opinionated alchemist

Since the resurgence of the cocktail culture, one product category seems to be the pet-sleeve of any self-respecting bar and bartender: cocktail bitters. Truth has to be told, I also believe, that before the reinvented craft cocktail, bars used far too rarely bitters - hell, a lot of bars even didn’t used them in classic ("bitter") cocktails like the Manhattan. However like so many things, I do think, that the trend has been widely exaggerated. Nowadays you do have an almost uncountable offer of aromatic bitters and orange bitters, but also quite a lot of unique bitters like: chocolate bitters, celery bitters, cherry, plum, lemon, lime, rhubarb, grapefruit, lavender, cucumber and so on. To understand, if anyone needs these type of bitters, we do first of all have to understand the purpose of the bitters. Let’s revisit the Old Fashioned Cocktail: a cocktail with sugar, spirit, bitters and some water (dilution). If you drink whiskey on the rocks (and especial...

I do have for the moment quite regular with Scott Young, who founded extremebartending.com and bartendingschool4free.com. He asked me, if I have posted something about Molecular Mixology.  I did. But I picked out some techniques, which I think, make sense in good 'normal' bars. Sigh... some will know, that I am not that  keen on MM. But yeah, there are techniques, you can't really ignore anymore. Molecular Mixology in a pure form is in my eyes a dead end. The drinks are over-complicated, take too much time, they are fuzzy and its all surface. Yes, there are some successful bars, which are doing MM. But except of Tony Conigliaro's bar " The bar with no name", 69 Colebrooke Row in Islington and maybe Aviary in Chicago, I don't remember one. Let's face it - most of these bars repeating the few better known MM recipes with few variations over and over again. After I left, the folks over at Emirates Towers had a promotion of the  flown  in Antonio L...

After the high popularity of my Mojito post - as well as the also well liked post about the Diablo , I would like to highlight here, another bar staple: The humble Whiskey Sour. Also: if you can make a proper Whiskey Sour, you can do a lot of other Sours - basically you can take any distillate and make a Sour out of it... I call it the "perfect" Whiskey Sour to be obviously a bit provocative - but also, as you get often a less than perfect drink, when you are ordering one. So what are the ingredients of a Whiskey Sour? American Whiskey [yes - I say it: definitely no Scotch, also for sure no Canadian, no Irish and obviously no Japanese] Truth has to be told - there is definitely something like an adequate Scotch Sour. But it should simply not be called Whiskey Sour, as the character is totally different. Period! Lemon Juice Sugar Optional egg white Additional to the ingredients, these features are also important to consider: Balance between sweet and s...