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 want to ask out a bartender at the bar I go to sometimes with my friends, but I don’t know how I should ask her out. Can you give me some advice?
G
Hey G
Asking out a bartender, especially a female bartender, can be tricky. On one hand, she’s probably getting asked out by every other guy that bellies up to her bar, and is more than likely getting tired of it. On the other hand, she’s just a normal person with a normal job, and you should ask her out just as you’d ask out any other woman. Just be yourself.
That said, there are definitely ways to your bartender’s heart. Here’s a few pointers:
1. Tip. Yes, she looks like she’s having a great time entertaining you, and everyone else in the bar. But the reality is that she’s here because she’s got bills to pay. A great way of separating yourself from the rest of the crowd is to tip respectfully yet extravagantly. Think of a tip that seems like too much money. Now double it. That’s what you need to tip, per drink, every time you go into her bar. And be respectful: never, ever talk about the tip. Just order your drink, tip well, and leave. She’ll notice you, believe me.
2. Don’t get too drunk. I know you think you’re really, really funny and interesting when you’ve had eight shots, but believe me, she doesn’t. She may be laughing right along with you and letting you think she’s interested in hearing what you have to say, but if you’re slurring and looking like a drunken fool, it’s all an act. And if you do get too intoxicated at her bar, don’t try to sober up there over the course of the next three hours. Call a cab and go home.
3. Show her that you’re respectful of other women in the bar. If you’re in her bar every night trying to take home every drunk girl you encounter, chances are she’ll think you’re a scumbag rather than the suave Cassanova you think you are. Be nice, be respectful, and chances are she’ll notice.
I was just surfing the net to get an idea of what to put on a resume for bartending when i have had no bartending experience. I have worked at McDonalds and a big candy store in NYC. I have a bartending license from NY but have had no job. Do you have any advice about putting together a resume? I would really appreciate it, thanks.
Jamie
Hey Jamie
You can’t do much about making yourself look like an experienced bartender if you don’t have any experience. However, with some retail and foodservice experience, in addition to your service permit, you should have a pretty good chance of getting in at the bottom somewhere.
I would recommend that you highlight as much of the foodservice and retail experience as possible, and maybe even consider leaving out some jobs that aren’t related at all. Bar and restaurant managers aren’t going care about the data entry you did back in 1998.
Don’t get discouraged if you’re offered a job as a barback, if you’ve got a good attitude, and you seem like a quick study and a hard worker, you’ll definitely move up into a more prominent position.
I get so many emails through my website from people asking me bar-related questions that I thought I’d start printing them here with my special brand of witty response. If you have a question you’d like answered, please feel free to contact me and I’ll print your question here.
So, without further ado, here’s the first installment of Ask Your Bartender:
What should I do if a man I have less than zero interest in buys me a drink via the bartender? It seems wrong and rude to drink it, if I plan to tell the guy I’m not interested. Do I decline it?
K
Hey K
Some people, most of them men, seem to think that buying a drink for a woman at the other end of the bar is an old, chivalrous thing to do. I call bullshit.
Nothing says “Date Rapist” like a man trying to get a woman drunk at a bar. However, some women don’t realize this and even go so far as to make a point of going out to see how many free drinks they can amass.
That’s why at my bar, I tell my bartenders to use the following bit of decorum:
“Miss, the gentleman at the end of the bar in the backwards baseball cap would like to buy you a drink. You don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. Would you like another?”
Nine times out of ten the woman declines, and the guy ends up leaving in a huff, offended that the bartender wasn’t playing along with his creepy little game. But you know what? I don’t care. I love the fact that our bar is known as a comfortable place for women to come enjoy a cocktail, and I’m not going to do anything to change that.
But here’s an important thing to remember, K: even if you do accept a drink from a man, you’re under no obligation to say anything more than “Thank you” to him. You don’t have to talk to him, and you don’t have to go home with him.
Just do me one favor if you accept a drink from a stranger, kiddo: make sure he hasn’t touched it, and that it was delivered personally by the bartender. Oh, and if your bartender doesn’t ask your permission to serve you a drink sent by a stranger, you’re probably better off just paying your tab and leaving.
Gee, look, it’s six in the morning and I can’t sleep a wink. I’ve gotten some interesting emails through the site lately and I thought I’d share one of them.
By the way, I love getting email through here, so keep ‘em coming.
Hey Nartender
I am a bartender in Wildwood, NJ. Someone asked me where the term Murphy (where you get the last shot in the bottle for free) came from. Please write me back.
Dana
Hey Dana
I did some research into your question. I’ve never heard that term or practice myself, so I talked to some other East Coast bartenders and searched the internet. No person or website I consulted had ever heard of this, so it might be a pretty local practice, giving away the last shot in a bottle and calling it a Murphy.
I would guess that the term “Murphy” is a generic kind of ethnic slur directed at the Irish, like “Mulligan” is in golf.
So, has anyone else heard of this? It’s totally unheard of here on the West Coast, apparently.
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 [...]
