Emily Nance gives bartending tips for making cocktails at home ep 18

Kiepersol Texas Podcast

Emily Nance gives bartending tips for making cocktails at home ep 18 - Kiepersol Texas Podcast

We are in the Distillery at Kiepersol where the Lead Bartendering, Emily, runs things and gives us some insight into making cocktails.

Emily has been in the service industry since 2012, starting off as a server. She would watch these mixologists at the bar make these crazy green and sour drinks that were served in martini glasses and tasted amazing. So she got a job at a Mexican restaurant where she started serving margaritas. She didn't learn much because it was a premixing margarita machine, but she got her foot in the door. After a little while, she managed to get a job at The Grove - Tyler where they taught mixology and bartending edict. Emily started there about 4 years ago, where she worked the speed bar and worked her way into the cocktail bar at The Grove.

The speed bar is designed for call drinks that servers can pick up or customer can walk up to and grab quickly mixed drinks. Such as Jack and Coke or a Screwdriver. Whereas the cocktail bar is designed to make specially crafted drinks that aesthetically are appealing and taste great with a complex experience. People who go to a cocktail bar expect that drinks take a little longer to make because it is about the experience. Most mixologists will take a few extra steps to give a presentation during the construction of the cocktail.

Emily gives some tips on constructing your own cocktail at home:

1) There are 4 basic elements or tastes you will experience when consuming a drink: Sweet, Salty, Sour & Savory (Bitter).

- When constructing a cocktail you want to balance the drink with at least 3 of these tasting experiences.

- The goal isn't to cancel certain flavors out, but rather to enhance each characteristic through the addition of another ingredient. Example - Sweet & Sour elements are commonly mixed together, but they can easily overpower one another. Adding salt to the rim helps enhance each of the 3 elements.

- Example Cocktails: The Salty Dog - Vodka, Grapefruit juice & Salt Rim.

- Grapefruit is very citrusy and sour, the Vodka is often used straight, but can be blended with a sweet liqueur or flavor. Then you can use a simple syrup on the rim of the glass, then dip it into salt. So you have the sour, sweet and salty, which helps no one element overpowers the other.

2) When constructing a cocktail it is important to know which base spirit you're going to use and it's own natural characteristics. Not all cocktail recipes would be good if you change the base spirit.

- Bourbon or whiskey often have very distinct flavors that you don't always want to overpower or hide with a lot of ingredients, rather you want to enhance each flavor.

- Rum is often made from sugar, which makes a lot of rums tend to be sweeter. Playing to its natural sweetness can help create a well balanced and delicious cocktail.

- Vodka is pure alcohol that is diluted with water. It shouldn't have an odor or taste before it is cut with water. This is why most people prefer using vodka for mixed drinks. It allows you to have the most room to be creative and rely on other ingredients to add flavor and taste.

- We mentioned the Salty Dog earlier, if we were to replace vodka with rum, we would have a completely different drink and most people would think it tastes weird. The sweetness might overload the experience.

- Understanding the base spirit on its own, allows you to create experiences or experiment