Shaken and stirred
• Setting up a proper bar (graphic)
• Flavors of the world spice up tropical drinks
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
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| Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser |
These are Tony Abou-Ganim's tools. And his workshop — his stage, really — is the long alley behind the bar.
The gregarious, stubble-headed 42-year-old is the beverage specialist and master mixologist at Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, where he supervises 22 bars and 150 bartenders who whip up hundreds of the top-secret lemon-accented Bellagio cocktail that he designed and trademarked. He designed the award-winning beverage program there in which all drinks are shaken or stirred by hand, all are made with fresh ingredients and every bartender is invited to free monthly Bellagio Bar School seminars.
Abou-Ganim's quick seminars in spirits and specialty drinks were among the best attended and most enthusiastically received at the recent Big Island Festival at Waikoloa.
His views on such seeming trivialities as ice and glassware are strongly held, and based on almost a lifetime behind the bar (he started in his aunt's Michigan watering hole at age 20 — though he was drinking Roy Rogers and eyeing the classic cocktails long before that).
To him, the proper making of a cocktail is serious business, but when he teaches, the information is painlessly delivered amid laughter and joking asides. He's writing a book on bartending.
"You're on stage every night," he tells his bartending students. "If you don't love people, you're not going to be happy in this business."
Abou-Ganim compares bartending to being a chef. "You have to understand all these flavors and how they work together," he said. And you have to take as much care as a chef to ensure that the drink is presented at just the right temperature, with just the right garnish, in just the right glass, to experience the cocktail at its best.
Here's Abou-Ganim's Introduction to Bartending, as gleaned from several of his Big Island Festival seminars:
Ice
Twenty-five percent of any drink is water — the water that melts from the ice. So it's imperative to use fresh, clean ice — not the off-flavored stuff covered with "ice-fuzz" from the back of your freezer. And it's important that the cubes are standard-sized, not small (unless the recipe specifically calls for shaved ice). Small cubes melt quickly, diluting the flavors.
The temperature of the glass should match the temperature of the drink. In making cold cocktails, fill the glass with ice before preparing the recipe, then discard that ice (because it may already have begun to melt), add fresh ice and pour the drink. Freezing a glass makes it too cold — both for the drink and for the drinker's hand.
Tools
Abou-Ganim looks like he was born with a cocktail shaker over his shoulder. And, indeed, he says that if you buy only one piece of bar equipment, the shaker should be it. This tool is made of two pieces: a glass tumbler and a stainless-steel one. Ice is placed in the stainless-steel part, drink ingredients are added and the glass tumbler is fitted into the mouth of the steel piece. Hold the two pieces together with one hand on each, bring the shaker up to your shoulder and move it up and down rhythmically.
Abou-Ganim says he's been told you should shake a martini to a waltz (because you want to do it so gently that you don't "break" the ice and water down the drink.
The glass piece allows you to see if the drink is properly mixed. The ingredients should end up in the stainless tumbler when you take the two pieces apart.
To use the shaker properly, you'll need the classic Hawthorne strainer, too — that odd-looking thing with the disc that fits over the shaker cup and the coil of wire to keep solid ingredients from spilling out. Place the strainer over the shaker mouth and strain into a glass.
The other essential tool is a jigger or shot glass, the basic measuring tool for spirits. A jigger is 1 1/2 ounces, a pony is 1 ounce and some old recipes use those terms. The classic bar tool is an hourglass-shaped stainless-steel one with a jigger on one side and a pony on the other.
Other bar tools Abou-Ganim recommends: a long-handled bar spoon for stirring ingredients that have sunk to the bottom; a muddler, which looks rather like an old-fashioned policeman's billy club, and is used to crush mint and other ingredients; sharp paring knives for cutting garnishes; easy-pour spouts for spirits you use a lot; ice picks for breaking ice up; and peelers and garnish cutters.
Ingredients
Unlike most bartenders today, Abou-Ganim works from scratch. His Bloody Marys start with tomato juice, not a mix. His margaritas and daiquiris and mai tais involve real fruit juice and fresh fruit.
He makes his own simple syrup, fresh sour and vanilla syrup to use in drinks. Here are his recipes:
- Simple syrup: Mix two parts finely granulated sugar to one part water, heat gently over medium heat until sugar melts, cool, pour into bottle and refrigerate.
- Fresh sour: Blend 2 parts fresh lemon juice to 1 part simple syrup. (This is the stuff that is used to make authentic whiskey sours.)
- Vanilla syrup: Blend 4 cups water and 6 cups sugar in a saucepan. Add half a fresh vanilla bean. Gently bring to a boil; skim, bottle and chill. (This can replace rock-candy syrup where called for, as in mai tais.)
Abou-Ganim has a deep know-ledge of how spirits are distilled and which brands are best, and he advises buying the best you can afford. While the average consumer doesn't have time to become an expert on every type of liquor, he recommends making a study of your favorites so that you can host a drinks party and have a little fun teaching your friends what you know.
• • •
Flavors of the world spice up tropical drinks
Paloma
The paloma (dove) originated at a bar in Mexico; it's a drink well known south of the border, but not so much here, Bellagio mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim said. He uses high-quality, 100 percent agave Patron Reposado Tequila in this recipe. (agave is the plant from which tequila is made).
- 1 1/2-2 ounces tequila
- Juice of 1/2 lime
- Pinch of kosher salt
- Grapefruit soda (Squirt)
- Lemon wheel
Fill a 14-ounce highball glass or tumbler with ice.
Pour tequila and lime juice over. Sprinkle in salt. Top with grapefruit soda. Stir well. Float a lemon wheel on top.
Shaken Margarita
Abou-Ganim doesn't salt his margarita glasses for one good reason: He uses high-quality and costly tequila distilled from 100 percent agave (the succulent known as the century plant from which the liquor is made). "Salt deadens the taste buds. If you're going to use good tequila, you want to taste it," he said. Cointreau is an orange liqueur. Several producers make a silver tequila, an aged, 100 percent agave tequila.
- 2 1/2 ounces fresh sour
- Juice of 1 1/2 limes
- 3/4 ounce Cointreau
- 1 1/2 ounce silver tequila
Fill cocktail glass with ice. Set aside.
Fill shaker with ice. Pour in fresh sour, lime juice, Cointreau, tequila. Shake.
Discard ice in glass and add fresh ice. Strain drink over ice.
Mai Tai
The classic mai tai, which Abou-Ganim considers a complex drink, was invented by Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron in 1944 in honor of Tahitian friends who were visiting his original bar in Emeryville, Calif. Here's the recipe. Note: Orgeat (say or-zha) is an almond-flavored syrup, and rock-candy syrup has a slight flavor of vanilla. Curaçao (coo-rah-soh) is a liqueur made from the dried peel of bitter oranges found on the Caribbean island of that name. Mount Gay rum is a highly regarded rum from Barbados; you can substitute cheaper Bacardi Gold.
Jamaican rum is heavier and darker.
- Juice of 1 1/2 large limes
- 1/2 ounce orgeat
- 1/2 ounce rock-candy syrup
- 1/2 ounce orange Curaçao
- 1 ounce Mount Gay rum or Bacardi Gold rum
- 1 ounce Jamaican rum
- Powdered sugar, mint, lime for garnish
Fill cocktail glass with ice and set aside.
Fill cocktail shaker with ice. Squeeze lime juice into shaker and add orgeat, rock candy syrup, Curaçao and Mount Gay or Bacardi. Shake.
Discard ice in glass and add fresh ice. Strain drink into glass. Gently float Jamaican rum on top.
Garnish with wedge of lime and sprig of mint; sift powdered sugar over.
Mojito
The mojito was invented in Cuba. It's the sort of thing Hemingway might have drunk, Abou-Ganim said. It's never made a big splash here, but it's an easy mix and refreshing on a hot afternoon. You also get a chance to give your muddling tool and bar spoon a workout. The key to this drink is frappé-style ice — you can make this without a mixer by placing ice cubes in a zip-closure plastic bag or cloth bar bag and whacking them into slivers or shavings with the muddler, a hammer or rolling pin.
- Mint leaves
- 1 heaping teaspoon powdered sugar or 1 ounce simple syrup
- Juice of 1 lime
- Light Cuban (or other) rum
- Club soda
- Powdered sugar
Select fresh, whole mint leaves; wash in cold water and pat dry. Muddle or bruise the leaves, pressing down to release juice but not tearing them apart.
Fill a tall or highball glass to one-third full with mint leaves. Add powdered sugar or simple syrup and juice of 1 lime. Fill to two-thirds with light Cuban rum.
Add frappé ice to a half inch from rim and finish with club soda. Stir well with long-handled bar spoon.
Top with powdered sugar and pinch of mint.
Daiquiri
The daiquiri wasn't always a frothy, blended drink; here's the original. "It's a very simple drink, but people get too carried away with it," Bellagio mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim says.
- Juice of 1 large lime
- 1 heaping teaspoon and 1 normal teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 ounces Puerto Rican rum
- Fill a cocktail glass with ice and set aside.
- Fill the cocktail shaker with ice. Squeeze lime juice into shaker. Add sugar and rum. Shake well.
- Discard ice in glass and add fresh ice. Strain daiquiri into glass.
Sunsplash
This is Tony Abou-Ganim's answer to the cosmopolitan — fruity, fresh and spiked with orange-flavored vodka. He uses Stolichnaya Ohranj.
- 2 1/2 ounces orange vodka
- 1/2 ounce Cointreau
- 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 ounce fresh orange juice
- 1/2 ounce fresh cranberry juice
- 1/2 ounce simple syrup (see recipe inside)
- Orange slice and lemon twist for garnish
Fill a cocktail glass with ice. Set aside.
Fill cocktail shaker with ice and pour in vodka, Cointreau, juices and simple syrup. Shake.
Discard ice in glass and add fresh ice. Strain drink into glass. Garnish with half an orange slice and a twist of lemon.
