I am usually not a big fan of mocktails! Really - come to a bar and drink some proper drinks - or just drink water, a soft drink or orange juice [please spare me, with something like watermelon juice or kiwi juice!]. However being a beverage manager of a resort, also included "creative" introductions of alcohol free drinks - and especially in family restaurants, you will sell a lot! So - as you can see on the picture, these are a quite evolutionary type of drink! Basically it is an instant soda pop. You muddle your fruit and/or herb [you can add also some syrups like elderflower or vanilla] - you fill the glass with ice and fill it up with a neutral soda pop base. This contains water, sugar, citric acid, carbon dioxide, a small pinch of salt and a small pinch of bicarbonate of soda. I actually realized, that adding a bit salt and bicarbonate really boost the flavors and make the "pop" sing! I am using Soda Plus, to carbonate the soda b...
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As mentioned in my previous post, we are opening a restaurant with a Tiki beverage concept [please don't check for grammar mistakes or alike - I really try to keep you in the loop - though haven't got the usual time, to write up a perfect piece]. Due to the fact, that it was revealed not so long time ago, that the concept is changed to Tiki and the a rather busy holiday season, I could not prepare the infusions for Falernum, Allspice Dram and alike. However I am pretty good in putting 'a' and 'b' together... There is a version in the internets, which features to blend the ingredients for an allspice dram. Neat and interesting. Further Dave Arnold's rapid cavitation infusion would be also a way to go. Now the first concept usually works quite well. However the liquid is a bit cloudy - it is quite difficult to strain the blended pieces of botanical as well. And also the second concept works - however through rapid cavitations, aromas usually are far...
Ok - folks, as always an apology! It have been quiet around here. Yes - my work-life balance actually totally broke down. Festive season - a wine trip to Italy [well - this was at least a bit of life - nice trip though and nice wines... let me know, if you want to learn more about it]. Anyway - I am back... that means, not completely - I am just standing before a rather big challenge - another opening of a restaurant with a challenging beverage concept: tiki cocktails. If you have been more than once, you might have had the notion, that I am more like a classic cocktail kind of guy. Yes - I love to do something new - but always on rather simple cocktails with few ingredients. Tiki is not necessary right in my alley. However my style formed working almost 2 decades in the beverage business. And yes - I did my fair share of tiki. I will definitely post some picture of the tiki madness. However today, I am dedicating my time and this space for one particular ingredient: banan...
A decade or so ago, I was jealous about bartenders in the US and a bit less to them in the UK. Germany wasn't in this time well served with new products for the bar. Then I came to Dubai - and learned, that it wasn't that bad in Germany. Even today, there are a lot of limitations, when it comes to availabilities of products in the UAE. But on the other hands, I have learned a lot: limitations are fueling your imagination and creativity and if I would have stayed in Germany, I don't think, that I would have become the same bar-person, I am today... There are a lot of ingredients in the kitchen, we usually oversee. One of them I would like to play around today: fennel. Fennel seeds to be exact. Sure, you could mess around with the fennel bulb - juice it [after that you might want to agar-agar clarify it...] - but spices are so much easier to work with - and sometimes the result is even better. This is what google has to say about it: ...
There are things, which boggles me - basically these are first world problems, however it is annoying, that these problems are not solved [yet]. In the bar there are some points, which rob my sleep, when I think too much about it - but basically nobody seems to care: All cocktail glasses [speak martini glasses] in glass lines of reputable drinking glass producer are too big for refined cocktails [yeah I know, if you are living in the US or Europe, you might be able to buy vintage glasses...]. Glass washer of any producer doesn't clean [against all claims] glasses to a level, that you don't need to polish them anymore [which is more hygienic, more convenient and basically cheaper, as you won't have that much glass breakage]. ... Drinks made with egg-white smells after a short period of times [read seconds] like a wet dog. I have had a short discussion with Jeffrey Morgenthaler on his website [via comments] - but he didn't cared about this small hints, and ju...
There are little and big hurdles, when it comes to modern bartending. Most bartenders, bar operators, managers [...] are not aware, that a new approach in the bar just need consistent new tricks and hacks to be not too time consuming. Unfortunately I feel often a bit left alone, when it comes to "develop" these hacks. Some of these hacks are discovered purely by luck, some are based on research and some or just common sense. Homemade liqueurs, infusions, syrups, need adequate and pretty containers. Honestly, it is pretty dumb, to buy those - as so many bottles are used and most are definitely useable. From wine bottles over to liqueur bottles and not ending with liquor [whisky, gin, vodka you name it] - after a bottle is emptied, the usual way is the dumpster. But this is not only a waste but also bad for the environment. BUT - the big issue of reusing bottles are labels. My previous method was tedious - soaking bottles in water, stripping the labels [a fleck at ...