Alcademics

Category: Tales of the Cocktail

  • The Ice Book Wins Best Cocktail or Bartending Book at the Spirited Awards!

    The Ice Book is the winner of the Best New Cocktail or Bartending Book at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards!

    This is the highest award within the global bar community. I am delighted!

     

    The Ice Book_ Cool Cubes Clear Spheres and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts by Camper English

     

    The Ice Book’s photographer Allison Webber was there to accept the award for us both.


    The Ice Book_ Cool Cubes Clear Spheres and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts by Camper English

    photo: @jbrasted

     

    Allison accepting award

    photo: Jackson Cannon

     

    The official Spirited Awards press release is here.

    Buy The Ice Book from Amazon, Bookshop, or from your local neighborhood indie bookseller. 

    The ice book cover

    Ice book totc 2024 winner

  • I’ve Been Distilling Some Things

    Wine was (probably) first distilled into eau de vie in the practice of trying to make medicines and perfumes like rosewater and wormwood water. Distilling these herbs would make a preserved medicine that would last beyond the herbs' seasons. Today we'd call them hydrosols and essential oils. 

    These were water based distillations, and it was only when the technology became good enough that the wine could be separated into concentrated alcohol and water that alchemist physicians noticed distilled wine's wonderful properties. 

    In preparing for my seminar for Tales of the Cocktail, Secrets of the Earliest Distillation Books, I decided to try to replicate early water-based distillates. I purchased a still online, one like this, though there are a lot of variations. (I bought one with a temperature gauge but don't think that was necessary.) 

     

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    Note that distilling alcohol is illegal at the federal level in the US, though I am unsure if it is allowed in some states, much like marijuana. In any case I have only been distilling infused waters in it. It has been very interesting! 

    Below are notes I took. After the first few experiments, for green herbs I learned to boil the water first and only toss the herbs into the water in the still at that point. This was to try to have less wilted/boiled herb flavors. 

    Distilling Experiments
    • 35 grams wet rose petals in 250ml water in home distiller – earthy green aroma, intense, somewhat rose-y but more distilled green plants
    • star anise – so much that next distillation was still tons of oil
    • lemon blossoms
      • green, like almond shells note along with the floral that's not in the aroma of the steam but in the liquid
      • settling down in flavor as it cools?
      • took cuts – very sweet and floral high notes (how lavender shocks) first segment, then more green notes not so great, then at end more floral petals like rosewater but flat rather than high notes – you could see taking cuts and recombining
    • Juniper – old dried herbs, then rosemary spice and dusty woodiness
      • then crushed some and added to still – all of the evergreen forest floor notes came out, greenness and pine needles
    • Crushed black pepper
      • tastes just like black pepper, not a lot of new flavors, not spicy i don't think
    • dehydrated cranberries
      • not much flavor at all, and black pepper of prevoius batch in the way
    • dried mint. – tasted stewed with mintiness, stewed aspect gross
    • Dried ginger- not spicy but nice and perfume, ginger flavor but not ginger spice and bite
    • dried basil – swampy!
    • sesame seeds – a little farty, but then peanut butter
    • horseradish  – tangy, maybe it was the vinegar or cream of tartar, with some nice green notes but sublte- great
    • freeze dried wasabi – earthy but super mild, no spice
    • aniseed smelled as expected
    • licorice seed smelled as expected, great
    • Strawberries- smell amazing,  tastes ambrosial,  subtle though, great next day – like Strawberry Starburst
    • Lime juice only – weird, perfumy, I would guess artificial if I didn't know, not that powdery pasteurized taste, but I would guess watered down preserved lime juice. And obviously if distilled lime juice were the answer someone would have done it.
    • Lime shells after squeezing, cut in half (so quarters now) – sweeter, more body, still perfumy, rounder flavor profile. nice finish. I think it's just oils combined with the flesh. at end of run started tasting cooked
    • Lime peels only – lime lime essential oil but a touch more cooked
    • parsely – soapy and green and intense and disgusting!
    • mint – stems – spearmint but quickly turned stewed
    • Rainier Cherries – good but not as flavorful as strawberries; not useful, the flavor didn't last in the fridge either, neutral
    • Canned fruit cocktail – tastes just like fruit cocktail! 
    • fennel seeds- wonderful and delicious like the seeds

    Later, I carbonated the strawberry water in a Soda Stream (it has no particulates or sugar so it didn't fizz over) and it was fantastic! I also carbonated canned fruit cocktail hydrosol; it was also good. 

     

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    D8DACA10-3B01-48EE-AECC-738792E8A4D7

  • Color Talk Resources from Tales of the Cocktail

    For attendees of my talk on Color in Cocktails and Spirits at Tales of the Cocktail 2019, below are notes and links from the slides. 

    Product links are to Amazon.com. 

    For all the natural colorings to use in cocktails, see Cocktail Coloring – Natural Food Colorings to Use in Drinks

     

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    For anyone who missed it, the talk was: 

     
     

  • Extracting Natural Color from Plants: The Freeze-Thaw Method

    In advance of my seminar at Tales of the Cocktail on Color in Cocktails and Spirits, I am putting up a few blog posts that the attendees (and you know, you) can use as reference. The images below are exported PowerPoint slides. 

    I was trying to create some natural colors from plants and read about how dyers do it. Many of them are not practical (or safe) for food and beverage use. Some ways to extract color that are safe include: 

    Slide123

     

    But one method I read about suggested freezing flower petals overnight, then thawing in hot water. This actually didn't work for me, but it gave me the idea for how to do it similarly. 

    The idea is that freezing plants breaks the cell structure and allows the natural colors to release when you add water. So what I did on my second attempt was to freeze the flower petals in water, then let it thaw out and strain out the solids. 

    This worked much better for me, and then I decided to repeat the process (not with new petals but just freezing and thawing the same ice cubes three times). Each time the color of the water became more intense. It worked! 

    Slide123

    With any flowers in particular or plants in general picked from nature (as opposed to the produce section), make sure that they're safe and edible. A great resource for that is CocktailSafe.org. 

    Slide123

    Above are the flower petals I harvested from my patio. I put them in 2' ice cube trays with some water. 

    Slide123As you can see, the colors came out lovely. 

    The idea is that you could now use this water as a base for a simple syrup, soda, or ice cube with the natural color in it. 

    Though I haven't experimented with other plants yet, I bet this technique would work great for many things. 

     

  • Audience Feedback on Camper’s Tales of the Cocktail Seminar

    Tales seminarA few months after this year's Tales of the Cocktail, I received the feedback from my seminar Bitter Flavors, Taste the Rainbow. I did pretty good! 

    On the four categories: overall seminar, presenter quality, handouts quality, and amount learned, I received a rating of 9 out of 10 on all.  

    Positive comments that came in from attendees: 

    • Camper and his presentation were very interesting – he is clearly a subject matter expert. Made me want to explore this theme more! One of the highlights of tales for me!
    • So amazing! We were so impressed not only with the style of the presentation but the content. The format. Everything. Amazing.
    • This seminar could not have been better unless it was 3 hours long. Camper’s personality & teaching style is an honor to be around. More bitters & more Camper!!
    • Very interesting tasting seminar. Super bar-nerdy which is a good thing. Very informative about the safety and taste of the ingredients in bitters.
    • My favourite seminar!
    • I’ve watched 2 or 3 of his other seminars. Funny, engaging. He did a lot of pre-work and clearrrrrly knows the in and out. Some of these presenters have 10+ years of only doing one thing, it seems he has actually done so much. Excited to see his presentation next year(s)!
    • Awesome job covering a difficult and complex subject.

     

    Of the negative feedback, most was that I covered too much material (always better than too little, my greatest fear is that people will complain they didn't learn anything), or that the pace was too fast/topic was too advanced for some people (same). One person was mad about the font size of my handout. Two people said some of the slides were hard to read, so that's something I'll work on for next year. 

    Feedback is always tough but luckily I had a ton of very positive responses to compensate for the negative ones. Go me. 

     

  • Campari Production Info: Extraction, ABV, Coloring, and Fining

    At this year's Tales of the Cocktail, I went to a terrific seminar called Til The Bitter End, lead by Audrey Fort of The Rooster Factory brand development agency.

    I also gave a seminar about bitterness at Tales, with an emphasis on understanding the flavor of different bittering agents. This seminar, on the other hand, was about bitterness in general and measuring the impact of bitterness in different spirits in particular.  Though I researched the heck out of my own seminar, I also learned a ton in this one. 

    One of the panelists was Mike Capoferri, Italian Portfolio Ambassador for the Campari Group. I'd not met him before and his part of the presentation was great. While Campari, the liqueur, doesn't disclose any of the ingredients in the bottle that make its distinctive flavor, Capoferri was able to share some of the very complicated production processes that go into it. And they're so complicated that it wouldn't matter if they disclosed every ingredient. 

    So first, some technical terminology that I'd not seen in this way before, defining various extraction techniques depending on whether it's done in alcohol or water: 

    Bitter flavors extraction

    One thing he mentioned in the seminar is that bitter compounds are not soluble in high-ABV alcohol. And I learned in the preparation for my own seminar that bitter flavors do not generally distill. That's why most bitter ingredients are macerated in the spirit rather than redistilled like gin. (In the case of Cointreau, I learned when I visited the distillery a few years ago, they distil their bitter oranges that have been macerated with pith in order to remove bitterness from the infusion.)

    Essential oils (like from the peels of those oranges in Cointreau) on the other hand do distill well, and are soluble in high-ABV alcohol. 

    Within the Campari portfolio, Averna is a simple extraction of botanicals in high proof spirit, so the result is a not-super-bitter amaro. 

    Braulio, in contrast, is macerated at a lower proof, to enhance the bitter flavors.  

     

    Anyway, those maceration techniques are used in the production of Campari:

     

    Campari Production

    I'm glad to see Campari isn't just  Herbs -> Infusion -> Filtration -> bottling. I like it when things are interesting. 

    Three important observations (of mine) from this:

    1. "1 of 8 Colorants": As I revealed on this blog post about how Campari is made differently around the world, insect-based natural cochineal coloring seems to have been replaced by artificial coloring in most parts of the world, but not all. The post identified some of the ways that the red coloring is labelled – and now we know there are eight variations (or at least there were at the time this slide was made)!
    2. "1 of 5 ABV's": Also on the blog post we knew there were different ABVs. I'm surprised there are only 5. But on the other hand, 5 ABVs times 8 colorants means they could make up to 40 variations of Campari. 
    3. "Fining": On that same blog post, we saw from the bottle in Jamaica that Campari "contains eggs." I am pretty darn sure that is from the fining process (also used in beer and wine) that brings the liquid to clarity. The only thing to note here is that they use the term "fining" rather than "filtration" which helps build our case.  To repeat from that blog post, even though in most countries Campari is no longer colored with insects, it is still almost assuredly not vegan.  

    So, that was awesome. Thanks to Audrey Fort and Mike Capoferri for the info. 

     

     

  • A Little Overkill at my Tales of the Cocktail Seminar on Bitter Flavors

    This year as usual I gave a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail (well this year I gave one myself and then was on a panel for another one; this post is about the one I gave solo). This one was called Bitter Flavors: Taste the Rainbow. 

     

    bitter samples

    The idea was to give everyone information and tasting on individual bitter flavors- particularly the major ones of quinine/cinchona, wormwood, gentian, and rhubarb- because so often they're mixed together in amari and bitters. I chose for my tasting spirits that I thought were most indicative of the bitter flavors:

    • Rhubarb: Zucca (they sponsored the seminar)
    • Wormwood: Amaro Alta Verde 
    • Gentian: Saler's Gentiane
    • Cinchona: Kina Aero d'Or

    Plus Zucca wanted to feature a couple of cocktails, so at just 1 sample of each type of bitters I was worried that I wouldn't be able to ensure everyone could really isolate each type of bitter flavor. 

    So, as is my way, I panicked and went way overboard on homemade samples. By the end, everyone at their seat had 2 cocktails, 4 bitter beverages, 10 microtubes of bitter tasting samples, and 5 bitter solids. 

     

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    37330947_10157530501435830_4166365589926838272_o

    The preparation took me (along with help from my pal Maria) dozens of hours. I made infusions of various bitter flavors in alcohol, then diluted those down with water so they were essentially non-alcoholic. Then we put them all in microtubes and the solids in little baggies (luckily I live near a bong store), labelled them all, and then made an index and assembled ziplocks of everything. 

     

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    Oh, and I also created a print-out of most popular vermouth and amaro brands, and what the known and suspected bittering agents are in each. That project took me another 20 hours or so. Sometimes I think I might go too far.

    So during the seminar we now had plenty to taste and in the case of those big four bitter flavors, a finished product to confirm that taste in a product they could find on the shelf. The seminar seemed to go really well (we'll see when I get the reviews back) and I certainly felt everyone got their money's worth- a big fear of mine when I'm presenting. 

    Camper English at Tales of the Cocktail

    (photo stolen from Maggie Campbell)

    Camper English at Tales of the Cocktail

    I'm not sure that I'll ever do this seminar again in this format, but I may put together an ebook of some sort with the information from the seminar in it. 

     

     

     

  • Bitter Ingredient Flavors and Use from Martini Vermouth Masters

    Bitter martiniAt this year's Bar Convent Brooklyn, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ivano Tonutti, Master Herbalist for Martini & Rossi (and Bacardi products generally) and Giuseppe "Beppe" Musso, Master Blender of Martini & Rossi.

    The timing was excellent, as I am preparing to give a talk on bitter ingredients for Tales of the Cocktail, and they were in town promoting the newish Martini & Rossi Riserva Speciale Bitter Liqueur. 

    The Bitter is part of the new premium Riserva line, along with Rubino (red) and Ambratto (white) vermouths. We spoke primarily about the new Bitter and and plants used in the Riserva line; but in some cases we were generalizing beyond that. So please consider this general information rather than super specific to any one product. 

     

    General Stuff

    • The goal in using different bittering agents is to create a rounded bitter experience with multiple parallel bitters rather than a single-note bitter. 
    • Speaking of single-note bitter, they indicated quinine/cinchona bark pretty much gives that. 
    • When speaking about how different bittering agents impact the flavor, Tonutti would intuitively point to certain parts of his face, indicating where the individual bitter most impacts the palate – for example cinchona is a singular bitterness felt most in the far back of the mouth, different artemisia species were more forward. Gentian and rhubarb root impact the middle of the mouth more. It's interesting to see as we know the "tongue map" is false but yet we feel the impact of different bitter flavors in different parts of the mouth.
    • They use all dried herbs, rather than fresh, for all the many Bacardi products (including things like Bombay, etc.) with the exception of some fresh citrus peels in Oxley gin. Dried herbs are used to ensure consistency and can be more easily measured for water content, etc. 
    • All these bitter agents are infused rather than distilled into products (we're talking about the Riserva line). 
    • They use only yellow gentian root – not the blue stemless gentian that a few producers use. They prefer French gentian as it's particularly bitter and more aromatic than from other places. They say the blue gentian is not super bitter, and it can be thought of more like an herb with root rather than just the root. 
    • Holy thistle is used in salads. In their products, it's used to impart mouthfeel, not bitterness. It is used in most of Martini's products. 
    • Dandelion – Leaves, not roots, are used. In production, leaves must be dried immediately after picking. 
    • Roman Chamomile – The bitterness of it depends on the extraction technique (lower ABV extraction is better for bitterness in general, they say) and the concentration. (I asked about this as I've made chamomile infusions in the past and none were bitter.) 

    Artemisia

    • Between the Rubino and Ambratto there are different ratios of the three artemisia plants used – absinthia, pontica, and vulgaris. (grand/common, lesser/small, mugwort)
    • Absinthium – boldest, bitterest, with a delicate herbal flavor
    • Pontica – herbal and floral, a signature note of Martini vermouth, top note
    • Vulgaris (aka mugwort) – aromatic, with a different and milder expression of bitterness. 

    Barks

    • As noted, Cinchona bark gives a back-palate discreet bitterness.
    • Columba bark is an aromatic bitter with mid-palate bitterness.
    • Angostura bark is between cinchona and columba in its bitterness. 
    • Red cinchona (succirubra) is more bitter than yellow, with higher amounts of quinine, but they describe the flavor as more boring.
    • Yellow cinchona (calisaya) they get from Ecuador. It is slightly aromatic, but there is less of it available on the market. This is used in Ambratto and probably other products. 

    Safety Stuff

    • The amount of thujone in artemisia and quinine in cinchona bark are regulated. They say that their approach to this is to get as far under the legal limits of the active substances as possible. For example, their artemisia providers grow a strains of the plants with super low thujone content, and though they may be plants like grand wormwood that supposedly have a lot of it, they use varieties that don't. Thus if the legal limits of thujone were ever lowered, or as in the case of the US where the legal limit is lower than in the EU, they don't have to worry as they're not close to the limits.
    • For quinine, there is a legal limit of 83 ppm allowed. That is just for quinine, not for quinidine and the other (two, I believe) active alkaloids present in cinchona bark. Tonutti said that rather than counting just the quinine, they keep the total number of all the alkaloids under the 83 ppm limit.  
    • Calamus is banned in the US and in Australia by name, meaning you cannot use it in a product's formulation at all, while in Europe and other countries, you may use the plant as long as the beta asarone levels are kept below a certain amount. [They noted the nonsensical nature of this, as if the problem with calamus is beta asarone, they why not limit the beta asarone?] Thus there are formula differences in some of their products in different countries. They also keep the beta asarone way below the legal limits in Europe anyway. 

     

    This may all seem like random stuff to you, but it was extremely helpful for the talk I'm preparing!

     

    For those of you new to these products, here's the basic info from the brand:

    RISERVA SPECIALE BITTER

    The new Bitter joins the Riserva Speciale Rubino and Riserva Speciale Ambrato as part of a dedicated craft of exceptional Italian Aperitivi for bartenders and drinks enthusiasts. To develop the new Riserva Bitter, MARTINI & ROSSI used 100% natural ingredients and the original 1872 recipe, created by MARTINI & ROSSI founder Luigi Rossi, as their inspiration. MARTINI & ROSSI Master Herbalist, Ivano Tonutti, has carefully selected three rare botanicals (Saffron, Angostura and Columba), to deliver a unique richness and complexity to its taste profile through different dimensions of bitterness. The Bitter is also rested in the same Tino cask that is used for MARTINI & ROSSI Riserva Speciale Vermouth di Torino extracts and shares the vermouth’s common botanical, Italian Artemisia, allowing its unique complex bitter taste to perfectly complement it. ($26.99)

    RISERVA SPECIALE RUBINO

    The small parcels for full-bodied Langhe DOC Nebbiolo wines used to create MARTINI & ROSSI RISERVA SPECIALE RUBINO are blended with extracts of Italian Holy Thistle and Red Sandalwood from Central Africa to deliver a bright ruby red vermouth, which inspired the name of the expression. The delicate balance of botanicals creates a full-bodied herbal and complex style of Vermouth di Torino with a long aftertaste. ($14.99)

    Ambrato packshotRISERVA SPECIALE AMBRATO

    The floral and aromatic blend of small parcels of Moscato d’Asti DOCG wines, used to create MARTINI & ROSSI RISERVA SPECIALE AMBRATO, produces a beautifully honeyed Vermouth di Torino. The yellow Cinchona bark from Ecuador and Chinese Rhubarb create a light bitter taste profile that aromatizes and elevates the flavors of the wines. ($14.99)

     

  • The ROI of TOTC

    TalesIn my latest piece for SevenFifty Daily, I asked a bunch of people about the return on investment of Tales of the Cocktail: How they measure it and how they maximize it. I also interviewed Tales' founder Ann Tuennerman to get her advice on how to maximize the event as an attendee or small brand sponsor, and addressing the question, "Is Tales too big?"

    I think there's some really good information and insight throughout the story, especially for people and brands experiencing some growing pains as Tales seems to grow ever larger. 

    Please check it out. 

     

  • New Business Models for Large Format Cocktail Ice Providers

    Large format cocktail ice providers have been around for a while, but now big cube/sphere/spear providers are branching out into new shapes, sizes, making machines, and pushing into retail. 

    In a story for SevenFifty Daily, based in part on my talk at Tales of the Cocktail, I wrote about what several companies are doing to bring more larger clear ice to more people. 

     

    Big ice copy