08-039
When you find yourself designing new cocktails
for home consumption, the first thing you should do is immediately stop what
you are doing---remember, someone else has already gone through the trouble of
making serious errors in judgement, so you don't have to. These are the people
we call "saints".
If you are in a bar with a signature cocktail
menu, however, you may ignore it at your peril. Falling into the trap of a
specialty cocktail menu is much more hazardous nowadays, as the size of the
glasses being served is racing out of proportion with the size of the patrons.
With the advent of swimming-pool-sized glassware, it appears both sides are
intent on losing.
The true connoisseur knows it is the
first moment of the first sip of a properly-mixed cocktail which approaches the
Platonic ideal. (It is the last sip of the last cocktail that usually ruins
it.) Thus, the one-sip cocktail holds the most promise. One benefit of
much smaller cocktails is that this will conveniently allow your server to
ignore you at a much faster rate.
But getting back to the saints---their local
hideout, often referred to as "The Firmament", has somewhere in the
neighborhood of a billion stars. This is hot real estate indeed. This fact is
relevant in that a billion approximates the number of different drinks now
being proffered by mixologists currently within shouting distance---most of
which are no good.
So if you are to have a drink poured into a
glass and down the hatch (this being the preferred order), which should it be?
The expert cocktaileur is well-prepared to
answer this question. Having generated relevant criteria ahead of time, he may
select only those cocktails reaching a necessary
minimum positive score.
Suppose your desired list contains the following
attributes:
Beautiful
Sophisticated
Exotic
Ethnic
Refreshing
Mood-setting
Aromatic
Tasty
Nose-tickling
Proper mouthfeel
etc.
First we'll calculate scores for two typical
20th century "classic" drinks...
Mai Tai: beautiful, exotic, ethnic, refreshing,
mood-setting, aromatic, tasty, etc.
score: 7+
Gin & Tonic: beautiful, sophisticated,
ethnic (that is, if you consider WASPs an ethnic group,) refreshing,
mood-setting, aromatic, tasty, nose-tickling, proper mouthfeel, etc.
score: 9+
... then we'll calculate scores for two typical
21st century modern "designer" drinks:
Hibiscus Blossom with Gin & Maple Syrup:
aromatic, exotic, etc.
score: 2+
KFC Martini (fried-chicken infused martini w/
mashed potato garnish) bizarre, revolting, bad for the skin, etc.
score: 3-
The typical "classic" cocktails have
scored well, and the typical "designer" cocktails have not. We can
see from our analysis that the modern KFC Martini, therefore, is not a very
promising drink.
In fact, the shorter version of the same idea
would include merely a list of our senses and require that a drink
appeal to at least two of them---including a sense of decency.
Which brings me to my final point. Cocktails are
for being mixed and drunk-up with your friends, and hopefully not vice-versa.
Let's leave designing to cars & clothes. Otherwise, at night’s end, you may
discover that the modern cocktail and its aficionados actually have
*their* designs on *you*.