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.
Martin Miller’s Gin has graciously brought me to London and Iceland for a week of gin education, touring, and merriment at some of the finest bars in the world.
While I can’t bring each and every one of you with me, I’ll be sharing everything I learn here with you over the next week. So continue to check back for updates and information as I experience them first-hand.
After a slow start this morning and some shopping for new clothing (thanks a lot, British Airways) it was time to settle in for some afternoon cocktails as I was judging the UK finals of the Martin Miller’s Mixology Competition. Seven contestants battled fiercely on the stage at Miller’s Academy of Arts and Science, an exquisite little lecture hall in Notting Hill that – over the course of the next four hours – would become a booze-fueled den of iniquity.
I was joined at the judges’ table by Martin Miller himself, fresh ray of morning sunshine Jon Santer, and fellow blogger Jay Hepburn. We braced ourselves for a round of seven different variations of the contestants’ take on the venerable English classic, the gin and tonic.
It wouldn’t be a modern mixology competition without molecular gastronomical techniques, so the first drink out of the gate was a plate of tonic gelée finished with a Martin Miller’s gin caviar and a dusting of citric powders. As we slurped away on our tasting spoons, one of the judges did note the problem of textural issues in molecular mixology. Personally, I feel that contrasting consistencies are an important element that many forget to address in molecular bartending.
Anyway, there were some highs and some lows, as there are in any bar competition, yet this was definitely the finest line-up of any competition I’ve witnessed so far.
As the crowd, fueled by cast-off remnants of drinks long judged, began to turn on host Liam Davy, he introduced the final round: the gin and tonic speed pour. Each contestant would have one minute to turn out as many gins and tonic as humanly possible, all the while making an enormous mess of exploding Fever Tree tonic bottles, discarded lime wedges, and ice.
Some of you may recognize Paul Mant above, who, while undisputedly the fastest bartender in the United Kingdom, is definitely not the tidiest. So as I sat staring at the mess that was accumulating around the contestants’ bar area, I thought to myself, “Whoa, look at the time!” and snuck out the door to rest up before dinner.
Comments
5 Responses to “UK Finals – Martin Miller’s Cocktail Competition”
They weren’t necessarily decent G&Ts Blair, but they were fast! Of the few I tasted, they ranged from almost okay to pretty damn bad.
The limes were ready cut, but contestants did have to open the tonic water bottles during the 1 minute. Each glass had to have ice, gin, tonic and a lime wedge, and vaguely resemble a G&T. Given the speed they were doing it at though, some glasses ended up with about two limes worth of wedges in them.
Oh, and incase anyone wonders who the winner is (seeing as Jeff is a terrible judge and split early so didn’t know who won when writing this post), it was Rebecca Almqvist from The Lonsdale in London. She not only managed to come joint-first in the speed round with 17 G&Ts, but also made by far the best drink in the “Twisted G&T” round.
Thanks for the recap, Jay. Much of the reason I was such a terrible judge was because I knew I’d be able to count on you to wrap up any loose ends after I bailed!
And thanks, Eugenia. Encouragement is always appreciated.
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 [...]
11 Sep 2008 at 11:18 AM 1. Blair, aka Trader Tiki
As many decent Gin & Tonics as humanly possible? Those are some definite Hiball Hi-jinks.
Sounds like a Blast… but did cutting the lime count in the time? Curiosity abounds.
11 Sep 2008 at 2:23 PM 2. Chris Bailey
We need video! Man, that’d be fun to watch I bet, would love to see it.
12 Sep 2008 at 4:11 AM 3. Jay Hepburn
They weren’t necessarily decent G&Ts Blair, but they were fast! Of the few I tasted, they ranged from almost okay to pretty damn bad.
The limes were ready cut, but contestants did have to open the tonic water bottles during the 1 minute. Each glass had to have ice, gin, tonic and a lime wedge, and vaguely resemble a G&T. Given the speed they were doing it at though, some glasses ended up with about two limes worth of wedges in them.
Oh, and incase anyone wonders who the winner is (seeing as Jeff is a terrible judge and split early so didn’t know who won when writing this post), it was Rebecca Almqvist from The Lonsdale in London. She not only managed to come joint-first in the speed round with 17 G&Ts, but also made by far the best drink in the “Twisted G&T” round.
12 Sep 2008 at 5:03 AM 4. Eugenia
*Love* the photography on this post. The speed GNT, not so much. But I’m thrilled you’re having a blast in London and representing us well!
12 Sep 2008 at 11:12 AM 5. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Thanks for the recap, Jay. Much of the reason I was such a terrible judge was because I knew I’d be able to count on you to wrap up any loose ends after I bailed!
And thanks, Eugenia. Encouragement is always appreciated.