What is Your Favorite TOTR Cocktail? 100K Cocktail Compilation

What's up my friends, welcome back to the channel. Today is a special episode and it marks a very important milestone. It's the first video that I shoot since I received my 100,000 subscribers YouTube award. You know, when I uploaded my first video, just the thought of having eventually that many people watching my videos seemed super out of reach. But fast forward to today, after shooting in 3 different countries, in more than 6 different sets and after shooting more than 300 different cocktail recipes, here we are, with more than 100,000 people who hit that subscribe button and supporting the channel, which is completely mind blowing to me. So I'm gonna tell you this from the bottom of my heart, really, I mean it, thank you so much, I love you. Now, to celebrate and mark this occasion, I thought it would be super fun to make 3 of my favorite cocktails from the channel. It was really hard to pick only 3 though, but the ones I chose are the ones I go back the more often to when I want to have something truffles on the rocks like. So I guess they're kind of my favorites. So if you guys are ready, let's make 3 tasty truffles on the rocks cocktails. Let's go! Okay, so the first cocktail on the list today is the Clarified New York Sour. This one is really dear to my heart for many reasons. First of all, I'm not fully comfortable saying I created this cocktail, but when I look, I can't find any older mention of a Clarified New York Sour prior to the one I shared here on the channel a little more than 3 years ago. But even though I may or may not have created it, it's the first cocktail that really got traction on the channel and I know for a fact it really contributed to the new rise of fame of the Clarified cocktails and I'm pretty proud about this. Now, if you missed this video back then or if you want to make it again because it's a tasty cocktail, that's what we're gonna do right now. The specs I'm gonna give you today is for 5 servings, but obviously if you want to make a smaller batch or a bigger batch, you simply divide or multiply all the ingredients by the same ratio. So we're gonna start with bourbon and we're gonna add 300 ml for 5 Clarified New York Sours. To that, we're gonna add 150 ml of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 120 ml of simple syrup. Then in another container, we're gonna add 5 oz of whole milk and pour our cocktail over the milk. It's gonna start to curdle right away and the curds are going to trap a lot of the tannins, some of the rough edges, especially from the acidity and the result will be a super smooth cocktail. But before we need to filter it, and I'm gonna use today because it's a bigger batch, my nut milk bag, but you can also use a large fine mesh strainer with about 4 layers of cheesecloth. But whatever technique you're using, the first ounces will always be cloudy. So what you need to do is to leave some time for the curdles to settle at the bottom of your filter or your bag and then your liquid will be clear. So that's gonna be your cue to switch vessel and leave that filtering till the end. What you're gonna do with your cloudy liquid is slowly pouring it back over the unfiltered mixture little by little during the filtration process. And buckle up, when you make a larger batch like this, it takes several hours. So I highly recommend you start your batch one day before. Then when your punch is fully filtered, there's two options for you. If you don't want to drink it right away, I recommend you add already 20% dilution to your cocktail. So that would be for every 250 ml of punch, 50 ml of water. Give it a brief stir, bottle it up and place it in the fridge until you're ready to drink it. A batch of clarified milk punch like this has a very long shelf life. If you keep it in the fridge, it will stay good almost forever. Just keep in mind, if it smells good, it's still good. But if you want to drink it right away, what I like to do is to pour two and a half ounces in a mixing glass, fill it up with ice and give it a brief stir for about 10 seconds. Then we're simply going to pour this over a big block of clear ice and we're going to add a half an ounce or 15 ml of red wine. Pouring the wine over a big block of clear ice like this will really help to make a perfect float. And there have it, the clarified New York sour. Cheers! Aside from being one of the most beautiful cocktails ever, I think it's super tasty. The milk washed whiskey sour is super straightforward but also extremely smooth. And the addition of the red wine brings a lot of flavors and complexity to the drink. I highly recommend you use a heavily oaked red wine. That's going to bring a lot of the tannins and wood flavors back that may be muted because of the milk clarification. This is my tip to make the best clarified New York sour. If you never tried it before, I hope you're gonna like it. Now let's make the second cocktail of the day. Let's make the Little Whip. I created this cocktail in 2015 for the Canadian finals of the world-class cocktail competition. I had the chance back then to compete against some of the best Canadian bartenders, but also to be judged by some of the icons of our industry. Julie Reiner, Dale DeGroff, Jeff Bell, Tony Abuganian and Charles Julie, just to name a few. And while I love this cocktail, it also reminds me of that day, that competition and how much I love our industry. I felt throughout the process of this competition more sharing and caring than competition vibes and I think it really shows how beautiful our industry is and I love it. Now the recipe for this cocktail is very simple and while I usually write it in the description below, this one is going to be different. It's going to be on a cocktail app, Cocktail Ariam. Cocktail Ariam is a free cocktail app available for both Android and iPhones. It lists more than 200 different cocktail recipes and it's constantly updated. It's easy and fun to use. Most of the cocktails also come with a picture, which really sets this app apart, but it doesn't stop there. Here's my favorite feature. You can enter your own bar inventory and the app will tell you all the cocktails you can make with your bottles. It will also suggest you things like if you get one more bottle, you'll be able to make this or that many more cocktails. The developer is super passionate and responsive. You can even ask him or request some features to be added. As I said, the app is free, so there's absolutely no reason not to try it. That said, if you want to support the app and the developer, you can do it too. All the info will be in the description and pinned comment below. So thank you very much Cocktail Ariam for sponsoring this episode, but now let's make the little wing. We're going to start with one ounce or 30 mils of bourbon. Then we're going to add cucumbers. We're going to make two long slices for the cocktail and one for the garnish. Then with a muddler, we're going to extract all the juice and flavors from the cucumber. And yes, for the funny ones who are planning on some silly comments below, there's some flavors in the cucumber, okay? That being said, now we're going to add one ounce or 30 mils of St. Germain. Same amount of Aperol. Same of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Now we're going to fill the shaker with ice and give it a good shake for about 10 seconds. Now we're going to fine strain it in a cocktail coupe and garnish it with a cucumber slice. And there you have it, my friends, the little wing. Before we try it, I need to take a picture for the app. So you probably noticed it's a riff on the paper plane. For the competition, we had to make a riff on a modern classic, so I used the paper plane as my template. But I used St. Germain instead of Amaro Naninho, and I threw a couple of slices of cucumber in there. The result is something very bright, light, refreshing, slightly floral, and less bitter than the original. The addition of the cucumber makes it even brighter, and it adds something savory, almost briny, and I really love it. So that's it for the little wing. I hope you're going to like it. Now let's make the third cartel of the day. Let's make the Meanwhile in Bali. This one I chose it simply because it's a riff on one of my favorite classic, the Daiquiri. But also because I really feel it transcends my style of cocktail making. Unusual flavors, modern mixology techniques, but yet pretty simple. To make this one today, we're going to need two house-made ingredients, pandan syrup and coconut washed rum. For the pandan syrup, I'm going to link the recipe video up here that's going to make it shorter for today's video. But for the fat wash, because I think it's really beautiful to watch, we're going to make a batch today. So we're going to start in a jar with four parts of light white rum, and we're going to add to that one part of melted coconut oil. Make sure to use an oil that's not deodorized, otherwise you're not going to get the coconut flavors. Then you're going to stir or shake gently your mixture. Leave it resting at room temperature for a couple of hours or until the fat has completely separated. Otherwise, if you put it in the freezer before that, it's going to make a cloudy rum. Once it's fully separated, you can place it in the freezer. Little pro tip here, flip your container upside down. So that way your fat is going to solidify at the bottom of your container, which is going to make it much easier when you're going to strain it. When you do so, if you do it after you left it resting, make sure to be very gentle not to mix the ingredients together once again. Then you place it in the freezer until the fat is completely solidified. Once you're there, you're simply going to open up the jar, filter it through a very fine mesh strainer or a coffee filter, bottle it, and this is how we make the coconut washed light rum. Then for the cocktail, we're going to start in a shaker with two ounces or 60 mils of coconut rum, three quarters of an ounce or 22.5 mils of pendant syrup, quarter ounce of apricot liqueur, and one full ounce or 30 mils of freshly squeezed lime juice. We're going to shake it over ice for about 10 seconds. Fine strain in a cocktail coupe or in this case a beautiful vintage Nick and Nora, and garnish with a pendant leaf. And there you have it, the Meanwhile in Bali. Cheers. This is incredibly good, honestly. Yesterday I tried it without the apricot liqueur just for fun because I wanted to make just a plain daiquiri with coconut rum and pendant syrup. And while it was good, just a small addition of the apricot liqueur, just that little amount changes everything. It makes all the flavors pop. The coconut and the pendant are more present. It adds a slightly fruity feel to the drink. It's still perfectly balanced, not too sweet, super refreshing. I really love this cocktail. Unusual flavor pairings, modern mixology technique, yet very simple cocktail. This is my style. So my friends, this is it for me today. Thank you very much for watching. I hope you like this video. Leave a thumbs up if you did. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you're not already. Turn that bell if you want to make sure not to miss the next one. Until then, thank you very much again. Have a great day. And don't forget to go and download that Cocktail R.E.M. app. I'm telling you, you won't regret it. So again, thank you very much. Have a great day and see you very soon. Cheers.