Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today we're going to talk about booze. Mixology.
Mixology, the art of getting you buzzed and happy.
Yeah, the art of getting drunk with class.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of mixology. I mean, mixology is such a weird term, you know, but it's something
that I found it really fascinating. I remember when the first time I went into like a really
high class bar and you get drinks that are so, you know, curated and I found it so interesting
that you had this glass of like liquid, you know, and it was mixed in such a way that the elements,
which are not a lot of elements, you know, they work together so perfectly and create
something really, really complex. And I found that really, really interesting from a culinary
point of view. Yeah, I completely agree. It's kind of like a liquid cooking or something like that,
but you're not cooking, you're just mixing, but you're cooking in the sense that you're
mixing things and tasting until you get the perfect spot and, you know, and then know how to
find a way to replicate it many times. That's kind of like cocktail making process, I would say.
Yeah, totally. I remember I thought like back when that happened to me, I was in my apprenticeship
and I was really fascinated with sauce making. And, you know, when you make a sauce, it is kind
of like you already have it at a point where it's very tasty, but just like getting trying to creep
up to that point where everything is just perfect, you know, and then especially when you have
somebody who really knows what they're doing and you make something and taste it, they're like,
yes, good, but like do add a little bit of this, add a little bit of that, and they get it to that
perfect sweet spot. You taste it and you're like, oh my god, now it's amazing, you know.
Yeah, I had a soup in my apprenticeship. It was kind of like a Caribbean bouillabaisse and this
like French classic French Caribbean restaurant where I learned. And yeah, it was this bouillabaisse,
but it would also like the classic ingredients of the bouillabaisse, but then also some Latin twist.
It had even some hot sauce and you had to find a way to get the right flavor, you know, like
if you already knew the soup, you would know how to get there and adding a little bit more of this
and no, it's not there. Okay, now there it is, you know, like because it's not like a cocktail that
you just do that once and then you know how to replicate it many times. Yeah, totally, you know,
like it was the same in Thai cooking, like when I learned how to cook like Northern Thai food with
the som tam dressing, it's just like fish sauce, tamarind, lime juice, and chili, right, and palm
sugar. So you have, you know, sweet, salty, sour, spicy, you know, all those like quintessential
Thai flavors and you would try to get them into like the perfect balance where they have to be,
where everything plays together and that would be very difficult, you know, and you'd like,
especially me, you know, this is so highly seasoned, like I taste it, I'd be like,
okay, now it's good. And then, you know, the head chef would like taste it and be like, no,
no, it needs more this, needs more that, needs to have more, more, more, more. And you season it and
season it and season it until it's at that very sweet spot where you couldn't possibly season it
anymore, you know. Yeah, and also the thing about cocktails is that the aroma spectrum is, you know,
you can have like super dry cocktails or you can have a dessert cocktail, something that is like,
you know, let's say a cheesecake made or a milk rice made cocktail, or if we talk about classics
like a piña colada, I would say it goes in that direction while you have other things that are
completely dry, like a martini or something like that. Or like really fresh and acidic, you know,
like a daikiri or, you know, all sorts of things. Yeah. And like, I also think that the range of
product is really interesting, you know, like, I mean, a lot of the bars that I went to that I
found really interesting, like, for example, a bar that we both know well in Berlin,
Buck & Breck, which is a favorite bar in the world. It's amazing. Yeah, right. I mean, like,
especially back then, it was, it was back then when we went, it was run by Holger Kroll and
the Salsa, it's got like a Portuguese name, the Salsa. Sorry if I'm pronouncing it wrong. Man,
I love that place because the whole experience of going to that place, so to tell the story that
imagine you're walking in Berlin and there is just like a door in the middle of nowhere with a ring
and you have to know that there is a bar. So you ring the bell and, and if you're like the right
amount of people or whatever you get in and it's just a bar with what, 10 seats, something like
that. Had it like two tables in the back. I'm not sure. Maybe, but let's say maximum like 15 people,
if it was fully packed to the very end, maximum. And, and what I liked about that place is that
there were no labels of anything. Like they had this color codes on the bottles and they knew
exactly what to take and how to mix the cocktails. Everything was super neutral and minimalist, like
in terms of ambience. And then the cocktails were super elegant, man. All of those cocktails were
like super thoughtful or well executed. Even the classic ones. I remember having a darkened
Stormi there many times that was like super properly executed. Yeah, man. They were on another
level. I mean, like I learned most of the things that I now know about like mixology in that place.
They had a lot of classic cocktails that you don't see any, anywhere anymore. You know,
things like a clove club, they had a Ramos gin fist, which is one of my favorite drinks, you know,
which nobody does because it's notoriously hard to make. I mean, it's, it's very simple, but it's,
it's got a funny backstory actually. So a gin fist, you know, everybody knows and a Ramos gin
fist is special because it's got a little bit of orange blossom water and a little bit of cream,
like just like single cream. And because of that, it needs to get shaken very hard and for like a
very long time so that it like emulsifies and that it doesn't separate in the glass. So it comes from
this country club where they invented a drink and they had a barman mixing the drinks and then behind
them two guys that he would just hand the shaker to that would just shake and shake and shake and
shake and shake and shake and shake because you have to shake it for like a minute, solid, nonstop.
And if you do the, if you do like 10 in a row, you know, you're exhausted. So every barman just had
like guys behind him to shake these drinks. And yeah, they would do things like that. But also on
top of that, they would have really special spirits. You know, they, I remember they had like a mustard
seed distillates that they sourced in Germany, you know, they had like very, they had like a
cumin kind of liquor and like very sort of unusual things that they sourced, you know, that they then
used for their cocktails. But also, like you said, you know, the big thing was just that they
executed things perfectly. Everything was just spot on, in balance, perfectly executed. The service
was amazing, like such a small space and only like two people working at the same time behind the bar.
If at all, sometimes just one person. And, but, but they treated you super well. The
ambience was amazing. It was sort of like mellow hip hop playing. And it really, for me, like I
found it, it really set the bar for a lot of things. Did you ever try this super crazy
piña colada masters in Japan? You know what I'm talking about? No, no, I'm not sure. There are like
these guys that make piña colada in Japan with a, like a specific super like robotic shaking
technique. And it's like this big thing. It's like, I think the most expensive piña colada in the
world by the greatest piña colada master. And it's like, yeah, I think I saw this in a mind of a
chef episode, like David Chang was traveling in Tokyo and visiting this place. Yeah, I've definitely
seen it. But I mean, like, you know, piña colada is a great example of like a drink that like,
usually when you order it, it's just really horrible. You get like canned fucking coconuts,
cream, canned everything, canned pineapples, canned everything. And it's like super sweet and like,
you know, rum and blah, and it's horrible. It's like creamy and that. But if you get, you know,
fresh coconut water or fresh coconut cream, you know, and like fresh juice pineapple, that stuff's
delicious, you know, and then you have a high quality rum and you mix that together. It's an
amazing drink. Yeah, I've had nice piña coladas mainly in Venezuela and it was, it was quite
something having a super good one. I have good memories of that. Yeah, but I'm not surprised that
Japan is on such a forefront of mixology because this like aspect of kind of like getting things
to perfection and also the gesture of things, you know, the mixing is the mixing is very important.
You have to think that why do you mix a cocktail with ice is sort of like to cool it down, obviously,
but also to dilute this, you know, like if you would just mix, like, for example, taking a
groany, right? You can, of course, just mix equal parts of Campari, red vermouth and gin and just
mix that together and put it in a glass, but it's not going to be the same. It's going to be very
brutal and like stirring it in a glass, you know, with the ice, it cools down, but it also like
dilutes the alcohol with the water from the melting ice and getting it to the perfect point
where it's right at that sweet spot where it's alcoholic enough, but like not too watery, not
too strong. That's just really heavy. And that's why like, I think like this Japanese mentality,
this sort of shokunin mentality, it fits perfectly. I've been to some amazing bars in Japan. I mean,
one really good example is a place called Gen Yamamoto, which also is, it's just one guy
behind the counter with this sort of kaiseki attitude to cocktails. It's seasonal cocktails.
Basically you have like a Omakase cocktail tasting. And he, yeah, and it like, it's focuses
on regional produce and seasonal produce, you know, so fruits and vegetables and herbs and other
ingredients that kind of like are in season at that moment. And then, you know, he presents it,
you know, most of the time with something natural, kind of like akin to Ikebana. Ikebana is the art
of flower arranging in Japan. So you have the drink and something that's a reference to what's
in the drink next to it. And it's a super beautiful experience. Oh nice, I know Ikebana and I've seen
this kind of Ikebana interactions in food, but not with drinks. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Like a cool bar where I was running a lab in a restaurant in Bolivia and this restaurant,
part of the concept was not to use all the Bolivian ingredients. And you know, this was
cool, especially at the bar because they wouldn't use any kind of foreign liquors nor soft drinks.
And so no Coca-Cola was not allowed or this kind of drinks, you know. So everything was like,
it was very organic driven, like making bitters or all kind of kombucha or fresh juices or all
this kind of stuff, infusions and so on. And there was like this guy, his name is Josue Grajeda.
He was like a young guy that learned in that bar. And this guy was like really super intuitive in
the way of making cocktails. And I remember he went to like this national championship there.
And I don't know if he won or got second place. I think he won actually. And this was like super
cool, you know, to win a national contest without using any foreign liquors and working only with
with bitters and macerations and this kind of stuff like that you did homemade. I think that's
super cool that having a bar with that approach. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that a lot of
really interesting techniques came from, you know, bar culture. Like have you heard of like
milk filtering sort of like infusions? No, I have no idea about that. Okay, so I don't know super
well how to do it, but basically like you take a liquid and you mix it with milk and the fat from
the milk sort of like absorbs like the sort of like particles in the liquid and then you filter it out
like the the milk kind of like curdles in a way and then you filter out and you get a really,
really clear liquid. So for example, you can do it with exactly an example with lemon, for example,
and then you get like a super clear like water liquid that tastes like lemon, you know, and you're
like, wow, this is this is really, really cool, you know, and then there's also you have older,
you have a very, very clean flavor. Yeah, I imagine it filters a lot of stuff, but there's
a lemon essence that you can see cleaner, right? Yeah, exactly. And like all these sort of like
filtering and like sort of macerating techniques, you know, it's crazy like what's been happening
in the bar world like these last couple of decades is insane. Yeah, also the Nordic influence, I think
it's places like Empirical creating like a whole new direction and liqueurs. And also, I mean, this
story I just told about Bolivia, this is completely a Nordic cuisine influence, you know, like having
this approach of doing everything at home and not getting foreign produce and so on. Do you have any
favorite mixologist or bartenders or someone you would like to mention? I mean, I'm a big fan of
Charles Schumann, you know, the classic Charles Schumann. I mean, he's a if nobody knows, if you
don't know Charles Schumann because of his work in gastronomy, then maybe you know him as a model
for Davidoff and whatnot. He's a very, he's a style icon, you know, but he's a guy he's based in
Bavaria in Munich and he is bar called Schumann's bar. It's been around forever and he wrote this
sort of like cocktail companion called also Schumann's where he basically lists all the classic
cocktails and how to make them. And he's just like, he's basically like the Eckart Witzigmann or the
the Paul Bocuse of mixology. Yeah, like worldwide, not only Germany. Worldwide, worldwide. Yeah, but he's also just like,
I also like him just because he's such a character. I met him when I was in Japan. Like I remember I was
at this really, really nice bar called Bar Trench. This run by Rogério Igarashi. And it's also this
like small neighborhood bar in Ebisu. Super, super nice. And it was the Tokyo Bar Convention.
And we were at this bar, you know, with lots of mixologists, you know, people from Hendricks Gin
and that sort of stuff. And Charles Schumann pulls up in a taxi outside of the bar and he gets out of
the taxi wearing a completely sort of like wine red suit, you know, with his like gray hair slicked back.
And he walked into the bar and he's kind of like, you know, the sort of like this like advertisement,
the most important man in the world. Yeah, like a living God walking on earth and knowing it,
you know, like, yeah, kind of like a little bit of a beard, gray hair, you know, like nice suit.
And he's just sort of like the most charming guy you'll ever meet. But he's just like super
authentic, you know, and like he stands for these, for these like old school principles of hospitality
and, you know, things, simple things done well. And I really dig that. I really like that.
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