2. Introduction to Alcohol - Tipsy Bartender Course

at the heart of any great cocktail is your liquor and i'm gonna teach you what you need to know about the six main types of liquor like whiskey tequila and how they differ from a liqueur like grand marnier so let's dive in to liquor 101. [Music] look at all the booze okay this is a ton of alcohol but don't get overwhelmed because i'm gonna break all this down very simply for you so that you understand what we have here now we're gonna be teaching you how to make delicious drinks but in order to do that you need to know which alcohols to use and when and how to mix them together right off the bat we're going to be working with liquors and liqueurs yes they are different the six main liquors are vodka rum gin tequila whiskey brandy now what is a liquor sir rock and cracking are examples of liquors so to get a liquor you start with a fermented beverage a fermented beverage is one where sugars have been turned into alcohol so beer wine cider those are fermented beverages so you distill the fermented beverage and what distillation does is it removes the water and creates a more concentrated alcohol a hard liquor a spirit that is what a liquor is now what is a liqueur blue curacao bailey's irish cream these are examples of liqueurs to get a liqueur you begin with a liquor and then you add in a sweetener that sweetener is what makes it a liqueur now sometimes it's flavored with herbs spices fruits all kinds of stuff like that but it must be sweetened in order to be liqueur other than that you just end up with a flavored liquor okay that sweetener is what turns a liquor into a liqueur so now let's get into six different types of liquor mick jagger once said there are no absolutes in life only vodka so what is vodka vodka is a neutral flavored clear spirit it's tasteless it's odorless matter of fact that's how it was marketed to america as being tasteless and odorless so you could drink it on your lunch break without your boss know it i'm not even joking this is how it was marketed to us vodka is typically made from grains or potatoes but for instance the rock so rock is made from grapes okay and vodka begins its life clear but sometimes colors are added which is why we have this thing here blavord which is a black vodka real great during halloween some of the more popular vodka drinks that you guys know would be bloody mary's moscow mules kamikazes screwdrivers greyhounds there are tons of vodka drinks here's why because it's so neutral in taste it mixes well with anything you could spike literally anything with vodka and make it work so your first mixed drink or cocktail grab your favorite soft drink add a little bit of vodka to it and you are good to go you'll have an amazing drink that you love out of the gate by using vodka so in stock in your bar definitely have a bottle of vodka and get the one that you could afford because even in blind taste tests experts struggle to tell the difference between a cheap vodka and an expensive vodka [Music] you know how when you get a shot of cheap tequila they give you the salt and the lime and then you go through chugging and all this and that's how you do tequila no that is how you do cheap tequila quality tequila the high grade stuff is meant to be sipped you don't need all this salt and lime okay it's delicious and it's supposed to be nice and smooth now some of the more popular tequila drinks that you guys would know would obviously be the margarita the palomo tequila sunrise even a bloody maria that's a bloody mary where you lose the vodka add in tequila so what is a tequila tequila is made from blue agave and in order to be called tequila it has to be produced in mexico in one of the five tequila producing regions if you make tequila the exact same way they do it in mexico but you cross the border okay you cannot call it tequila they will sue you and yes companies have tried and they have been sued so let's get into some of the types of tequila [Music] this right here is the most popular version that you guys i'm sure familiar with okay this is the whole gold this is a mixto so it's not 100 blue agave it's 51 blue agave and the other 49 might be colorings and flavorings and all the other additives to get in there to give you this color and this taste okay these tend to be cheaper obviously and they're designed to be that way so now let's get into the 100 blue agave category this where you have a lot more of the quality stuff a lot more of the expensive stuff so the first one would be the silver or blanco which is what we have here and these are aged in clear cask or steel barrels for less than 60 days that's why they have such a clear color the next category would be the reposado or rested which is what de leon here is and these are aged in barrels for more than 60 days but less than a year so these have no colorings added to them the colors pull from the barrels that these are stored in okay and that's why they have that beautiful golden brown color the next level would be the a nail and these are aged for more than a year but less than three years and typically they have this rich golden color because they've been aging for a long time they tend to be darker in color but this right here is a special nail this one's still silver so this was aged between one to three years but it was probably done in a in a steel barrel or something where it didn't pull in a whole lot of that color so it stayed clear when it comes to buying tequila the things to look for are color and age the older types of darker caramel colors tend to be more robust and less versatile so if you're picking out a bottle to bring to a party a nice mid-range silver would be your safest bet [Music] george washington was such a rum lover that for his inauguration he had a bottle of rum bought in from barbados so that they could party all right some of the most popular rum drinks that you guys are familiar with would be mojito daiquiri pina colada dark and stormy there are tons of fun rum drinks i grew up in the caribbean so rum is one of my favorite categories now most rum is made from molasses okay and they begin as as a nice clear liquid like this like the bacardi white rum or silver rum or light from they all the same thing light silver white but there are lots of different categories in rum because over here you have your spice rum bacardi has a nice smooth one you have the captain morgan that's a bit more spicy and not as smooth as this and they have a lot of herbs and spices in there that add in that spiciness then you have your dark rum category and these are ultra flavorful and an acquired taste because tasting one of these for the first time you go oh my god but they have to be you you could sip them a lot of people sip these but most of us most most people in bartending mix these with other things to create fun drinks especially cool tropical drinks a lot of times feature a layer of myers or kraken or something like that on top another fun category in rum is the high proof rum so you have your bacardi 151 and you have here demerara 151 so what is that 151 that 151 is the proof okay and you divide the proof by two to get the alcohol percentage so each of these is 75.5 alcohol and we call them high proof because you know it's a higher alcohol content which means the higher alcohol content the more likely it is to start a fire so you could you know start flames and flaming drinks that's why you see us use bacardi 151 so much [Music] no matter the base the underlying flavor profile of rum is sweet the sweetness makes it really common in cocktails so definitely have it around when throwing a party or stalking your home bar age is less important but like with tequila the wider silver types tend to be more versatile to work with gin is the national drink of england but that's not where it was created you see what happened was during the dutch war of independence british soldiers noticed dutch soldiers sipping on this before they went into battle this actually had the nickname dutch courage okay and if you look at the label it says right here the grandfather of jinn what does that mean so those british soldiers saw this took it home and reworked it in their own way to create the gin that we know and love today so what is gin gin is created from distilling grains or malt but in order to be gin it has to have juniper berries if there are no juniper berries it ain't gin okay and people who make gin they don't only add juniper berries they add a lot of other botanicals a coriander a nice citrus peels so you get all these delicious botanicals in there and it's just awesome from bottle to bottle because they're all slightly different if you look at this one right here bombay sapphire far east they're using vietnamese black peppercorn and thai lemongrass i mean they really go crazy and some of the gins out there today and it is awesome some of the most popular gin drinks that i could think of right now would be gin fizz ramos gin fizz aviation gin and tonic that's super popular okay is it basic yes but it basically tastes good too gin is meant to be mixed as the botanicals the herbs and spices come to life in cocktails and add complexity to the drink this is why so many classic cocktails call for gin in fact they're more classic cocktails made with gin than with any other spirit the word martini means gin so when it comes to buying a gin age doesn't really matter it's more about the particular flavor of that gin that you like [Music] mark twain once said too much of anything is bad but too much good whiskey is barely enough whiskey it is a huge category okay and it's daunting at first but we gonna work through this and you can understand it's gonna be beautiful now whiskey is made by distilling fermented grains but what makes it different from vodka is that right after distillation it is aged in wooden barrels and that's how it gets its lovely color but there's an exception here because this is a clear whiskey they do exist okay so this was not aged in a wooden barrel to pull the color out just so you know now how do you spell whiskey okay here's the rule if your country has an e in the name then you spell it with an e for instance america and ireland spell whiskey with an e except makers mark which is american company they make a bourbon but they spell it without an e there's an exception to every rule okay and if your country has no e in the name like japan or canada then you spell it without any all right that's the broad rule look for many exceptions so let's get into the different types of whiskey so this right here is scotch if you walked into a bar in europe and said hey give me whiskey because all this is whiskey they'd most likely give you scotch all right now scotch is distilled from malted barley and in order to be scotch this has to take place in scotland and it must be aged for a minimum of three years and scotch is often accompanied by an aging statement like telling you how old it is for instance if you look at johnny walker i noticed a lot of i know a lot of you skipped over this it tells you right down here aged for 12 years and obviously the longer it was age the more expensive it was be the thing with scotch is scotch is aged in a barrel whereas wine is aged in a bottle you know get a ball of wine you stick it in a cupboard you know 20 years and it's worth a million dollars not in the cupboard but you get my point scotch all that has to take place in the barrel some of the popular drinks made with scotch would be rob roy rusty nail godfather blood and sand for the longest time a lot of bartenders wouldn't try to make cocktails with scotch you know it's it's tricky you have to have you know have to really be skilled to do that but today's mixologists they work magic with scotch [Music] jameson's is the most popular irish whiskey in the world in order to be an irish whiskey it has to be made on the island of ireland can be made in timbuktu no offense timbuktu but if you do it the same way using the same ingredients you cannot call it an irish whiskey irish whiskeys have to be barreled for a minimum of three years and they gotta be bottled at at least forty percent alcohol okay um some very popular drinks that use irish whiskey would be irish coffee that's that's a star um green tea shots pickleback shots um irish whiskey sours um irish mule which is a twist on a moscow meal you replace the vodka with irish whiskey works just as well delicious [Music] this right here is american bourbon okay now here are the rules for bourbon that's going to be sold and consumed in united states of america it must be at least 51 corn after it's distilled it got to be aged in new charred oak barrels for a certain amount of time now notice when i said you know this bourbon for the american market because other countries can make bourbons according to their rules however they can't sell it in america in order for it to be bourbon in america it has to follow those rules some of the more popular bourbon drinks that you might know would be brown derby oh that's a delicious one hot toddy bourbon old-fashioned bourbon whiskey sours delicious and when you walk into a bar in america and you said hey uh give me a shot of whiskey the bartender i mean he should ask because we see such a broad category he'd give you a bourbon whereas in europe they'd give you scotch in order to be rye it must contain 51 percent rye when it's distilled okay and much like bourbon it cannot be distilled to more than eighty percent it's usually bottled at around forty percent and it has to spend time after distillation in the new oak chard barrel the taste of rye a lot of people find a little bit more peppery than bourbon popular drinks that contain rye would be a sazerac that's a classic also a valkyrie that's also a classic i probably pronounce it wrong because i got an accent but just google it this right here is a miscellaneous category you notice jack daniels front and center and some of you go wait a minute isn't jack daniels suburban john daniels is not a bourbon this is a tennessee whiskey made from a sour mash now in trade deals more often than not jack daniels is listed under bourbons but it is not a bourbon okay this is uniquely tennessee um over here we have crown royal which is a canadian whiskey and then in the back here you have a japanese whiskey this is actually made from coffee grains okay and then you have a white whiskey these do exist okay because remember now a lot of these whiskeys some of them do have coloring on it but they pull their color from the barrels that they're stored in okay that's what gives them that brown look depending on the particular type of whisky common flavors can include smoky to robust sweet to spicy it's all over the board whiskey is usually seen in spirit forward drinks or serves straight since whiskey is such a broad category when it comes to buying a bottle for your home bar or for a party it's better to go with what you like and just convince your friends to try it [Music] brandy brandy is from a dutch word meaning burnt wine okay and it's served in this glass which is called a snifter now here's the cool thing about a sniffer if you lean it to the side and it fits perfectly okay that is the perfect serving for your snifter and then you pick it up like this and the heat from your hands helps to release some of that aroma okay as you sip i don't exactly sip brandy but it's good pretty potent too so what is a brandy exactly a brandy is made by distilling fermented fruit okay more often than not that fermented fruit would be grapes okay so that's why it's called burnt wine now let's get into cognac cognac is a brandy but it's from the cognac region of france so they're only people in the world who allowed to call their brandies cognacs okay then over here we have an armagnac which is from the armagnac region of france and they're the only people in the world allowed to call their brandies armagnac by the way this bottle was nearly a hundred bucks okay like i said brandy could be uh distilled from any fermented fruit so this right here is an apple brandy and you could have pure brandy you could have mango brandy whatever i've never seen a mango brandy but it is possible now on the ma the markings on the more expensive brandy bottles you'll notice stuff like vs what does that vs stand for it says very it means very special here on this christian brothers bottle which is one of the cheapest brandies i've ever found it means very smooth which makes me ask many questions about this here said brandy okay then you sometimes see vsop and that stands for very superior old pale and then you see x oh that's extra old okay when you see x-o dig in your wallet because it's going to be expensive matter of fact louis the 13th which is a cognac very popular cognac amongst the rich and famous or those who try to show off i think that starts at about two grand a bottle just to give you an idea some bars would sell about a shot and a shot of that would be you know over a hundred bucks depending on the bar some of the more popular brandy drinks would be brandy alexander psycho incredible hulk yes right okay y'all going wait incredible hulk isn't that like hennessy so remember cognacs are brandies so if you've had remy martin cavacier hennessy you've had a brandy because brandies are typically sipped you don't see them in a ton of cocktails so if you're new to the brandyworld start with a bottle of cognac but be careful they can get really expensive welcome to the world of liqueurs like we said with liqueurs okay you take a liquor and then you add in a sweetener okay and often time that sweetness follow with a lot of different flavors and colors so you for instance now you have strawberry it's like a strawberry snap strawberry pucker blue curacao blue coloring is added and it's orange flavored okay midori green coloring is added it's melon flavored so there's a lot of fun stuff sweet stuff in the liqueur category one thing that confuses people about liqueurs is this okay this says creme de cassis that's creme de blackcurrant or whatever okay i don't speak french creme de banano so when you hear creme in in french creme means cream but these are not creams they just tend to be a little bit more syrupy okay than than a lot of other liqueurs maybe not even a little bit more but they they carry the name creme and then it tells you the flavor afterwards decassis meaning black currant de banana meaning banana see i'm not that bad at french okay and on over here you actually do have the creams like bailey's irish cream this is actually a cream or godiva chocolate this is actually a chocolate cream super cool a lot of people don't think of kahlua as being a liqueur but it is okay there's a ton of sweetness and stuff going on inside here the base of this is rum actually and then they come behind with the coffee sweetener and add that in a lot of people look at liquids and go oh man i don't drink liquors they're too weak really really really my friend because let me introduce you to 99 okay 99 is a liqueur and this is 49.5 alcohol this is ultra potent we use this in jungle juices when we're trying to kill people okay another one that really throws people is my friend campari from the amaro category the word tomorrow means bitter so when you think that you go wait a minute these are bitter sky there's no way they could be liquors because liqueurs are sweet campari okay is a liqueur because it was sweetened and then somehow the way the way it's produced it was bittered is that a verb i was i was bitter i don't know okay it's a new word okay just use it it was made bitter but campari is is a liqueur so guys now you know what all these bottles are and you understand the difference between a liquor and a liqueur and just remember many great cocktails use a combination of liquors and liqueurs for instance a margarita the lick is the tequila the liqueur is triple sec cointreau grand marnier okay in an adios a real party drink the liquor vodka rum gin tequila and then you come behind that with the liqueur my favorite right here blue curacao to give you that nice blue with an orange flavor so they used in combination and you could have a ton of fun so liquors are just as important as liquors don't let anyone tell you otherwise so have them see me stay tipsy

Channel: Tipsy Bartender

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Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022