom from a central mid-Atlantic location. So I don’t think it’s all hooey.
Keith – Thanks, man. It was a fun and educational trip for me. I wish you could have been there.
But I am also sceptical!
Shipping water for a spirit increases massively the carbon footprint! In times like that, we should think about not to do so!
I also grown up with clean water [actually I grown up in a small town in the German alps] – and of course I see the big gap between pristine water like that and the Californian brew, which you were grown up with. But if we are not carefully, we will nowhere have any drinkable water; some of our cities will be flooded; some areas will be envir. desertificated – I try to avoid what ever I can to trade in good sounding marketing for a better future…
I may be confused, but got the distinct impression Miller wasn’t shipping water anywhere, but rather shipping distillate to Iceland and then shipping gin to their markets, just as any other distillery does with their product.
And, Jeffrey, I drink Portland tap water every day with no trepidation at all. Bull Run water is some of the cleanest (and softest) water available.
Who knew being a bartender would give one such great traveling opportunities?!
I should have listened to Mom–yes my mother told me to be a bartender, I didn’t listen.
I absolutely hate it when someone sends me a box full of sex toys in the mail. Sure, it might sound like fun to some of you (you know who you are), but receiving a big box of free sex is much more trouble than it’s worth. Believe me. So I get a [...]
17 Sep 2008 at 11:27 am 1. rhesuspieces00
I lived in alaska for about 15 years, and if I’m not mistaken, Anchorage had the cleanest tap water of any municipality in North America, so I understand the value of clean water.
That said, I think this is still just marketing. For the price of shipping their gin round trip to Iceland, they could take water from the London sewer system and via reverse osmosis and various other filtration and distillation methods, bring it to a contaminant level of about 5 parts per trillion and use it to cut their gin. Thats about the purity level of the water steam plants use to generate electricity. (It’s cheaper to purify the water before boiling it off than clean the scaling that develops on the walls of the boilers if you don’t.)
But, maybe Martin Miller wants to fly me to Iceland to convince me I’m wrong.
18 Sep 2008 at 3:50 am 2. Donny
I grew up in a small mountainside town in Australia where the air and water were extremely pure. Now I live in a majopr European city and boy can you tell the difference…I don’t think i will ever get used to that chlorine taste and chalky mouthfeel.
How many other brands market on the pureness of their water???? I know 42 Below Vodka does.
18 Sep 2008 at 8:17 am 3. Mixology
@Donny Sounds very much like London.
I have to say: the worst experience I had so far was at TOC in New Orleans.
The tap/gun/ice cube water (you can’t really avoid it if you want a chilled drink) in New Orleans is so full of chloride taste, that I went for beer rather than cocktails at the end of that week.
TOC was having Gin & Chlorid instead of Gin & Tonic. I was happy there was some Fever Tree around…
The best tap water I’ve come across was in Vienna, Austria (ca. 1,5 million inhabitants). They have an aquifer pipe system that collects water from 7 springs in the Styrian mountains and channels it over a couple of hundred miles right into the city.
Iceland definitely has one of the least polluted environments. I remember doing a rafting trip there, where our guides stopped at a hot spring. They brought out some chocolate powder and served us hot chocolate with the water, that was coming right off the ground. It was amazing. Probably something you should have had on the glacier, Jeffrey.
I got this in a newsletter today the way:
http://www.tapdny.com/
Purified tap water from NYC.
18 Sep 2008 at 10:30 am 4. keith waldbauer
Great series of posts, Jeffrey… great writing, great photography…. and by the sounds of it, a great time. I’m a pretty ‘effin jealous barkeep.
18 Sep 2008 at 12:30 pm 5. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
rhesuspieces00 – I suppose it would be marketing, if your idea of marketing is not saying “Made from sanitized London sewer water.” One other benefit of bottling in Iceland, I learned, is that they are able to ship to both the United States and the United Kingdom from a central mid-Atlantic location. So I don’t think it’s all hooey.
Keith – Thanks, man. It was a fun and educational trip for me. I wish you could have been there.
18 Sep 2008 at 2:52 pm 6. Dominik MJ - opinionated alchemist
Great write up, Jeffrey!
But I am also sceptical!
Shipping water for a spirit increases massively the carbon footprint! In times like that, we should think about not to do so!
I also grown up with clean water [actually I grown up in a small town in the German alps] – and of course I see the big gap between pristine water like that and the Californian brew, which you were grown up with. But if we are not carefully, we will nowhere have any drinkable water; some of our cities will be flooded; some areas will be envir. desertificated – I try to avoid what ever I can to trade in good sounding marketing for a better future…
19 Sep 2008 at 8:34 am 7. Jeff Frane
I may be confused, but got the distinct impression Miller wasn’t shipping water anywhere, but rather shipping distillate to Iceland and then shipping gin to their markets, just as any other distillery does with their product.
And, Jeffrey, I drink Portland tap water every day with no trepidation at all. Bull Run water is some of the cleanest (and softest) water available.
19 Sep 2008 at 9:24 am 8. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
It’s true, it’s only the distillate that is being shipped to Iceland, then cut with water.
22 Sep 2008 at 9:51 am 9. Dina
Who knew being a bartender would give one such great traveling opportunities?!
I should have listened to Mom–yes my mother told me to be a bartender, I didn’t listen.
Jeff, thanks for sharing your fun with us.
22 Sep 2008 at 11:17 am 10. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Thanks, Dina! It’s been a very good year so far.