Late Review.
Anyone can make good cocktails. The art of mixing drinks is not a closely and jealously guarded secret. Nor an ability acquired through years of conscientious effort. It can be learned practically overnight.
The author of these words is David Augustus Embury, a New York lawyer specializing in tax- related scandals and a respected - if amateur - bartender. His book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (reviewed in this column in June 2015) was once described by International Bartenders Association president Jan van Hagen as the best book ever written on cocktails. But last year, an event occurred in Slovakia that belies David's well-meaning words giving hope to adepts of the bartending craft that they will quickly learn it. Behind this event is Stanislav Harciník and his THE COCKTAIL BALANCE book. It is divided into three parts.
The first, theoretical, is about the application of relational psychology in the bar environment. It is a summary of the author's experience gained during a decade of professional work behind Slovak bar counters. It inspires the reader to reflect on where he or she is heading as a participant in the development of cocktail culture, and if that is what he or she is. In places, I think he relies too much on his experience; it would have helped to include examples to help the reader resonate better with the author's ideas.
The third, distinctly emotional, presents the significant personalities of a generation of Slovak bartenders. The subjective selection includes those who, with one exception, are "at home". These include the three former professional directors of Bar Magazine (Stan Vadrna, Luboš Rácz and Róbert Šajtlava), not to mention the author of the book, the current navigator of Bar Magazine. This part is obviously encouraging and may influence the attitudes of the students in the field in particular. However, I am missing the names of those who have become unmissable abroad, especially Erik Lörincze, Marian Beke or Martin Hudák.
Decisive, inspiring as well as astonishing are the hundred pages of the book under the unobtrusive and at first glance not very ambitious title 2. Practical Part. Absorbing its information load is not easy, and not only for a conservative classicist, as the author of this review was once labelled but also for a member of the new generation of bartenders. Because it presents a number of concepts that will be new to them for some time to come, and perhaps for a long time to come.
ISI TWIST FLAX, CARBONIZING SYSTEM, THERMOMIX, CENTRIFUGE or ROTAVAPOR as well as CLARIFICATION or INFUSION represent the penetration of new practices into bartending. Author explains them in more or less detail; however, he is at an advantage compared to the reader. He uses these procedures, and so he can easily visualize his words how they work. The benefit of the book, then, is ultimately that it informs about them. And that he uses them in the cocktails that follow.
The summary is completely different from anything that has been written in the literature so far. First of all, the cocktails are arranged according to the dominant ingredients, which are neither bases, nor modifiers, nor types of mixed drinks, but rather, for example, hops, elderflowers, raspberry leaves, rhubarb, sunflower seeds, or chestnuts.
The author describes each natural base both historically and, above all, in terms of its application in the composition of mixed drinks. This is followed by detailed descriptions of how to prepare the special ingredients for the use in the cocktails described, such as hops.The reader will learn how to make Hoppy Campari or Aged Hoppy Liqueur. On the next two pages he will find out how to use them in a Negroni presented as a twisted classic (Beefeater, Hoppy Campari, Carpa no Antica Formula) or as a signature cocktail called Whiskey & Beer (Glen- dronach 8 Y. O., Aged Hoppy Liqueur).
This principle - a twist on a familiar recipe on the left, a signature cocktail on the right - is applied on the following nineteen double-page spreads. Some of the compositions are breathtaking, not only because of the author's ultra-creative approach to the design, but equally because of their astonishing capture in time. For example, Blue Sky (Italicus, grapefruity Oleo Saccharum, House Coffee Tonic and a 12% solution of natal acids) can stun when read, but a snapshot of a drink will thrill when viewed. The care taken in arranging the cocktails and capturing them in photographs is unparalleled. The cocktail images already in such a Meehan's Bartender Manual (the book we reviewed in mid-2018) are extraordinary, but the photographs in Harcinik's work go several steps higher. Adrián Chrzan and Katarína Hoffmann Šlesárová have elevated the bartender's manual to a collection of artistic photographs of mixed drinks that is unparalleled at the moment.
The final NOTES looks as if the author realized at the last moment that he still owed the reader some explanations. Thus, for example, Protein Clarification found a place here, as did Alternative Forms of Cooling, Edible Cocoa Butter Paint, Fat Washing, and Edible Air. Thanks for that; the NOTES are an appeal to the reader to return to the book to check again and remind you again how these concepts apply and to consider how to adopt them in their practice.
A note at the very end. The reader of this review will have noticed that the author takes an ambivalent attitude towards the book. This should not surprise him. Harcinik's THE COCKTAIL BALANCE is so different from the book production we are used to, that in some respects we will only be able to verify this remarkable novelty documenting the development of Slovak cocktail culture in time.
But why wait to study it?
