Stay Inspired
I have managed to find ways to keep myself busy while inside these past weeks but to be honest, it has gotten a little difficult to stay inspired. What life is missing right now are those little elements sparking creativity that come from social interaction and coming up with believable stories to avoid social interaction.
Those of us fortunate enough to be in the hospitality industry can usually find inspiration thanks to a screaming, red-faced authority figure or the steady stream of culture walking though our door reviewing us with two stars.
That’s why restaurant workers are so alert. If you are not paying attention, then you might accidentally knock a cocktail over, spilling the drink on a guest or breaking the glass into the ice. Then as you bend over to burn the ice hear a “thwhip! fwump!” sound, only to discover a knife wobbling in the wall behind you, meaning you have become entangled in yet another web of international espionage and intrigue in the middle of Friday Night Happy Hour.
This stimulus keeps us constantly ready to solve problems before they happen. For example, employees in bars and restaurants have to constantly be on the look out for the Department of Health, whose belief is that, as a safety precaution, you should never serve anything, including cereal, without gloves or a welding helmet.
Most managers will use this underlying constant dread to create better systems for handling produce, lines of communication between the front and back of house, and elaborate plan usually involving smokescreens and body doubles should the DOH ever step through the door.
So I don’t want to loose the creative spark that comes when surrounded by so many stimuli. To help keep myself inspired I have been studying flavors and attempting to recreate drinks at home. This is hard because I don’t have the resources or tools I normally have at work but it is helping me reevaluate recipes and reinvent them so they can be made by anyone with dubious hygiene and wearing sweatpants.
Recently I was looking through my copy of The Fine Art of Making Drinks, and I found a recipe for the “Daiquiri De Luxe.“ I was very interested in making this but the problem was that some of the ingredients, such as Cuban rum, were hard to get, and another called Crème d’Ananas was obviously made up.
Not a problem! I simply looked around my home kitchen for appropriate substitute ingredients, and I was able to adapt the recipe to meet my specific needs, as follows:
Daiquiri De Luxe De La Nick
8 Parts Cuban Rum (Set aside)
2 parts citrus (How long has this lime been here? Is it still good?)
1 part Crème d’Ananas (Google it. Holy crap it’s a real thing?)
Procedure
1. In a large tin, store all of your cookies.
2. Rummage through tin for any Girl Scout Cookies left over from a previous purchase.
3. Pour milk into a medium glass.
And there it is!
Admittedly I have been consuming more milk and cookies than making cocktails but it is important to keep practicing to stay fresh. When this pandemic blows over I plan to re-enter the work force with a fresh set of eyes and a recipe book full of new ideas. I look forward to seeing you at my bar and serving you this cocktail well deserving of both stars:
The Bold Fashioned - Similar to the classic Old Fashioned recipe but substitute the bitters with just a hint of mayonnaise.