Pre-making cocktails

[Shalmanese]

Something I've always wondered about is why cocktails seem to be almost universally made one at a time a la minute. It seems like there's nothing inherently wrong with pre-making a large batch of them ahead of time and doling them out as needed.

For example: for a martini, you could put gin, vermouth and a pre-measured amount of water into a sealed bottle and place in the freezer. When the time comes to drink, you can simply dispense into a martini glass, garnish and drink.

This has a couple of things going for it:

You get consistency across drinks, you can make large batches at once and it should keep for a decent amount of time in the freezer which means you can have one whenever you want.

I don't see why a pure-spirit drink wouldn't be able to keep indefinitely and one with citrus should be able to keep for at least a couple of days without a noticeable degradation of quality.

Given all this, the whole shaker and ice routine, while fun to watch and do, seems hopelessly archaic.

Edited December 13, 2008 by Shalmanese (log)

[J_Ozzy]

Batching ingredients is used to great effect in high volume situations (Tales of the Cocktail, large parties,etc), but I'm not sure you can get the temperature down to everyone's liking in a freezer vs shaking without running into slurry problems in more complex drinks. (the "stirring and cooking" topic has some in-depth discussion around thermal concerns)

The integration of other ingredients beyond citrus (eggs, dairy, etc) also benefits from the shaking/stirring routine where a passive cooling process may fail. Heck, given enough time, you could end up with a massive poussé café as the base spirits sort themselves by specific gravity.

Edited December 13, 2008 by J_Ozzy (log)

[Shalmanese]

The ice you're using for shaking comes from the freezer so it would be impossible to get a shaken drink as cold as a freezer one. If anything, I think your problem would be that the drink is too cold and needs to stand for a few minutes before drinking.

As for the lack of integration, that can be solved much in the same way that it is with orange juice: A quick shake every time before serving.

[muichoi]

There used to be a bar here that kept bottles of Tanqueray into which had been introduced a tiny quantity of vermouth in the freezer, and served the result as a Martini. Demonstrating convincingly that a tiny amount of dilution is required.

Edited December 13, 2008 by muichoi (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Pre-made cocktails are also known as "bottled." Gary Regan, in his excellent Joy of Mixology, has many recipes for bottled drinks. As you note, Shalmanese, the water content is critical. As noted above, you also have to pay attention to the temperature: a Martini at 10F would be unpleasantly cold for me.

I've often brought bottled cocktails to parties as my contribution, and there are Society-member bartenders who use them in certain situations when the bar is busy. However, those of us dinosaurs who make drinks a la minute with shaker, spoons, and strainer have also learned how those techniques and tools can be maximized for each person to make the best drink for them.

After all, a defining component of cocktail culture, from its origins, involves the relationship between the person making the drinks and the people consuming them. It's about sharing a convivial drink with others; it's supposed to be fun to watch and do.

As for "hopelessly archaic," well, one could argue the same for holiday toasts, sit-down dinners with the family, and conceiving babies outside of a lab.

[J_Ozzy]

As for the lack of integration, that can be solved much in the same way that it is with orange juice: A quick shake every time before serving.

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Granted, shaking the entire batch each time fulfills these requirements.

But then we're back to shaking; things like frothing/foaming effects require prompt and significant agitation at the time of serving, which could be onerous given the size of a batch.

Edited December 13, 2008 by J_Ozzy (log)

[Mattmvb]

I'd put aside issues of quality, there will surely be ways to perfect pre-made cocktails if it is perceieved advantagous enough to explore.

For me at least, there's MUCH more to a good cocktail bar than how good the drinks taste. The theatre of making drinks is very important. As the old saying goes, you taste with your eyes first. Watching a skilled bartender make a martini does wonders for the anticipation - I know that this one will taste better to me than one poured straight out of a bottle, even if I would pick them the other way round in a blind tasting.

Also, when making things with an interesting methodology or ingredients you can often get the "I want one of those!" from other customers at the bar which you'd never get from a premade drink, hence Mr Smith isn't introduced to something that would broaden his horizons (and put more cash in the till).

In the long term I'd be worried about the industry if this became the de-facto standard. If a large number of bars adopted the premade philosophy, how long would it be before the drinks companies jump on the band wagon - it wouldn't be difficult for someone like Bacardi-Martini to bottle a "perfect" Bombay Sapphire and Noilly Prat Martini. There would, sadly but inevitably, be a number of operators who would jump at this because it would reduce their staff overheads - less prep time and quicker to serve. It also wouldn't require any particularly high skill level to serve, and would leave those of us who have spent years perfecting (or trying to) our art in the position of doing something that someone with little training could do. An extreme comparison may be the auto industry - years ago it required highly skilled panel beaters. Nowadays, outside of the top marques and niche producers, they have largely been replaced by machines that only require an operator who knows what button to press when (an over simplification I know, but I think the points valid). I realise this is a worst case scenario, but a more subtle version could definitely be a possibility. I accept that there will be a wide range of cocktails that may never be able to be bottled properly, but what's to stop operators just not listing them. Of course there would be a large number of bars that wouldn't do that, but they could suddenly find themselves in a difficult position due to the cost difference - they could easily be undercut.

Sorry, I'm in a bit of a doom and gloom mood tonight - it should be one of our busiest nights of the year but the fact I'm in the office on here says it all!

Cheers,

Matt

[JAZ]

Several points come to mind:

As Chris pointed out, batching cocktails is handy for parties, when you're making a lot of the same drink at once. When we teach cocktail party classes, for instance, we always mix pitchers of whatever drinks we're serving beforehand. We don't dilute the mixture usually; we just fill shakers with ice and add the mixture, then shake and strain out into the glasses.

But to do this at home for one or two people seems odd to me. Making a cocktail -- even the most complex -- just doesn't take that long. Measure a few liquids, add ice, shake and strain; we're talking, what, two minutes? As far as kitchen tasks go, it's pretty fast and easy. Certainly the return on investment is high.

Second, mixing a batch of, say, martinis might make sense if that's all one drank, but that's not what I do. I like choosing different cocktails, and rarely drink the same thing twice running -- rarely do I even drink the same cocktail from one day to the next. If I mixed a batch of a particular cocktail, I'd feel obligated to drink it every night, so it wouldn't go bad. That sounds boring to me.

[MattJohnson]

Several points come to mind:

As Chris pointed out, batching cocktails is handy for parties, when you're making a lot of the same drink at once. When we teach cocktail party classes, for instance, we always mix pitchers of whatever drinks we're serving beforehand. We don't dilute the mixture usually; we just fill shakers with ice and add the mixture, then shake and strain out into the glasses.

But to do this at home for one or two people seems odd to me. Making a cocktail -- even the most complex -- just doesn't take that long. Measure a few liquids, add ice, shake and strain; we're talking, what, two minutes? As far as kitchen tasks go, it's pretty fast and easy. Certainly the return on investment is high.

Second, mixing a batch of, say, martinis might make sense if that's all one drank, but that's not what I do. I like choosing different cocktails, and rarely drink the same thing twice running -- rarely do I even drink the same cocktail from one day to the next. If I mixed a batch of a particular cocktail, I'd feel obligated to drink it every night, so it wouldn't go bad. That sounds boring to me.

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I also find that there is something cathartic about making the drink. The action itself is pleasant. And like Chris said above, there is also something about taking the care to make it individually for the person drinking it.

[Alcuin]

Pre-bottling only works for some drinks. It's fine for a Martini or a Manhattan, but if you make a bottled Sidecar, it must be finished off quickly because the lemon juice will deteriorate.

The problem with pre-bottling Martinis, for home or bar use, is that many people like different measures of vermouth. For myself, I often enjoy 2-1. Next time I might want fitty fitty though, to break the monotony. Or I'll want a variation, like adding maraschino and bitters (Imperial), etc. Like Jaz, I don't really want to drink the same thing over and over again. Also, when someone comes over, they might want 3-1 or 4-1 and altering the formula crystallized in my bottled mix is too much math for me to handle.

I find this can be good for parties (especially with Manhattans) but I've even stopped doing that. I can make them a la minute fast enough and have more options that way.

[tikibars]

I am surprised that no one mentioned this alternative, which has worked wll for me in the past:

I'll make a batch of my favorite cocktail, maybe 4x or even 8x, depending how many I will need to serve. I'll keep it in a carafe or pitcher in the fridge (not freezer) with neither ice nor water added.

Then, when it is time to serve, I'll pour a few ounces of cocktail into the shaker with some ice, shake it up 'fresh', and serve.

This way, I can have large quantities of a favorite recipe (perhaps one with many ingredients or delicate quantities of certain ingredients) ready to go, but can still chill it (as well as adding water of course) as needed.

[jsmeeker]

For drinks that have fresh citrus (Sidecar, Margarita) etc., how far in advance is it OK to "bottle" the drink? Does the juice degrade in 15 minutes? 2 hours? 6?

[slkinsey]

It's better to keep the citrus separate and incorporate that into the recipe at the last minute.

[Tristan Stephenson]

For drinks that have fresh citrus (Sidecar, Margarita) etc., how far in advance is it OK to "bottle" the drink?  Does the juice degrade in 15 minutes?  2 hours?  6?

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I've done comparisons between fresh citrus, 20mins, 40mins, 1 hour and 2 hours old, before.

From my findings it degrades from the moment you juice it.

[RPMcMurphy]

My fiance will make me an up Manhattan or sometimes other up drinks and stick it in the freezer or fridge and leave me a note on the door when I come home. It usually sits there at most an hour or 2 before I get home.

At that point, after long day at work, I don't think I'd be able to notice any difference. If its in the freezer, I take it out, and let it sit for few while I put on my Big Lebowski robe and ready the recliner...