GARNISH CHAT WRAP UP AND REMINDER OF GARNISH CONTEST

Last Thursday’s garnish chat and TDN brought out a host of cocktailians, bartenders and new attendees. This was the first time i was involved with a panel. It was very fun and from it i have learned a lot of things. The whole transcript will be posted here at the Mixoloseum blog, but here are a short wrap-up of the things that were said during the chat.

I also want to remind you of the garnish contest Until Oct.30, make a nice cocktail with appropriate garnish. Be creative, be crazy and don’t be shy..Best garnish wins a bottle of this years limited release of Blossa Swedish Glogg.

We wanted to try to cover the most usual garnishes as well as more elaborate or crazy and funny garnish ideas. We showed pictures of cocktails made with these garnishes and the garnish types were discussed.

A short wrap-up of random comments from the chat:

kaiserpenguin -> Hey guys… everyone ready to get started?

Petter -> Garnish! Garnish! Garnish!

kaiserpenguin -> Welcome everyone! I want to introduce Tiare, from A Mountain of Crushed Ice, who over the past week has been putting together a totally awesome panel for everyone. Let’s get started!

tiare -> ok, Hi everyone and welcome to the cocktail garnish chat. Before we start i want to present us: I am Tiare author of “A Mountain of Crushed Ice” and with me is Rick author of kaiserpenguin.com and we are going to discuss cocktail garnishing tonight..

tiare -> We are honored to have Jeff ”Beachbum” Berry with us – author of several famous and outstanding books on Tiki cocktails – Grog Log, Intoxica!, Taboo Table and Sippin`Safari, and author of blog.beachbumberry.com/.

Welcome Jeff Beachbum Berry!

cocktailnerd -> welcome, bum!

bar: claps

bum -> The honor’s all mine….!

cocktailnerd -> bah!

tiare -> Discussion is encouraged so don´t hold back on your comments and ideas! And no question is too silly.

bar: whistles really loudly

tiare -> I also want to announce that we have a Mixoloseum garnish contest!

BonzoGal -> Whee!

tiare -> From today and until the next TDN you make a nice cocktail with appropriate garnish and best garnish wins a bottle of this years limited release of Blossa Swedish Glogg. The details of the contest are on my blog: http://amountainofcrushedice.wordpress.com

kaiserpenguin -> Jeff, before we move on to about a billion more garnish pictures, can you talk a little bit about the history and practice of tiki garnishes?

sylvan -> http://www.goofspot.com/images/tc/coucoucomber-sidebyside.jpg

bum -> The cucumber pic was a good starting point: The most innovative thing about Tiki garnishes was to make the vessel ITSELF the garnish — by serving the drink in a cucumber, a pineapple, coconut, orange, etc bum The next innovation was with ice — by molding an ice cone around the straw, or a shell of shaved ice coating the glass.

Petter -> did that start in tiki-bars?

bum -> Petter, as far as I can tell it did. Although the Pump Room in Chicago served its Bath House Cure in an ice mold in the early 1940s….

BonzoGal -> Wasn’t Vic’s around pre-WWII? or at least Hinky-Dink’s?

sylvan -> 1934, but I don’t know when they started in with the ice combs

tiare -> these ice combs are not so easy to make

samuraibartender -> agreed

bum -> Samurai, Donn was the first Tiki guy to use ice molds. Not sure if his ideas predated the Pump Room, but it would have been roughly concurrent …

Stevideter, a swizzle properly swizzled will form a frost on the glass, but that’s not a pre-frozen, specially molded ice sculpt … BonzoGal, Vic’s didn’t go the ice mold route, I think he thought it wasn’t worth the labor-intensiveness and expense!

tiare -> I made an attempt to make the ice comb, it wasnt easy and the result wasnt too good but here you can see:

http://amountainofcrushedice.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/experimenting-with-ice-molding/

bum -> And yeah, the combs are a real pain IF you don’t have real shaved ice, which we don’t, but Donn did — he used a Japanese-made shaver, a real beast, that reduced a huge block of ice to moldable powder. During WWII his staff was terrified that if it broke, they’d never be able to replace it

tiare -> the thing is, you want a thin shell and thats what the difficulty is. you really need the shaved ice and i just had a hand mixer

sylvan -> how about the Hamilton-Beach ‘Snowman’? Is that shaved enough?

samuraibartender -> Or those little hand shavers that pop up on ebay once in a while (or the new models they still sell in Japan)

bum -> Right Tiare, the best i’ve been able to do is take crushed ice and run it through a Cuisinart. You can do rudimentary molds that way, but it’s still not fine enough for a true comb … for that you need a professional Snow-cone, or Hawaiian shave-ice, machine, and they cost a fortune.

sylvan -> I’ve seen little cheap hand crank Hawaiian ’shave ice’ machines

bum -> Sylvan, I have one of those shavers! It doesn’t really do the trick, because it just takes too damn long to render enough ice … Dr. B, those Japanese behemoths are long-gone. But again, if you have the $$$ for a pro snowcone outfit, that should do it… but just try to talk your bar manager into shelling out for one!

Petter -> I was thinking, big block and large knife with straight blade…

bum -> Petter, if you have a block of ice, a shaver (looks kind of like a cheese slicer) will work. Old-school as hell, that’s how Donn’s team did it before the machines…!

Dr. Bamboo -> Quick question about ice cones…put it in the glass after the drink is poured? Or cone first, then pour the drink in around it? Make any difference?

bum -> Dr., ice cone first. I learned this the hard way — they displace a LOT of liquid volume!

FROM ICE TO FIRE…

JenTiki -> Jeff, can you tell us a bit about the flaming garnishes?

bum -> Jen, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to do those. I started by hollowing out half a lime, floating it on the surface of the drink, filling it with 151, and igniting. Worked if no lights were on.

Better to put a square of toasted white bread in the shell, dousing it with 151, and igniting that. MUCH bigger flame. Martin Cate recommends not using 151, but dousing in pre lemon extract, which has a higher proof

bum -> Back to garnish history: I think — no documentation here though — that flaming iced drinks evolved out of Donn’s original flaming drink, the coffee grog (which itself proabably was inspired by Cafe Brulot and Cafe Dibale from New Orleans)

kaiserpenguin -> http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/jessbreathingfire.jpg

kaiserpenguin -> Just dip your finger in 151 and light it on fire.Then use your finger to light something else, then blow out your finger

cocktailnerd -> heh

kaiserpenguin -> You might burn a bit of finger hair, but not if you do it quick.

bum -> I just tried your technique, kaiser, I’m sending you the bill

FRAGRANT GARNISH

Another way to create a fragrance is to rim the glass with for example a cut up strawberry, or a lime/lemon wedge.or with a different spirit like Absinthe. How important is the aroma and fragrance in cocktails?

JenTiki -> But a mai tai isn’t a proper mai tai without the aroma of the mint hitting your nostrils before your lips touch the glass. Sometimes the garnish is key to the experience of the drink

bum -> Yes, seriously for a sec, a garnish shouldn’t run counterpoint to a drink’s flavor profile, but kitchen staff shouldn’t be handing down rules to bar staff — sometimes breaking culinary rules works just fine with a drink.

BonzoGal -> I slightly crush my mint sprigs in my hand before putting them in the glass for maximum smellage.

stevideter -> slightly crush? come on, spank the suckers!

tiare -> Mint in a Mai Tai: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2635610590/in/set-72157605359369054/

tiare -> Dashes of bitters is a beautiful garnish in this drink:

PISCO SOUR – By Chris Stanley – http://picasaweb.google.com/SamuraiBartender/CocktailPortfolio1#5196227270426065538

bum -> There are some woodcuts in the 1860s Jerry Thomas book that show elaborate garnishes — fruit peels, mint sprigs, etc., so to aswer Tiare’s question, the practice is almost as old as the cocktail itself…

tiare -> What is practical and possible in a busy bar?

BonzoGal -> I’d imagine garnishes that can be pre-made as much as possible?

bum -> Anything is possible IF you have the staff AND the money to pay them to prep everything in advance — you can do ice cones, molds, hollowed out pineapples & coconuts, etc., you just need the people-power (and the freezer space)

TWISTS AND SPIRALS

To make a thin /twist spiral with a channel knife, cut firmly and slowly in a spiral manner around the fruit. Then wrap around your finger for a while. This works easier with lime and lemon.

Long thin spiral with a channel knife:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2797951754/in/set-72157606953036381/

kaiserpenguin -> “slowly” is a huge secret

WILSON – orange http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/1_6_07_wilson.jpg – By Rick

CraigH -> I’ve also found turning the fruit and not the knife helps.

bum -> Good idea Craig, I’ve got to try that….

kaiserpenguin -> If you leave a little more of the pith on the orange peel (like in the wilson cocktail), it twists better.

tiare -> TOOLS With a vegetable peeler, either a peeler without a handle like the one on the pics or a y-peeler you get broader twists and spirals. To make short thicker lime spiral (with a vegetable peeler):

Long wide spiral: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2812713412/in/set-72157606953036381/

kaiserpenguin -> http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/garnishtools.jpg – These are pretty much the only tools I use for all my garnishes.

tiare -> here is a stunning drink by CraigH: http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/2755208349/in/set-72157602809056181/

bum -> Very Jerry thomas…

CraigH -> I was purposely trying to do a Jerry Thomas

tiare -> A very popular cocktail garnish is the flower, and here are some beautiful examples:

WAIKIKIAN - http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/3_24_06_waikikian.jpg – by Rick

SPINDRIFT – http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/5_26_06_spindrift.jpg – by Rick

SCORPION BOWL – http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/5_27_08_scorpionbowl.jpg – By Rick

BonzoGal -> Rick, do you choose flowers to go with specific drinks, or just buy a bunch and figure that out later?

kaiserpenguin -> I pull 100% of the flowers out of my garden. I try to match colors, but that’s about it.

kaiserpenguin -> Jeff, is there a history or culture of using flowers (besides orchids) in tiki drinks?

bum -> The Hawaiian Room in NY went nuts with flowers in the 50s .. they actually stuck Bird Of Paradise in a drink (how the glass didn’t spill over I will never know). Trader Vic pioneered the use of gardenias, starting in the Scorpion. But the orchid is/was the preferred floral garnish…

bum -> Also, the Coco Palms in Kauai wrapped a whole, fresh floral lei around their wedding drink (served in a bowl for two)

tiare -> Some thoughts on garnish:

To me, a good garnish not only complements the cocktail but also lift it up to that extra dimension. Its the cocktail`s exclamation mark, the cream of the coffee.

A well crafted suitable garnish helps transforming the cocktail to something that says “Hey, look at me, drink me, i`m good!”

What it takes to make good garnishes?

Passion, imagination and “eye for colors and shapes”, technique and good simple tools. It doesn`t have to be complicated.

tiare -> I want to thank Jeff for attending here and spreading so much knowledge and inspiration!

bum -> My pleasure Tiare…

kaiserpenguin -> Yes, thanks to Jeff for imparting some wonderful tiki knowledge.

SeanMike -> Thanks Jeff!

cocktailnerd -> yay, Jeff!

oysterschnapps -> yes, thanks for the history and answering questions, jeff

bum -> had a great time y’all! Signing off — good night all!

kaiserpenguin -> And thanks to everyone for participating… the amount of knowledge in this room is insane!

tiare -> i hope you all have enjoyed this garnish chat

bum -> Cheers!

tiare -> We will take a small brake now, say 10 mins before the TDN takes off!

kaiserpenguin -> Is everyone ready to create and enjoy new cocktails for the next 7 hours? Because I sure as hell am. And on that note… let Thursday Drink Night begin!

End of garnish chat.

GARNISH LINKS
Here are the links to those pics that were shown:

ISARTAL ROSE – By Rick http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/celery-bitters/

GANNT´S CAIPIRISSIMA – By CraigH http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/2876323413/

AUTUMN LEAVES – By jeffrey Morgenthaler - http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/2008/autumn-leaves/

BLOOD AND BOURBON – By Rick http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/10_11_08_bloodandbourbon.jpg

EXOTICA – By Tiare
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2948142330/

MABEL BERRA COCKTAIL – By Stevi – http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevideter/2844851630/

CARIBBEAN PUNCH – By Tiare http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2697170852/in/set-72157606953036381/

BLACK RIVER SIDECAR – By Stevi http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/9_22_08_blackriversidecar.jpg

RONGO BOWL – By CraigH - http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/2837669499/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/2838482200/

LUAU GROG – By Paul Clarke http://www.cocktailchronicles.com/2007/09/04/luau-grog/

CUBA KULA – By Tiare http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2651089676/in/set-

FLAMING GARNISH – By Rick – http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/garnish.jpg

COFEE GROG – By TraderTiki http://www.flickr.com/photos/tradertiki/1463738096/in/set-72157602208309332/

BLACKSTRAP BETTY – FI CONTEST WINNER – By Tradertiki – http://www.tradertiki.com/page/2/

SUNSET OVER THE SEA OF THE MOON – By Tiare http://www.flickr.com/photos/13618264@N08/2910778192/in/set-72157605359369054/

ZOMBIE – by Rick – http://www.kaiserpenguin.com/i/7_3_06_zombie.jpg