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Cocktail Menu: Roast in Detroit

Bar Manager Joe Robinson sent me the latest cocktail menu from Michael Symon's Roast in Detroit. 

I see: pea-infused gin, chili oil, rye-fernet-Aperol-port combo.

Awww Snap
Sugar Snap Pea Infused Gin, Cocchi Americano, Fresh Lemon, Simple Sugar, Mint, Celery Bitters, Crushed Ice, Pea Tendril

The Last Straw
Sugar Snap Pea Infused Gin, Strawberry Infused Chartreuse, St. Germaine, Fresh Lime, Strawberry Garnish

Green Machine
Muddled Avocado, Ilegal Joven Mezcal, Spiced Agave Syrup, Fresh Lime, Cracked Black Pepper

Turnin’ on the Screw
Citadelle Gin, Aperol, Fresh Lemon, Rhubarb Bitters

Phosphene Dream
Mindo Cocoa Tea Infused Bourbon, Averna Amaro, Orange Flower Water, Xocolatl Mole Bitters, Mezcal Rinse

Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Bulleit Rye, Crème De Cassis, Fresh Lemon, Egg White, Petrus Aged Pale

Je Ne Sais Pas
Ron Zacapa 23, Fresh Lemon, Simple Syrup, Mint, Xocolatle Mole Bitters, Egg

The Mazatlan
Cilantro Infused Gin, Jalapeno Syrup, Fresh Lime, Chili Oil, Sea Salt

Bar Fly
Fig Infused Gin, Campari, Cherry Heering, Cranberry, Angostura, Vanilla Fig

Cucumber Collins
Cucumber Infused Gin, Fresh Lime, Simple Sugar, Soda

PRCPU
Old Overholt Rye, Fernet Branca, Tawny Port, Aperol

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Cocktail Menu: Scofflaw in Chicago

Chicago restaurant Scofflaw has updated their cocktail menu. Scofflaw is a gin-focused cocktail bar in the Chicago neighborhood of Logan Square featuring American craft beers on tap and small plate fare. The head bartender is Danny Shapiro. 

This is one of those menus where I read the drink descriptions and think, "I have no idea how that is going to taste." Intriguing. 

I see: banana orgeat, banana ice, strawberry soda.

Wrinkled Tie - Tanqueray, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Escorial, Rhubarb Bitters

Deerfielder - Old Grand Dad Bonded Bourbon, Fernet Branca, Vanilla Syrup, Angostura Bitters

Ford Cocktail - Scofflaw Old Tom Gin, Dolin Dry, Benedictine, Orange Bitters

Pheonix Fix - Letherbee Gin, Apricot Liqueur, Cocchi Americano, Lemon, Creme de Violette

Lonesome Hero - Azul Reposado Tequila, Aperol, Guava, Lime, Banana Ice

Runaway - Rittenhouse Rye, Bonal Quinquina, Lemon, Grapefruit, Raspberry Syrup

Scofflaw Swizzle No. 4 - Flor de Cana 4 Year Gold Rum, Cruzan Blackstrap Rum, Campari, Pineapple, Lime, Banana Orgeat

Pellet Gun - Broker's Gin, Lemon, Cynar, Jarritos Strawberry Soda, Peychaud's Bitters, Cucumber

 

Pellet Gun pic courtesy of Scofflaw

 

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Designing Bars that Make Money

During Hawaii Cocktail Week I attended a seminar called Designing Bars that Make Money at the cafe/gallery Loft in Space. The seminar was lead by Tobin Ellis of consultancy Bar Magic, Kate Gerwin of the bar Imbibe in Albuquerque (and also of Bar Magic), and Julian Cox of Rivera and several other bars in Los Angeles.

Here are some notes on what I thought was interesting - with some of my thoughts at the end. 

Design and Philosophy

• Tobin Ellis says, "Everyone is saying 'I love craft cocktails but my next bar will be a sports bar that makes money.' You will never pay your bills on cocktail aficionados. You gotta get the Cosmo drinkers, and you gotta get the Bud Light drinkers." 
• Most people talk about the menus and cocktail program first, but Bar Magic believes in business plan first - market analysis, concept, feasibility, and then design the cocktails. 
• A lot of clever bar designs have the bartenders turn their back to the customers when making the drink - which is the opposite of what you want; the interaction.
• For cocktail bars Julian Cox recommends batching, cocktails on tap, bottled cocktails to speed up service. Note that these techniques aren't legal in many states.
• If you're a small bar opening, the one place you can save a lot of money is by not buying an expensive POS system.  
• Don't share all your recipes: having specialty cocktails/ingredients gives people a reason to come to your bar versus one down the street.
• Customers who follow drink specials aren't loyal customers. Have drink specials if you want, but don't expect that to increase business over all.
• Working with food trucks can save all the effort of having a food program. 

Equipment

• For cocktail bars, some time/space-saving equipment can include approved open-ingredient refrigerators (a new thing, apparently), and refrigerated garnish/ingredient drawers.
• Spindle mixers can make your Ramos Gin Fizzes a lot faster than you can shake them.
• The reason Hoshizaki doesn't sell the freezers that make 2"x2" cubes in the US is because they are not energy-compliant, not because they don't exist. 

Ingredients  

• According to an experiment by the French Culinary Institute, the best time for citrus juice is 4-8 hours after squeezing, so there is no need to squeeze to order. 
• If the menu supports it, consider making lemon and lime sour mixes in advance of shifts - the sugar extends the life of the citrus juice by a few hours,plus it's like mini-batching.
• Use shitty vodka in your well as it makes the most profit. "If your crowd doesn't care, you shouldn't care," says Gerwin. She also said they don't make much effort to up-sell to premium vodka brands, because they make more profit on the well vodka than they do on the premium brands. 

Staffing

• Let bartenders bartend (read: sell). Hire bar backs and janitors for everything else and let bartenders just focus on making drinks and talking to customers, not cleaning things.
• Consider having a back-of-house service bar for seated/served guests, as they don't need to see the bartenders.
• Kate Gerwin says that having consistent drinks between all bartenders is more important than having one person who makes "the best" version of some drink. All drinks should be made to the same standard unless it's an up-sell.
• That said, at Imbibe most of the bartenders are pros at speed and accuracy, not at arcane cocktail knowledge. Thus when a cocktail nerd asks for a drink, the bartender may ask Kate or the other expert; likewise when it comes to bachelorette drinks Kate may hand the order to another bartender. 
• Consider having a chart of what each bartender rings nightly and how much they collect in tips - this encourages healthy competition and reduces employee theft.
• Give every bartender working that night a bonus on any night where a sales record is broken. 

My Opinions on All This

• First I should note that the speakers for the most part were talking about building bars from the perspective of profit. As a consumer, I don't care about the bar's profit, so these are my opinions from the cocktail nerd consumer perspective.
• High-volume bars cater to the lowest common denominator of customer.
• If your well liquor is crap, I don't care if your mint is fresh. Your bar serves crap drinks.
• If every bartender isn't of the same quality at a venue, then I'm not a fan of a bar, I'm a fan of a bartender and will follow them to the next place when they leave for a better job. 
• A bar is as good as its worst bartender. 
• Fast bartenders are concerned with speed and profit, not with quality. Cocktails at high-volume bars, even ones that claim to be perfect with their speed pouring, are never as good as they are at craft bars. 
• I'd rather pay extra for the luxury of time for bartenders to do it right, and for the space in which to enjoy it.
• I think this would make a fun debate at a cocktail convention....

 

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Cocktail Menu: 1022 South in Tacoma, Washington

Manager/owner Chris Keil sent me the Spring 2013 cocktail list for 1022 South in Tacoma Washington. I see: absinthe and beets, habanero/apple shrub, nettles, horny goat weed. 

Click the link below to read the full menu.

Cocktail Menu: Goro and Gun in Houston

Opened last night in Houston, Texas is Goro and Gun [twitter], with a cocktail menu by Alexander Gregg.

I see: orange-salt bitters, piloncillo sugar, cookie milk, Botox.

HIGHBALLS

Shoe Maker...........................$8
Genever, Old Tom , London Dry,
Orange-Salt Bitters, Tonic
(Restaurant slang for an individual who is particularly lazy, always looking for a shortcut, and trying to get away with shoe maker-y stuff)


The Lifer................................$8
Blended Scotch, Lemongrass, Bitter Lemon Soda
(Service Industry slang for someone who has spent their entire career in the industry and likely will retire in the industry. Lifers often once had dreams of being
musicians, designers, photographers, fine artists -and many still are, at least at heart.)


Short Timer...........................$8
Botanical Vodka, Cucumber Water, Lime, Agave Nectar
(Short timers are employees who have put in their notice at their current job and generally quit giving a hoot, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel)


Line Cook................................$8
Bourbon, Tamarind Bitters, Ginger Brew
(Line cooks are regularly the hardest working individuals in the building, and usually don’t make very much money even though they work ridiculously long hours in blisteringly hot kitchens. To spot one look for scars from knives and burns and a glass of bourbon)


S.A............................................$8
Tequila, Grapefruit Soda,
Lavender Bitters, Lime, Piloncillo
(Server assistants, often called SA’s , are the line cooks of the foh- they do the unglamorous jobs: run food, bus tables, fill waters, etc. They are an integral part of restaurant operations. Next time you encounter one, thank him/ her for making service happen)

House COCKTAILS

Here We Are Now......................$9
(Entertain Us)
New western dry Gin, Lemongrass, Lemon, Peychaud’s, Soda

Life is beautiful ....................$12
Antica Carpano, Aquavit, Lemon, Orgeat, Egg White, Fernet

Balinese Room..........................$10
Blackstrap Rum, Jamaican Rum, Olorosso, Mezcal

Post Requisite............................$9
Blanco Tequila, Lime, apricot, Islay,
Thai Chili Bitters

Cookie Monster........................$10
White Rum, Cookie Milk, Piloncillo,
Angostura

Due Dilligence......................$8
vodka, cassis, mint, lime, ginger brew


Industry Standards


Margarita..........................$12
Blanco and Reposado Tequilas, Lime, Dry Curacao, Orange-Salt Bitters, Piloncillo

Bloody Mary........................$9
Botanical Vodka, Tomato, Roasted Garlic, Ginger, Balsamic, Thai Chili

Zombie..................................$11
House Rum Blend, Maraschino,
pastis, Lemon, Lime, Pineapple,
Passion Fruit, Angostura

Surfer on Acid...................$10
jagermeister, white rum, pineapple, coconut, lime

Cosmo.....................................$9
Botanical Vodka, Dry Curacao,
Cranberry, Raspberry, Lime, Botox

Mojito....................................$8
Light Rum, Lime, Mint, Piloncillo, Soda



SANS LE BOOZE

Craft
Ahh Yes Indeed......................$5
Salt Preserved Lemon, Fresh Lemon, Thyme, Soda

The Gambler.........................$5
Grapefruit, Lime, Sage, Blackberry, Soda

Alpha Acid Phosphate......$6
dry hopped root beer, Lemon, malic and phosphoric acids, soda

El Fabz...................................$7
Milk, Egg, Raspberry, doppleganger soda, lavender bitters*

 

Pictorial Cocktail Menu: Padrecito in San Francisco

Padrecito is about to open (March 12 or thereabouts) in the former EOS space in Cole Valley. The cocktails were designed by David Ruiz and the menu is pretty cool. Have a look: 

Cocktail Menus: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Recently on Facebook, I was engaged in a mostly-healthy debate about giving recipe credit on cocktail menus. 

 

Rye's cocktail menu from 2007

When we see a classic cocktail section of a cocktail menu, we know that the drinks in that section have not been invented in-house. But some cocktail menus are a single list of both classics and house creations, and that's where things get complicated. 

 

I have seen many cocktail menus that list modern classic cocktails like the Penicillin by Sam Ross and the Old Cuban by Audrey Saunders with no mention of the drink creators' names. When the cocktail menu is divided into sections indicating modern or vintage classics vs. house creations, even people who have never heard of the modern classics would have a clear indication that the drink comes from elsewhere even if the cocktail is uncredited. But when a lesser-known drink is mixed in with house recipes, it is easy for a customer to assume that the drink was created on-site. 

Say a cocktail menu lists the following drinks: Martini, Bijou, Red Hook, Lynchburg Buck, Window Washer. Some of those drinks are house creations, some are vintage classics, one is a derivation of a classic, and one is a modern classic. But without the menu indicating which are which, the customer could easily assume that most of the drinks on the menu are made in house. In this case, does the bartender have an obligation to credit each recipe, lest it appear that he is claiming that those recipes are his own creations? 

Last year, a restaurant publicist forwarded me some house cocktail recipes after I requested some for a story I was writing. Included among them was a recipe for a modern classic from their menu. I quickly informed her that it was not a house creation, but the fact that even the publicist for the restaurant couldn't tell which recipes were house creations and which were originals was a bad sign.

Had I published that modern classic recipe and credited the bartender who put it on the menu rather than the drink's creator, not only would I get called out as a dummy, the original drink's creator could be justifiably mad that someone else was taking credit for his cocktail. 

This was actually the case at another cocktail bar: the menu was a mix of modern classic and house originals, with no indication of which was which. The drinks' creators heard about this menu and were nonplussed. The menu was later revised and now credits drinks not created in house with the bartenders' names, while the house creations are uncredited. 

As the debate on Facebook went on, some people argued that the original drink's creators could always be found thanks to the internet, so it isn't neccesary to put everyone's name on every drink and clog up space on the menu.

My counter-argument is: Look at the Cosmopolitan. We often credit three people now: the drink's creator, the person who refined the recipe to its modern form, and the person who did the most to popularize it. But for most of the past 30 years, credit has been given to the person who made it popular. It just took two decades to sort that out.

A very worthy counter-argument to the 'all drinks must be credited' theory is what happens when you add variations? As with the Cosmo, drinks take on new forms as time goes on and ingredients change.  If I'm a bartender who puts a Cosmo variation on a cocktail menu with a different name, do I need to add a line saying "Version of the Cosmopolitan", and/or do I need to name it a variation of the original drink, like Neopolitan?

If I call my drink the Camper Amazingness with no explanatory line on the menu am I guilty of implying that the drink was a 100% original thought, or is it fair to assume that every cocktail is based on every other cocktail and therefore we don't need to credit anything anymore?

And since nobody (that I know of) makes royalties off cocktails, does it matter? 

I think my opinion on that matter is pretty clear - give credit where it's due, by placing drinks in a section that indicates they were not created in-house (such as "classics" or "from our friends"), by listing the name of the drink's creator on the menu, or by citing the drink as a variation either by giving it a variation on the original cocktail's name or just by stating "a variation of...".

But I'm wrong a lot of the time. What do you think? 

 

 

Pimp My Old Fashioned at Hog & Rocks in San Francisco

Michael Lazar at Hog & Rocks has introduced a new mini-menu to their cocktail program featuring the Old Fashioned made with different spirits and accent ingredients. 

PIMP MY OLD FASHIONED

Bittered Sling (Eric Adkins) $16
Ch. briat hors d’age armagnac, gum syrup, bitters, grated nutmeg

Anticuado $16
Casa noble reposado, agave gum syrup, orange bitters

Oaxaca (Phil Ward) $16
Tres agaves reposado, del maguey ‘minero’ mezcal, agave gumsyrup, grapefruit bitters

Kingston $12
Appleton estate 12 yr rum, sugar cane syrup, chocolate &orange bitters

The Willet 8 $ 15
H&R willet 8 yr barrel strength bourbon, gum syrup, orangebitters

House Rock & Rye $11
Wild turkey and rittenhouse ryes, rock sugar, citrus, vanillabean, horehound

Smoker’s Delight (Gonçalo de Sousa Monteiro) $15
Laphroaig 10 yr single malt, tempus fugit creme de cacao, bitters