In my opinion, one of the greatest triumphs of the cocktail renaissance is the rediscovery of the classic Old Fashioned. I’ve often spoken of how at some point after the repeal of Prohibition, the Old Fashioned became lost and possibly confused with a long-forgotten drink called a Smash (basically a tarted-up Mint Julep covered in fruit), a mere husk of its former, glorious self.
For decades, bartenders just like me served a limp, weak concoction consisting of a half-muddled sugar cube, a mashed-up neon red cherry and orange, a splash of whiskey, and some soda water drowning the results.
With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, that’s all changed with the renewed interest in classic cocktails. Now at any given night at my bar you can find literally a dozen people sipping on two ounces bourbon touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters, garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes.
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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 bar manager at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon.
I've been tending bar since 1996 and writing about it since 2004. I started tending bar while getting my degree in Interior Architecture, and slowly I came to the conclusion that bartending was what I really loved, and that I might as well drop everything and focus on being a professional bartender. Over the years I have strived, both behind the bar and with this website, 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 greeted the evening with a late-night invitation to the Beefeater party at Maxim, a huge club here in Berlin. I wasn’t able to make it to the party, unfortunately, but I’ll promise a reasonable explanation – along with a definition of the term “Irish Goodbye” as an answer to the obvious question.
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In an amazing display of organization and efficiency, the gorgeous Bar Convent Berlin (Berlin Bar Convention) started this morning. Since I had the rare wisdom to leave early last night, I was able to be there for the first presentation of the day, Cachaça: The Soul of Brazil, presented by the brilliant Jared Brown and Anastasia Miller, with my good friend John Gakuru, global brand ambassador for Sagatiba Cachaça.
I’d picked up their book, The Soul of Brazil when I was at Tales of the Cocktail this summer, and have been savoring every deliciously historical fact this summer – so I was quite excited to be able to sit in a room and learn more about one of my favorite spirits this morning.
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I have to be up and running around the BCB tomorrow morning, so this post promises to be an exercise in efficiency, and while my last name belies this, I fear that it won’t be the German type.
So, here we go:
1. I begin my day at a restaurant recommended to me by Helmut Adam, where – thanks to my severe language deficiency – I mistakenly order a non-alcoholic beer with lunch.
2. I take a lovely stroll through West Berlin and see some non-bar-trade-related sights. There are a lot of German Shepherds going for walksies in Berlin. I think they just call them “Shepherds” here.
3. I walk back over the river to West Berlin for a social at Mixology headquarters. I don’t know why I was surprised to see a big, beautiful bar situated in the office of a huge bartending magazine, but I was.
4. I have a run-in with Jay Hepburn. Again.
5. Jay and I discover the Mixology liquor closet. Jay is much more amenable when surrounded by 2,000 of his closest friends.
6. The gregarious Phillip Duff pours us into a cab and takes us to Reingold for an amazing party hosted by the Traveling Mixologists. Jörg Meyer is spotted on many sides of the bar.
7. Simon Difford confides in me that he has a Google Alert for his name. I make a mental note to mention him in every future blog post in order to force him to read this site.
8. Rag-tag group piles into yet another cab and finds a hotel bar.
9. Things start getting fuzzy.
10. Rag-tag group walks a mile to a bar that Difford wants to check out for his upcoming bar guide.
11. Bar is closed.
12. Group attempts to find other bar. For Difford’s bar guide.
13. Jeff hails cab and sneaks back to hotel. Few notice.
There’s just something about rolling into a city at noon, after a solid eighteen hours of travel time that just screams “It’s going to be a late night”. So, after a nap and some real German sausages for dinner, it was time to meet up with Helmut Adam and Simon Difford for what I can only imagine will be the first of many Berlin bar crawls this week.
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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.
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.
The driver that picked me up at Heathrow almost didn’t find the place. I definitely didn’t see it, but after nit-picking through the library of buildings packed together on Westbourne Grove it suddenly appeared to us, like something out a Harry Potter tale. Ten feet wide and six stories tall, Miller’s Residence is packed to the rafters with a display of antiques amassed by lifelong collector Martin Miller.
On my bed, I found a note:
To the uninitiated, this is an intimate 18th century style boutique hotel nestled in the heart of London that will transport you into the romance of a bygone era. Here you will see for yourself the sumptuous antique furnishings and exquisite decoration that belie my fascination with the past. The hotel is the essence of a welcoming private residence and I am confident that your stay will be a comfortable and interesting one.
My room is on the very top floor, overlooking Notting Hill. I’m surrounded by antique plates, etchings of fox hunts, and layers of rich embroidery and tapestry. There are also framed political cartoons and a picture of Jerry Hall.
Some delight in calling me an eccentric but I rather like to think of myself as more of a traditionalist in most things. The wonderful thing about tradition is that it exists to be subverted and this is what I have done in the creation of my Martin Miller’s Gin.
I can already tell that this is going to be a most interesting trip.
Right now I’m packing my bags and making last-minute preparations for a very special trip. Martin Miller’s Gin has graciously offered to fly me to London and Iceland for a week of gin education, touring, cocktail judging, and the possibility of merriment at some of the finest bars and restaurants in the world.
Being a gin aficionado, the chance to learn more about one of my favorite brands is certainly enticing, as I’ve been enamored with Martin Miller’s since discovering the gin a year and a half ago. And once I became acquainted with the 90.4 proof Westbourne Strength, my adoration has turned into something more of an obsession.
But this is an especially incredible opportunity for me as a bartender and spirits/cocktails blogger, being given the opportunity to connect with the people who distill the product I use, to meet other bartenders in the global community who share my passion for the craft, and to learn, learn, learn. Education has always been the cornerstone of my bartending philosophy, and this next week promises to be more informative than anything I could have hoped for.
And while I can’t bring each and every one of you with me, I will be sharing everything I learn here with you over the next week. So continue to check back in for updates and information as I experience them first-hand.
We’re fortunate to have some great minds in absinthe here in the Pacific Northwest, and on Sunday a few of them came together to share their extensive knowledge with the attendees of the Great American Distiller’s Festival in a panel titled “Q&A on Northwest Absinthe”
The panel featured Gwydion Stone, founder of the educational organization The Wormwood Society and creator of the soon-to-be released Marteau absinthe, Marc Bernhard, creator of the soon-to-be released Pacifique absinthe, and Rich Phillips from Integrity Spirits, producers of the first Oregon absinthe, Trillium.
I’ve done a fair amount of reading about absinthe and tried to learn as much as possible on my own, but the panel was still informative and provided me with some great facts to fill in for the gaps in my knowledge. I’ll recap here:
Absinthe was banned in 1912 by Food Inspection Decision 147 of the USDA. It forbade the manufacture, sale or transportation of absinthe. Several events contributed to our rediscovery of absinthe:
I wasn’t aware that sagebrush is a member of the same plant family as wormwood (artemesia), and that culinary sage actually contains more thujone than wormwood.
I didn’t really know where the green color present in verte absinthes came from, and now I do: after the final distillation, hyssop, lemonbalm and Roman wormwood are macerated in the absinthe to provide additional flavor and a pale green color. There was no mention of what might produce a neon blue color.
This one I knew, but I’d like to reiterate it here: The ritual of lighting a sugar cube on fire and dropping it into absinthe is inauthentic, a recent invention, and a potentially dangerous ceremony centered around the consumption of illegitimate absinthes of inferior quality. As Marc so eloquently put it, “Friends don’t let friends burn absinthe.“
I have a confession for you: I can’t remember how to make a Mai Tai. I’m serious, I can’t. I mean, I know what goes in one, I know the legend of the drink, the names of the supposed creators, and the importance of the Mai Tai in modern cocktail culture. I can [...]
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