THE CURIOUS BARTENDER VOLUME II Designer Geoff Borin Editors Nathan Joyce and Julia Charles Head of Production Patricia Harrington Picture Manager Christina Borsi Art Director Leslie Harrington Editorial Director Julia Charles Publisher Cindy Richards Prop Stylist Sarianne Plaisant Indexer Ingrid Lock Illustrator Selina Snow First published in 2018 by Ryland Peters & Small 20–21 Jockey’s Fields London WC1R 4BW and 341 E 116th St New York NY 10029 www.rylandpeters.com 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Text © Tristan Stephenson 2018 Design and commissioned photography © Ryland Peters & Small 2018 All photography by Addie Chinn except for cover image and images on pages 12 –13 , 24 –25 , 60 –61 wepix/Getty Images. Illustrations on pages 62 –63 by Selina Snow. The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-84975-893-2 eISBN: 978-1-78879-139-7 A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. US Library of Congress CIP data has been applied for. Printed in China A note on sourcing blood for the Claret cocktail on page 196 : when using fresh blood you really need to trust your source and be 100% sure that the product has been packaged under strict sanitary conditions. Fresh blood must be used within 24 hours of slaughter. It’s also worth noting that a small amount of blood isn’t harmful to your body, but overconsumption (as with most things) can be dangerous. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION How to use this book THE BASICS Basic Equipment Advanced Measuring Equipment Thirteen Bottles Kitchen Ingredients TECHNIQUES Introduction to Chilling Shaking & Stirring Sugar & Syrups Seasoning Cocktails Infusions & Extraction Juicing & Drying Fermentation Filtering Blending Clarification & Centrifuge Distilling Liquid Nitrogen Smoking Maturing Carbonation THE COCKTAILS Flavour Map Brandy Vodka Gin Rum Whisky Tequila Wine Buying Guide Equipment & Suppliers Glossary Index Acknowledgments About the Author INTRODUCTION Hello there and welcome to the latest instalment of the Curious Bartender series. I’m glad you could make it. Since The Curious Bartender: The Artistry & Alchemy of Creating the Perfect Cocktail was published in 2013, the series has sold over a quarter of a million copies and been translated into multiple languages. Following the success of the first book, I have gone on to write a further four books, which adjusted the focus of the original and took aim at spirits (whisky, gin, rum) and coffee. Although all of these books included a few cocktail recipes, they are mostly works dedicated to specific categories of drink rather than pages of instructions on how to make drinks. But in the back of my mind I always knew that one day, another cocktail book would need to be written. To start with, the original book was ready for an update. Trends come and go quickly in this era of craft cocktails and mixology. Drinks ascend into and fall out of favour with the changing of the seasons. Some trends that were the epitome of cool ten years ago now seem crass or just plain boring. That’s not to say that the first instalment of this series is not a piece of work I am proud of. It is, in my humble opinion, a fine representation of the slightly awkward adolescent period that bar craft was going through five to ten years ago. Between 2005 and 2010, the bar industry experienced an incredible period of self-discovery as classic cocktails were revived and new, culinary techniques found their way behind bars. Some of these practices, such as sous vide (see page 38 ), have, I hope, found a permanent home there. Others, like hydrocolloid caviar pearls, have found themselves homeless. And then there are the new trends. It’s amazing to think that a mere eight years ago you would struggle to find a cocktail bar that carbonated its own beverages on-site. Nowadays, carbonated cocktails are a common feature of bar programs and a whole range of different strategies have been developed to implement them (see pages 57 –61 ). The growing movement towards low- environmental-impact food and drink has led many to take on a locavore approach to cocktail creation (see Tiger’s Milk on pages 80 –1 ) and rediscover traditional preparation and preservation practices such as smoking (see pages 50 –51 ) and fermentation (see pages 43 –4 ), and these techniques have broadened the flavour gamut of mixed drinks. At the cutting edge, liquid nitrogen (see pages 49 –50 ) continues to be as useful for making things cold as it is for extracting flavour from plants, while distilling (see pages 48 –9 ) behind bars has graduated from the status of ‘extremely rare’ to ‘niche’. Perhaps the most radical trend that is currently affecting the bar industry is that of non-alcoholic cocktails. Mixed drinks comprising herbs, juices and sodas littered menus for years, but a new breed of non-alcoholic ‘wines’, ‘spirits’ and mixers are taking the bar world by storm and opening up new avenues of alcohol-free mixology (see pages 120 –21 ). As well as the need to document recent advances, a new cocktail book has also proved to be a good chance to explore a new selection of classic cocktails. This book includes detailed recipes and descriptions for 31 ‘new’ classics that I have not previously explored in my other titles. Most of these drinks were already very familiar to me, but mixing them with a fresh set of eyes and a well-practised palate (that’s one way of putting it…) has been extremely rewarding, especially on occasions where I have shared and discussed drinks with the team members at my bars. Speaking of bars, when I began writing the first Curious Bartender title I had just opened my second bar: The Worship Street Whistling Shop. Since then, I have opened a further four bars in London, including a dedicated whisky bar by the name of Black Rock and a sherry bar called Sack. I’ve also become a restaurateur, opening Surfside – a seafood restaurant in Polzeath, Cornwall. I’m also now the director of a bottled cocktail company, and have more recently branched out into e-commerce with a whisky subscription club called WHISKY-ME. All these wider business endeavours mean that these days most of my work is done in front of a laptop screen rather than behind a bar. The slightly unexpected side effect of this change of workplace is that I now spend more time mixing drinks and experimenting with alcohol at home. Most of the classic cocktails in this book have been tested in my home kitchen, and I developed many of the original drinks in this book at home too. This rings true to the ethos of The Curious Bartender series, which has always been about building excitement through the exploration of great cocktails and delicious spirits, whether you are an amateur at home or a professional in a bar. Indeed, this urge to explore, test and create drinks should not be limited to the world’s best bartenders. It is something that anyone can do anywhere, and it is my hope that this book can play a role in this creative movement. Above all, this book is a story about what makes cocktails great and how to go about making great cocktails. It is a book that equips the reader with the knowledge needed to develop original drinks, and perhaps even perfect some of mine. It is a book that links the amateur and the professional as never before. Before you get started, there is just one important precondition that must be met – you have to be curious. ) HOW TO USE THIS BOOK The first section of this book covers the basic equipment, glassware and ingredients you will need for mixing drinks. You might not need all of this stuff, or you might need all of this stuff plus extra bits that are covered later on. This section is a primer, and essential reading of you’re just starting out in the world of cocktails. The second section covers a wide range of techniques. To begin with, we will take an in- depth look into ice, chilling, and what happens when a cocktail is shaken, stirred or blended. It’ll get a bit scientific here, but I can promise you it’s worth it and your tongue will thank you for it later. This section also discusses basic taste principles, like sweet, sour and salty. Then we’ll look at various preparation techniques in detail, all the way from making infusions through distilling and barrel ageing. It’s all there. The third section of the book is by far the biggest, and this includes all of the cocktail recipes. You will see a flavour map at the start of this section, which plots cocktails according to their alcoholic intensity and how sweet or dry they are. This is a great visual tool for deciding which drink you want to make next, and I personally wouldn’t be without it. The cocktails section is organised by base spirit (the main spirit in the cocktail). This isn’t the way I would normally organise a cocktail menu, but I’ve done it this way so that those with only a limited selection of spirits can quickly dial down to those drinks that are within their means. The cocktails themselves are listed in pairs. First comes the classic version of the drink, with all the associated history and commentary, then comes my interpretation of the drink, typically involving more advanced techniques and abstract flavours.