Nuts and Berries

HOW TO SHAKE A COCKTAIL

Fill the cocktail shaker half way ice and add the cocktail ingredients. Close the shaker firmly, and hold it with your right hand wrapped around the top and your left hand cradling the bottom. Raise the shaker over your shoulder and shake hard until the drink is chilled, 10 to 15 seconds. Strain it into a glass’a good shake will leave a layer of very fine ice shards on the surface of the drink

Yes, you can most certainly come up with your own riecpes.One of the funnest things when I bartended was to try to create new drinks.Sometimes the bartenders would get together and discuss coming up with new drinks for house specials.Other times we would try to create new ones to send in to Bartender magazine to see if they would publish them.Knowing all the different liquors and liqueurs and mixers helps a lot as you know what they taste like and what would be a good mix or blend of flavors.Then there is the fun of naming your concoction. You can come up with some strange names-Funky Monkey, Windsail, Texas Hold Em’, Barfly, whatever you can think up.There are a lot of standardized riecpes for drinks, many have been around for years and years. Like a Singapore Sling is pretty standard but a Zombie, Hurricane or a Blue Hawaiian is mainly rum and fruit juices and knowing what color to make it. Sometimes the difference is just floating a little 151 rum on top.Take a Long Island Iced Tea. It usually is three white liquors(vodka,gin and rum), triple sec, sweet and sour juice and a splash of coke for the color. Add tequilla and you have a Texas Tea. Use 7-up instead of coke and you have an Electric Lemonade. Take a White Russian and splash it with coke and you have a Colorado Bulldog.The majority of drink riecpes are loose and vary greatly. I know there are a lot of books and websites out there that profess to give you the actual riecpes. Most were written either by bartenders or researched by authors who asked bartenders. Depending on where the bartender worked, you can have conflicting riecpes.A good bartender tries to memorize as many riecpes as he/she can. Good ones also keep a small card file for drinks that are not asked for often and add to it every time they learn of a new recipe. A lot of times the recipe is something they already know with a slight variation.To sum it up, yes, create your own riecpes and experiment with them. If you like the way it tastes, you have a good recipe. Be sure to name it.Have fun, be safe!

One thought on “Nuts and Berries”

eliasLoco

March 30, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Yes, you can most certainly come up with your own riecpes.One of the funnest things when I bartended was to try to create new drinks.Sometimes the bartenders would get together and discuss coming up with new drinks for house specials.Other times we would try to create new ones to send in to Bartender magazine to see if they would publish them.Knowing all the different liquors and liqueurs and mixers helps a lot as you know what they taste like and what would be a good mix or blend of flavors.Then there is the fun of naming your concoction. You can come up with some strange names-Funky Monkey, Windsail, Texas Hold Em’, Barfly, whatever you can think up.There are a lot of standardized riecpes for drinks, many have been around for years and years. Like a Singapore Sling is pretty standard but a Zombie, Hurricane or a Blue Hawaiian is mainly rum and fruit juices and knowing what color to make it. Sometimes the difference is just floating a little 151 rum on top.Take a Long Island Iced Tea. It usually is three white liquors(vodka,gin and rum), triple sec, sweet and sour juice and a splash of coke for the color. Add tequilla and you have a Texas Tea. Use 7-up instead of coke and you have an Electric Lemonade. Take a White Russian and splash it with coke and you have a Colorado Bulldog.The majority of drink riecpes are loose and vary greatly. I know there are a lot of books and websites out there that profess to give you the actual riecpes. Most were written either by bartenders or researched by authors who asked bartenders. Depending on where the bartender worked, you can have conflicting riecpes.A good bartender tries to memorize as many riecpes as he/she can. Good ones also keep a small card file for drinks that are not asked for often and add to it every time they learn of a new recipe. A lot of times the recipe is something they already know with a slight variation.To sum it up, yes, create your own riecpes and experiment with them. If you like the way it tastes, you have a good recipe. Be sure to name it.Have fun, be safe!

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