The Magic Ratio for Making a Cocktail
The play dough aspect of the evening, Jamie says, is all about the magic ratio for making a cocktail. The magic ratio being 1 1/2 parts spirit, 3/4 part wine-like aperitif and 1/4 part accent (liqueur), or:
1 ½ ounces of a base spirit
¾ ounce of an aperitif or vermouth
¼ ounce liqueur
“I can make a drink using spirit X and I can make a drink with other ingredients using this ratio,” he says
Jamie sets out four glass containers on the bar and proceeds to make four different cocktails using this formula. For a gin based cocktail, Jamie mixed 1 1/2 ounces of gin, 3/4 ounces Lillet and 1/4 ounces St. Germain. Using the same ratio, but with rum, Jamie combined 1 1/2 ounces rum, 3/4 ounces Dubonnet and 1/4 ounces apricot liqueur. Jamie made three other cocktails using this ratio, one cognac based, another Calvados and lastly, scotch. All were stirred, strained and served up with a twist of lemon and all delicious. Jamie prefers to put in the lemon twist into a glass prior to pouring a drink so that the lemon oil will coat the entire drink, not just rest on top.
Jamie’s success behind the bar comes from experience, passion and a natural gift of making people feel right at home. Very calm and professional, you can tell he is devoted to the craft. Being from Canada, Jamie had the opportunity to work with cocktails at age 16. For 22 years Jamie has worked in several bars throughout Vancouver B.C. and in several places in Seattle where he currently lives. Jamie may have a calm demeanor while working, but if you ask his thoughts on bitters, the best vermouth to buy or who’s really making the best gin in the new micro distilleries in Washington and Oregon, you will get an animated response. If you ask his opinion on the latest in cocktail trends, Jamie boldly claims that with modern spirits, storage and creativity, bartending now is the best it’s ever been. And that is good for everyone.
The Hottest Toddy
Jamie’s first drink is a take on the classic Hot Toddy. Spirit, sugar, and hot water were a sure cure-all for everything in the 1700’s, but today’s 2010 Hot Toddy calls for a little more oomph. Cognac, rum, bourbon and St. Germain, ginger syrup and bitters all mixed together and set on fire.
Using two heavy-duty mugs, Jamie resembles a magician juggling fluorescent potions. Placing one mug on top of the other, the flame is extinguished and the drink is poured into awaiting snifters and garnished with a lemon wheel.
Fire, Foam and Play Doh
Above: Jamie adding some spices to his hot toddy.
There were three things that Jamie wanted to make sure that he covered tonight:
1. He wanted to show off with fire
2. He wanted to show off with foam (molecular gastronomy)
3. Lastly, he wanted to teach something, i.e. Playdough
To say that Jamie has been a little busy lately is an understatement. Not just busy making ginger syrup and Elderberry Beet Foam concoctions for tonight’s Drinking Lessons, but busy traveling all over as an ambassador for St. Germain and tending bar at the Knee High Stocking Co. full time.
Jamie, like the other bartenders and mixologists who are recognized as the literal movers and shakers of this new cocktail culture that we are experiencing, take their jobs very seriously.
Fire Witch
Named after a flower, Jamie’s vibrant Fire Witch cocktail is really two cocktails in one. One liquid concoction, the other being in the form of a foam.
“I think foams are the only molecular gastronomy that will stick around for a long time to come,” Jamie says, “Meringue is essentially a foam.”
Jamie creates an elixir of St. Germain (see the trend), fresh lemon juice, water, egg whites, and beet powder. Then he pours this mixture into an isi canister and charges it with two cartridges of nitrogen oxide.
Beet elderflower foam is a protein, mixed with liquid, which becomes a different texture through agitation. He tells us if you don’t have a cream whipper, you can get the same affect with a whisk or immersion blender.
Instead of adding foam to the top of the drink, Jamie adds an inch of the fuchsia foam to the bottom of a glass, then pours a mixture of gin, Lillet and a dash of orange bitters over the top. By pouring it through the drink you add more flavor and you also don’t ruin the whole drink if your foam fails.
Jamie Boudreau
It’s three minutes until the first Drinking Lessons of the New Year begins. Tonight’s lesson is hosted by one of Seattle’s finest in the industry, Jamie Boudreau.
Since it’s Martin Luther King Jr. day, the Hunt Club bar in the Sorrento Hotel lacks the after work Happy Hour crowd and pre-dinner bustle but the bar top is packed and listening intently.
Besides a reserved sign at each place setting, a dainty bottle of St. Germain, the fragrant and sweet elderberry liqueur, lies ever so delicately as a gift for each guest.
Zane and Anu
Co-owners of the Rob Roy in Seattle, Zane and Anu took over the Sorrento’s Hunt Club bar for an evening of sherry cocktails. Read on to learn more about sherry as a main ingredient to a new Old Fashioned or learn the recipe for James Bond’s classic Vesperado Cocktail. If nothing else, read on to learn why you need to visit the Rob Roy next time you’re in Seattle.
A Misunderstood Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned cocktail, says Zane, like sherry is misunderstood. Instead of using a classic sugar cube or simple syrup, Anu and Zane use a honey simple syrup. Anu holds up a container made up of one cup honey and one cup water. She explains that honey simple syrup is one way to make cocktails different at home. Anu and Zane are divided on each side of the bar. After pouring in sherry and honey and three very large and long dashes of Angostura bitters, Anu and Zane take care to twist out all the citrus oils of a three-inch orange peel into each glass.
“Muddling doesn’t have to mean destroying,” Zane says, while softly muddling the contents of each drink. He explains that when you muddle something like mint too aggressively, you break the cell walls and the mint becomes bitter.
When someone at the bar asked why Zane wasn’t adding a cherry to the drink, Zane laughed and said adding a cherry doesn’t flavor- it only adds a smashed cherry to your drink.
The Sherry Old Fashioned is served over ice in a bucket glass with a large orange twist for garnish. I take a sip. Herby and not sugary sweet like most Old Fashions- the honey simple syrup makes the drink smooth. I’m loving the balance of the Amontillado Sherry shaken with the bitters. Flavors of cinnamon and even Worcestershire, with only an aftertaste of orange. So refreshing and not at all like any Old Fashioned I’ve ever put my lips to- then again, it’s not like any drink I’ve ever had.
The Oloroso Sour – Double Shaken, Double Strained
Our final cocktail of the evening is the Oloroso Sour. Oloroso Sherry has a wonderful nutty almost maple bar aroma to it. Once Zane cracked opened the bottle I immediately inhaled its deliciousness. He created the Oloroso Sour to balance the sweetness of this Sherry with the sourness of citrus. With the addition of an egg white the result is a fragrant, full of flavor, frothy cocktail. It looks like snow in a glass.
Tips to making this beverage are in the emulsification of the egg white. Like creating meringue, you must start with a super clean bowl. In this case, a cocktail shaker. Take care to separate the white from the yolk as any trace of fat from the yolk will impede the emulsification process. Another tip to getting a good emulsification is to remove the spring ring from a cocktail strainer and place the spring into the shaker with the egg whites. When shaking, the spring helps to further “whip” the eggs. You can also use a milk frother for a more gentle approach. Do not add ice prior to emulsifying as it will greatly slow the process.
Once the egg whites are whipped up nicely, add ice to the shaker and shake vigorously again. Zane says, “Shake it to wake it up, not put it to sleep!”
Place the strainer over the shaker and pour through an additional fine mesh strainer into a coupe glass. This double straining helps remove any pulp and ice shards, resulting in a smooth beverage.
Click here or below for the recipe:
Tin on Tin
How is it that someone can just spout off poetic verse from the first story of James Bond all the while pouring, stirring and serving? Zane is an excellent story teller and his knowledge of precisely what Mr. Bond was drinking before he was known as 007 is quite impressive. The bar top is attentive, everyone is leaning forward to Zane’s casual tone, his matter of fact way of speaking about drinks. He and his gorgeous partner, Anu make every drink so effortlessly.
Zane discusses the reason he likes to stir in tin rather than in glass, “Tin on tin, I like to say,” he says. It’s all about heat dissipation. Zane stirs with ice in tin shakers to get the heat out the liquids as fast as possible without the dilution of shaking.
Bartender’s Secret
As Anu pours Angostura bitters into an empty bottle, she tells us she always keeps the bottle half full. Why? That way you prevent over splashing when the bottle is too full and it keeps the flavor fresh and consistent by not letting it get too empty.
Nice tip!
Photo: Annie Mole
