This week, Cookthink is featuring a conversation about the Cocktail Renaissance. The participants are Greg Boehm, the publisher of CocktailKingdom.com and Mud Puddle Books; Rob Chirico, author of The Field Guide to Cocktails and Cookthink’s Hair of the Dog columnist; and AJ Rathbun, senior editor at Amazon.com/kitchen and the author of several books, including Good Spirits and Luscious Liqueurs.

Just joining the conversation? Start by reading Rob’s introduction.

Greg and AJ:

Thanks for sharing your questions and insights. They are particularly valuable because, like a conversation over a good cocktail, they lead to other happy tangents.

From my personal experience “behind bars,” I have had the opportunity to create a number of signature cocktails for our restaurant. I suspect they are good since, after four years, people order them without looking at the menu. The key, as AJ pointed out, is well-balanced and well-thought out recipes.

The bartender, or mixologist (and I know that term is probably fodder for another discussion), is participating in a craft. I once said that some of the only craftsmen left were chefs and forgers, but the dedicated bartender must also know his ingredients and techniques just as a chef — or forger — does.

I had the chance to witness this firsthand when I participated in the New Orleans Tales of the Cocktail two years in a row. I had the pleasure of working alongside Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich, Gary Regan, and Robert Hess, to name just a few of the luminaries there. I felt like a rookie playing in an all-star game. And it truly was like being on a team, one assembled to create exciting new cocktails all in the framework of the long tradition of classic cocktails.

I also think that comparing mixology to cooking is an apt analogy. Of course, there are good cooks as well as assassins in the kitchen, and as long as people debase pizza by topping it with pineapple, there will be abominations like the Malibu Mango.

To end on a positive note, though, at Tales of the Cocktail we paired drinks with full-course menus. Here were the best bartenders in the country all working together with chefs to expand the cocktail-dining experience. I think it favorably bears out what Greg called “just wishful thinking on my part that cocktail trends could be driven by bartenders that have been a part of the cocktail renaissance.”

Cheers,

Rob

Previously: “Email, message boards and the Internet itself have influenced bartenders.”
Next: “I don’t enjoy drinking the results of most of the ‘cutting-edge’ mixology.”

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