More than anything else, drinks making is about execution, says Satan’s Whiskers’ Kevin Armstrong. 

This piece was prompted by a recent experience in a London bar. Not one I often frequent – nor one I would think to recommend to our venue’s guests – but that’s mainly on the basis of price sensitivity; it’s a little toppy. 

But one thing struck me about the experience – it was the execution of the drinks. Observed up close at the bar, the execution was approaching faultless. It was a level of precision that doesn’t happen by accident. This kind of drinks making requires serious attention to detail, a steadfast approach to how drinks are assembled, and repetition.    

It is clearly an environment where the word compromise does not enter into the operator’s lexicon. It was impressive. It was also rare. 

There are plentiful assumptions that techniques such as stirring, shaking, straining, blending and even pouring (for more progressive programmes) are standardised processes. In truth, getting the best from any given drink will require subtle shifts in how you deploy any of these methods. This too will be compounded by ice volumes, ice types, and more directly by access to appropriate equipment, especially cold storage.   

The variables are endless: your pre-carbonated Highball that is kept in the fridge at 7°C. Or your premium gin with a 75p ice spear, served with a room-temperature bottle of tonic. What about a fridge-temp Milk Punch with not enough water and a -20°C ice block that never melts? Think of under-shaken, warm, chewy Daiquiris, or over-shaken, washed-out Vespers. How often do you see warm glassware? And the worst offender: the positive degree Martini – there are hundreds of them out there. 

None of these flaws are anything to do with the recipe. They are everything to do with execution and management. 

Testing variables 

In fact, a passable recipe with middling brands will taste better than a more finessed recipe with better brands if the quality of the execution on the former exceeds that of the latter. 

If you are not obsessing over this, and testing all the variables within your operational set-up, you will likely be leaving points on the board. At volume, this all becomes harder – fine-tuned systems and processes become all the more important.  

We are always trying to do the same with our own processes. We did this recently with blended drinks; exploring everything from blender vessel size to material, drink abv, ingredient temperature, ice type and ice weight, to see what would give us the best results. The upshot is that we found another piece of blender equipment that allowed us to do a better and more consistent job within our environment. Perhaps that improvement was only 5%, but the enhancement in texture and quality was there, and that edge might be the difference between someone choosing your bar over everyone else’s. And that makes it worth it.       

Variance in environment is a big factor too, and this will be familiar to those who travel frequently and make drinks in unfamiliar bars. Recipes that work well on home soil are harder to replicate when the materials you are working with change. Even if it’s something you’ve served many times over, somehow it does not taste or deliver in the same way.  

But back at home you can control the environment. At the aforementioned London hotel bar, it felt like as much focus had been afforded to the output methodology as to the conceptions of the recipes themselves. Everything involved in the delivery had purpose and meaning. It told in the drinks – they were exceptional.