opinionated alchemist

Jeffrey Morgenthaler stroke again with a brilliant video - this time it covers one of his last posts on his website - the Amaretto Sour [he calls it worlds best amaretto]. I have to say, that American bartenders tend to be a bit "self-centered". He reads out of an American bar book - but let me tell you something - the Amaretto Sour is already quite some time around in Europe - and in Europe there was nothing such as "sweet & sour mix". Traditionally lemon juice and in some cases sweeteners [most of the time simple syrup] used. Admittedly - seldom in the era before the late 90's fresh lemon or lime juice was used - but still... And I also don't get, where Jeffrey got it from, that the classic way in Europe is, to serve sours with an orange or lemon twist. Well nowadays maybe, but the "sour flag" with orange and/or lemon and maraschino cherry I have seen very often in Germany and other European countries [before of the mixology revolu...

Darcy of artofdrink.com , wrote up a post about the death of cocktail blogging. At least, he meant, the golden times are gone. The reasons are, that google changed its algorithms- hence it is more difficult to get a first page search hit for smaller websites. Well - I don't want to mirror here Darcy's argumentation. Please feel free to get over to his website and read the whole, well written piece. Honestly, for me, I can't complain about less readers. As I decided before, that my idea of a blog is more important than the SEO qualities [however was later forced to change this platform] - I always focussed on readers, who are particularly looking for my blog. And since my blog is now on blogger.com, the numbers exploded - I am still far away of the times of artofdrink.com [Darcy mentioned, that he got 5000 hits per day - I am running on good days around 5% of it] - but I am happy, how things turned out. If it comes to the stagnation of mixology blogs,  I would say, t...

Kagiso, one of the most vivid readers of my blog had a couple of questions on the whiskey sour post. So lets get directly down to it: [...] the 'perfect' sour- the whiskey..i have always prefered JD over all - #7 or single barrel. it is more rich more to my taste, however - issue of high alcohol is a daunting one. Im not one for high proof spirits, it seems to me that high content of spirit downgrades the overall experience. [...] could it be that the spirit is over whelming?  In my [maybe not so] humble opinion, there is nothing like a too strong whiskey. We are not talking high-proof rum - we are talking about a natural strength bourbon. To be honest, conceptual I don't like Jack Daniel's - not because it is a very bad product, but there is nothing such as value for money. If the "Old No. 7" would be half the price, it would be really ok. To the rich flavor: the higher the alcohol percentage in spirits, the less is the dilution. Hig...

Yippee... today I received some pieces of my gear: Mr. FizzGiz sent the gear from the US to Abu Dhabi - trust me, these were tough >6 weeks and I had problems to keep patient. Finally we have the gear - and fortunately I have ordered also a hand-pressurizer, so we can already start, without waiting for the installation of the CO2 cylinder. The very low tech solution FizzGiz is beating the much more sophisticated systems of iSi: the soda siphon or adapted espuma siphon [they took the Twist&Sparkle from the market, as there was the risk of exploding glass bottles] or Soda Stream hands down. It is so simple and cheap [if you don't have to pay for the air freight], that it is questionable, why people are bothering to invest into a more expensive system. When you get new gear, you wanna use it, right? My colleague from our South East Asian restaurant Noodlebox sat with me a couple of days ago, and we discussed, that it would be a great idea, to use home made sodas - lem...

It is not the overall beverages but the constant innovation and adaptability, which makes the job not only interesting, but also is the biggest challenge... In Skylite we have introduced a completely new beverage list and a completely new food menu. Obviously I was heavily involved in both - now we are in the soft [re]opening stage and most products are available already - we are just waiting for some of the tougher things to get [cinchona bark and a carbonation unit somebody?]. I am pretty happy for the moment with the hard work of the bartenders in Skylite. They do a tremendous job and the drinks are better than I expected them to be. It definitely will be posted on the blog, why I selected respective drinks, why this food menu [which will be 100% finger food] and so on. For the moment I am struggling with my time management, so I am sure, that you forgive me, to postpone it to a better timing... Lets have a look on the drinks: Tweaked Classics Cilantro Jalapeño »To...

Today we have had a cigar training [which I held] and I have used the official habanos videos - showing all steps of making Cuban premium cigars. As I had some issues to find those information before in the world wide web, I am posting the videos here, for your convenience. Please do not hesitate to comment! It would not be me, if I wouldn't mention, that there are also fantastic other tobacco producing countries. Amazing wrappers are coming not only from Cuba, but also from Connecticut [the famed Connecticut Cut wrapper, or the even better Connecticut Broadleaf], Cameroon [very dark and rich leaves], or the very limited but amazing Dominican wrappers. Good filler and binder tobacco is produced in Mexico, Nicaragua [the always extremely well rated Padrón cigars], Dominican Republic, Brazil [which have a completely different, strong and kinda funky tasting tobacco], Honduras, Ecuador and Sumatra [Indonesia]. Yes, Cuba is the cradle of cigars as well as a very good produ...

I am busy these days. But I am also thinking a lot, reflecting a lot. For the moment I get some recognition from the very right people. Unfortunately not from the others - which is a bummer; cause the wrong people are giving the awards. But do you know what? I don't care. This might be the main problem. I don't really care to get the recognition. I put this away as superfluous, but it isn't. And if I think about myself, it gets a bit tragic: I am an almost 40 years old man, who works in a bar, hunting his ideals, which very few people would understand. If there would be the question, how to become a good bartender, I would say, learn, pursue, practise, understand the subject, work on a style... but I should really say: run as fast as you can - get a proper job, make some money, have some leisure time. Don't get me wrong here - bartending [or bar management] is a proper job. I don't that anyone things, that I put ourselves to the students, which have no clu...