Health news report

Important discovery that Campari is good for you, drink it without questioning.

Many thanks to everyone supporting this campaign and contributed to make this important article.

Dr. One Happy Dead Barman

To drink or not to drink that is the question.

What do you think of alcohol?

My thought are messed up sometimes, because I am a barman with  passion, and my father was one, I love alcohol, I love the history about it, the impact on the society, good and bad, the colour, the taste, the shapes, I love everything but the way that sometimes damage people.

I would like to start a little debate, let’s see what people say….

 Save time, say it in one word!

One Happy Dead Barman

Colgate whitening spider

After all this hangovers, spiking, breakfast and friends what I was feeling was missing was a cocktail to have just before going into bed, and just woken up, to make you feel your mouth and body nice and fresh, ready for a proper sleep or a proper day…. or maybe the perfect waking up!!!!!

IDEA

It is simply a white spider cocktail (vodka, mint liquor) made of frozen vodka shot as muthwash and a green mint liquor gel toothpaste.

RECIPE

Mouthwash : 50 ml of frozen Ultimat vodka in a shot. (Beautiful)

Toothpaste : this is a bit more complicated just because of an ingredient that you’ll have to buy on the internet to make this. The ingredient in question is Xanthan gum, a polysaccharide, produced by fermentation of glucose or sucrose, used as a thickener, it is very easy to find and buy on internet.

So I mix 30 ml of the green creme de menthe, dash of mint bitters to give a deeper flavour, 1 shot of simple syrup, 100 ml hot water, 1/4 tsp of Xanthan gum. Stir properly and then boil with a coffee machine steamer, the liquid will gel in seconds, let it rest for few minutes to get a more solid consistency.

Serve on a toothbrush with the vodka mouthwash on the side.

Brush the gel around your mouth and then wash it off with the mouth wash!

Good night everyone, I am sure you will not know what is an hangover tomorrow!

Wake up and smile.

Gentleman absinthe dressed street-style get spiked with a dot an half of Vitamin C

I feel like I had an allucination when I did this drink, or maybe I simply spiked my own drink… Something like that…. down that way…. pheraps……

IDEA

The idea is to make a spiked (in a healhy version) drink with something actually good for the body with a pill of Vitamin C, and a cocktail made in a bottle and covered with a newspaper, to resemble the hiding of the bottles when drunk in the street…

INGREDIENTS

50 ml of strawberry puree

30 ml Punt e Mes (red vermouth)

40 ml Gentleman Jack Bourbon

5 ml Absinthe  70%

1 small bottle ginger beer

1 Vitamin C pill

METHOD

Take a small bottle of water, about 300ml, take the label of and washed it properly in and out, once dried, stored in the freezer.

Leave the bottle in the freezer and take it out  only when finished to make the drink.

In a shaker combine:

50 ml of strawberry puree

30 ml Punt e Mes (red vermouth)

40 ml Gentleman Jack Bourbon

Shake strong for a good 10 seconds.

Now take out the bottle of the freezer, pour in 1 cl of green absinthe 70% minimum, coat the inside of the bottle and discard the excess.

Strain the shaken drink through a tea strainer the in the bottle, and top up with 100 ml of fiery ginger beer.

Cover the bottle with the newspaper and an elastic band to keep it steady.

Serve on a little tray with a Vitamin C pill (supermarket quality does the job)

Spike your own drink when you fill like it! The orange taste will complement the drink with his tartness.

Spike and Smile!

Enjoy.

Calvados 44

Hi, this is a beautiful and easy recipe that a French friend of mine passed me, to make at home for the cold days…..

Take 1 jar of approximately 2.5 liters and put in:

44 sugar lumps.

1 whole orange with 44 cuts made with a small knife.

Inside the little cuts (pockets) put 44 coffee beans.

Pour in 2 bottles of good quality Calvados.

Leave the jar away from the sunlight and store for 44 days.

When ready filter it through a tea towel and store in a bottle or flask.

Drink it.

Smile.

Toasted bread flavoured sugar

Hello firsty people,

this is something to add to a cocktail I have already published a while ago, the Bacon infused Old fashioned cocktail…

As you see in the Old Fashioned recipe you have to use brown sugar, which we will flavour with bread.

It is a very straight process, to make the “rich”simple syrup (rich because I make it with brown sugar), boil some water and mix it in a 1 to 1 proportion with brown sugar, stir fast to dissolve the sugar till clear, and in the while is still warm toast a couple of slices of toasted bread an put them in the sugar for at least 4 hours, then filter with a tea towel and bottle it, it should last a couple of weeks in the fridge, and here you go, now you can use this sugar to make the bacon OD and you will have a Bacon Sandwhich Old Fashioned.

Smile.

And remember, don’t drive too much, you got to drink!

Merry Christmas.

Experience Martini

If the answer is too easy, you probably didn’t ask the right question, so I am asking you, when it comes to cocktails, are you experienced?

From this I began to develop a cocktail concept for a Martini, which could actually be applied to many different ones.

IDEA

My idea came from the fact that I had some lemongrass left over so I wanted to create something with it.

The first common idea that came in my mind was to create lemongrass straws, as they are used in Asian countries, so that was pretty easy, just cut the bottom off, undo the leaves one by one and roll them in your hands till they will be closed side by side like a straw.

METHOD AND INGREDIENTS

With the bottom bits I do the same thing to try to create like a “stopper” to put at the end of my straws, as shown in the picture.

Now is time for some cooking!

Choose the cocktail you would like to do, (I have chosen a Martini) and then choose a couple of ingredients that work with the cocktail. (I choose Punt e Mes as red sweet Vermouth and Green Noilly Prat as dry Vermouth).

Now what we need to do is a reduction of the 2 ingredients, putting one ingredient a time in a pan with sugar and rise the temperature making the water evaporate, and making our Vermouth much thicker, like a thick syrup texture.

For this I have done

3 parts of vermouth

1 part of sugar

Cook them one a time separately, and remember that while they are hot they look more liquid than when they are cold, and them let them rest in a small jug till cold.

As said above, when they are cold they are thick like honey, so what I want to do now is to dip a toothpick in the reduction and use it to coat the inside of the lemongrass straws, which it will not come out because of the lemongrass stopper with put in place earlier on.

Now make your gin Martini, mixing it with ice to chill it properly that we will serve in a chill Martini glass.

Serve with the straws in it explaining to your guest which is which, and they will have the chance to experience the different flavours of the gin with the Vermouth, drinking from one tasting like Gin dry martini, from the other straw with Punt e Mes tasting a Sweet gin Martini or from both at the same time experiencing a Perfect Martini!!!!!

The lemon grass will play its fresh part as well, giving you a taste of fresh lemon on your lips…

Are you experienced??????

Taste map of my cocktail menu by Laura Veronesi

Taste map illustration of    my cocktail menu.

Thomas Colombo mixologist at Bar Sixteen, Derby, UK :
he’d I rather serve a glass of tap water with a smile than the best cocktail in the world with a sad face, but he does serves the best cocktails I ever tried unfolding to your hears only the origins of gin and sending your papillae to an exiting new adventure in taste.
I drew, basing on his cocktail list, a map for taste riders, it will help choosing an area, it won’t prevent getting lost into the flavors!

Laura Veronesi

Vacuum pack-ini

Hi everyone, here you are a little idea that I had one day at work when I had to prepare some drinks before the customer arrival, using a little twist as a vacuum bag but still serving a fantastic Martini, the guest loved it!

In a vacuum pack bag put:

1 long and thin slice of cucumber

40 ml Hendrick’s gin

15  ml Plymouth sloe gin

20 ml of still bottled water (to use instead of the water that would diluite from the stirring of the ice)

Close in a vacuum pack machine and keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours, at the moment of serving, just cut a little corner and put in  a straw, put the bag in a martini glass and serve.

Nice and easy, in the summertime you can put it in the freezer and make alcoholic ice pops, otherwise in the winter you can put it in hot water before serving, if made warm I suggest to put at least twice the amount of water.

Smile.

16 Red Snapper

Hello everyone, here you are another new recipe for Bloody Mary lovers but with a twist… First of all instead of using vodka I use gin which I prefer much more in this cocktail instead of vodka, and that’s why is call Red Snapper, that’s its name when made with gin.

This drink is made in two separate ways as you see in the video, I shake one part and roll between shakers the other one.

First of all fill a tall tumbler with ice and leave it on the side.

In a Boston shaker put in the tin: dash Worcester sauce, dash Tabasco, pinch celery salt, ¼ tsp horseradish sauce, 10 cl tomato juice and 4 cl gin, possibly a dry gin (in the video I used G’Vine, a beautiful dry gin made in France based with alcohol made with grapes) as a Tanqueray, Bombay…

Now as you see in the video you got to pour everything from one part of the shaker to the other, doing so you will mix the ingredients without creating an unpleasant tomato foam, roll it for five times and leave on side without ice.

Get rid of the ice cubes in the tumbler, rim the glass with lemon juice first and with crushed peppercorns then.

In another shaker as we said above, pour 5 cl of freshly made celery juice (which is possible to do with a juicer or otherwise blend and filter it) and add a pinch of soy lecithin and the spring of a strainer which will help to foam better, and shake very strong for one minute till you will get a nice “foam bath type” foam.

Fill the rimmed glass with ice cubes, pour the liquids and the foam on top.

Serve.

Smile.

Special thanks to Luca Pedrotti and Laura Veronesi for the fantastic time had together doing the video and drinking!!