A Cocktail Course for Everyone

🗓️ Length: The course is three 90min classes over three weeks. The last class, Sept 20th will end with a little soirée, invite a few friends and show off your new skills and knowledge!
🗓️ Dates: Sept 6, 13, 20th at 5:50pm in Barnfox Kingston until 7pm. (If a lot of people need to a later start like 6pm, just reach out to me.)
💸 Cost: The course cost is $165.
🍾 Materials: All liquor and ingredients will be provided.
🍸 Equipment: Either bring your own or pay $60 for me to buy it for you. It's yours to keep! See the list below (shaker, jigger, strainer).
🤗 Prerequisites: None. This course is for anyone.
👋 Size: The course is limited to ~6 people to keep it very hands-on.

Once you're confirmed for the course, I'll contact you about the next steps.

From Cook to Chef

This course aims to be the shortest, most meaningful path from cook to chef for cocktails.

Cook vs. Chef

Samin Nosrat set me free. Through her book Salt Fat Acid Heat, I gained the knowledge and permission to start creating and exploring in the kitchen in a way I hadn't before.

Before, I was a cook, repeating recipes and hoping I'd followed them closely and diligently enough.

She taught me how to be a chef, giving me the words and skills to create my own recipes in the kitchen.

We'll start as cocktail recipe followers (cooks) and grow into recipe creators (chefs)!

Learning to See Beyond the Recipe

One way to give another perspective on cocktails is to group and classify their recipe ingredients.

Let's say we have an Old Fashioned recipe in front of us that calls for bourbon whiskey, a sugar cube, and Angostura bitters. What groups would we put each of these ingredients in?

The rye whiskey is a spirit. The sugar cube is a sweetener. The Angostura bitters adds, ya, a bitter flavor.

So when we look at the Old Fashioned recipe, we see it has the shape of spirit + sweet + bitter.

What other cocktails have that same shape?

The Manhattan has that same shape, with rye whiskey (spirit), sweet vermouth (sweet), and Angostura bitters (bitter).

Are there other shapes? Yes!

We'll be spending the whole course focused on a different shape. The recipe shape is called a sour. And it's incredibly prolific. Let's take a look.

The Sour Template

The sour template is a recipe of spirit + sweet + sour.

Where the sour component most commonly comes from citrus juice, like lemon or lime.

The sour template is everywhere!

A margarita is a sour template with tequila (spirit), orange liqueur (sweet), and lime (sour).

A daiquiri is a sour template with rum (spirit), simple syrup (sweet), and lime (sour).

Many other cocktails are sour templates with a few additions.

A tom collins is a sour template + seltzer.

A mojito is a sour template + mint + seltzer.

Perhaps we are starting to see how the sour template is one of the fundamental branches of the complete domain of standard cocktails.

Becoming a Sour Template Chef

We are going to spend three weeks exploring the sour template.

First, we'll set up our foundation, get comfortable with our tools, and taste various sour cocktails across many spirits.

In the second week, we'll dive deep into one cocktail. We'll explore how changing ratios and ingredients in a cocktail recipe changes the expression of that recipe.

In the final week, we'll explore advanced methods for adding depth and complexity to our cocktails. That class will transition into a soirée where you'll invite a few friends to enjoy the cocktails you've learned to make.

Cheers!

Group Chat

As part of the course, everyone is invited to continue our weekly discussions in WhatsApp group chat.

This is also where you'll be sharing your homework.

Share your number with me to be added to the chat.

Materials

I'll provide all liquor, juices, and syrups for the course. Just show up with your equipment if you are bringing your own.

We'll have some salty snacks on hand each evening to help keep our palates fresh. Please share any dietary restrictions with me.

Equipment

If you Venmo me $60, I'll purchase and bring all the materials you need to the first class. Otherwise, you can buy them yourself.

If you have me get the materials, you'll get everything marked and linked as preferred below. And you get to keep it all!

Each person will need the following materials:

a shaker → prefer Boston style with two tins, but cobbler style is fine
a jigger → prefer Japanese with plenty of measured marks
a Hawthorne strainer → prefer tightly coiled gate for catching citrus pulp and ice shards

a restaurant towel → choose anything cheap and straightforward to catch spills while measuring and building

Schedule and Topics

Week 1: Building Our Foundation

This first week, we'll get comfortable with our equipment and taste six different sour cocktails across six spirits.

Topics:

Chilling - where we discuss clear ice and the benefits of dilution
Shaking - where we practice how to slap the crack
Straining - when you need a fine mesh strainer and talking about Hawthorne's gate
Measuring - remember chemistry lab graduated cylinders?
6 Spirits - ethanol and friends
6 Sour Cocktails - the sour template

Homework

Look up a recipe and make it at home, photograph it, and share it in the group chat.
Go to a bar and order a cocktail: something you love or have never had. Please take a picture, jot down some notes, and share it in the group chat.

Week 2: Expanding Our World

This week, we'll explore the nuances of one cocktail, making it six different ways.

Topics:

Squeezed Juice: timing, storage, and tools
Garnish: smell, taste, and a story
Syrups: tasting common syrups and how to make them
Egg White: fat washing, texture, and safety
Whiskey Sours: where we step by step build a truly great whiskey sour

Homework

Same as last week. Make something at home and share it.
Same as last week. Order something out and share it.
Invite a friend to next week's soirée.

Week 3: Exploring New Worlds

In our final week together, we'll explore advanced techniques we can use with the sour template and shake up a few drinks for friends.

Topics:

Acid Adjustment - where we taste lots of little acid solutions and create daiquiris previously impossible
Super Juice - where we use our new acid knowledge to create a more sustainable citrus practice
Soirée - where we invite a few friends and make cocktails for them

Just so you don't have to scroll all the way back up, here is another link to sign up.

Acknowledgments

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the bartenders who have created and shared their recipes and knowledge across blogs, Instagram reels, and books.

I am grateful to all my friends who have been willing to taste my experiments and support me along the way.

Resources

This website lists many of the cocktails I've made and loved.
The book Cocktail Codex includes six cocktail templates from the incredible Death & Co. team.
The comprehensive book Spirited: Cocktails from Around the World includes 600+ cocktail recipes covering over 500 years.
The book Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail takes an empirical approach to building and examining cocktails.