My Favorite Gear
Masters of drink divulge which tools—from basic to unconventional—they can't work without.
Jeffery Lindenmuth reports.
The implements of mixology have changed little since the inception of the craft in America 200 years ago. Given some ice, a few distilled spirits, and a coffee mug, most bartenders could improvise a tasty Martini. Master mixologist Dale DeGroff counts among his favorite tools the original swizzle stick, literally a branched twig, for chilling and aerating to perfection drinks like the West Indian Swizzle, which takes its name from the primitive device.
But just as enterprising bartenders have pilfered ingredients and inspiration from chefs, they have also added back-of-the-house gear to their staples of mixing glass, jigger, and strainer. Whether logging time on the meat slicer with an Asian pear or simmering rhubarb in a bain-marie, modern bartenders are advancing the craft with tools and techniques lifted from their culinary counterparts in the kitchen, even as they rely on the instruments of their forebears.
Willy Shine, bar manager, Bed, New York City To add texture and originality to his drinks, Shine, who is also a codirector of Contemporary Cocktails, favors an iSi soda siphon. "I like to make flavored soda by adding fruit puree in flavors of lychee or mango to the soda charger. These sodas are beautiful as a nonalcoholic beverage, or they might become part of a new cocktail," says Shine. He's also been known to create dollops of flavored foam for topping dessert drinks.
While Shine is pleased with the quality and consistency afforded by brands like Perfect Purees, he is occasionally inspired to use his Vita-Mix 5000 64-ounce blender to create his own from fresh fruit. "It's durable as hell and grinds down anything you put in there, whether its fruit for purees or ice for frozen cocktails. It's the same model every chef uses," says Shine, who simply adds sugar and lemon to taste when making his fruit purees.
Like a country doctor, Shine totes a travel bag of knives, tea strainers, an assortment of jiggers, and other manual tools for preparing drinks, including his favorite fruit stripper. "I looked for a good one for many years and finally came across a Messermeister channel knife. The blade is very deep, so you can fire through a lemon or an orange with speed and precision. I have like five of them," he says. Messermeister makes both left- and right-handed versions of the tool.
Chris Perrupato, general manager, Cuba Libre, Atlantic City The Atlantic City outpost of this successful Philadelphia Cuban restaurant might offer more dancing and Vegas-inspired glitz than the original, but the house drink remains the same: the Mojito. And when mixing about 500 nightly, at $8.50 per drink, you had better make them to perfection. In their quest for authenticity, both Cuba Libre restaurants utilize a King Cane press for making fresh guarapo, pure cane juice. "The device looks like something you would use to crush a tree. We take lengths of sugarcane, run them between two stainless-steel grinding wheels, and what comes out of the spout is pure cane juice," says Perrupato, who explains that the liquid is fresher and more flavorful than simple syrup. Cuba Libre's King Cane press is electric powered, but it's reminiscent of the hand cranked presses you might find crushing cane for a refreshing drink on a roadside in Cuba or at an outer borough subway stop.
The other components of the house Mojito include yerba buena (a variety of mint), ice, house branded white rum, and fresh lime juice. The lime juice is extracted by a Zumex 32 juicer, named for its ability to pulverize oranges at a rate of 32 per minute. "You load the entire lime, a blade slices it, and then the machine presses the halves and squeezes out the juice. Even with these expensive machines I have two full-time employees to do nothing but squeeze limes and sugarcane," says Perrupato. The Zumex costs nearly $7,000, but with the price of limes soaring in synch with the predictions of hurricanes, Cuba Libre cherishes every last drop.
William Redberg, general manager, Bong Su Restaurant and Lounge, San Francisco This newcomer to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood serves small plates that take their inspiration from regional Vietnamese cuisine. In order to bring some of the Asian flavors of the kitchen to the cocktails, Redberg infuses spirits with herbs and spices, like an Earl Grey Boxcar made with tea-infused rum. "I begin by grinding the whole leaf tea dry, using a stone pestle and mortar that owner Anne Le carried back from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Then I add some bitters and continue grinding. That's added to Bacardi and infused for 24 hours before straining," explains Redberg.
When it comes time to accessorize his cocktails to suit the sultry, low light environs of the 50 seat lounge, Redberg puts star fruit, apples, and cucumbers to his Benriner mandoline, shaving artful garnishes using a collection of decorative blades. "We'll take a thin slice of cucumber and fold it like a ribbon—like a 'W' shape—on a bamboo skewer and then place it on the edge of a glass. For our Ginger Gem, we take a thin slice of Granny Smith apple and add candied ginger to the center as a garnish," says Redberg.
Drew Levinson, beverage manager, Bellagio Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas Levinson creates similar garnishes for cocktails featured at Bellagio's Jasmine and Shintaro restaurants by using a meat slicer to shave tissue thin sections of cucumbers, fresh ginger, lemons, limes, strawberries, and peppers. "My cutting skills are good, but I look at how chefs do things. A meat slicer is the perfect piece of equipment." His favorite slicer is a restored manual 1920s Berkel that resides in the demo kitchen; a Hobart electric slicer is his workhorse tool.
In addition, every bar at Bellagio is stocked with Levinson's favorite handheld lime squeezer. "We do have some juices that we squeeze in advance, but with lime juice we believe the fresher the better. Even after an hour it begins to turn. And the expectation of our guests is very high. People love to watch as you squeeze a fresh lime. It puts smiles on their faces." Levinson says his juicer of choice, introduced by his predecessor, Tony Abou-Ganim, is not readily available and is manufactured by "some guy in Mexico."
Scott Beattie, bar manager, Cyrus, Healdsburg, California In order to make the herb and spice infusions for his California cocktails, Beattie begins with an electric chopping tool similar to a coffee grinder, purchased on late night television but also available from big box retailers. "I drank too much one night while watching an infomercial for the Magic Bullet, which is basically a coffee grinder, and I apparently ordered one for myself. I had completely forgotten about it until UPS showed up at my door with the package. Now, I actually use it frequently as a spice grinder," says Beattie.
Despite jibes from the kitchen crew for his as-seen-on-TV equipment, Beattie says the Bullet is durable and perfectly suited for making his own Chinese five-spice mixture, which he then toasts in a pan before covering with one quart of simple syrup and two tablespoons of honey to create an infused syrup.
As with all his infusions, a classic chinois borrowed from the kitchen is his indispensable tool for straining out the herbs and spices. "A good eight- to 10-inch chinois is actually quite expensive, but with that straining alone my syrups come out very clear," says Beattie. The finished syrups are placed in plastic squeeze bottles for easy access when mixing.
Micaela Grossman, bartender, Pigalle, Boston Grossman says she shares chef Marc Orfaly's passion for fresh seasonal ingredients, which is why she makes each twist to order, using her Oxo zester. "Getting the citrus oils in the drink is very important, those delicious oils of orange and lime. And bartending is such a classic profession, I feel these time-tested tools are so vital, sort of like medical instruments," says Grossman.
By using the channel knife on the zester, Grossman makes chunky twists of orange, lemon, and lime to drape over her drinks. She uses the scalloped edge to add an aromatic sprinkling of "lime confetti" to a classic Caipirinha.
In addition to using fresh citrus juice, Grossman uses a Waring electric juicer to extract nectar from everything from cherries to apples. "It makes our juices fresher and thicker than store-bought juice," she explains"
Noel Cruz, beverage director, Dani, New York City While his liquid creations may be complicated, Cruz relies on the most basic of equipment for every drink, whether a classic Manhattan or his own Lavender Blossom, made with Level Vodka, pomegranate liqueur, lavender syrup, pomegranate molasses, orange juice, and lime juice. "Every recipe has to be in proportion. A well-made drink is a balanced drink," says Cruz, who uses a bartender's jigger for precise measurement. His simple, double sided metal version, holding one and one-half and two ounces, has gone virtually unchanged for over 100 years.
Free pouring reigned for speed and ease over the last several decades and was seen as the hallmark of a professional bartender. However, Cruz says jiggering is again de rigueur. "Some people used to feel cheated to see you measuring. They were used to the free pour. But now, with the rise of bar chefs, more and more people get it."
From his jigger, the ingredients go directly into another centenarian standby, the Boston shaker, formed by a mixing glass and steel can. On Cruz's wish list: a Kold-Draft ice machine to produce perfect 1 1/4-inch, clear cubes. "They make good looking drinks and add less water than other ice. And if someone wants a single-malt Scotch, you can offer that one perfect cube," explains Cruz.
