cocktail creation —the process of creating a new drink—follows many different inspirations. Some of the most common include responding to limits on the available ingredients; accommodating a new ingredient; playing with variations on an existing cocktail; pairing with a certain dish; paying tribute to a person, place, or event; aiming for a certain flavor profile; or even just plain whimsy. Yet the majority of cocktails that have survived the test of time have done so because they follow a simple, balanced formula of sweet, sour (or bitter), and spirit. Such formulae are flexible enough to accommodate the growing global availability of ingredients and technological advances and can help to create happy permutations, which expand and encourage an evolving world of flavor.
Just as great chefs first learn to perfect core recipes before creating their own variations, the foundational structure of various classic recipes should first be grasped before setting out to create something new. This requires an understanding of all of the facets of what makes a cocktail great. Perhaps most important is a solid understanding of each class of ingredient: not just what it goes well with, what it clashes with, and how it affects the flavor, aroma, and texture of a drink but also the various meanings it carries. Sometimes the response to a drink can be influenced more by the provenance or perceived social class of an ingredient than by its flavor. By understanding the totality of the characteristics each product brings to the drink, one will better understand how to incorporate them into the overall creation.
Then there is the drink’s family or pattern. Consider some of the foundational families of classic cocktails: the aromatic (Manhattan, Martini), the sour (Whisky Sour, Daiquiri), and the bitter (Negroni). The lineage of almost any cocktail can be traced back to or through one of these. With few exceptions, all new cocktails reflect in one way or another a foundation resting on an already-established classic recipe. By far the most popular way of creating a new cocktail recipe is to bend or mutate a classic formula or already-established recipe. This mutation may occur through a deliberate choice, where the mixer changes the recipe slightly by using the same ingredients but shifting their quantities or makes a slight variation in style of the original ingredients. A good example of this is switching the crème de cassis in a Kir Royale to crème de mure. The flavor of the Kir Royale shifts with the switch in accent from blackcurrant to blackberry, but the substituted ingredient works in essentially the same way.
Mutations can also happen in a more fundamental way, where a key ingredient, such as the base spirit, is changed completely. This may be the case because an ingredient isn’t available at the time, such as the legend of the Daiquiri, which is said to have been first drunk in Cuba when Jennings Stockton Cox, an American engineer, ran out of gin while entertaining American guests and substituted the Bacardi white rum made nearby, transforming the usual cocktail from something like a Gimlet to a Daiquiri. See Daiquiri and Gimlet. This, too, may be subject to accident: according to Henry Madden, the Tijuana bartender who is credited with inventing the Tequila Daisy and hence possibly the Margarita, the Daisy came about when he reached for the wrong bottle under the bar, grabbing tequila when he was presumably aiming for gin. See Tequila Daisy.
In some cases, these variations coalesce, turning a single drink into a family of them, each keeping the structure of the original but differing in its base ingredient or some other element. A classic example is the Collins family, where a simple Old Tom gin punch made tall with soda water metastasized into a whole shelf-full of drinks based on everything from bourbon to Batavia arrack. See Collins.
Imitation is another fruitful technique. The most common form of cocktail imitation involves a referencing rather than a mirroring. An example is the Rossini, which references the structure of its friend the Bellini but with strawberry puree instead of the Bellini’s peach. See Bellini. The muted peach hues favored by the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, which inspired the naming of the Bellini, are held in mind in the naming of the Rossini—whose pure red color is also part of its name, rosso being the Italian for red, and also of the Italian painter John Rossini.
Addition and subtraction of ingredients used in a classic cocktail recipe is also a very common way to create new drinks, and an easy and logical one, as are changing its service style so that, for instance, a cocktail becomes a fizz or an aromatic a punch with the addition of citrus juice. Yet some of the most popular drinks follow neither logic nor pattern and seem unhinged when you read their recipes on the page, with balance and flavor-harmonizing thrown overboard. However, when they are made, they often taste wonderful, even if it’s a mystery why they work so well. These cocktails are crazy stews. The Trinidad Sour exemplified this perfectly, where the Angostura bitters that should be an accent are used as the base ingredient. Its huge proportion of bitters seems absurd on the page but somehow works successfully in real life.
In general, though, to play it safe it is important to keep in mind the functionality of the base, modifier, and accents that are being used. The base spirit should always be a distinctive component of the final drink and not be hidden behind the other ingredients. The modifiers should be used to enhance the base and allow it to express the overall inspiration for the drink. The choice for accent ingredients should be such that they provide interesting flavor highlights without specifically drawing any attention. Bitters, orange-flower water, and orgeat are examples of accents that aren’t in themselves specifically noticeable but if omitted would make it clearly obvious that the drink was missing something.
For the final drink to be seen as a success, it should be one that achieves a clear balance of all of the ingredients it contains, with each one serving a specific purpose. It should also be a drink that leaves the customer wishing there was a little more left as they take their last sip.
See also cocktail; mixology, history of; and mixology (how to mix drinks).
Craddock, Harry. The Savoy Cocktail Book. N.p.: Girard & Stewart, 2015
Day, Alex, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan. Cocktail Codex. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed, 2018.
Embury, David. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. New York: Faber & Faber, 1958.
Wondrich, David. Imibe!, 2nd ed. New York: Perigee, 2015.
Woon, Basil. When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928.
By: Tony Conigliaro and Audrey Saunders