An expected garnish – if you will – to the cocktail renaissance is the great number of cocktail recipes being published in print, online, and on coasters! The upside is that more people are making cocktails at home than a decade ago.
With exploration comes the inevitable questions. At BevX, our Cocktail of the Week feature is one of our top three weekly segments, without fail. As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions regarding cocktail making. One persistent question, and a good one, I might add, concerns the recipe itself. We are hardly the only publication to offer a recipe for a Mai Tai, Margarita, or Negroni. Occasionally, a curious reader will ask why our recipe differs from another trusted source. “What is the right recipe for a Mai Tai?” is a common refrain.
Unfortunately, my answer is so vague, seemingly politic, and irresolute that it makes my teeth hurt. The best way I can explain it is with an analogy many people can relate to. “What’s the right recipe for jerk chicken, chili con carne, Bolognese, or coq au vin”? Surely great chefs across the globe don’t use the same exact recipe for these classic dishes. Does just one of thousands of award-winning chefs possess the right recipe? Of course not.
Just because we can all acknowledge that there are no proper recipes for classic dishes and classic cocktails, we must also concede that passions can run pretty high on the subject. Many bartenders, like chefs, cling to their chosen recipes like a first-time swimmer to a flotation device. I have no problem with this sort of zeal, as it is fodder for great cocktails. Variations on the basic construct are always welcome when due respect is given to the original. However, when a chef decides to explore his feng shui-loving inner child and drapes a sweet-and-spicy peanut sauce atop my eggs Benedict, I’m sending it back posthaste. The same ethos applies to cocktails.
While the recipe is not important, the ratios and the balance are crucial. This is why strong drinks are not better drinks.
While I’m very open to most substitutions and tweaks to ratios in classic cocktails, there are some liberties that I cannot support. I simply can’t understand why anyone would want to use añejo Tequila in a Margarita, but many do. I insist that the Margarita is a cocktail that celebrates the fresh, vibrant flavors of pure, unaged Tequila, with fresh lime and orange liqueur. By the way, the orange liqueur must also be free of the influence of wood as well! I’m further disturbed by añejo Tequila Margaritas being sold as upscale versions of the original, furthering yet another myth that Tequila aged in cask to the point that it looks like and tastes like Bourbon is preferred to pure Tequila, but that’s a rant for another day.
The takeaway nugget from this exploration of cocktail recipes is that, like all things designed to delight our palates, they become very personal. If you want a greater portion of Gin in your Negroni, more Vermouth in your Martini, or Bourbon in your Manhattan, then add it boldly.