Exploring the World One Drink at a Time since 2005
Moxie is the official state drink of Maine and is said to be a somewhat acquired taste. Still, for most modern bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts the bitterness of the drink is pleasant and makes for a more interesting soda. If you like Negroni’s, amari, shots of Fernet or dashing cocktail bitters into your drinks, you’ll like Moxie. Moxie was originally […]
Making flavoured syrups for sodas and cocktails is relatively simple, but if you want to make complex flavours, in a clear syrup, there are a few extra steps that need to be followed. The pharmacists at soda fountains in the 1800s pioneered these methods and they are perfect for making homemade soda. They are simple, require only a few ingredients, […]
Is it Pop or Soda? The answer is more of a “Why the difference?” and yes there is a difference and most people get this wrong. Watch the video below and it will explain why we use multiple words for the same product, including the southern usage of the word “coke” to describe carbonated beverages. https://youtu.be/8-xinQ0n2wg The key reason that […]
The best way to make a cinnamon syrup is to use stop using cinnamon sticks and do what the professionals at the soda fountain did, and that’s to use all-natural steam distilled cinnamon essential oil. It will be the best cinnamon syrup you’ve ever used and it works great in cocktails, tiki drinks, soda, and even on your pancakes. And it is […]
Blogging has pretty much run its course, at least for me, though I still find Art of Drink a great place to publish some of my findings, like the post on Grenadine and I’ll still do that but it needs to be worthy of a post. The way forward though seems to be video because that is where the people are. So, […]
What would you say if I told you the literal translation of grenadine from French didn’t mean pomegranate in the context of the sweet red syrup called grenadine? What would you think if I said modern grenadine is an over-simplified corruption of a once complex and interesting product? I’m sure you would be curious, so let’s break this down because […]
For many years I have flirted with the idea of developing another blog project or starting a YouTube channel; however, I didn’t want it to be Art of Drink where I substitute a different topic. About six years ago, I briefly started a blog called Yokel, which was about the things I was doing on the farm where I lived. […]
Back in 2009, I stumbled upon a bitters recipe with two Abbott signatories on the document. Since Abbott’s was one of the most popular bitters before prohibition, it required further investigation. And that led me to present all this research at Tales of the Cocktail 2016. And now here it is for you. My original goal was to recreate the bitters […]
It has been roughly ten years since Fix the Pumps came out; the ebook came out in December 2009, and the print edition came out in May 2010. In 2011 it was nominated for “Best New Cocktail Book” at the Spirited Awards, though it didn’t win. Looking back, I can see the effect the book had on the bar industry, […]
Every year as winter cedes into the past, the maple tree sap starts to run. A time-honoured tradition in the north is to tap a spile into these maples and siphon off a few buckets of sap, then boil it down into a syrupy brown liquid and drizzle it on everything. That is the taste of spring. Since I’m in […]
As ice cream became the mainstay of the soda fountain, malt milkshakes became so popular that they started to change the name of the establishments to Malt Shops.
What if I told you that there was a tiki style drinking establishment before tiki bars even existed? What if I told you it existed in 1917, 16 years before Don Beach opened Don the Beachcombers. In this case it wasn’t a bar but a soda fountain doing “Hawaiian Week” in March 1917. Effectively it was a soda fountain tiki […]
Learning from the century-old Rum & Coke recipe, making the best Jack & Coke is easy if you follow a few simple steps.
Grapefruit juice is a relatively common ingredient in cocktails, with the perennial favourite being the Greyhound, but the Paloma is better. Unlike a Screwdriver, the Greyhound isn’t nearly as sweet and even has a pleasant bitterness that is imparted by the grapefruit juice. There are people who do not enjoy the bitterness of grapefruit juice, so those people tend to […]
