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:
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.
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.
Just when I think I’ve run out of things to say, my friends over at Imbibe Magazine drop me a note telling me that there’s a new video up, and it’s almost like the content writes itself.
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 [...]
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23 Apr 2009 at 3:02 PM 1. Jeff Frane
Yay! I think I asked for this a year ago.
24 Apr 2009 at 7:03 AM 2. Jared
Jeff! Whenever I try to flame an orange, all I get is two pieces of zest where I originally had one, because I broke the piece I was trying to flame. How do you get the oils to come out so nicely? Do you have a special technique?
24 Apr 2009 at 3:52 PM 3. Mark
You know, now you’re in Portland, you’ll have to update that resume of yours.
24 Apr 2009 at 3:56 PM 4. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Jared – I think your oranges are possibly not so fresh. I have this happen on occasion, but it’s not an every time kind of thing.
Mark – Thanks for the reminder.
26 Apr 2009 at 6:09 PM 5. Rick
Jeff,
Really digging these videos – great to see your mug on a regular basis :)
Couple of questions for you:
1. You get a lot of pith with those channel knives. A little bit is nice to help the twist hold its shape, but the knife I have looks like yours. It leaves a good 1/8-1/4″ of pith. Good / bad?
2. You drop the peels into the drink after expelling the oils. I’ve heard lots of back and forth on this. Some say it adds bitterness to the drink (and they are most finicky and wrong), but I don’t like how it gets in the way of sipping sometimes. Any reason you do this rather than just chucking them? A twist can look nice, but a floating circle of lemon or orange is less exciting.
3. Nice, passionate effort on rubbing the rim of the glass.
Cheers!
26 Apr 2009 at 7:26 PM 6. Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Thanks for saying that, anyway, Rick ;)
To answer your questions:
1. Yeah, you get a lot of white pith with those channel knives. But while most people will tell you to avoid the pith, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I don’t think it matters a whole hell of a lot as the bitterness is only going to find its way into your mouth if you eat the twist. My answer: don’t eat the garnish.
2. Again, I haven’t had too many issues with bitterness on those wide zests (Hey, you: don’t eat that) and I find that they don’t really get in the way too much with a wide-mouthed cocktail glass like the one I use in the video. My exception here is when drinking a Sazerac, as I think the small rocks glass that drink should be served in will shove the twist into your face every time you take a sip. I discard the twist on that particular drink for that reason.
3. Thanks. I’m sure someone can find a joke in there, but I’m gonna skip it.
Cheers!
26 Apr 2009 at 8:44 PM 7. Eugenia
Weird, my thoughts were exactly like Rick’s: 1) pith issue, and 2) wow, there’s something really sexy about the oil around the rim. Of course, I was going to keep #2 to myself (and all obvious jokes), but since someone else mentioned it…
Ahem. Regarding #1, I think the pith would actually *add* something to the drink profile, just a little hint of bitter in a good way.
Love these videos, Jeff, thanks!
11 May 2009 at 2:22 AM 8. ND
The zest can be delicious to eat, weird as it sounds—especially if you’ve got nice organic fruit. The zest at the end of an Old Fashioned is particularly good; it almost tastes like a candied orange peel for grown-ups (more so if you’ve flamed it).
14 May 2009 at 7:12 PM 9. Sambo
Bravo!!!! You are my hero!!! Whassup JM???
26 May 2009 at 8:02 PM 10. Nathan
Loves it.
http://chocomeat.blogspot.com/2009/05/buvare-imbibe-sips-with-jeffrey.html
18 Jun 2009 at 8:52 PM 11. AlchemistGeorge
Thanks for making this – so helpful – like many amateurs, garnishes are a weak spot for me and being able to see what you are doing is very helpful.
Encore?
26 Jul 2009 at 1:46 AM 12. Mata
Loved that! I learned something useful!!!
24 Feb 2011 at 11:36 PM 13. Cutter
Wow, haven’t seen that one with the orange. That’s sweet! Can you do it with any citrus peel?
And while it’s a cheat, I do enjoy using a rotato to make up a whole mess of citrus skin for twists and such. And the upside of using one is you never have to worry about getting too much pith.