Aoc Restaurant Blog Tales of the Cocktail: Wrap-Up

Posted By: GroveImage Credit: Tales of the Cocktail Facebook pageMy Tales of the Cocktail series comes to a close as I reminisce on my last day at the conference and my biggest takeaways. I hope you've enjoyed this series as much as I have!Friday10:00 am: Quinquina/Chinato: Bark to the FutureThe Gin and Tonic is one of the most popular mixed drinks, for good reason. This class discussed the active ingredient in tonic water, quinine, and how it came to be so popular. In the 1600s, a Malaria epidemic was on the rise. While Europeans were traveling through modern-day Peru, the explorers turned to the native Indians who had lived off the jungle for thousands of years for help. The Indian Shaman suggested that the sick ingest the bark of the Cinchona tree (also known as Quinquina, or Chinato) cooked down in water. This bitter bark cured the Malaria symptoms and was hailed worldwide as one of the most important drugs the world had ever seen. Since clean water was still an issue for most of the world, everyone drank alcohol as an alternative. English sailors began mixing the bitter quinine with their gin to help kill off anything they may have caught while traveling. This was the birth of tonic water and syrups that you see behind the bar today.Quinine is still the world's most effective Malaria drug, but does have some serious dangers. If a person ingests too much quinine in house-made syrups, bitters, or tonics, the body reacts to the abundance of the drug by showing the same symptoms as Malaria, which could last for months or even for a lifetime. It's very important that you know exactly how to filter the bark when creating quinine-based syrups and tinctures for your bar.12:30 pm: Making Vermouth for Home and BarI've been in love with Vermouth since my first travels to Italy and Spain, so I was especially looking forward to this class. Vur is complex with flavors ranging from sweet, to bitter, and everything in between. Many Americans have been afraid to embrace Vermouth by itself, but love it in classic cocktails like The Manhattan. This type of wine is an aromatized wine, which has been fortified with a spirit to make it stronger and then aromatized with botanicals, spices, fruit, and other natural ingredients. Vermouth has been made for thousands of years and is an important ingredient for many classic cocktails.There are over a dozen common ingredients in Vermouth other than white wine, including angelica seed, cinnamon, juniper berry, marjoram, orange peel, rosemary and more. It's truly a Witch's Brew of ingredients. All of these ingredients are individually covered in jars of alcohol and left to steep. After the botanicals have been steeped long enough in the jars, all of the solids are strained and the individual tinctures combined to white wine. A caramel is made with sugar and then added to the wine and botanical mixture to sweeten things up a bit. After everything has been combined and strained, you've got Vermouth!3:00 pm: Amaro is the New SweetAn Amaro is a type of Italian herbal-based liqueur found all over Italy. "Amaro" translates to "bitter" in English. There are over one thousand Amari and liqueurs available in Italy today. Each town and region of Italy has their own secret blend of botanicals that varies greatly from one another. Some can be sweet, others very bitter, and many in between. Some of the famous Amari you may already be familiar include Campari, Aperal, Fernet-Branca, Averna, and Luxardo. These herbal liqueurs bring cocktails to new heights with their flavor potential. This tasting class discussed the long history of Amari and let us sample many kinds many Americans are not too familiar with yet. What important trends did I learn?The Spirits realm is popular worldwide. The study of Spirits is really the study of human history dating back before the Egyptians and far before Christ. There are so many different types of spirits available today, at first glance, the sheer volume of choices can make anyone intimidated. Add the options of combining the endless number of spirits, bitters, aperitifs, digestifs, liqueurs, Vermouth, and Amori together to create something new makes for infinite flavor possibilities. One of my main takeaways from Tales of the Cocktail is that hospitality and education are truly the keys to this industry. A solid base of knowledge is necessary to understand why certain bartending techniques have been established and how to use them in today's world.The job behind the bar is to help your guest feel comfortable while always being a good listener and sharing any knowledge they may be curious about. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much information you've collected or how great your drinks are. If you can't make your guest feel at home sitting in your bar, they are not coming back.