Last month's visit to the remarkable, five day long Tales of the Cocktail event in New Orleans was, for me, a revelation. In addition to meeting and chatting with many of the world's top cocktail artists and attending seminars on subjects as diverse as "Lost (Cocktail) Ingredients" and "South American Spirits," I was also able to sample a host of cocktails new to me, from time-honoured classics to new originals.
(For more in depth coverage of "Tales," please visit my blog at "On the House" or any of a number of other online reports, a multitude of which Jeffrey Morgenthaler has conveniently and humourously listed here.)
On the way home from this soul-altering experience, the taste of that final Ramos gin fizz still lingering, my thoughts naturally enough turned to the sometimes taboo topic of cocktails made with beer. Mention this, as I did here back in 2004 and you're sure to rile the beer puritans among us. But when beer companies are crafting what amount to prepackaged beer cocktails like Desperados and the new Miller Chill - the latter of which, for the record, I still have not had the experience of tasting - and blending ales to make such spectacular brews as Firestone Walker 10, how far of a stretch is it to mix them up on your own?
Not surprisingly, perhaps, my response to that last query is none at all. But some methods for creating beer cocktails, I believe, are better than others.
For instance, it is my firm contention that there are two basic ways in which to craft a beer cocktail. The first is by using beer as the dominant base ingredient, adding other flavours as necessary to forge a new taste sensation. At its most basic, this is the premise behind the boilermaker or my own Drill Sergeant (American-style IPA with good amber rum added), but the equation may also be elaborated upon to produce creations like the Green Devil, a cocktail I fashioned by washing a Duvel glass with Pernod and shaking out the residue, adding one ounce of aromatic but not overpoweringly juniper-ish gin (such as Bombay Sapphire) and topping it all with a full bottle of Duvel.
The other option is to use smaller amounts of specific styles of beer as you would any other cocktail ingredient, such as adding, for example, a hint of stout-like roastiness to a whisky cocktail, as I did when I created the Compass Box Cocktail a couple of years back. Here, however, it's usually best to engage the assistance of stronger ales and lagers, since the lighter body of a low alcohol beer can easily be bullied by an 80 proof spirit. I'm not saying this will always be the case, just that it's often so.
In each of these formats, however, it is in my view of pivotal importance that the beer's original character be treated with respect. The crafting of a beer cocktail should not, after all, be all about an attempt to make a particular brew taste better. Rather, the goal should be to create a drink that is as good as the component beer, just different. If it turns out to be better to some people's tastes, then so much the better.
And with all that in mind, I think I'll get back to my beer cocktail creations. Joe Fee of Fee Brothers told me in New Orleans of his new Grapefruit Bitters, which I'm dying to use in a drink made with American pale ale ...
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