JELLY BLOG Episode 1: BALANCE
There are many elements to taste. Taste evokes feeling, memory, passion, and sense of place. Taste can lift our mood, focus the mind, and renew the spirit.
“I don’t like sweet.” “I have a more bitter palette.” “That’s just my preference.” These are some of the phrases that I hear, not just from guests, but throughout the bar industry.
We learn to view the idea of balance on a sliding scale depending on the time of day, the mood, the overarching social palette. In the end, bartenders are left with a vague, impossible to understand concept of balance, leading to muddled wayward cocktails with flavors that in no way taste as the menu advertises.
BALANCE is the single most crucial element of bar craft and BALANCE is objective. A cocktail is either balanced, or it is not. It has nothing to do with personal preference. It is a tool that all bartenders should know how to use, but we never talk about it and no one ever teaches it. This creates a vicious cycle where the overwhelming majority of our industry is hopelessly lost in the art of intelligent bar craft.
I came to understand balance by way of the kitchen. In my last year of Culinary School, after taking every other possible class, the final hurdle was Saucier, the art of sauce. Seriously. All we did for 6 months was make sauces. Sauce on sauce on sauce (sounds like a Friday night at the bar).
We made ALL the sauces. Classics, modern, even sauces that could take an entire month to prepare. In classical saucier there is a definitive flavor. The taste of a basic sauce is the flavor, is the flavor, is the flavor. For example, a bechamel sauce (milk sauce) has a particular flavor, texture, and consistency. In the kitchen, bechamel is used like language. The sauce should be the same no matter where you are cooking, no matter for whom, no matter what the personal palate of the person cooking it. A properly prepared bechamel will taste basically the same no matter who makes it.
Its like learning to drive a car. If you learn the rules of the road, pretty much everyone knows the protocol and operates at a stop light the same way. You don’t keep driving through a red light simply because in your personal opinion you feel the red color is more of a “crimson-rouge” and therefore doesn’t mean the same thing. It seems crazy that people would be subjective about the hues of a stop light and only stop or go depending on personal preference. This is the same for learning the flavor of a classic sauce. They all have a particular taste, texture, and overall defining balance. In the kitchen the concept of understanding balance objectively is mandatory. To cook, one must learn to wield flavors in a mechanical way. Otherwise, producing dishes with any level of coherence would be impossible. When we learn how to recognize the sensations on our palette, how that translates to flavor, and use them to form balance, we learn to speak in the common language of flavor.
Years later, after obsessively tasting, analyzing, and general mucking about behind the bar, I have begun to teach palate training among my peers. In Episode 1, I will walk through the basics of the Art of Balance.
SHAKEN VS STIRRED
Most cocktails can be grouped into 2 categories. Stirred or Shaken. Stirred drinks are generally all booze cocktails, like the Manhattan or Negroni. Shaken drinks usually contain some sort of sour juice element paired with something sweet like a Daiquiri.
SHAKEN
At the simplest level, a shaken drink relies on balancing sour and sweet.
Acid flavor is also known as Sour. Acid on the palette has a distinct sensation. It runs down the center of the tongue and has a sharp, cutting sensation. When in balance, acid has a pleasant sensation in the middle of the palate that is lively and vibrant. It makes you want to smile. It tastes as if the world has immediately become a little more colorful. When out of balance, that cutting sensation becomes unpleasant, sort of like a paper cut.
SUGAR is the counter weight to sour. It is also known as SWEET. Sugar adds weight, voluptuousness, depth, and richness to a cocktail. On the palate, the sensation of sugar is on the sides of the tongue. It will roll out and provide a rich weight and full mouth feel. In balance, it as if Barry White has started playing. Everything becomes fully formed and there is an air of luxury and indulgence. Like being in a breezy disco where everything is covered in rich crushed velvet and that sultry Barry baritone.
PALATE SENSATIONS
of Shaken Drinks
A shaken drink that is in balance with acid and sugar will have a vibrant, cheerful movement in the middle of the palette. It will be pleasant, but not cutting. It will have a pleasant weight on the sides of the palate and feel fully formed without being be so heavy as to rest stagnant on the tongue. When these elements are balanced, the pleasing blend of sensations will lift your spirit and bring a smile to your face.
Balancing shaken drinks is about creating harmony between the sensations of acid and sugar. Every drink is different. Craft bartending is an organic art. We work with living ingredients. Every fruit will taste different depending on the season, storage, variety. Even the fresh juice will change flavor over the course of its life. Balance however, does not change. It is up to the bartender to use their palate to recognize how the living ingredients in cocktails interact with each other every day and adjust accordingly to create the same balance every time despite constantly changing variables.
BALANCE
of Shaken Cocktails
The next time you taste a shaken cocktail for balance, hold it on your palate and objectively evaluate the sensations you perceive. What is the sensation in the middle of the palate? Is it pleasing and bright, or cutting? On the side of the tongue, is it luxurious and round, or sluggish and heavy? Lastly, are those two sensations in harmony together? If not, drop by drop, add a bit more acid to liven up the sugar, or add more sugar to tamper down the acid. When in harmony, the sensations will make you want to dance and your guests, may not know why, but they will feel an extra bit of joy drinking your cocktails.
EXERCISE 1: SOUR BALANCE
Tools:
3 Cups (A, B, and C)
Lemon Juice (about 6 oz)
Simple Syrup 1:1 (about 6oz) –make by dissolving 4oz sugar in 4 oz hot water)-
Jigger
Set up two cups side by side.
CUP A : 1oz Lemon Juice + .5oz Simple
CUP B: .5oz lemon Juice + 1oz Simple
Taste each cup side by side and pay attention to your sensations of the palate.
Cup A is too SOUR. It will be aggressive and bright. There will be an unpleasant cutting sensation on the middle of the tongue.
Cup B is too SWEET. It will feel heavy and sluggish on the palate. “Flabby.”
Next, balance each cup by adding simple or lemon juice in small amounts. Sometimes balance can be as small as a drop or two, so go slowly and taste frequently. Add Simple Syrup to Cup A and Lemon Juice to Cup B until both have balanced sensations. Quick, lively, and slightly cutting on the center of the palate, but not unpleasant, with a freely moving and pleasingly decadent fullness on the sides of the palate that is not sluggish or overwhelming.
When you are satisfied that both A & B are in balance (they should taste exactly the same) start a third.
Cup C: .75oz Lemon Juice + .75oz Simple
Taste cup C and compare to A & B. Is C in balance? It could be. It could also be a little sour or overly sweet. Jiggering is not a guarantee of balance. Juice tastes different every day. Jiggering can get us in the ball park, but the bartender must use their palate to dial in the flavor each time. Use your palate to make sure Cup C taste just like A &B.
STIRRED
Stirred cocktails present a different set of challenges. Stirred cocktails for the most part, are cocktails that contain no juice. Most of the time, they are a combination of spirits, secondary liqueurs, sweeteners, and bitters. In general, these types of cocktails are more enjoyable through the preparation of stirring because dilution is far more nuanced a process than shaking. Spirit forward cocktails are more about the balance of texture than aeration.
One of the pros of stirred cocktails is that they are far more consistent with jiggering than shaken drinks. The difficulty comes with understanding dilution. As with balancing fresh ingredients, the dilution of every stirred cocktail is different. Ice has a life of its own, just like our fresh ingredients. The shape of the ice, the type of stirring vessel, the temper, even how long said ice has been in the well will all influence dilution.
In addition, every spirit has a unique optimal dilution. There is no one size fits all approach to dilution. Every spirit has a different peak dilution, some need more water, some need less, and the number of stirs is all affected by tools, shape of ice, climate in the bar, etc. It is the bartender’s job to be master of this process and achieve the perfect unique dilution for every cocktail, every time.
All spirits have suspended oils and unique volatile compounds called congeners in them. An example of a congener is the vanilla flavor imparted from barrel aging a spirit, or it can be flavor compounds left over from the distilling process, like the distinct malt flavor of a grain-based spirit. These oils hold in them all the distinct flavors and aromas that make a spirit unique. Adding water to a spirit is sometimes called “opening” or “blooming” and is used to unlock the velvety pleasing texture and full array of tastes and aromas. Many times, it is impossible to enjoy the full character of a spirit without opening it up. In fact, it is standard practice of most distillers and professional tasters to add water in order to get the most accurate evaluation of a spirit.
Stirring drinks is the act of carefully adding water until the cocktail is “bloomed” perfectly. Although dilution changes from cocktail to cocktail, all dilution follows the same progression of flavors that allows the bartender to find the sweet spot every time. By tasting often and paying attention to this progression of flavors, it is possible to prepare a perfectly stirred cocktail every time. I call this progression of flavors, The Arc of Dilution
EXERCISE 2 BALANCE STIRRED
Tools:
2oz of an American whiskey of choice (bourbon, rye, whatever)
4 dashes of angostura bitters
0.25oz raw sugar syrup (combine equal parts raw sugar and hot water, stir to dissolve)
1 orange peel expressed over the top for garnish
1 Rock glass
1 stirring glass
1Stirrer
1Julep Strainer
Ice to stir with and ice to serve with
Combine the ingredients in a stirring vessel and taste. Hold it on your tongue and pay attention to the type of flavors and sensations that you have. With no dilution, the spirit is “HOT” meaning it is vaporous of straight alcohol. It has a slight burning sensation at the back of palate and nose. It is also relatively one note because none of the flavor has been bloomed.
Add ice to the stirring vessel and stir a little until it becomes slightly chilled. Taste again, you will find that the drink has changed. The alcohol is slightly more tamed, but the drink will taste overly BITTER, tannic, and incoherent, as if all the parts have not melded together yet. It’s like licking wood. Yuck! Splinters in my tongue!
Keep stirring, tasting often, after a bit more stirring you will find that the drink tastes “flabby.” It is heavy and sluggish on the palate and tastes way too SWEET. Most bartenders stop stirring at this point. Rather than creating balance, they are convinced that most of the time drinks are “too sweet” and thus will cut the sugar or even omit the sweet elements of a drink. The result is an under stirred, unbalanced, and pretty depressing cocktail. Forge onward and keep stirring. The drink tasting too sweet is the sign that it is almost ready. This is the most crucial phase of dilution. One must use one's skills and senses to discern the sweet spot. When it tastes too sweet, after a bit more stirring the entire flavor profile of the drink will change completely. It will taste pleasingly dry, but still have a full mouth feel. It will not be sweet and all of the elements of the cocktail will taste harmonious. At this point the drink is complete and ready to be strained off into an appropriate serving glass. For an old fashioned, serve on the rocks.
Stirring also has visual cues that can help you dial in the dilution of a cocktail. It is easiest to get a sense of these cues by practicing with aged spirits. When you first build the drink, it will have a glossy clear hue. When the drink reached it’s peak and the oils in the spirits have been properly opened up, the drink will suddenly take on a slightly cloudy sheen. It will go back to looking glassy and bright after it has been over diluted.
Balance is tricky, it takes time, thoughtfulness, and a keen ability to understand sensory information. Balance is common in the kitchen and considered a mandatory skill, yet the conversation about balance and the practical method to understanding it stops at the bar. However, balance is they key between making a so-so drink and creating the grand theatre that takes a drink from being just a drink to an experience. A well-balanced drink is an expression of living harmoniously in the present. To Spirits, Joy, and good company. Cheers!--
