Harmony, Balance, & Direction in Cocktails

[Barworkz]

I am currently setting up a presentation about harmony and balance in cocktails and I'm curious to know some of your opinions.

When we talk about "balanced cocktails" what exactly do we mean apart from balancing sweet and sour (as that combination doesn't come in all cocktails although in many/most)?

Is "balance" a matter of personal taste?

When talking about "balance" in a sour, what are the ratios you define as "balanced"? Is there such a thing as the "perfect ratio" (thinking of alcohol content, sweetness and sourness as in wine) that will seem balanced to most of the people?

Is it David Embury's 8:2:1? I for myself think that a 6:3:2 is "the balance".....but that's my personal taste.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

B

[bostonapothecary]

I am currently setting up a presentation about harmony and balance in cocktails and I'm curious to know some of your opinions.

When we talk about "balanced cocktails" what exactly do we mean apart from balancing sweet and sour (as that combination doesn't come in all cocktails although in many/most)?

Is "balance" a matter of personal taste?

When talking about "balance" in a sour, what are the ratios you define as "balanced"? Is there such a thing as the "perfect ratio" (thinking of alcohol content, sweetness and sourness as in wine)  that will seem balanced to most of the people?

Is it David Embury's 8:2:1? I for myself think that a 6:3:2 is "the balance".....but that's my personal taste.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

B

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i don't like to think of cocktails as balanced. in the realm of acquired tastes things are direction driven. i would only throw the balance word around with most wines and certain beers. in the beer world, many people say that I.P.As are not balanced because they are so hoppy. But they are wildly popular so what are they? they apparently have something going for them that makes people want to drink them.

i actually don't think we've developed sufficient language to discuss beverage properly. i see too many borrowed food words thrown around which usually have an association with comfort. cocktails for me are about a level of discomfort which for some reason makes me feel better.

within a dis-balanced structure (massive alcohol, wreckless sugar and/or acid, abusive extract from all the cocktail bitters) there is some sort of inner peace and harmony of flavor contrast that one might look for. maybe its a metaphor for our lives and that is why we tolerate and seek out its slightly chaotic structure instead of the pinot gris.

[RoyalSwagger]

Hmmm... cocktails not balanced eh?

That pretty much goes against everything that got me into cocktails in the first place, my mantra if you will. While yes I agree with your IPA statement I would also like to point out that beer and wine are finished products where as cocktails are the exact opposite in such regards. You almost made my point in saying

within a dis-balanced structure (massive alcohol, wreckless sugar and/or acid, abusive extract from all the cocktail bitters) there is some sort of inner peace and harmony

I my opinion that inner peace is the final product, the balanced cocktail. The bartender is the person who sets things right, they take these ingredients and set them in harmony. Frankly I think that's why cocktails took such a dive in the seventies and eighties, bartenders forgot about balance. I think vodka becoming so popular with such a neutral taste compared to say gin, let bartenders become lazy. That's why so many people think they don't like gin, because they either had an extremely unbalanced gin drink letting the juniper run rampid (which I don't mind) or they had an unbalanced gin martini (I'm talking wall street unbalanced, cold shakin' gin.) That's where the bartenders of today who know better must come in, whenever I serve for example a Bloody Mary or a Cosmo to a customer, a guest I know I can really work with, I might substitute the Gin for the Vodka. Mostly they respond "That's the best Cosmo I've ever had!" which is from the backbone of the gin and because of balance in the ratios.

I'd like to point out balance is borrowed from the lexicon of physics, lended to food sure but, seeing as Cocktails were pretty much the original American culinary contribution to the world I think we might have come far enough to talk shop, especially with the likes of Harold McGee still writing and Embury's ghost still haunting the cocktail scene. Honestly I like balance to the point that I like my Martini 50-50 dash O.B. Twist, perfect harmony for my spirit.

Edited April 29, 2009 by RoyalSwagger (log)

[eje]

I don't know if you saw this topic over at The Chanticleer Society, but I thought it brought up some interesting points:

What we can learn from spaghetti sauce?

The linked video is of a talk by Malcolm Gladwell, where he discusses how the idea of a "socratic ideal" for the taste of a dish is flawed in many ways, and the advances of a particular flavor scientist.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

Much of the idea being, there is no "perfect dish", there are clusters of preferred preparations which align with the preferences of statistically significant groups of people.

And another fair point, is that people seldom actually ask for or will admit their exact preferences.

[daisy17]

Hmmm... cocktails not balanced eh?

That pretty much goes against everything that got me into cocktails in the first place, my mantra if you will.

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I have to agree with RoyalSwagger: for me, balance is the key to a well-made cocktail. In fact, the first thing I say to people who are new to cocktails is that "it's all about balance." When I watch cocktail bartenders experiment with perfecting a drink, that's exactly what they're doing - tweaking ingredients until there is perfect harmony. I think you can find this in food, but somehow it becomes so much more obvious when you're talking about cocktails.

Principally there is balance between sour and sweet (at least in a sour), but I think bitter must also be balanced as well. At least for me - I'm a huge fan of stirred boozy cocktails. And yes, I think balance is a matter of personal taste. I have become very sensitive to sweetness in cocktails - it turns me off in a big way - but 4 years ago there's no way I would have said that. Most people would not agree with me on what sweet is.

You mentioned strength of alcohol, but the flavor profile of the spirit must be considered as well (and dilution of the cocktail). Plymouth and Beefeater in that sour are going to give you very different results. Other than the ratio of spirit/citrus/sugar I have no idea how you measure it.

[daisy17]

The linked video is of a talk by Malcolm Gladwell, where he discusses how the idea of a "socratic ideal" for the taste of a dish is flawed in many ways, and the advances of a particular flavor scientist.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

Much of the idea being, there is no "perfect dish", there are clusters of preferred preparations which align with the preferences of statistically significant groups of people.

And another fair point, is that people seldom actually ask for or will admit their exact preferences.

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This was so interesting, thanks for sharing. The idea that people don't know what they want (until they're given it as a choice) really resonated with me. My taste for bitter was unknown to me for a very long time.

[db_campbell]

Hmmm... cocktails not balanced eh?

within a dis-balanced structure (massive alcohol, wreckless sugar and/or acid, abusive extract from all the cocktail bitters) there is some sort of inner peace and harmony

I my opinion that inner peace is the final product, the balanced cocktail.

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It seems to me that you both are arguing separate sides of the same coin, accounting for the average of people's tastes. The key term here is, of course, average. In the one instance, we have drinks that are very clearly aimed at hitting this average and being accessible to the greatest number of individuals. In the other, we have drinks that seem to be aimed toward a particular area outside the centre of the taste spectrum, appealing to those who relish in massive flavour contrast. For these individuals, the so-called "dis-balanced structure" of the drink is indeed perfectly balanced and structured to their particular palates. The fact that both philosophies make use of the standard base spirit/acid/sweetener/bitters dynamic, without eschewing any given critical element, seems to indicate that each will result in a "balanced" beverage -- the only difference lies in to which - and what - percentage of the drinking populace this can be attributed.

Alternatively, I suppose one could also view the dynamic between these two cocktail philosophies as simply nuanced harmony vs. structured cacophony.

[RoyalSwagger]

I'm sorry if I seemed to be saying that there is an average balance for everyone, everyone is individual in there tastes, everyone has a distinct balance as everyone is individual. I didn't mean to say there was an average amongst everyone, I personally enjoy bitter stirred drinks as opposed to the Red snapper and gin cosmo I mentioned before though I think each category is balanced. Sometimes it just takes the bartender to figure out the balance for each individual.

[bostonapothecary]

Principally there is balance between sour and sweet (at least in a sour), but I think bitter must also be balanced as well.  At least for me - I'm a huge fan of stirred boozy cocktails.  And yes, I think balance is a matter of personal taste.  I have become very sensitive to sweetness in cocktails - it turns me off in a big way - but 4 years ago there's no way I would have said that.  Most people would not agree with me on what sweet is.

You mentioned strength of alcohol, but the flavor profile of the spirit must be considered as well (and dilution of the cocktail).  Plymouth and Beefeater in that sour are going to give you very different results.  Other than the ratio of spirit/citrus/sugar I have no idea how you measure it.

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i don't think the word balance should be used too readily for the interaction of sweet an sour accept maybe if it matches the mood of an individual at the moment they receive it...

i would say that just plain "contrast" is a more important word. and there are all sorts of different directions these contrasts can go. the savoy exhibits a pretty big spread. not all of these contrasts are within the averages of most peoples tastes.

one of my favorite sugar/acid ethic contrasts has become the sanru cocktail with dubbonets and a spoonful of cherry heering contrasted against dry sherry. its less pornographic than the chestier fuller figured contrasts of a 2:1:1 jack rose or a 2:1:1 margarita. outside of the moment its experienced, the sanru is not more balanced or less than the others. its just a different sense of direction. (a direction that is hard to get away with on a mainstream cocktail list)

i'd say the difference between a sour made with plymouth or beafeater is a difference of either extract (there is more flavor dissolved in one than the other holding alcohol constant) or the contrasts of the botanicals is significantly different. more juniper and less coriander etc...

related to contrast, direction and balance, there is a backlash in the wine world to over extracted wines. wines that sought to be "grand cru" or intense ended up inelegant and had so much dissolved flavor that potential nuances over lapped, becoming stuck, clunky and dense obscuring their sense of place. lots of people really like these wines and they might be the I.P.A of their genre but i cant always enjoy them (i love I.P.A.s). to me this sometimes happens with cocktails which is why i like leaner sweet vermouths than carpano antica in my manhattan which i feel turns my drink into australian shiraz when i wanted mature old school rioja. quite the difference in direction.

[Chris Amirault]

There's no question that balance is a matter of personal taste, in at least two aspects.

The first is that we all would have different notions of what a "balanced" drink would taste like in our mouths. After spending time drinking cocktails made by some of the great bartenders in the country, I know that I like some people's notion of balance more than other's. That goes not only to spirit/sour/sweet but also to bitter, funk... all that.

The second is whether and when we seek balance at all. bostonapothecary wants his cocktails "direction driven," which I take to mean that there are a lot of drinks in which balance isn't even sought -- it's avoided.

I wrote about bitter cocktails a while back and think that the examples there are the sorts that illustrate the pleasures (or horrors -- your call) of drinks that don't seek balance. The Corktown Cocktail listed there is a great drink if you like your Fernet forward, and that Black Trident is a bracing mouthful of European herbs, bugs, grains, and thistles. It would be idiotic to claim that either is balanced, and I don't like them all the time. But when I want one, they're just the thing.

I do think that those drinks are harmonious, in that the pieces are all moving in a particular direction without losing complexity and interest. (Sub in Aperol for the Campari and a pastis for the aquavit in the Black Trident and you have an unharmonious, unbalanced mess.)

cocktails for me are about a level of discomfort which for some reason makes me feel better.

...

maybe its a metaphor for our lives and that is why we tolerate and seek out its slightly chaotic structure instead of the pinot gris.

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Many nights, though not all, that makes sense to me.

[Barworkz]

So one conclusion is obvious: balance is a personal thing. We can't rule over cocktails generally as in: "this one is balanced and this on is not".

Taste is a highly subjective thing and like in the video, we can only amount clusters of certain taste directions.

What came to my mind though is that there might be a chemical formula for the balance of sugar and acidity for example. If there would be such a thing would it not be interesting to see, if this would in fact be one of the popular clusters of human taste? Maybe it would fail miserably...

Basically being able to say: "no matter what personal taste you have, the theorethical formula xyz234 is the perfect balance of sugar and acidity.".

I also liked bostonapothecary's "overextraction of wine" when talking about harmony in cocktails. I've come across a lot of cocktails lately which had been "overextracted". Too many different aromas used, therefore lots of overlapping of the same and lack of balance (at least for my personal taste ;-)).

[Barworkz]

Oh, almost forgot...

Doesn't presentation play a role as well when looking at a balanced and harmonic cocktail?

And if we agree that there is no such thing as "the balanced" cocktail (as it is too much dependent on personal taste) do taste jury's at cocktail competition make sense at all? Do cocktail competition make sense at all? Who is to judge what is balanced and what is not?

Sigh, so many questions....

[eje]

[...]

I also liked bostonapothecary's "overextraction of wine" when talking about harmony in cocktails. I've come across a lot of cocktails lately which had been "overextracted". Too many different aromas used, therefore lots of overlapping of the same and lack of balance (at least for my personal taste ;-)).

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I too agree with mr. apothecary's notions of "over extracted" cocktails.

Though, I usually describe it as "pushed". Where on one hand you have Embury's drinks with 2 oz of booze, 1 teaspoon of lemon, and 1 teaspoon of syrup and on the other you have modern drinks where the amounts of both the sour and sweet are pushed so far out as to obscure the base spirit.

I know, at least for myself, the lessons of Italian cooking were really hard to learn. Sometimes another ingredient or taste in a dish detracts. Simplicity is often best.

And yes, many of us come from childhoods of drinking over flavored candy, soda, and fast food. Weaning yourself from those flavor profiles can be a life long endeavor.

[Troy Sidle]

For what it's worth, I'll put my theory out there.

I see cocktails in three loose categories:

1) spiritous (manhattan, martini, sazerac)

2) citric (margarita, mojito, pisco sour)

3) rich (irish cream, tom and jerry, flip)

Granted there are mixed drinks with booze in them that I wouldn't include, but also would not dissuade an imbiber/tender from drinking/mixing. (pousse-cafe, snapper).

Balance in each of the three categories means something different. The sugar to booze ratio in an old fashion is completely different from the sugar to booze ratio in a sidecar because of the citrus. And in an egg nog, sugar is serving a different function entirely in that it's complimenting the richness instead of contrasting tartness.

Even given that each person has unique, subjective tastes, there are objective keys to balance. And I would argue that a well-balanced cocktail is exponentially better as that center is approached.

Ratios are important. They're like the sites on a firearm. And, to extend that analogy, tasting each cocktail is like calibrating that weapon, and (I'll stop after this one) the tartness of the citrus, is like shifting winds.

My point is, balance is discernible desirable thing, and ratios and recipes are essential starting points.

[Chris Amirault]

Even given that each person has unique, subjective tastes, there are objective keys to balance. And I would argue that a well-balanced cocktail is exponentially better as that center is approached.

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I'm not sure I understand the phrase in bold.

[brinza]

To me, harmony is sometimes more important than balance. The ingredients should interact harmoniously to provide pleasing results. Balance, however, depending on how ones defines it, can be either something to strive for or something to avoid. Balance can mean something as simple as ensuring not to overpour a strong ingredient like Absinthe or Kirsch which can ruin the drink entirely. Some recipes (Sidecar, Manhattan, Knickerbocker, Martini) can withstand wide variations to suit the drinker's taste and yet the overall character or idea of the drink remains the same, while others (Corpse Reviver #2, KCB Cocktail, Twentieth Century Cocktail) require precise measuring of the prescribed ingredients lest the point of the drink not come across. So, there are times when balance means getting the drink to do what it's supposed to do, but sometimes balance is irrelevant. But if the drink lacks harmony, then it's unlikely that balance can make up for it.

If balance is taken to mean levels of sweetness, bitterness, tartness, fruitiness, herbaceousness, alcholic strength, etc., then too much balance can easily lead to blandness, or to a loss of dynamics. By dynamics, I mean in the musical sense of variations in soft/loud. If the mixologist becomes too concerned with making every drink "balanced" in that sense, then all of his drinks, though they might run the gamut of exciting flavors, will all lack dynamic range. Sometimes, the extreme is essential to the drink whether it's bitter, sweet (Yellow Parrot), or kick-ass strong (Regan's Carbonated Piston Slinger (which calls for two ounces of 151 rum ).

[eje]

In regards pushed or over-extracted cocktails, they also are not really a new or necessarily modern thing.

Two fine examples of Savoy Cocktails that could be considered "over-extracted" are the Millionaire No. 1 and the Oriental.

Millionaire Cocktail (No. 1)

The Juice of 1 Lime.

1 Dash Grenadine.

1/3 Sloe Gin.

1/3 Apricot Brandy.

1/3 Jamaica Rum.

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Oriental Cocktail

1/2 Rye Whisky.

1/4 Italian Vermouth.

1/4 White Curacao

The Juice of 1/2 Lime.

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Both well balanced, but to my taste could use a bit of a toning down of the sweetness and sourness to be truly enjoyable. And maybe a bit more booze.

[Troy Sidle]

Even given that each person has unique, subjective tastes, there are objective keys to balance. And I would argue that a well-balanced cocktail is exponentially better as that center is approached.

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I'm not sure I understand the phrase in bold.

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By that I mean that when two (or more) aspects of a cocktail are off-setting each other, there is a point upon which pallets will agree upon a center.

For instance, water can be added to a spirit (assuming a proof of at least 80) until that sweet spot is found with alcohol burn on one side and a diminishing or watering-down of flavor on the other.

Sugar and bitters will off-set each other similarly.

While it's one thing to enjoy a cocktail that is weighted on the bitter side or that has a pleasant burn, it does not diminish the idea that there is a center to every cocktail.

[Chris Amirault]

Given the variation of, say, Sidecar ratios, I'm not sure that palates agree on one true center. However, despite the fact that it is a metaphor at best, I think that the center is a useful concept.

[Troy Sidle]

I find it interesting that there are such varying ratios for something like a Sidecar.

One, because some people prefer sweet, some sour, some boozy, proportions may be weighted accordingly. In that case, the center of a drink is not a consideration because it can be enjoyed unbalanced.

The other factor is the variables of each ingredient. Cognacs (and other cognac-like brandies) are wildly different. Orange liqueurs are as different, if not more so. And lemons being a natural product, will vary in tartness. However, with any given combination (a specific brandy, a specific liqueur, a specific lemon), there will be a center.

So a universal Sidecar ratio is elusive either way.

[RoyalSwagger]

Well said Troy!

[Chris Amirault]

Over here, bostonapothecary wrote:

this is why i don't like the word balance in regards to structure or flavor contrast. it never ends up useful. to me cocktails have "direction". this allows for many more options, some being very popular and meeting the averages of many peoples tastes (usually what many call balanced). it also allows for more intensely acquired tastes. i firmly believe a negroni is not balanced (it doesn't meet the average of most people's tastes) but rather has an awesome sense of direction.

Ever since Stephen wrote that, I've been thinking that "balance" is just plain wrong, that I've been relying on a useless concept for years. I've been especially marble-mouthed about it during the cocktail course I've been teaching and at the contest at which I and Society member dietsch were judges. For example, next Monday night, students are going to be drinking Fish House Punch, Egg Nog, and French 75s, and if those three drinks share any sense of "balance," I'll eat my hat.

Perhaps the term is itself relative in relation to genre: a sour has a certain kind of balance, a nog another. But that just seems like some compensatory strategy that looks silly next to a more precise, useful notion like direction. But I can't say for sure.