Designing Your Own Signature Cocktail 🍹

So I did a show once and there was like some sufficiently slow jam music playing and me and my buddy Justin belly up to the bar and it was like slow enough that I was able to do dad rhymes and after about like 30 seconds of it this dude three seats down looks over and goes, freestyling, eh? This episode of the Modern Rogue brought to you by Factor. Head on over to go.factor75.com Use promo code Rogue60 at checkout and get 60% off your first box of delicious food. We are back with award-winning beverage director Erin Ashford at Olamay. She's going to teach us how to freestyle. How to freestyle. With cocktails. You may not know this, Brian is a legitimate bartender. Are you? Yo, yeah. Great. We're gonna do the one, you're the one. Here we go. He's gonna break something. Okay, I was gonna say making cocktails. Well, yes, it's freestyling. It's more like jazz. So a classic cocktail is like a standard. It's like that is what you want to hit. But then there's so many options, a whole world of ingredients that you can plug in to add different things to make it your own. We're going to treat it like that today to make your own signature cocktail that is true to you. Okay, what are the fundamentals? What are the core components that I need to always keep in my mind if I'm going to invent something? So first of all, Otherwise it's going to be paint thinner on a Sprite. So what are the basics? What are the fundamentals of making your own drink? You want to think about what you like. What you don't like is a big part of it. You want to think about what you have on hand. It's very possible that you're like, I'm at home after work. I want to make a cocktail. I only have these few things. Or it might be it's Saturday. I am out on a mission to buy ingredients to make my own cocktail. What do I need? So like any basic cocktail, you would need a spirit, a citrus, a modifier, a sugar, and then maybe a lengthener. Really depends what you're doing. That's the recipe. She's given it to us again. We don't have a good mnemonic for it. Sophomore clamshell bitter. No. Hold on. Seismic. Clam bakes. No. You're making it worse. I kind of remembered it and now I'm just like clam bake. Some cool boys still look cool. Some cool boys still. Some cool boys still lose. You know what? That's it. Some cool boys still lose. There it is. That's your cocktail name. That's it. Yep, yep, yep. There you go. So I think the best way starting out is to pick a classic cocktail. Pick a standard. What do you want this to be? Do you want something that's like a margarita, a Manhattan, or do you want something that's sort of long like a Collins? Do you want chocolate ice cream? You want vanilla ice cream or you want chocolate and vanilla ice cream? Yes, Brian. You have to pick. Pick one. Okay, I'll do a margarita-based lime something. Margarita-based something. Great. What about you? What are you going to do? You know what? I would like the same thing but a mocktail. Okay, so then for the mocktail, let's use the slow look that we used in our mocktail and that'll be the replacement for the tequila. So we'll go with tequila. I'll eliminate other spirits because we're going to stick with tequila. I feel like we're doing a reality show. It's like, pack up your liters and leave. You gave your rose to tequila. You gave your rose to this non-alcoholic. That's where you are. So that's your base. Do you want lime or do you want to change it up? Yes, I got a personal apology from Skittles for ever getting rid of lime. But here's my question for you and I don't mean to push back, but tequila and lime, you're very close to a margarita. Your other options currently are lemon, grapefruit, pineapple, pomegranate. I'll stick with lime. Sticking with lime. So far, I'm just making a margarita. And for your mocktail? Marinara. Oh, I knew I was going to screw it up. Okay, for my mocktail, yeah, we're going with the slow. But instead of lime, pineapple. Pineapple. Okay, now we're going to move on to modifiers. You want something that's going to round out your cocktail besides sugar, that'll give it an extra element, something interesting. We pulled a few options. We have a blanc vermouth, which will be citrusy, juicy, like a sweet vermouth in how it's bitter and sweet. And then maletti, which has more of a caramel, butterscotch, bittersweet kind of entry level amaro. Aperol, which is kind of like the cousin to Campari. This will be really rhubarb, orange peel. Again, juicy, really refreshing, used a lot in spritzes. Amaro nonino. This is like grappa based amaro. That is a little more grippy than Aperol, has more like candied orange peel. And then just an orange liqueur, similar to like a dry curacao. Hey Jason, what do you want your bitter to be? I would like the Aperol. Aperol. Yeah. Perfect. We can use the non-alcoholic version. Hey, nice. So you have the option of Jafar. Okay. That is their answer to Aperol. Right on. It's the same flavor profile, but more like pomegranate, bitter orange peel. Okay. Soy sauce. What about Tabasco? Oystershire sauce? What about tajin? I'll allow it. So you have tequila, lime, and tajin. Yep. Which is almost a margarita. You have your spirit-free spirit, pineapple juice, and then a spirit-free aperitivo, which will give it some bitterness. So now we need sugar. So your options are regular simple syrup, honey, simple syrup, a demerara sugar, which is going to be darker, used in old fashions. And that's it. Those are your three choices. Whatever the darkest one was. What was that again? Demerara. It's kind of like turbinado sugar. It's like an unbleached- You can't take one made-up word and explain it by using another made-up word. Similar to like a brown sugar would be in baking. That's kind of what it is here. Yes. Has that like really caramelized rich flavor. Kind of a molasses-y. Okay, okay. That's what you want. Yep. I'm going to go with the honey. Honey. These are sounding very good. I think so too. Okay. So then for you, you have the option to add maybe another citrus or maybe another element like salt or things that are non-alcoholic that you could round out your cocktail. And then for you, you have the option to add maybe another modifier because you didn't add one. You have tahini, but that's more of a finished salt. You could add a modifier. You could add more citrus. You could also add bitters. I was about to say, please tell me it would be weird to put angosturo bitters in a margarita. No, it would be delicious. Okay. Oh yeah, no, that's a totally normal thing to do. Yeah. I need something weird. You're trying to be weird? Yeah. Celery bitters. Yes. Want that? Sorry. That was too loud. Wow. Okay. I have somebody who opens up a can of soup and then takes celery salt. You've gotten more than celery bitters? No. You've reacted to that. I don't know where that came from. That was a bit much. That was vehement. That's the one. Yeah. How are you feeling? Right now you have tequila, lime, demerara sugar, celery bitters with a tahini rim. Would it be too weird to do tonic water? No. Clam chowder. What? New England style margarita. If you have clam chowder, I will put that in. Should I look in the kitchen and see what's really weird? Yes, you should. I think you should. Yes, you should. It's not clam chowder, but I know we have something. If it's salty and tastes of the sea. This is good. What is this? It's conserva mushroom oil. Yes, yes. It's like oily mushrooms. It's perfect. Okay. Are you feeling? I don't know that I've ever felt more judged on this show. That's a real mushroom juice, dude. Mushroom juice. It's gonna be a great margarita. With tonic water. What? Very weird. It's an abomination. And then how are you feeling about your spirit-free pineapple aperitivo honey? Yeah. How are you feeling about your very delicious sounding? Pretty good. Does it need a little lime? I like that idea. Or do we need anything weird? Like some of the crispies from Long John Silver's to put in there? Or... And then let's talk about yours is margarita style. Does that mean are you wanting to shake this and top it with tonic? Or do you want to build it in the glass and top it with tonic? I'm thinking like a version of a margarita on the rocks. Maybe with that on the rim. Yeah. And then how would you like your cocktail served? In a glass. Okay. So mine is what? What do you think? So your options are kind of do you want it in a Collins glass? Like drank long, served long. Do you want it? Yeah. Up in a coupe. A flute. Ice, no ice? I'm thinking mine needs ice. Needs ice and is a slow drink. A slow long drink. So a Collins, I guess? Yeah. Then I think yours because there's no lengthener like bubbles or anything effervescent. It's just basically juice, the non-alcoholic spirit and honey, which is all pretty thick and viscous. I think it'll be good to shake yours and pour it over ice. Makes sense. So before we build the recipes, I feel like one quick little way to kind of do research and development at home outside of kind of hitting these notes of like, what do you want in it? A good rule of thumb is to kind of do a little taste test together. So if you're like, oh, what does tequila taste like with celery bitters? Then maybe you pour just the tiniest amount. Okay. Put a little dash. Yeah, yeah. And that way, I'll let you do it. Oh, no, no, no, no. No one at the bar was drinking tequila and thought, man, let's give you some celery. Yeah. And then maybe just like a little dash. And then that way you're like, okay, is it working? Okay, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to smell this real quick. Oh my God. Yeah, that's, that's celery juice. You probably just made really good tequila. He likes it. Fine. He likes it. Mikey likes it. Ooh, it hangs around. That celery, that celery hangs around. Yeah. For you, you don't have much else as far as modifiers besides your mushroom oil. So we'll, we'll wait for that. Should I try some? Yeah, maybe try it. So a good way to do that would be with a bar spoon. Okay. So I would open it up. All right, there we go. And then you could just pour it, just a small bar spoon and see how it reacts to the celery versus the tequila. Oh my God. It's very oily. Should I do like a straw? Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, that way you can really control how much you're putting in. We're going to call this one the brush room. Should I do more? Probably not. Yeah, okay. It's probably good. Yes. Now you can try it and see how it's acting. Like the oil is really just sitting. Oh wow. Cool, pretty. Encouraging, discouraging. I said, oh wow. Neutrals, correctly neutral. Oh wow, that's gross. How about that? Okay, so tequila, celery bitters, and mushroom oil. You like it. No, no. I believe in it. What? Would you like to try a bit? Yes. That's got something going on. See? Freestyling. You go freestyling, huh? Like a mad scientist. Some cool boys still lose. Okay, this is good. All right, now it's time to make it. So I think you should go first since you've already tried your small amount of R&D. Right. And so you're going to shake. So you want to build in your shaker ten. So everyone kind of does it differently. I'm someone who likes everything consolidated. So I build with them together. Okay. And then I'll pull them apart and close it. So that's how I'll set you up. And then for this, you want to build smallest ingredient to largest. So some rough estimates. Let's take a basic margarita recipe, which would be like two ounces tequila, three quarter line, three quarter simple. But definitely less of the celery than we thought before, right? So maybe a dash. Because now you are doing more spirit than you did in your small one. Like that. Maybe one more. That's right. Okay. But that seems good. Okay. So you got about five or six drops. Little goes a long way. It felt like that that that straw full was about right, right? Of the mushroom? Yeah. Yes. Okay. So. But remember, you're doing a higher volume. So you might want two straw full because your small taster was so small. And now this has two ounces. There we go. Okay. And then you have lime juice. So you have lime juice. You also have demerara sugar. So let's balance those out. So kind of a good rule of thumb is you could do equal. So you could do three quarter lime, three quarter demerara. Or because this is a richer sugar. This is actually a two to one. So two parts sugar to one part water. You'd probably be better off doing three quarter lime to half demerara. Okay. Got it. Perfect. All right. There's three quarters. And then half will just be one down. Oh, that's thick. Yeah. So it'll give like a really nice caramelized sugar kind of candied flavor. Okay. All right. So you have all your ingredients in there except for the tonic and the tahini. So I would go ahead and do your tahini rim. Okay. And then it's best to use a lime. So here's the lime wheel for you. Okay. So here we go. I'm gonna try to do it more on the outside. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Then I'm gonna just kind of slowly roll it in there. Look at that. Yeah. So then I would just set it above your shaker. So you kind of have it staged where you want it. Okie dokie. And then you want to top your drink with tonic water. So I'd go ahead and grab one of those. Have that ready. And just set it to the side. I feel like we should freeze my drink at this point and have you make yours. Yeah, do you want to start yours now? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. You have your non-alcoholic spirit. You have pineapple juice. You have lime juice. You had honey. You have the non-alcoholic aperitivo. Ah, right. So for you, technically the honey's your smallest. Right. So I would probably do... Let's start with half. Okay. And see how that goes. All right. Half a thing of honey. And then I would do maybe three quarters of your pineapple juice. And then a quarter of lime. So that you're getting one ounce of full citrus. You went all the way in the garbage. Sorry about that. It's okay. And I just did it again. I just dropped it in the garbage. He did. He pulled it out of the garbage. He just went down and pulled back in the garbage. He just dropped it. Yep. Some cool boys still lose. Three quarters. Three quarters of it. Yeah. It was going really well. Okay. We're cool boys. Remember when I said I had a drinking problem? This is what I was talking about. Cool boys. Suddenly I feel like we're in preschool. A quarter of lime. Yeah. So we're doing like a cheaty corner because... Yes. Okay. So a short half. Okay. And then you're onto your aperitivo. I would try ounce and a half to half. Okay. That way it's not too bitter. And you're really getting that... Where's the ounce and a half? So it's the line before the top. So on this style, this hourglass Japanese jigger, they have lines inside. And the very top bubbled over is the two ounce. So the line inside is ounce and a half. So then I would think half of your bitter. Half of the bitter. Right. That way it's not too bitter. So you can still modify it if you need to. Yeah. Same with the honey. It's always better to try smaller amounts than you think. That way you don't make a whole drink and feel like, oh, I just blew it out with the aperitivo. So I think y'all are ready to shake. Well, I have to add my last two ingredients. The last one is after I shake. So I have to add, I think it's an ounce and a half of tequila. Yeah. What do you think? You had three quarter lime and half demerara. So I think it could handle an ounce and a half to two ounces. Okay. But you do have tonic. So maybe ounce and a half. Nice. Perfect. All right. Okay. So your ingredients are in there. It's time to shake. So the best way to shake is to definitely leave it on the counter because a good rule of thumb is if you dropped it, it would fall in your ice bin or on the floor or anything like that. Trash can. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So you bothered to put all of the ice in there and suddenly it's covered in fish oil. So use your ice scoop. And then I would fill up with ice almost to the top. Okay. Got it. Great. And then once you have enough ice in there. I just realized we've been doing this like five, six, seven years. Nobody's ever allowed us to touch the actual things before. I know. I would prefer you didn't. This is amazing. Let me not do the work. Now you want to take the bottom part off. Yep. And hit it on top. Yep. It should seal. So it's at an angle. Yours is sealed. Okay. You should hear it. Yeah. Yours is a little. Yeah. You should be able. If you go like that, it should feel like it's locked in. Oh yeah. Okay. A little. Okay. There we go. Yeah. And then you always want to shake away from everyone's faces. So that you're not shaking at someone to where it could fling out. And we make small talk during this part, right? It's a circular motion. Oh, this is good. So first time in town? Yeah, just wandered in on the eighth. How long have you been a legitimate bartender? I've been a legitimate bartender since 1971. Oh man. You know, my mom always told me some cool boys still lose. Sometimes they do, my friend. Okay, is that enough? That's good. Okay, good. Well, so you want to make sure it's getting icy on the outside, you should be able to visibly see it. You can feel it. And the idea is that you're getting a really good wash line, which means it has enough dilution. The cocktail will taste balanced and it'll look like you shook it enough. Got it. I feel like y'all did a really good job. So then now you want to break it open. And you're going to use a couple tools to get a really nice strain where there's no ice chips or pulp. So for you both, do the Hawthorne strainer on top and then hold your fine mesh strainer over the glass to strain into. And not like set it on there, pour it through. Yeah, don't touch the glass. For you. All right. Then yours can also go straight into your glass. What have I done? Yeah, what have you done? Ooh, it actually looks kind of cool with those little oil droplets. Brian's over here acting like he's the Oppenheimer of booze. Let me put a mushroom in there. And then now you both, since you are serving yours long, it's ready for ice and you are going to top with tonic. So they're both ready to be topped with ice. Can I do one of them big old cubes? Okay, fancy. That really brings out the notes of the mushroom. She's like encouraging me. She's like, ooh la la, somebody's fancy. I'm supporting you. Oh, oh, nice. And a little bit of tonic on top. Okay. And then for you, I would give yours a stir and then I would add more ice. That way it's really full. And then you were garnishing with. Oh, I was going to do a zesty lemon thing. Oh, thank you. Yes. Here's for your zesty lemon thing. Okie dokie. And I had mint. I was going to, I was going to mint it up. Oh no. What happened? Not your finger that way. Hypothetically, what happens if lemon hits the ice? That's okay. Okay, good. All right, a bunch of good looking mint. Which side, the bitter, bitter side is down? Yeah, the pith up, citrus down. Nice. It's mint for you. Okay. And I just. Yeah, kind of bunch it in together so that it fits through the ice. Nice. And then would you like a straw? Yes. Oh my goodness. It's got to be that one. It's going to be the bendy. Oh, it looks good. Some cool boys. Still lose. So some cool boys still lose. Spirit, citrus, bitters. Sugar. Sugar and lengthener. Okay. And mine was, so I remember the recipe. It was tequila based. Citrus was the lime juice. The bitters was the celery. Can't wait. Your sugar was the demerara sugar. That's right. Why did I put mushrooms in it? Mushroom was your modifier. You had that outlier modifier. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then finally, my lengthener was a little bit of tonic water. Nice with the tahini rim. So we've got a substitute spirit. This was what we were using as our bitters for our citrus. Got a little bit of lime, but also pineapple. And for our sugar, we have the honey and no lengthener. Your lengthener is really just water. Okay. There you go. All right. Erin, before we go, do you want to take a straw taste and give us a judge? Who's going to know? This one looks good and oily. It's pretty good. Really? Yes. Legitimately. I thought she was going to end with, get out. Okay. I'm enjoying it so far. Also very good. These are balanced cocktails. Okay. While we give it a taste, you tell us where we can follow more of your stuff. Okay. You can visit me in Austin, Texas at Olame. Or you can follow me on Instagram at Erin Katie. Sorry. We're lost in ecstasy right now. Yeah. These boys are delicious. The Steeleusen is amazing. They're good. They're great. Oh my God. I can't believe you made your own signature cocktail. Freestyling, huh? Take us out with a rap, Brian. We'll add it in post. That was amazing. He's so good. Look, man, I'm not here to say you're exactly like me, but I bet you're pretty close. You're watching the Modern Rogue. And that tells me that you value your time, that you want to make the most out of every moment you have. And in this busy fall season, that means I ain't got time to be doing dishes. I ain't got time to be assembling all these ingredients. I ain't got time to be cooking. I need somebody whose name is not Brian Brushwood to decide for me what is healthy. Also, I'm very impatient. So by the time I realize I'm hungry, it's too late. You better have something for me in three minutes or less, give or take. Oh, that's right. 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Respect your wallet by getting a 60% discount by using promo code Rogue60 at checkout. You and I both know this whole world's filled with a bunch of unrealistic diet plans. Fight back against those powers with Factor. Head on over to GoFactor. No, nope. Just, it's right there. Modern Rogue is supported in part by viewers like you at patreon.com slash modern rogue. In the description, you can find all of our credits and additional ways to support the show. No, this is like every 2 a.m. I wake up and I'm like, I'm like mac and cheese. That's not weird enough. Chex mix, put that on top. Soy sauce, well, Worcestershire. Let me get some celery salt on top. I fall asleep and I wake up and I'm like, what was this?