Weird Cocktails

[slkinsey]

A few days ago a friend drew my attention to this article entitled "Bars, liquor companies push weird cocktails." It's all about the proliferation of new gimmick cocktails that have started to appear now that American drinkers have become bored with Cosmopolitans and Sour Apple Martinis.

The article opens with a description of a vodka infused with Bubblicious bubble gum and goes on to describe a drink made with green apple and watermelon Jolly Rancher infused vodka. The bar -- Bogart's American Grill in Raleigh, NC -- sells three gallons of this stuff a week!

Needless to say, these aren't cocktails of great sophistication. As the author explains, "many bartenders lack the training to develop drinks with the proper balance between bitter and sweet" but are nevertheless "being asked by managers to follow constantly morphing directions." A somewhat typical example was a "restaurant and martini bar" that featured 50 "martinis" on its list, which changed every three months. It's not easy to come up with 20 original cocktails of quality in a year, never mind 200! Now that cocktails are back in fashion, there is pressure for restaurants to use cocktails as a profit center to offset rising food costs.

Not all of this is coming from bartenders and restaurants, of course. According to the article, last year alone saw 52 new flavored vodkas and 26 new flavored rums on the American market. One way to drive sales of these products is to get them on to bar menus by hiring a mixologist consultant to create exotic branded cocktails with the new product, which are then demonstrated to bartenders and promoted in advertising.

Needless to say this sort of thing is not without a little backlash, and thankfully some of our friends are standing up for all that is good and true and right.

"I cringe when people call anything in a martini glass a martini," says Robert Hess, who along with some other stalwarts started the Museum of the American Cocktail. Its bar will soon serve only "authentic" drinks, made from 19th-century recipes. Audrey Saunders, a well-known mixologist, refuses to use recipes from liquor brands. When Ms. Saunders opens her new bar Pegu Club in New York this August, she'll be making the same gin-based drink served at the famed British officer's club in Rangoon in the 1900s.

Some cutting-edge bars and restaurants -- such as Bar Americain, a new Bobby Flay restaurant in Midtown Manhattan -- also are shunning the more-is-better take on drinks and paring menus down to include only classics like sazeracs. Employees Only, a bar in New York, is making its own vermouths, bitters and infusions from preprohibition recipes.

[alacarte]

Audrey Saunders, a well-known mixologist, refuses to use recipes from liquor brands. When Ms. Saunders opens her new bar Pegu Club in New York this August, she'll be making the same gin-based drink served at the famed British officer's club in Rangoon in the 1900s.

I think the real story here is -- Audrey Saunders is opening her own bar? That's awesome.

But if you want to talk about weird drinks, I'll point to the coffee-flavored concoction at Bombay Talkie, which is garnished with Cocoa Puffs....

[BTR]

Oh, to live in New York...

[KatieLoeb]

Is Pegu Club open? Do we have a projected opening date? I'm overdue for a trip to the Big Apple...

As much as it offends me personally to call anything in a birdbath glass a "martini", the sad truth is that calling a drink a _____-ini sells the drink. The cocktail culture is alive and well, but the vast majority of drinkers aren't sophisticated enough to understand what a real old school cocktail is all about. The hipsters and the teacup-dog-breed-in-a-handbag-that-costs-more-than-my-car-toting celebutantes who are the role models for the young drinkers of today are all about the funky drink du jour. They want to see and be seen gesticulating with a cocktail glass in their hand that is filled with a liquid of an unusual color that has the latest Windex or Pepto-Bismol colored dilution of vodka in it. Is it any wonder that when Sex and the City is setting the trends in fashion and lifestyle that Cosmopolitans suddenly skyrocketed in popularity?

Unfortunately, getting the jaded hipsters to open their wallets in front of my employer's cash register these days involves a bit of smoke and mirrors when naming specialty cocktails. I know it isn't a martini, but I'm forced to call it one to get their attention. And much as I am now at peace with White Zinfandel as a "training wheels wine" for wine drinkers, I hope that a genuine interest in true cocktails will be sparked for that chick and dude on a date that are toasting with silly up drinks. Hopefully the creativity that I'm allowed as a Beverage Manager makes their toast (and their date) more interesting and leads them down that slippery slope toward true appreciation for a real cocktail some time in the not too distant future.