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.
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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.
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’ve been stricken by writer’s block this summer. And who cares? People tune in to their TVs to watch a bunch of re-hashed crap every summer, right? If it’s good enough for major multi-million-dollar TV networks, it’s good enough for me. Here’s what you may have missed on the Jeffrey Morgenthaler Network last season:
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From time to time, I’ll pop in to Paul Clarke’s liquor cabinet to see what I should have to drink. The only problem is, he lives several hundred miles away and I can’t actually have any of the goodies located therein. However, I can post a list of what’s in my liquor cabinet so that you, too, can peek into my inner sanctum. Unlike Paul’s esoteric list, this is pretty much straightforward, but there are a couple of winners to be discovered…
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For the past few months, I had my heart set on attending Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. However, after weeks of painful deliberation, the Girl and I decided to stay home and focus on domestic matters. So I sent out my heartfelt regrets to all of my so-called friends and told them I would see them next year.
End of story, right? Wrong.
Okay, so do you remember that time you broke your ankle right before the big pool party in high school and you had to stay home, and the phone was ringing off the hook all night with people being all like, “Where are you, we’re having so much fun here drinking and partying without you!” and you were all, like, “Thanks for calling.” Well, it was like that.
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Stephen Beaumont once referred to my “borderline obsessive list-making“, and although this post certainly won’t help my reputation in that area, I’ve wanted to do it for a while now, and I think it will be good times for all. Now, people ask me all the time what my favorite drink is, but it’s hard for me to commit settle on just one. So here are, in some sort of order, my ten favorite drinks of all time.
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Quick! Can you name the five main whisk(e)y-producing countries in the world? Scotland? Check. Ireland? Mmm-hmm. Canada? Yep. United States? Definitely.
But then you’d go, “Five?”, and I’d be all, “Yeah, five!”
And then you’d be all, “Like, where else?”
And then I’d be all, “Japan, dude!”
And you’d be all, “No way!”
And I’d be all, “Fully!”
And then for proof I would show you Chris Bunting’s blog Nonjatta, which means “I drank it all”. Like, literally. Nonjatta is all about Japanese whiskey, which is really helpful when you live in BFE and can’t get any where you live, because then you can learn all about it and sound smart anyway.
Check out Nonjatta here.
Loathe as I am to suggest that you read anything other than the gospel that I hand down to you at three in the morning twice a week, I should admit that another one of my favorite blogs is Cocktails with Camper English. Here’s Camper in his own words:
Camper English is a cocktails and spirits writer for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, Imbibe Magazine, Out Magazine, Wine & Spirits Magazine, and Stuff Magazine. This blog is a celebration of drinks, drinking venues, drink making, drinking, and drunks, including home bartending experiments, visiting venues in San Francisco, and sharing universal booze news.
The writing is as informed as it is hysterical. You can see his full website here, and be sure to check out the Hate Blog:
People who say, “I love your Hate Blog, Camper!” Get a life, InterNerd.
Oh, so busted.
The thing about bartenders is that we’re all attention whores and egomaniacs and couldn’t care less about much else than ourselves. Sure, some of us will tell you that the craft of the cocktail is the most rewarding thing about being a bartender. Others will tell you that putting on a show and giving people an exciting experience is the best part about working behind a bar.
This is a steaming load of horse shit. The real reason we do what we do is because there’s nothing quite like having someone, four gin-and-tonics deep, sitting at your bar and telling you that you do your job better than anyone else in the whole world.
I mention all of this because I’ve received a lot of love this week by being featured in two – count ‘em, two! – interviews. The first was printed by my hometown paper, and the most recent was conducted by the lovely Natalie over at The Liquid Muse.
TLM: Describe your fantasy life…
JM: I’m the Professor from Gilligan’s Island… Oh wait, what?
Natalie was very kind in her write-up of me, and she’s got a really fantastic website, so check us both out!
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.
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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