opinionated alchemist

The pink wave is approaching us and probably will overrun us all... at least this is my current feeling, when I see, what kind of new products are approaching and which products are hitting the trend-lists. First there was the Cosmopolitan - then after a long hiatus of pink highly popular beverages, rosé wine started its incredible victory run. The frozé has been a wine based drink, which really pushed pink further. And now we are at pink gin. This is an obvious combination of "pink" and another current hyper trend: gin. Gordon's, one of the biggest volume producer of gin (but in my eyes, maybe not one of the outstanding ones),  didn't wanted to stay behind - and also developed a pinkish gin. How is it? It is sweet, it is pink, it smells like strawberries and taste like a berry-fruit bouquet. There are for sure some juniper and other spice notes, which are coming through. Yet the beverage is not very complex. Which might be ok, for the target clientele?! M...

Often it is difficult to change existing bars with "new stuff". However I am asking myself, why are new bars not growing mint themselves? Hydroponic systems are quite efficient and easy to maintain. First: why should a bar grow their own mint? The answer is quite obvious, bars are using a lot of mint. And mint is quite delicate - that means, transporting it, will take its toll. But there are points, which are going even further: self-grown mint, would need less to be processed (washed, stored etc).  Second: there is even more to it. Mint has most of its aromatics in microscopic hair underneath the leaves. While it is transported, it looses a lot of these hairs, and the aroma is gone forever. Even a sophisticated system, how to revive mint and keep it for  along time, will not change, that this mint will taste only like a shadow of fresh harvested mint! Third: mint growth I admit, if you first of all plant mint, it seems a bit of a delicate thing....

So finally I visited "Cocktail Kitchen" after they received their Alcohol License. I was with friends - and I can't really find a big flaw of this place. This isn't a bar review - but I just like to mention, that I don't really understand the overall design concept (a bit lack of personality - or "bar mystique"). The cocktails were all pretty good - or let's say, one of the best cocktails I have tried for a long time... if there was any technical flaw, I could say, that they were ever slightly too warm - but yeah - the drinks are not only good, but also interesting and "unexpected".  However when  I tried several drinks, I had to question myself - does every cocktail need to be extremely complex? Theirs are - it is tough to taste the base spirit of any tried ones - because they use fancy bitters, fancy liqueurs, infusions and so on. Don't get me wrong - I like complex tasting cocktails like the Last Word - but I argue, tha...