Don't neglect your classic cocktails
Don't neglect your classic cocktails, says Andreas Grammatikopoulos, bar and lounge manager at Henrock, Linthwaite House in the Lake District
Classic cocktails are like a snapshot of our past, a reminder of an era in which bartending played a crucial role in society and its evolution. They have stood the test of time, are instantly recognisable and not tied to a single bar or region.
That may be because of their balance or purity or simply their popularity – whatever the case, these are core drinks every bartender should know and understand.
Classic cocktails express perfect balance, flavour, mouthfeel and quality of ingredients. They are simple and every ingredient has a purpose. In an era when bartending and mixology have evolved so much, the main question we need to ask is, where do the classics fit and how can we use them?
There's no doubt they will always be ordered and most of the time guests have their own preference with regards to the proportions, which is absolutely fine, because at the end of the day we make these cocktails to please our guests' palate.
Working with Simon Rogan is enlightening, he gives us the freedom to experiment and to push boundaries, which is essentially what he does as a chef. This freedom is underpinned by our ability to access the finest fresh ingredients, many of which are grown at Our Farm, Simon's farm in the Cartmel valley, giving us the opportunity to serve seasonal drinks on a farm-to-glass basis.
In my view, to begin to understand the classics, it's worth reading Cocktail Codex by Alex Day, David Kaplan and Nick Fauchald – it's the perfect book to start with. It states in essence there are only six cocktails and understanding them is the key to being able to create others. The main idea is to strip the recipe to its core, understand the template and then experiment with the core, balance and seasoning, as in that way each category can be expanded to create many other cocktails that share the same fundamentals.
As bartenders we need to understand and educate ourselves on how ingredients interact with each other, and once we master that, only then can we try to manipulate or create our own cocktails.
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