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.
To be honest with you, I didn’t really have much of a chance to prepare for this month’s Mixology Monday. In fact, when Natalie emailed me a reminder earlier today, my first thought was, “Oh, f*ck!”. And as much as I loves me some Mixology Monday, I’ve been a little out of the loop this week. There are a few reasons for this:
I’ve been very busy with the bar.
I’ve been very busy building websites.
Today is my birthday.
However, I was able to put something together on the fly while making dinner tonight. This might come as a shock to some of you, coming from a lowly barkeep and all, but I’m actually a fairly adept cook. So while I was putting together dinner, I whipped up a cocktail with some of the ingredients I had in my liquor cabinet. And to my surprise it turned out pretty okay. In fact, I think this would be a wonderful first course.
The food:
Butter Leaf Salad
With buttermilk-tarragon dressing, late-summer tomatoes and country bacon
¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup mayonnaise
1½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp freshly chopped tarragon
Whisk ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl. Cover and chill in a refrigerator for one hour to meld flavors.
Meanwhile, slice ½ pound bacon into thick chunks and cook over medium-high heat until fat is rendered and bacon is near crisp. Drain of fat and pat dry with a towel.
Seed tomatoes and dice. Let drain and set aside.
Toss washed butter leaf lettuce with dressing. Garnish with tomatoes and bacon.
Herbsaint-Scented French 75
With Beefeater gin and organic lemon juice
3 oz dry sparkling wine
1½ oz gin
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz simple syrup
Herbsaint
Rinse chilled champagne flute with Herbsaint or other anise-flavored liqueur. Combine gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and sparkling wine and stir with cracked ice until chilled. Strain into flute and garnish with lemon twist.
I liked the idea of the lemon juice and sparkling wine cutting the fat of the dressing and the bacon. I went with the Herbsaint because I thought it would pair well with the anise notes of the tarragon, and given that Herbsaint is one of the drier absinthe substitutes out there I think it pairs really well with this particular salad.
Try it for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading, and thank you for hosting, Natalie!
In case you’ve missed all the hoopla, it’s time for another Mixology Monday! This month, we’re being hosted by Gwen over at Intoxicated Zodiac. Gwen has chosen orange as the theme for the month.
Greetings, and happy Mixology Monday! Paul over at Cocktail Chronicles is hosting this month’s get-together, and the theme is Blog Love. Yikes, what a name, huh?
But it’s a great idea: we’re all going to try out recipes that we’ve seen on each other’s sites, and report on our findings.
Because we’re bloggers.
And we have love.
Blog love.
After a brutal weekend of making drinks for what seemed like every single graduate of the University of Oregon this weekend (and their parents), I’m propping myself up at my computer to once again take part in the Mixology Monday festivities.
I did some advance planning (a first) and started working on this recipe last month. The theme of this Mixology Monday is cocktails that use cream-based liqueurs, but I’m going to go out on a limb and show you how to make your own Irish Cream instead.
I cobbled this recipe together from a variety of online sources, and then tweaked the recipe to satisfy my palate and the palates of those I work with and serve. I think it’s a success.
I’ve kicked myself many times for never participating in the brilliant Mixology Mondays that Paul over at the Cocktail Chronicles put together last year, but my lack of participation has more to do with the fact that Sunday is my one day off – the one day I never seem to have a computer in my lap. But with my sweetie working Mother’s Day brunch today, I’ve got a little time to put together something very special for my first (and hopefully not last) foray into Mixology Monday. Here we go!
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 [...]
Well, it’s Mixology Monday time yet again, and our pal Jay over at Oh Gosh! (I love that URL) has chosen one of my favorite spirits to work with, gin.
