opinionated alchemist

Oh - yeah... since a long time I am ready to participate another Mixology Monday - I am so excited. This time - it is a quite easy going subject - Summer Break. This MxMo is hosted by  Joel DiPippa of the  Southern Ash  blog - thanks so much! As I am Beverage Manager in the real corporate life, I had also this time the idea to extend the fun, and ask the interested bartenders, if they would like to participate... two were excited as me - and you will find their thoughts and pictures below. First things first: the thoughts of Joel DiPippa: As we look past the frost in the air for the arrival of spring, I wanted to challenge you with the theme of Spring Break!..  The best part of Spring Break is that it means so many things to so many different people, so I have some high expectations this month.  Yes, tiki-heads, I am looking at you. I want all of you to dig deep, steeled by last month’s MxMO, and find your spring break drink! What sort of drinks d...

I was so enthusiastic about the agave infused tequila. But sometimes you have admit, if your ideas are failing- and this infused tequila just did. The tequila didn't got any further boost in vegetal flavors but got a weird astringency, which I haven't foreseen. However - it is not exactly back to the drawing board... Long time ago, I tried to make homemade agavera liqueur and it ended up to be much better than the original. With. Artichoke. Sounds funny, but then I have envisioned, that artichokes are having exactly the strong vegetal flavors, I searched for. And as artichokes are just getting into season (well at least they are popping up in the supermarkets again) it is just a great thing, which proofed toe work. So artichoke infused tequila it is!

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...

There is always one big challenge in a bar, if somebody is ordering... iced tea. As it is here [in the Middle East] not a regular order, bars usually don't have chilled tea available. If some outlets have it, it is usually... nasty - in old Store 'n Pour containers it taste horrible - already spoiled - or at least soon to spoil. The solution - brewing fresh tea and chilling it down. Problem: the tea just gets watery - if you put ice into it - or it takes a long time [and time it will take anyway], if you are chilling it without direct contact with ice. The ultimate solution:  Rapid Infusion Pour ambient water into a iSi siphon [or any competitive brand - we won't do product placement here]. Add loose tea - maybe little bit lemon zest as well - or feel free to add herbs or anything else, if you would like to do specially flavored iced tea. Close the siphon and charge it with one N2O cartridge.  Swirl for around 45 seconds. Release gas upright [with ...