The Science Behind Mixology | Devin Kidner | Talks at Google

Key Takeaways

[Music] welcome to talks at Google this is Scott Josephson and you're joining us for a matter of taste the science of mixology thanks so much for joining us today we're joined by Devon Kidner she is the founder of hollow leg an award-winning mixology company based in Chicago that focuses on the art and science of mixology through hands-on and interactive events please join me in welcoming Devon Kidner hi guys hi sky thanks for inviting me on I'm so stoked thanks Devon how you doing today I think great the weather in Chicago has been so gorgeous which is unusual I'm like life is but a dream of course we're about to drink so I couldn't be happier excellent excellent so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself uh where are you from and what if you want to be when you grew up oh well gosh I'm originally from North Carolina but I grew up mainly in Northern Virginia I came to Chicago about 11 years ago and when I was a kid I actually I wanted to be a heart surgeon and then I think I wanted to be an international humanitarian lawyer or whatever the heck that means obviously being an ecologist isn't either of those things so um to my parents deepest chagrin I do nothing with the fancy degrees that I've earned excellent so what brought you to Chicago and what do you love most about the city I love this city I actually came here to get my master's degree Scott and when I came here I didn't expect to fall in love I'd never been to Chicago before this was 2009 it don't snow I think every other day like two feet of snow and I thought it was the most incredible and beautiful thing I had ever seen them there's snow is beautiful but really it's the Midwestern people Midwesterners are salt of the earth they are so kind they're so lovely so hospitable and the city is incredible I mean it's incredible just the architecture the food I'm in love I've been in love I'll probably stay for quite some time that's excellent yeah being a native New Yorker whenever I visit Chicago it's always a special City to me definitely a very different experience from New York especially having the river you know uh it's incredible architecture River tour is probably one of the best things you could do in the city especially during the summer it's absolutely phenomenal I did one of those actually it was on a Sunday and it was a cocktail Jazz Cruise topic so you have like the best that Chicago's off-again cocktails your jazz blues as well as you have the river okay I feel you know it sounds like something I'm not to hop onto okay maybe not this summer but almost definitely no cocktails how did you first get involved okay so my history is really wild it actually is kind of like the idea that if you can dream it you can be in and if you stumble into it you can make something of it back in 2014 I had never been in excelsis I had never been a bartender I'd never served a drink behind a bar in any capacity but I had a real love for food science I was a big fan of trigeminal effects and I had been running my own sort of little business on the side teaching little kids how to make scrambled from scratch with science and then at the behest of a bunch of people who had taken costs from me they said have you ever made a cocktail you should enter this national cocktail competition it was open amateurs and pros I entered and then as the one of the amateurs in the competition I didn't just when the first top 12 I got whittled down to the top 12 went to New York competed in one first place and the entire United States and I just rode the wave I got sent to Italy I studied there's some of the best make something I'll just in Italy and I came back and I worked all distillery networks for vinyl distillery and the next thing I know I have a much taller leg and I'm a huge fan of science and Scott like I just want to preface this by saying like I think you've probably been to a mixology class before and if you can notice I don't look anything like your regular mixologist I am like a bouncy blonde there's no like tattoos likes to use them on here no suspenders straps no I'm saying like no ironic facial hair like I did not like what was kind of churned out as the regular bartender or mixologist but I have this huge big love for science and so with Julia Child like conviction I really wanted to tackle all things cocktails with no pretension with a lot of science and with just a lot of pep and excitement because why not cocktails are fun they should be fun right I totally agree I love your energy it's infectious I'm excited I know we have a lot of folks tuning in today so thanks everyone for joining us or if you're watching the recording of this you're really in for a treat today and you know you mentioned going to Italy or studying internationally I was kind of curious what cocktail culture is like across the pond oh my goodness it is wild and crazy and lovely so it depends on where you're going I'm a dual citizen of the United Kingdom in the United States so I'm half English and I'm half American two passports so in England specifically in London you just get such gorgeous presentation there's a lot of people who are really leading that sort of science charge they're focused more on the entire sensory like ability to taste smell to feel cocktails what do they look like there's some really cool like sensory projects that have been going on in things like the Barclays in London which is an incredible hotel that's got a Blue Room there's places in Italy which Italy is much more I don't think they're less refined but they really have nailed down bitter cocktails so they're famous for Amaro's for like espresso martinis for all these things or like the Sprint's that have all these lovely bitter notes and instead of being super refined they're just they're more honed into the classics which is really nice and their takes on American classics are lovely it's a path though because I studied in Japan as well and the Japanese have got their finger on the pulse of mixology they are absolutely stunning some of the most incredible sort of magic tricks coming out of Japan with changing colour of cocktails and gastronomical science so doing really fun things and it's like every bar there is the aviary which is like a really fun and fabulous bar here in the city of Chicago where they do crazy and mixology tricks when Japan is like it's wild it's crazy I love all three of those countries for their mixology presence that just sounds amazing and makes me yearn to travel again when it is safe one day we can all get through this together no really really what's uh what's important uh the theme that I'm hearing resonating when we were putting this event together you know I asked you what category this fits in and I immediately thought oh you know chefs and food but you said you know what no this is science and they didn't wants a little bit about like what is it about the science of mixology that really fascinates you oh my god where do I even begin um when I entered all of this industry our industry just needs a change up because there's so many good people doing so many good things but really what we've done is a glorified the bartender to the point where we think that they are the person who knows best what we should be drinking as humans and I don't agree with that I believe that the best bartender is likely gonna be somebody like yourself being able to make drinks for yourself because everyone has a different palate for example stop okay when I first entered this industry every cocktail class of exactly the same so let's say that you and I were in a margarita making class and we were there we were making margaritas and it was one recipe was called the best margarita which by the way there's no such thing as the best any cocktail because really it's how you like to taste it let's say that the cuts that was too sour for me but it was too sweet for you there was no science as to how do you correct something gone awry in the cocktail where does that come in and so um I really honed in and I started educating myself as well as taking classes through the wine and spirit Education Trust and going to reading a lot of white papers about mural gastronomical science which includes things like trigeminal effects which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit things like the sensory olfactory bulb things like sweet sour salty bitter umami salt taste buds and then figuring out how to be the best cocktail shirt but getting people to the top of cocktail mountain so if you make a cocktail today for example Scott on screen with me whether it's got alcohol or not and you tell me it's completely nauseating horrifying just the worst thing you've ever put in your mouth well I can lead you in the way because I'm kind of like the Marie Kondo of cocktails right like she loves a good mess I love a really bad cocktail because it gives us room to educate learner and really sort of have a launchpad for science and understanding why is it that particular cocktail just does not fit with your palate in your tastes hello science planning to make probably the drink I've ever had ingredients here you can you can see the ginger ale off cough and speaking of which you know you have actually a special name for cocktails without alcohol can you tell us more oh my gosh so I might be one of the people who hates the most the words virgin and mocktail so if you're listening out of here and you've heard those words like a mocktail of virgin cocktail Scott we're not 12 years old anymore there's nothing sexy about going to a bar as like my age and ordering a mocktail or an absurd gin cocktail what I like to call them is no proof so alcohol is proof in it so you've got like a proof alcohol and these have absolutely no proof I think is sort of it reclaims the dignity and the self-respect that should go along with non-alcoholic cocktails because here's the thing if you don't want to drink and you don't want to have alcohol for whatever reason you don't want to have alcohol this is not a point of shame this is actually kind of cool because what we can do is leverage science called specifically tried to middle effects and we can really figure out what we need to do to make those cocktails chemically exciting in your mouth like there's a party in your mouth and everyone's invited which is really the whole goal of a cocktail to begin with because when we're working with the base ingredient you are making with alcohol which is just any type of booze you're getting the ethanol sting of alcohol this isn't Scott I'm sure you've done this before have you ever taken one of those shots and don't know those little shimmy you know say I'm like your shimmy them down because it was just the back of your throat and not that I challenge you to milord stop she's a very sick cago thing not it and a lot of shame to admit it in front of the whole audience guys if you've ever done that little shitty or if you've ever had a whiskey and it's burned back of your mouth this is actually a trigeminal effect it's the sting of alcohol being picked up by your nerve endings in your mouth and this is actually detecting all chemical sensations so if you guys have ever tried to take a cup of coffee in the morning and you start to take your first set but you stop yourself think is super hot the trigeminal nerve is actually the thing that distinguishes between hot and cold so it's actually your nerve endings that are warning you hey this is gonna burn you and you should stop yourself but alcohol temperature there's are only two trigeminal effects Scott there's like a plethora for example and cooling effect of menthols when you brush your teeth at night you feel so fresh and so clean clean that's trigeminal effect of the cooling effect of the menthol if you've got something like the pungency of garlic or ginger or that sort of mouth clearing effect that you get with the nasal passages with English mustard wasabi Mountain unning effect of clove set you on peppers things like the bubbles and carbon dioxide the reason you're able to taste that public is because of course all of your nerve endings and if you didn't have it everything would taste flat and not think about this guy a beer forevermore would be warm and flat if he didn't have tried to middle nerves or they were damaged because you would never be able to taste those things it's a fate worse than death even if you don't have alcohol there's so many other trigeminal effects that you can really dip into science wise to make interesting no proof cocktails and that's what we're also gonna be testing on today all right see that's fascinating I didn't know any of this stuff so you know so hollow leg you know you've told us your background where you've studied sort of this evolution iteration went with the flow but what is is the origin story of oh my goodness so when I got back from Italy and worked with COBOL and Ryan Hall distilleries whom I loved I ended up leaving in 2015 and started going around to every cocktail class in the city because honestly I've heard to see what was going on right like when it was being taught and those classes were so boring and they were really bad they were like sponsored by some sort of I don't know big brand they were usually very very pretentious forty twenty you would walk in everybody would like walk in and sit down there would be like a little set in front of you with all of your ingredients and you would just you know put together the exact same thing as your neighbor if you tried it and you're like it's okay there was usually no house or wise and how to fix it and then I just didn't like the fact that nobody looked like me it was all it was all those ironic facial hair dudes who were really really like the demigods of the cocktail world and I wanted to know about the science of it I really wanted to take it and be like ok why is this particularly thing what is the enemy of bitterness if a cocktail is too bitter why why is this particular sensation in my mouth you know firing off more than something else what are these flavor ratios what does olfactory bulb smell have to do with it and so as I was thinking about the name of my company which is of course Holloway I was thinking one thing I'm noticing in most every single bar is that when you've got a six ounce cocktail they're only putting one ounce of alcohol instead of two which you know I'm a big fan of the rule of thirds so if we're having a six ounce cocktail one-third water in the form of ice because if you'll hear me wax poetic later I love at water in the form of ice it's the most important part about mixology for a dilution and temperature and then of course you've got one third is gonna be booze in our cocktails and 1/3 is mixers and this way we're keeping that trigeminal effectiveness equal we're getting a good temperature balance with dilution we're getting a great ethanol balance with the alcohols instead of one alcoholic shot we're putting in two and then of course we've got all the mixers which are a great base and I really wanted to start on that sort of streamlined way of looking at things and then build on it and I just love watching humans in my class creates because as adults and stop we find ourselves there so often not we just don't have enough to do with our hands these days right let's just unless it's like a home-improvement project that you're like digging in on most of those like Pinterest projects that you tried to find or probably flimflammed out by now so this is great for people to get in and they treat my classes like a liquor lab and they can really explore things they've never normally put together and that's what I love I like watching people light up like a little Christmas tree because they're excited about something they created it's the best whiskey cocktail they've ever had and they made it with their own two hands that's that's darn amazing I like think of Julia Child every time somebody comes up to me and says something like that incredible and so you've dropped a few hints and drop some science as well but what would you say is really the secret behind creating the perfect cocktail I'm like reaching out of frame just so I can open my freezer because the magic yes yes indeed that water is the the biggest most important part obviously right now we're in the summer I'm not going to be drinking a hot toddy but I would think that dilution and temperature are literally the most important parts about mixology and just hear me out because they know it sounds really ridiculous but think of it this way if you're making a no proof cocktail well alcohol is not going to be the most important part and remember mixology is the study of the science of drinks so it doesn't matter if it has alcohol in it or not it's important to really make sure that alcohol is only secondary one comes to cocktails but temperature and dilution are so incredibly important first of all Scott fun fact we didn't even have cocktails until the turn of the century when the ice trade was made popular so before that it was a lot of just straight alcohols and then we got to have Phoenician changes we got temperature changes and the cocktail was born and so if you think of it this way dilution number one one third of every cocktail is water in the form of ice and it's because you want to take these sort of harsher ingredients and you want to really smooth the edges down so instead of just taking shots what you can do and more than likely you probably have had done when instead of taking shots we can smooth that ethanol sting and really make it something that's drinkable for a larger drink and for a longer period of time but temperature is so ridiculously important for two reasons number one if you guys have walked into a bar and I want you to remember back to those days you went to something called a bar do you matter that I just kind do you remember the bought the old bar yes they were very big yes they were they were very crowded they were crowded businessing just insane so at the heat old bar that we went to you know pre march you guys remember when he walked in if I don't order a hot cocktail like hot toddy right or a cold cocktail there's no cocktails that really Center on the middle they're not lukewarm they're not room temperature it ain't a glass of red wine people were like looking at temperature changes and this is important because of the science of how things play in our mouths um for example Scott do you like ice cream do you like sorbet like gelato popsicles you like everything those frozen sweet treats all of these looks so you're not discriminating I love it if any of you guys love ice cream or popsicles out there then what you'll notice is there's a heck of a lot of sugar in those things and it's not just because we want to have like a sugary ice cream but if you think about it it's because of little receptors on our tongue that pick up the flavor of sweet can actually not to text sweetness if a product is too cold thus the colder the product is the more sugar it also has to have in order for it to taste sweet when it hits your tongue this is because our mouth likes to break down sugar molecules with heat and that's how we're able to perceive any type of sweetness so in a pot cocktail you'd actually put less sugar because of course it's a warmer temperature we can perceive the sweetness more and in a cold cocktail we need a little bit more sugar because of course it's going to be freezing cold and we want to break down in their mouth in a way that is pleasing to our College so temperature super important because of course we want to make sure that we're making something balance we don't want to go over the top and we also want to make sure that we've got the right sort of chemical sensation in her mouth think of a Moscow Mule Moscow nose are super cold they're kept in this little copper mug Scott for a reason to keep them as cold as humanly possible how much science do you want I could talk all day well this is good we're we're we're we're for the hour so uh so that's it you know what would you like to teach us today you've got a great out in the theater I've got some ingredients off camera and on camera in some cases you know kind of find it up from you what what can you impart on us today I am so excited because I want to give you guys one my favorite cocktails it's on it's a really interesting way to talk about science and I know that it's not the fanciest cocktail remember there's no pretension what I do so I never judge if somebody just wants a vodka cranberry there's a lot of science that goes behind those as well and I don't judge people if they want something it's a super difficult completely ridiculous Manhattan or something weird that's got a bunch of random ingredients however I think the most important thing is started a nice baseline for anybody wants to notice is great for beginners it's great for those of you who have like studied a lot about mixology and know a lot about combinations but we're gonna talk a little bit about the science of this particular cocktail all right so Scott I love to talk about first the liqueur that we're gonna put in this one and I know you're gonna make a note proof cocktail which I'm really excited about I'm also gonna show people how they can make this particular cocktail something not no proof I want to add gentleness because I am firm believer that if you do not like gin you've probably not found the right style of gin for you I generally talk about Jen's as being juniper former that is any type of gin that's got a really high concentration juniper berry they taste very classic they sometimes have that medicinal and piney flavor that a lot of people will say oh I hate that but there's another style of gin and it's a contemporary style it's got less concentration of juniper berry in it this particular one is just a Fleischmann's I know I'm sure people are like that's not a sexy bottle of gin it's one that comes from the bottom shelf that it's in plastic but guys it is phenomenal it's got a lovely coriander brightness to it it's great for mixing remember a lot of those juniper forward gens that was really complex lovely Jenna Scott they're not meant to have a ton of other ingredients stacked on top of them they're meant to be tasted like the distiller made them right so you can taste them you want in the bottle with say a little bit of tonic water and a little splash of lime not really supposed to be a layer there's a bunch of ingredients this one it's gonna be nice and it's gonna be contemporary and I want you guys to remember putting in two shots of alcohol two full ounces in every single cocktail I know it seems like a lot of thought but you know why not credit what days it's Wednesday what during these times I don't even know Jews day it's too late let's go with that guys I lost all sense of time Scott also I just want to point out I know people are gonna totally judge because people immediately look at your bar tools and they're like that's not a real mixologist they're not using a proper bar tools this is a ball jar I love these I'm like in love with ball jar Bulger is made in the United States of America but also if you can see this this does not look like your regular bar wire and I purposely use this because it's not your regular bar where it is superior to your regular bar where this stuff is glass it is lovely because I can see my color my clarity I can see aeration and the glass ones shaking so I know that I'm really getting I love it because if you have no other measuring tools in your entire house note all of the measurings are right literally along the sides you can see in the ounces in the one side and then you can see on milliliters and the other so Scott just in case you like got a foreigner like you're dating a foreigner you are a foreigner no excuses you can literally get this D in the kitchen with one tool much like you guys when you get drunk all of these tops also easily come off because all of my standard bar where this is just a Hawthorne strainer fits like a match made and mixology heaven right in the top so it's literally like it was meant to be for this particular purpose you know is we're always gonna do ice last so ice is never gonna be first it's always gonna be last and just gonna add two full ounces of alcohol and just using the side of this little jar because I can see the two ounce mark and I just want to make sure I'm getting up to the two where is the to hear this talk about proportions so when you're building an amazing cocktail Scott you need to have things balanced think of it like your Instagram photos right like everything's in like the rule of thirds and we want to make sure that we've got some really lovely balance you don't want anything to be too strong in the cocktail we want everything to kind of interplay we want some specificity so we need to taste certain ingredients and be able to taste this specifically but we also want like this Genesee quash right we want that undercurrent of flavor we wanted to I'd you all you in you want the chemical sensations and we want on the palate sweet sour salty bitter and amamiya for any using any of those to be completely balanced in the balance so the first thing I think about this particular cocktail is what's called a naturally sweet mixer these mixers guys super easy to find around your house these are things like orange juice right that's a natural sugar in it you're not adding any extra sugar things like cherry juice apple cider things like um pineapple juice and the one that I'm using today which is pomegranate juice so pomegranate juice is lovely it's earthy it's a little bit more deep it's a little bit more complex it's giving us a little bit more and it is at home you want to think about your naturally sweet mixer whether we kind up a little orange whether the mango or pomegranate if you're looking for about an ounce remember that we're thinking about the proportions of the cocktail six ounces and the first thing we want is we want to shoot on stock on our building two full ounces of mixers so you're going to watch how this just changes the color I mean just instantly and always guys use your sense of smell every single ingredient you put in you should be smelling everything that you put in because what you want to do is you want to take your nose on a journey think about it this way you want to make sure you're watching the evolution of your cocktail Scott did you know that your strongest sense as a human being is your sense of smell I learned that from you actually that before it's insane I really we're just animals no sea animals their sense of smell is the strongest or is quite weak compared to other animals that I just want you to always smell so even when you're making your no proof I want you to really just give it us a quick snip and try and see if you can really put your finger on ingredients you're adding now we don't stop there we're thinking about layering flavors so Scott I'm going to talk to you about a concept about being basic have you been heard about the hashtag basic like so basic I'm extraordinary I don't even know like you don't know what's behind you on the wall I was like trying to make I was like is that completely there's that Italian photo where is that close yeah that's from Greece those are some photos from when I got married oh you're just a sweet guy with some pictures of your wedding from behind you definitely sweet he's a good guy kudos kudos to your life a good one so all right let's just stop with this I'm not basic you're not basic nobody wants to be basic and suddenly we're all like oh I really hope I can be basic today I'm really boring this next particular category of mixers is really what's gonna give you more debt more complexity we're talking about not being basic and we're talking about bitter acidic and astringent mixers I'm gonna get serious while I talk about these which is a very rare moment guys bitterness bitterness is something that we can taste on our taste buds bitterness is incredible for cocktails but you have to be balanced bitterness comes from things like coffee things like tea the polyphenols and tea is really what leads to that bitter flavor we've got things that are a little bit more acidic so acidic or sour notes if anybody likes warheads from the 1990s or like love sour patch kids you'll remember that when you put one of those in your mouth your mouth would pucker and then it would water remember that oh yeah Scott love that feeling if you are not this watering and your saliva glands are really being interacted then that's actually a mark of acidity it's mark of sourness but there's another little word in there called astringency and astringency is really interesting and it's often overlooked astringency is a drying effect in the mouth it's literally when you our taste buds contract and it kind of causes this thing we call a cottonmouth feel this kind of curs and things like grapefruit juice it also can occur in things like black coffee with nothing in it or with an over steeped cup of tea as a matter of fact Scott I know that you've got a cup of tea on you I do I'm just giving it like a tiny taste yeah so all I have left is the teabag actually oh yeah that's it yeah so what I did was I had pre steeped this tea bag and then I just I just left it I'm not sure like all the instructions did I did you did you leave the water in there is there water I just spilled that I thought all you needed was the team actually really cute that's really cute keep the teabag okay you're gonna do me a favor um do you see the ginger actually get that spiced tonic out let's play Stronach stuff that you've got right here beautiful can you pour that over the tea bag there not the whole thing what about like what about like an ounce over the tea bag sure I was tell you when I'm watching your screen beautiful stop there let that soak in a tea bag for a while now here's the thing guys if Scott had tasted that tea you tasted it then if you probably would have found that after a while he got this cottonmouth feel on his mouth polyphenols in addition to being bittering also have an astringent C factor what it does is it's actually taking water away from your mouth it's it's making that a drying effect the beautiful part about cocktails is that you can play with mouthfeel which is just a scientific term for texture inside of your mouth by either making something it's more of a cocktail which is actually gonna make your saliva glands go and a little bit more watery or you can make it a little bit more dry as stringent like a glass of red wine more than that's sort of cottonmouth feel so in this particular to keep things dry Scott so I've got this lovely pomegranate juice it's very earthy and now I'm going to add grapefruit juice and we have this in a 1/2 1/2 ratio so one ounce of my pomegranate half of an ounce of my grapefruit juice and I've got these fun little measuring cups here because I don't have proper barbera because I've never works in there that's not my mo so now I'm adding this in it's only a half juice and when I smell this Scott instead of just being like that sweetness of the pomegranate juice and the gin what I'm getting now is I'm getting more of those astringent notes if I take this sip a sip of this right now I'm getting more that dimension and a grapefruit you know grapefruit juice has a certain like puckering note to it but it's got a lovely of aromatic to it as well and now we have to think sugar now tell me they do not like sugar in their cocktails or even those people probably yeah okay a lot of people especially dudes I get a lot of dudes are like I'm not like sharing my cocktails do you like do you ever drink old fashions oh sure oh my gosh old fashions have so much sugar in them they're pretty high on the Brix level there they're friends passing drinks I love them but if you ever hear a person who does not like sugar in their cocktails but they love old fashions that's just it's a sugary cocktail that's very well balanced with the amount of bitterness and dilutions they have so let's think of sugar guys there's a million different types of sugars I've written I read a whole blog on like an encyclopedia of sugars that you can usually like work with things like sorghum and molasses things like honey which again is a more floral note things like Demerara sugar which is got more of those like burnt caramel like molasses notes you can use things like a gob a you can use anything this particular one is super simple it's one I use all the time in the bottle it's um it's just simple simple syrup is just white sugar and water married together at equal volumes so I always do my measure of my kitchen full scale and then I measure by the volume now for cocktail six ounces you only want two teaspoons I know it sounds like not a lot but it's really it really is just a tiny amount of sugar and there's two things that we're trying to accomplish that a bar and you get a cocktail that's super watery it doesn't taste like it's really got any grip in your mouth it just search slides down like a glass of water one okay we touched her in that mouthfeel we need something got a little bit more viscosity a little bit more thickness in the glass the sugar is accomplishing that it's a little bit more viscous we're also getting a little bit of extra dilation in there and of course we're getting sugar which we mean because when we bring the temperature of this cocktail down and we dilute it we don't want it to taste bland right we want to make sure that it's got a sweetness in it to deliver the other flavors so I'm gonna give it another smell this way this is a little bit harder to detect on your nose so you smell can be a little bit harder but you can also get taste at this point mmm Linscott the best thing I can tell anybody is if you want add smaller amounts of sugar and then you can continue to add more sugar as you go remember we're budding mixologists but not all of us are budding magicians which means we can add things into our cocktail very hard to take them away you guys so make sure that you're sticking things in your glass in small conservative amounts so you can build up later and I like to do this as well Scott we're gonna have you try your cocktail in a second and make sure but um your cocktail should be slightly sweeter than what you would normally drink when it's at room temperature because of its slightly sweeter and then we had that ice bring the temperature down dilute it it will be the perfect sweetness level for us once we've got that particular step okay we're gonna add something that's got acidity in it now you don't have to do this step for me I really like that balance of acid in there remember grapefruit juice doesn't have enough that we need so I'm going to add in a lemon now I really like to talk about this particular card Scot you've heard me talk about this before I feel like right now I'm the secondary character the leading lady is going to be the lemon guys humans are a lot like citrus fruit roll with me on this one we all look very different on the outside but we're all the same on the inside you know I'm saying it's poetry in the making Scott this is the inside of a lemon I'm sure you've seen the inside of a lemon before but let's just give you a quick citric anatomy lesson the first part that we've got of course is going to be the inside which is the pulp this has got a lot of the citric acid and the water content now you can just squeeze this and if you want it but you'd be missing out Scott and all the goodness that's inside the rest of this fruit this white section here which goes all the way around the fruit is called the pith P ith it has bitter oils and compounds in it and of course it's got that lovely bitter flavor you guys will know this if you've ever had a French wedge when you were a kid and you avoid it eating those like bitter white arts and then of course we've got the peel and the peel has all of that oil at citric well that of course lends itself to the aromatics of the drink remember smell is super important and because those oils are less dense than the water below them they'll float to the top which is awesome giving you that really lovely nose so we've got this guy here and what I'm going to do is they just wanna make a quick cut I'm gonna just beautiful I'm just gonna toss them into my glass I'm not going to squeeze him I'm just tossing because the next thing I want to do is I want to add something that's trigeminal e affective remember guys we talked about trigeminal affects party in your mouth everyone's invited every cocktail should do this for you every single one and if it doesn't if you take the step of a cocktail you have to turn to your friend at the bar and say is there any alcohol any worse because I can't taste any alcohol in mind or if you're given a no proof cocktail and it tastes like a glorified juice drink they're doing it wrong you need something going to make all of your nerve endings fire this is like what like cocktails are about this is the crux of mixology temperature daily Shayna and then of course we've got trigeminal effects and one of the things you could be using is you could use the helping wall so I was actually using jalapenos earlier in the cocktail and Scott this is hot there's capsaicin oil in this particular guy when you add him in he's got that heat and a heated capsaicin is picked up by your trigeminal nerve ascending so we've got this guy here or if you didn't and you have ginger this is lovely because it's fresh ginger which is gonna be that pungency that you get in the back of your mouth and we really want to make sure it's gonna sing I'm for this particular purpose going to use ginger I'm gonna cut quite large for my cocktail so it's looking quite big and I'm going to just sit him right on into the glass now the fun part you think you're gonna get a workout did you sky haha I was not expecting the jalapeno to be honest oh my gosh the jalapeno is fantastic in this cocktail alright so when you guys are ready remember we don't just want to squeeze that lemon in we're one of them we want to mash everything and it's called muddling so we've got our motor out get there and I'm just going to show you guys how I like to muddle I think it's like the for me the best way it's remember I'm not like one of these Flair bartenders I just really love the idea of joints and science and body science I always grab my tool wait for me I put it out to my side I lower my arm into a 90 degree angle put my little finger down and I like to think about my 20s Scott when I used to order IKEA furniture to remember that of course fantastic do you know we all got muscle memory there might be aperture guys I want you to screw in your IT effort at your chair you're going to push down screw in push down screw in really just like Pat it's how you're doing and we're gonna do some kind of hoax smash some of the ginger in there you're looking is really pushed out evenly on that limit to try a lot when you're done give it a smell and two things I can smell Scott it's pretty magical I can smell the citric acid so immediately like extra brightness from the acidity and the stink and then when I really like put my nose and do it harder to get with my nose at this point but about if I tasted it I'm gonna be a tasting a lot of that ginger what that pungency in there so guys now we're not in basic territory we're not hashtag basic anymore now we've got layers of flavors we've got the mouthfeel and the drying effect of that grapefruit juice we've got the earthiness of pomegranate we've got that lovely pungency of the ginger we've got a little bit of acidity and those oils which is really giving it a lot of aromatics we've got a little bit of sugar to balance everything out and now what do we do we grab some ice oh yeah I've got a ton no Scott because there isn't you can't overdo a cocktail you can't put too much ice in something and make it really watery but I'm looking for about two ounces of ice which if you're using one of these bell jars or if you've got a measurement you can see I brought it up to the 6 ounce mark just around here there we go so you've got two ounces booze chew on says mixers and of course that she wants to secure anybody gem for the last like three months then this is really I mean as long as you're getting to mixology you're pretty much made for 12 full seconds you're gonna watch me work on my shake face notice I don't want to look constipated or angry with my face and now we've got a little guy you can see some aeration from the bubbles and aside the colors really pretty and I'm the only thing I can tell people to do on camera think it's top off they can tops off people and you've got one of these and now we're gonna strengthen it now people don't put your alcohol in the freezer put your glassware in the freezer I'm a big fan of freezing the glassware because it just keeps things cold it's lovely I do one large ice cube in there because why not let's get fancy with it and I'm just going to pour like I'm Tom Cruise from the movie cocktail you know I'm saying and like from low to high so it get some more aeration and glass so I just want to make sure I'm doing this do not worry guys if you spill on the floor companies around in your home anyway to watch you so you can just do it I know we're gonna do two things first we're gonna smell it and taste it obviously I could smell the ginger now the dilution really brings out the ginger mmm oh and it's lovely and if you hate it then it's not it's all good because if this was too sweet for you what we would do is we just grab a wedge of lemon and we could just add that in to curb the sweetness done so that was the problem then you could do that however there's something special and extra I like to do Scott I think you know where I'm about to go oh yeah I'll make fan of bitters yes sitters and tinctures I make all of them by yourself so all the ones that we use at home and we make ourselves and I've got stoned me like different varieties of them though I love but I was thinking about your cup of tea earlier and I thought oh a wonderful girl gray would go really well okay ginger in there I've got lemon in there but it's pomegranate adding a more of that Earl Gray that burger mat note in the bottom which would be really lovely suppose like I'm gonna go ahead and do this and what bitters and tinctures are if you've never heard of them before is I call them the condiments of the cocktail so very fantastic what you can just layer them and they are usually made from alcohol as the main solvent so if you guys remember back to like seventh grade science you'll probably remember your teacher talked about two solvents and a solvent is really any chemical or anything that can dissolve one thing from itself and do another so um I like to make the reference to breaking back if you remember it's good to have you ever watch Breaking Bad Scott of course that's one of my favorite stores of all time such a good show do you remember the season because season one like pretty like deep in when Jesse was trying to melt the body in the bathtub yeah and they use the acid I make it like here the like bathtub like rumbling and it fell through the floor because the the asset is a solvent and physically dissolves everything it touched and then like broke everything that's what solvents to um seventh grade science would have been so much cooler ahead like Breaking Bad been shown and we could like have learned those probably not appropriate for children so okay we've got solvents vinegar is a solvent we've got acid as a solvent alcohol is a solvent these are some main solvents and what I'm doing is I take alcohol usually at 75.5% and ABV just to illustrate all the alcohol that I'm abusing costs like a 40% ABV and then what we do is we add that into a particular ingredient and let it sit like you would that tea bag Scott and then what it happens is it actually dissolves flavor molecules from whatever I put in and then when I take it out it takes on the flavor so this is just alcohol and Earl Grey loose leaf tea and then when I strain it off it tastes like really alcoholic Earl Grey who stood to you which is really lovely um but because it's still hiding out the whole wall units concentrated I don't need a whole lot of it it really adds to the aromatics of the drink which is nice and genesee qua that X Factor don't like reason that you want to keep sippin in the cocktail I make a million different flavors from like cinnamon to toasted pecan Earl Grey is this one the way the grouting is just gonna like give you guys a close-up is we're literally taking my bitters I've got a cap full just like this and I'm going to make it rain all over the surface area and being very like egalitarian I'm not just putting in one area and sticking it all over and then you've got it and then when when do smell I can smell that Earl Grey on the top and then we get a space and I'm not saying that's one of my favorite cocktails that I've ever made in my life but this is my favorite cocktails ever made in my life I love the pomegranate great food combination I think it's so classic it's so lovely it teaches so much science with such a little small amount of drinks all right Scott you look thirsty do you want me to walk you through yours I am ready all right the first thing I need to do is you've got a lemon over there do you not yes okay do you have any type of shaker something you can put ice in um no I have a glass and I have an ice bucket I love that fantastic all right you're gonna squeeze that entire lemon into that glass oh great do it everyone's gonna see me do it right now guys here's the cool part you can follow a lot literally with any ingredients you find in your kitchen you can upon the private chat over there or the wherever the chat is and you can actually ask the cab got excellent don't why if you've got orange juice sitting in your fridge and you've got old coffee that was brewing this morning and you have whiskey you can really make one of the best cocktails in the entire world orange juice coffee whiskey and sugar are fabulous oh my gosh that looks like a lot of lemon juice that's fantastic all right um I know this is gonna be kind of a shock Scott but could you for just posterity sake give it a little sip so we can like smell it and you're gonna give a little tiny taste mmm that's not bad really tired really turn right fabulous okay now you've got that tonic syrup I do know we were talking about the ingredients not tonic syrup earlier oh yeah the quick view on the camera just we can see what you're working with gorgeous fantastic a spiced tonic syrup has got a couple of things in it guys besides just the natural flavors which we were trying to define it they were like more cinnamon tea and a little bit more on that spicy side so we're thinking more fall spice we can also notice that's got a bittering agent in there which is fantastic and then of course it's got sugar in there as well um because we're making kind of a riff on yours I'm gonna have you do is you're going to add you added that stuff to the tea bag do you want that teabag stuff you're gonna dump all of that so that full ounce into your lemon juice okay great all right guys think of it this way we've got something that's gonna be like bitter an acidic right so the acidity is coming from the lemon juice now he's gonna be adding of course this lovely oh yes lots of sugar bitterness from that syrup as well as you got more sugar on there you're gonna give it a little swirl and just give it a quick taste one remember we're not quite it's not gonna be quite as sweet as let's see the taste in your glass well we've got a lot of acidity right now already pretty good right yes fantastic do you see how we've got all these proportions coming together okay stop now we're working with some limited stuff over there so I'm not gonna like make you run to your pantry but I am gonna see it is you're gonna put ice in this and we're gonna make a stir drink I'm just gonna talk to you about the difference between a skirt and a shake and drink so when we shook my drink Scot you'll notice I really look for aeration look for bubbles and usually if it's a cream based drink its juice babe string it's got egg white in it we want to be all aerated because we want fluffy we want to be nice and like expanded in your mouth but yours is gonna be a stir drink so with the stir drink where it really dies is number one it doesn't bring the temperature quite as low so you're not gonna have quite as low of a temperature in your cocktail but also what it's gonna do is it's not have quite as much dilution so it's gonna be a little bit more on the viscous side which is nice because we're not adding a whole lot of alcohol I just wanna make sure that we're keeping that drink quite like thick so what we're gonna do is you're gonna grab that ice you're gonna grab a couple of different ones they would just want you to stir it now you can start with your finger if you like no guys do not think you need like fancy part tools to be a good mixologist I've seen if you can be the MacGyver of like mixology and like use stuff you can find around your house and like raid your pantry and then make something delicious you're an incredible mixologist don't let anybody tell you differently there's no no suspenders traps are needed in the making of a cocktail all right let's see you just give that a good stir Scott all right my watchful eye will ice to a good start oh my gosh beautiful see how he's using his finger that technique is beautiful keep on going though you're gonna like your yours gonna go so numb because you're gonna be storing that for about 20 seconds now I'm counting down in my head we've got about 12 and 11 and 10 fingers getting cold isn't about ice in there Scotch don't think take that ice out for now I'm 4 3 2 1 boom you're done alright now you're gonna notice something's got cuz you trade the tracks before you put ice give it a smell give it a sip I know let's talk to me about that amount of sugar do you taste the amount of sugar in there holy sugary yeah a little bit not crazy powering yeah it's almost like a flavour lemonade more bitter right so it's got that bitterness in there okay now we're gonna be using that ginger ale oh it spotted a I spotted it in the back he like put it it was like picture where I got married beautiful guys real quick you probably had ginger ale before but Scott you know the difference between ginger ale and ginger beer right yes fantastic guys ginger beer is a fermented drink that usually uses a lot of fresh ginger in the making ginger ale kinda girl one rather than rather than a high amount of flavor of ginger so you're getting a little bit of a different taste to it but really what we're using this for Scott is we're gonna use this for the dilution and we're going to use this for the trigeminal effect of the carbon dioxide so open up that ginger ale and what I want you to do tough it I think it because of the syrup that you use that syrup now give it a taste alright well you'll notice Scott is really we're trying to make that chemical sensation I let's see if the to be exciting on the mouth now I'm a big fan of using trigeminal effects in pairs so right now if you say had I don't know a fresh piece of ginger or if you had any herbs from the garden I'm a big fan of you have it I would probably suggest something like basil basil this is purple this is purple basil and this is of course regular basil and when these are very aromatic and you can like slap them in and put them in you can put in things like fresh mint on the top of that to really add to the aromatics of the drink but what we're looking for is we don't want to be basic so if you can only taste one or two ingredients that's not a great cocktail what I want to do is I want some specificity but I also want you to be like what is that flavor underneath and I bet you the flavor that you're tasting underneath that genus a quat is that bittering note of a what was the veteran agent that was in that tonic I'm gonna make it a ring game not the lemon no beyond that syrup tonic what was the bittering agent oh yes that's right that's the word I didn't know right that was the let's get to it here is that the cinchona yeah that's what it is that's awesome so that's that's that bittering note guys that's what's making his thing like a little bit more complexity honest a quoi if you don't have bitters you can actually not you don't have to make your own bitters or even buy bitters what I would do is just what Scott did which is either find a simple syrup that already has bitterness involved or you can make your own and Scott it is so cheap and so easy to make your own simple syrups at home all I give you this equal amounts of that water and some sort of sugar and then you can put in something like a cinnamon stick and then you've got cinnamon flavored simple syrup you could put in things like whole black peppercorns and you can make something that's like a spicy sort of peppery note on the backend which is really adding to bitterness you can make a ton of different ones you can make basil simple syrup you can make strawberry simple syrup as long as you're using some sort of agricultural products you can literally make anything into a simple syrup and it's such an easy way to customize stuff and a great way to make no crew cocktails more interesting with flavor and this is incredibly drinkable right well you know it's really interesting I keep living on my thing you ki you've got some you it's super interesting because you just want to see about the building of flavor and guys this is where your kitchen and as your best friend and really why you need to all thank goodness that you were at homes and second home because you've got the ability to go through your pantry so I'm not gonna take you totally on a journey but listen stop I'm gonna like just note that I've got guys to eight you've gone to a housewarming party somebody's been to your house for a house party Scott did you have a housewarming party when you and your wife moved in together we did yes and somebody come to your party I don't know see your brother-in-law's second cousins best friend and brought you I don't know a bottle of something horrifying that you were like you might have one of those right like some dusty bottle of Shinar or some dusty bottle of like Aperol they were like I don't want to use it now is the time guys to be really going through your cabinet and finding weird ingredients and then experimenting with them and that can even be your ingredients like you bought nutmeg once from the store a whole nutmeg if you like what am I gonna do with this I try to make a pumpkin pie once it totally failed that's the best time to make I want to see if Scott if anyone's got like random pictures they can like find me on Instagram they can like send me their stuff I want to be people's cocktails sure but for life like I literally want all of your crappy combinations I want you your flavors and what you're like completely bombed fail cocktails because we can fix it stop if that drink was horrifying there is a way that we could have used even just stuff around your apartment to make it better like I play cat's meow boy cuz I can like I can make like a cocktail whisper oh right here I can make anything taste good like anything taste good so Scott do you have any burning mixology questions for me well I'm wondering when you go to a bar if there's a drink that isn't much ignoring do you sneak a bitter at a tincture or something in your drink or do your friends ask you to do that oh my gosh so um you know I never resonated more with a lyric from a song than when he lands a saying I've got hot sauce on my swag bag hot sauce with her I always I am such a nerd I always have a couple of my bottles of bitters in my purse with me and listen there's some great bars that don't need any you know doing but if I'm going out and I really find that the trigeminal effect because our industry is not really prepping people with that particular level of science so trigeminal effects are not really taught of you ask people they don't really know what they are and really what it comes down to is I want to make things more chemically effective and I want to make them exciting so I always carry these I'm some sort of bitters they change with the season however I'm going because a it's gonna add a little bit of extra alcoholic volume in case I got stiffed on the amount of alcohol they put into my drink but also Scout aromatics it's gonna bitterness it's something that shouldn't say quality like to talk about but normally I go to bars that I really like or I may eat drinks at home I would say this if you're at a bar and you get served something horrifying it's it's okay to send it back it's okay to be polite and talk about it and say oh it's just not what I like or what I ordered but before you even get to that point I'm gonna encourage everybody to be curious if you read because a lot of these caught some of these guys and I've been in the industry for quite some time so I know a lot of the alcohol is out there I know a lot of flavor pairings but I can't know everything right like yeah there's no way like with the amount of stuff that's being produced how things get turned out anybody who thinks they know everything knows nothing because frankly it is an ever-changing topic and there's so much and it's so incredible but I ask questions I'll say excuse me I usually like sour cocktails with more of a floral note I don't know what like half of these ingredients in the rah-rah-rah cocktail are is this like what I'm looking for and what they can do is they can really sear you in the direction of something that you might if you do find something that's flawed about a cocktail and this is usually on the front of the palate so we've got something that's like it's too sweet maybe it's too sour maybe it's too bitter these three things are very easy to correct because if it's too bitter or if it's too sweet you can use a little wedge of lemon or lime and you can just squeeze it in the cocktail and it's going to soften the perception of those two things if it's going to be too sour then we can always do is ask for an extra splash of either club soda increasing the dilution on it or you can ask for something that's a little bit more like simple syrup so you can really increase the amount of sugar level I have never offended in the class not once if I make something for somebody and they hate it because here's the thing every person's palate is different and what somebody else might love and nine people might love and the tenth person hates that's not a reflection on my skills or anything else it's just a reflection if I'm rude about it the reflection is can I use science and really in layman terms explain to this person what is it that you don't like how do we fix it and how do we go forward and make all these cocktails that are in that particular category something that you'd be willing to drink and then you're off to the races and that's that's what I love about mixology there's no mistakes in mixology I am afraid that we are out of time I'm sure this day you were fantastic Devin where can we find you how can people reach you oh my goodness you can find me on Instagram the easiest way is like a solo like mixology so just add the @ sign to here um but goodness I mean my number is public my everything is public I'm your cocktail ship of your life you can send me a text you can send me an email a definite hollow leg comm you can find me on insta and drop in like all the creepy boys do to my DMS but I'd love to see your creations I would love your questions Father's Day is coming up I know that like a lot of people have questions about your father-in-law loves some sort of weird scotch and what can you get him to impress em I love these questions I'm a huge scotch fan so anything you've got I can help with give me a call Devon thank you so much it has been a delight we appreciate all of your time your energy your enthusiasm and just bringing some joy and light into our lives today so well I'm so excited Scott Cheers and thank you for having me Heine Cheers [Music] you [Music]