Tag: recipes

Soyer au Champagne: an old-fashioned and boozy Spider

Ever missed being able to order a Coke Spider? Here’s a drink that’s similar, but a little more refined — heck, the name translates from French to Silk with Champagne. It doesn’t get more refined than that (at least as far as sugary drinks go).

Champagne didn’t always effervesce. Though the area had become known for as a place of some quality, the wine it produced was “light, pinkish still wines made from the pinot noir grape”. Eventually, though, these wines came to be overshadowed by their sparkling successors.

Tequila: romancing the agave

It’s January, 1986, and a young Tomas Estes — and a younger Phil Bayly — are driving around East Los Angeles.
“We were cruising in his metallic gold 55 Chevy pick-up with “Empresa Pacifico – Junta de rebusca y desarollo” painted on the side,” said Bayly. Estes made a stop at a liquor store in search of supplies, and when he came out he held a bottle that changed the way Bayly saw tequila.

Book review: Drinks by Tony Conigliaro

Once in a while a book comes along that’s a real game changer and Drinks by Tony Conigliaro is one of them. If you’re a doubter then turn to the first page where Heston Blumenthal sings Conigliaro’s praises: “Tony Conigliaro is a revolutionary. He is at the forefront of a new energy in cocktail making.”

How To: Cooking with Cognac

I do have the odd drink at home and occasionally even whip up a cocktail. But I have to admit that mixing drinks often feels too much like work on my days off. Now if I really want to unwind on a Sunday it’s by cooking – a creative outlet that many bartenders not only enjoy but often excel at.

How To: An Affinity for Duffy

Vermouth. It’s taken some doing, but bartenders are starting to slosh the stuff around like it’s the 1890s again. It’s a good thing too as it means a mix like the Affinity Cocktail, presented here, might actually get a run.

Distillery Profile: Bundaberg Rum

There aren’t many iconic Australian brands that have enjoyed such an illustrious and colourful history than that of Bundaberg Rum. It all started in 1888, when a group of enterprising sugar millers decided to do something about a surplus of molasses trickling from the cane fields of Bundaberg…

Classic: Perfecting the Pousse Cafe

Q.F.s, B52s and Slippery Nipples were some of the first drinks I learnt behind the bar whilst pouring pints at a beer barn in south-eastern England. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was that I was making a Parisian café drink popular in mid-19th century America.

Masterclass: Vermouth

It’s probably one of the most common ingredients in classic cocktails, however vermouth is most likely the stuff that you end up cleaning of your bar mats! It hasn’t always been this way, with the Vermouth Cocktail considered quite a hit back in the late 1800s, but sadly today you’ll not often hear, “Barkeep – a wine glass of dry vermouth, chilled and garnished with lemon. Up.” Hopefully however after reading this month’s Trend piece you’ll be more inspired, confident and determined to offer up a vermouth focused cocktail – or tasting flight – to your bar’s tipplers.

Classic: Michelada

We’re probably a month or two early.I mean it’s only just broken spring and dishing you out perhaps one of the best summer, heat- crushing, beverages for man or beast might seem a little premature.

Classic: The Fanciulli Cocktail

This long lost pre-prohibition cocktail is something of a doozy. It’s a simple mix, and delightfully so, but how it jazzes up the classic Manhattan is something akin to a quick-step military march.