Measure by Measure
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| Photo by Gary Regan Used with permission |
Having been pontificating about spirits, cocktails, and specifically cocktail recipes for what? Ten years now? I clearly have a wide variety of information and details spread all over the web in various forms and locations. Recently, somebody pointed out that the recipe I just presented for a particular cocktail differed from a recipe I listed for the same cocktail in another location. They then pointed out how fastidious I am about always promoting the importance of measuring when you make a cocktail. To them, this seemed like an inconsistency. How could I on one hand be saying measuring was important, then on the other changing those very same measures?
As my friend Gary Regan is always saying, “nothing is written in stone”. The heart of the cocktail recipe is not that there is ONE recipe that should always be used for a particular cocktail, if that was the case then it would be easy to create an automatic cocktail machine which would simply spew out “perfect” cocktails one after another. Cocktails are an art, they are a reflection of the craftsman creating them. It should be expected that they are going to be slightly different from one person to another, and in fact there is nothing wrong with them being different from the same person over time. As we hone and perfect our craft, we are going to attempt to improve and enhance our cocktails in ways we think reflect the soul of the drink better. In my early writings about the Old Fashioned, I would promote the careful muddling of the orange wheel in the glass with a little sugar and water. Then I realized that simple syrup would work better than raw sugar, then I realized that a careful zesting of the orange peel over the drink would impart the same orange essence, but without the nasty pulp. Bit by bit, my recipe for the Old Fashioned has evolved to a point where I think it really reflects the soul of what that drink should be.
Measuring is not about having THE recipe for a cocktail, it is about providing consistency in the drinks you are making. It is about having A recipe for a cocktail, and executing it the way that recipe was intending to communicate it. The original sidecar was listed as equal parts brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice. While I personally don’t like that recipe, finding it way too tart, I think it is important to make that recipe, carefully measured, before you go on and try to make some variations of it. At the current time, I feel that the recipe that makes this drink really work the best, is a 4-2-1 ratio (4 parts brandy, 2 parts Cointreau, 1 part lemon juice). And I always measure this out to make sure I get that specific recipe. Does this mean I will always feel a 4-2-1 works the best for the Sidecar? No. I may discover some little tweak at some point in the future, that brings this recipe into even greater focus. Maybe it is using a different orange flavored liqueur than Cointreau. Maybe it includes presqueezing the lemon juice and letting it soak with some lemon zest for a few minutes. And maybe these slight changes bring about a slight alteration in the ratios.
So the importance of measuring shouldn’t scare you away from trying “different” measures, just making sure that you measure, so that you are always sure what you are getting.
