Bartender Mixes 5 Levels of Whiskey Cocktails | Bon Appétit

hi I'm Tim Sweeney head bartender here at Pebble bar today I'm going to show you different levels of whiskey cocktails starting from the easiest to one of the hardest but there's an infinite number of ways that you can make a cocktail sometimes it's just putting a few ingredients together in a glass but as you add tools and techniques that becomes more complex so you're going to be seeing that from level one to level five as we go so we're going Book of Genesis here whiskey high ball is about as simple as it gets what it is is a whiskey plus mixer on ice so when it comes to pouring for this the tool that I am going to use is a measuring tool and your jiggers half ounce three quarters of an ounce one ounce two ounce if you're at home you can find whatever you have in your measuring drawer to use a shot glass is an ounce and a half first thing you need is going to be ice ice is crucial to pretty much any cocktail you're going to make about four to five cubes we're filling it up so it's a little under the brim there the more ice you put in the slower it's going to dilute so when it comes to making this cocktail my go-to would be the bourbon bourbon I think has more universality it's a little bit sweeter let's go with two ounces the idea of when you're pouring to the top is to get a perfect meniscus that little bulb that goes right up over so it's not spilling and then once it gets right over there that's the objective time to actually dump it out this is why I feel this cocktail is one that most people can actually make better at home than you're going to find at most bars when you go to a bar often you're going to find club soda on the gun now you're trusting them to have the perfect carbonation on it I think your best is going with a bottle well I wouldn't say there's a rule about ratio because you can make it as stiff or as light as you'd like I would say three to one would be kind of the rule of thumb I've already met measured my whiskey so what I don't have to measure is my club soda doesn't need to be mixed does it need to be stirred it's going to take care of that itself if you already got the ice in there the whiskey is going to rise so traditionally if you say whiskey high ball you're referring to a whiskey and club soda or sparkling water but you can replace that with ginger ale very very common drink what I like with mine is a lemon twist now a Twist gives it that little hint if you don't believe that this does much get yourself a glass of water put a lemon twist in it you're going to taste the difference but a plague upon your house if you put a lime on there don't ever put a lime on a whiskey eyeball and there you have it your quintessential whiskey highball all right moving on to level two the paper plane this is a level two cocktail because we're going to add shaking we're going to add straining it's not the most difficult though because we're using four ingredients that are equal parts a paper plane is a modern classic a really crushable summertime cocktail very refreshing you might not even notice that it's whiskey when you're tasting it this cocktail did not exist 20 years ago and now you can find it pretty much at any bar worth its salt we need a Shaker tin we're going to need a traditionally I'm going to start by putting the ingredients in if I put the ice in I don't want to sit there and melt I'm going to start with my small Shaker tin and I'm going to do three quarters of an ounce of my cheapest ingredient lemon juice if I make a mistake if something happens if it gets knocked over we have lost less money and taken less of a loss if it's only the cheapest ingredients in there next I'm going to move to the aperol so aperol is an aperitif it's known as an Amaro we're going to have some bitterness with the aperol three quarters Amaro no nino this is a bit lighter and fruitier and these are much lower ABV that's alcohol by volume then your whiskey is going to be your whiskey is going to be considered your base spirit in this one it's got the most dominance Next Step Bourbon and three quarter three quarter three quarter three quarter we have three ounces of booze sitting right here now we're ready to add ice let's start shaking I was taught five to seven ice cubes for a regular drink is the way to go coop Holly hell let's do it so I bring it to an ear like you're throwing a football and it's quick wrap it like start stop I try to keep my hands here or maybe possibly here if I'm doing it because I don't want my 98.6 degree hand to affect the cocktail as I'm shaking it Citrus loves agitation so when I'm shaking pretty much a lemon or a lime cocktail the best way to do is to hear those little bits of Ice start splitting off should we pop it off in the opposite direction so when it comes to straining we're using a Hawthorne strainer this beautiful creature like this pretty easy you put it right on it's got that little Gizmo to push forward to make sure it's as tight as possible not going to get any of those ice chips as you pour it out so you should have that good froth on it so the one thing I'll say about this glass being up is that nothing more is going to happen to this cocktail once you pour it so the cocktail has to come out perfectly there you have it the paper plane we're going to that level three cocktail the Night Train this is a level three cocktail because we're involving stirring the stirring might look easier than shaking shaking looks sexier let's be honest but actually it's going to involve more technique than shaking ever does because your dilution process has to be perfect so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get my mixing glass I love seeing my cocktail some people say metal is better because it actually makes it colder this is a personal preference so when you're stirring a cocktail you're just trying to chill and dilute it when you shake a cocktail you change the entire texture of it you're going to add air when you shake you're going to get a much more crystalline cocktail when you stir you're going to get a very cloudy cocktail when you shake first thing I'm going to do add my dash of bitters so what we have here is a Margot valet bitter so this has a real sharpness bitters are the spice rack of the bar they're going to add that little extra flavor where it's needed just one dash for this we're going to do a half ounce of Amaro chilcharo marocho Charo is probably the sweetest and darkest part of this composition also going to go to a half ounce of China chinar is a very very low AB Amaro it's got that artichoke in it definitely has that bitterness what you want for this is an overproof whiskey bourbon works and Rye works as long as it's overproof meaning it's over 50 percent alcohol content by volume so as our base Spirit much like a Manhattan we're going with two ounces of this want to get that perfect meniscus over it this is in a Nick and Nora I don't want to really dilute this too much I want it chilled more than diluted we know there's three ounces of booze in here we know that this is a five ounce glass ideally I should do it so about four and a half ounces are filled in this glass you never want the glass completely filled somebody told me once a full glass is sloppy not generous once I add this ice I'm going to start stirring pretty much immediately because time is of the essence once I do this let's put about that much in it and we're going to start stirring so when you use a spoon the most important thing is to make sure your spoon is going on the outer rim of it you never want it to cut across your goal is also to make it so it's all in the wrist if your elbow is moving you're going to be doing it wrong hopefully I haven't overdone it what I like to do is put ice in the top because it's the last blast of chill that this drink is going to get it's the Hawthorne strainer as we described earlier lovely getting that little bit of orange with this cocktail stemmed glassware so that you're not going to make it warm I gave you the Night Train so this cocktail is pretty much completely naked once it comes out there's no ice in it it's not going to change form whatever you've put in that glass is the cocktail someone's getting so it has to be absolutely perfect [Music] level four the vucare we're calling it a level four cocktail here because we're doing six ingredients we're stirring it we're gonna put it on a large ice block that's stamped as well so we're implementing a new tool to the repertoire the stamp starting with a mixing glass as before now like we said the spice rack of the bar what is the granddaddy of all spices the angostura it is the most popular one that you're going to find Pei shots bitters got a little bit more sweetness than the angostura next I'm adding benedictines a French herbal liqueur it's got 27 different herbs spices flowers Etc we only know 21 of them but God they're good so quarter will not fill to the top here it'll go to that first line moving on we're going to do sweet vermouth sweet vermouth is a fortified red wine must be refrigerated once opened one full ounce yeah next we have lovely cognac which is a French Brandy used from distilling wine and then comes the spice Rye is the best choice for vucare as a matter of fact bourbon I'm going to say is a no-go I want that rye spice one ounce then one of the most beautiful things you can have to make your drinks gorgeous is the heavyweight ice so ice is vital to this system and finding the right ice this is the slow dilution is so good for this cocktail because I want the full flavor of these spirits and then we have the stamp copper is a conductor so what we have here is our Pebble Bar logo you set it on there you can either press down make it quick or you can let it sit there for about 20 seconds I see bartenders all the time who stamp it and then their drink goes immediately into it all that water that's come from the stamp is sitting at the bottom of your glass right now please pour out that extra water it makes a difference in your drink we're going to add our rice now and start stirring on this I don't want to dilute it any more than it has to be because I want this to be a strong cocktail I like to top it off so it's cold as possible Hawthorne strainer coming to save the day again and here if you look we have the PB stamp perfectly on top of it God bless New Orleans the vucare we're doing level five one of my Personal Creations the Crimson and Clover so this is a level five cocktail because we're going to be emulsifying egg white we're going to be double shaking it we're going to be using two kinds of strainer on this and at the end if I've done my job the cocktail must look gorgeous it's tart and fruity it has a little bit of sweetness but what the egg is going to do is going to dry it out and kind of draw back that sweetness the egg is also going to add that froth to the cocktail that we really want on top so we're going back to shaking on this first thing is the egg now we're just going to use the whites of this egg many different techniques for getting the egg white out I'm going to do the back back fourth and fourth and that'll be if you had to measure it about an ounce of egg white in there next I'm going to dash my angle quarter ounce of raspberry puree next we're going to go with a half ounce of simple syrup what I like to do is kind of leave that puree in there it's going to stick so the simple syrup will kind of help drain that excess out three quarters lemon juice so what we have here is a bit of a whiskey sour concoction with the simple and the lemon next we're using Port now porridge is adding brandy or other spirits to a fortified wine to give it kind of this sweet and fruity texture three quarters of an ounce of that so love the tealing is kind of the perfect perfect whiskey for this this is Irish whiskey so what I'm going to start is with a dry shake that means it's a shake without ice I want to get all those ingredients good and mix it looks like a beautiful strawberry milkshake already all mixed up now we're gonna do the white Shake I like filling my ice in the opposite side of where the liquid is that way if you get distracted something goes wrong it's not sitting there just diluting now this is one of those cocktails when I pour it out you wait 20 seconds it's going to look better in 20 or 25 seconds than it looks right now because it's going to separate as it goes second strainer here is a fine strainer some people use this religiously for a lot of cocktails I don't I think it brings cocktails back to temperature there's two instances where I use it I use it if I'm muddling something such as Mint or Jalapeno in here or I use it for an egg white because I find it gives me that great separation at the end of the cocktail and then we're going to garnish using this dried raspberry powder it's going to give it kind of a watercolor effect so I'm putting this on one side as a Choose Your Own Adventure so the presentation adds to this drink and makes it a level 5 cocktail this is one of those cocktails that when it comes out in the bar people turn and go oh what's that proud of that one so this gives you a good Spectrum from level one to level five anybody can make a cocktail and as you start introducing new techniques and new instruments to what you're doing you can start advancing up the ranks and eventually you might be making gorgeous cocktails and that's why I do what I do I think a level one cocktail can taste as good as a level five absolutely I don't think it's necessarily about taste uh no wait it is about taste well okay yeah yeah you're right it's 100 about taste

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 126,091

Keywords: 5 levels, 5 levels of cocktails, 5 levels of whiskey, best whiskey cocktails, best whisky cocktails, bon app, bon appetit, bourbon whiskey cocktails, classic whiskey cocktails, easy whiskey cocktails, food, old fashioned cocktail, simple cocktails, simple whiskey cocktails, whiskey, whiskey cocktail, whiskey cocktail recipe, whiskey cocktail recipes, whiskey cocktails, whiskey sour, whisky, whisky cocktail recipes, whisky cocktails

Id: Heqc86gRSDU

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023