Signature cocktails can be whimsical, inspired, hilarious and revelatory when skilfully executed. French 75s and Sazeracs were originals once upon a cocktail.
But let’s be serious. Putting as much “craft” and “house-made” shit as possible in a glass and bragging about it has become a twisted parody of cutting-edge quality. Canonical three-ingre-dient cocktails like the Manhattan, Negroni and daiquiri have endured for good reasons: they’re dead simple and fucking delicious.
One of the joys of a simple drink is tasting how each component contributes to its overall harmony. Too many combating flavours hijack the drinking experience, pulling your palate in overwhelming and senseless directions or worse, muddling everything into one confused coupe of awful.
A cocktail should, at the very least, carry hints of its base spirit, and ideally the main ingredient should feature prominently.
Too many types of bitters, tinctures and infu-sions are the equivalent of strapping cement shoes onto 2 ounces of perfectly good spirit and dropping it into oblivion. Drowning in a vanilla-mace-peppermint-local-cherry-crabapple swamp is no way for a 12 year-old whiskey to go. Have a heart.
Simplicity is difficult, though. Many bartenders hide behind too many ingredients, piling up a wall of flavours in a hopeless attempt at balance. And of course it is possible to screw up the most basic cocktails. Crimes against martinis and Old Fashioneds happen every day, their flaws more glaring because with so few ingredients, there’s so little room for error.
I’m not knocking a cerebral or playful approach behind the bar – those qualities can separate a good bartender from a great one. I’m just saying that a commitment to “creativity” can be damaging in the wrong hands, and that simplicity, from necessity the framework for many classic cocktails, is now insanely undervalued.
So for the love of booze, learn the old-school recipes proper. Then tinker and perfect your version before offering your guests something ludicrous topped with jerk banana foam and garnished with some odourless (but foraged!) twigs that no one cares about.
Cocktail culture has taught drinkers to value quality over quantity and that less is more. It’s time for bartenders to embrace that spirit, too.
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