Coolest cocktails

smurfjed

They say that a fool and his money are easily parted, well on the 01st March, I'm opening an Irish bar in a foreign land without knowing the slightest thing about running a bar. This is a gamble that i will either retire there or walk away from the project if we lose too much money.

So I have a question that maybe you guys can help me with...

What do you consider as the easiest and quickest cocktails to make?

smurfjed

enda1

Stick with lowball and highball glassware for ease of care and washing.
Martini glasses look cooler though, but are more hassle I'd imagine.

Get a damned good ice machine cause you're gonna use a lot of ice if you make cocktails!


I find an americano easy - likewise a negroni.
Populars such as long island, gin fizz (not really a cocktail more a long drink) are easy.

Things get easier if you're willing to do pre mixes such as getting all the lemon and lime juices ready before.
Its even possible to get loads of standard cocktails recipes made up ready before then shack/stir/server over ice to order and garnish.

Endless possibilities.
Have you really thought into this much??

im invisible

Heard about these liquid nitrogen ones, pretty damn cool if you ask me..

Dingle_berry

I've never tasted a pre mixed cocktail that was nice.
Easy cocktails that come to mind are Black Russian, White Russian, Long Island Iced Tea, Lounge Lizzard, etc. look for ones that are just measures of spirits and mixers.
I think Bols has a good website that lets you enter what stock you have and spits out possible cocktails.
If you want to take things up a notch learn to do the classics very well I.e. Cosmo, mojito, caprihana, margarita, etc. they'll taste worse than the simple spirit+coke ones above if you premix or skimp on them!
If its a themed bar, eg an Irish bar, try something like picking 26/32 simple cocktails and putting your own twist on them, then calling them after the counties?
Don't forget the shooters like Baby Guiness, Slippery Nipple, Cum/C°ck sucking cowboy, brain haemorrhage, etc

Edit: forgot to add, my favourite cocktail ever is an Amaretto Sours made from scratch including cherry and egg whites. Harry's bar by Stephens green has has the best presentation of this cocktail I've seen.

starlit

Stiffies and baby Guinness are nice. Apple sours varies.

Cosmo or mojito are easier cocktails to make. Cosmo is nice. Martinis are easy to make but depends how strong you like them. I've had the margaritas version of the martini I think.

Pinacolada and sunrise twister are harder to make bit too strong for me. SOTbeach is nice but can be strong.

Hurricane and Hawaiian are nice. Never had a white Russian though or a woo woo or wooha what ever it is.

Cosmos be my favourite and I love strawberry daiquiri. I prefer the fruity flavoured ones. Give me a wine spritzer any day!

enda1

Dingle_berry wrote: »

I've never tasted a pre mixed cocktail that was nice.
Easy cocktails that come to mind are Black Russian, White Russian, Long Island Iced Tea, Lounge Lizzard, etc. look for ones that are just measures of spirits and mixers.
I think Bols has a good website that lets you enter what stock you have and spits out possible cocktails.
If you want to take things up a notch learn to do the classics very well I.e. Cosmo, mojito, caprihana, margarita, etc. they'll taste worse than the simple spirit+coke ones above if you premix or skimp on them!
If its a themed bar, eg an Irish bar, try something like picking 26/32 simple cocktails and putting your own twist on them, then calling them after the counties?
Don't forget the shooters like Baby Guiness, Slippery Nipple, Cum/C°ck sucking cowboy, brain haemorrhage, etc

Edit: forgot to add, my favourite cocktail ever is an Amaretto Sours made from scratch including cherry and egg whites. Harry's bar by Stephens green has has the best presentation of this cocktail I've seen.

There's no good reason why a lot of cocktails can not have a premixed component. For example with a long island, it can easily have the 5 spirits premixed and then add the mixer fresh. Not everything's black and white and there is a lot of scope in cocktail making and serving for improvement in efficiency.

Martyn1989

Is the foreign land hot or cold?

No point serving Negronis and Manhattens poolside or Mojitos as your customers dust off some snow. Also are you after locals or tourists? Give us a little run down of what the area is like.

Go sit in the busy bars of the locality, look at their menus and and what they make. See how they sell through the week, Monday evening, Saturday evening/night, Sunday afternoon.

For an Irish bar you want to develop a user friendly menu that touches something in the Rum, Gin, Vodka, Bourbon, Irish whiskey (maybe) and Tequila categories. Deicide do you want to do classic cocktails, popular cocktails or try come up with your own? As posted above, ice is the single most important factor, shakers/glasses should always be full of ice when making and serving drinks and thats important. It can't be small crappy ice either, but too big and it won't be great either. Keep garnishes simple and fresh.

Glassware will be a pain, stemless wine glasses or martini glasses are nice and aren't as prone to breaking. Where I work now serves all their cocktails in mason jars which is handy for us and seems to be a trendy thing to do. Nice and durable aswell. We could sit here telling you all about the 'coolest' cocktails and how to make them and prepare your bar to churn out 100s of them but without even knowing what country your in it would be ill-advised and possibly extremely poor advice.

smurfjed

This started off as an idea a couple of months ago, we had just opened a hostel on the island of Bali, once that was operational we looked around and saw a premises that we decided could make a nice Irish Bar and hold about 60 people, there are no other bars in the area (Not kuta) and they are in the process of building two hotels within 200 meters of the premises, so with 700 guest rooms available, we decided that it was worth the gamble.

In that sort of climate, beer is usually a favourite, but we want to consider some easy simple (cheap) cocktails, at least to begin with. Once we have the staff and observe their abilities, we can expand.

In my own profession, aviation, we would usually tell people to get a good consultant prior to buying an aircraft, but our budget wont stretch that far, in fact it wont stretch to even getting a bad consultant

This might work, it might not, but it cant be any worse than the stock market over the last few years

smurfjed

minidazzler

smurfjed wrote: »

This started off as an idea a couple of months ago, we had just opened a hostel on the island of Bali, once that was operational we looked around and saw a premises that we decided could make a nice Irish Bar and hold about 60 people, there are no other bars in the area (Not kuta) and they are in the process of building two hotels within 200 meters of the premises, so with 700 guest rooms available, we decided that it was worth the gamble.

Just on this, be VERY careful about the spirits you get. I'm sure I don't need to tell you about the deaths that happen in cowboy cocktail bars selling methanol because it's cheaper.

For you guys just starting, simplicity will be key because you don't really have a clue.

So the typical cocktail list will do.

Sex on the Beach, Cuba Libre, Mojito's, Long Island, Frozen Flavoured Daquiri's, Black Russian, White Russian, Whiskey Sours, Screwdriver, Tequila Sunrise, Martini, Cosmo, Margarita.

Then have a few super strong cocktails to appeal to male pride. So AMF (Adios Mother Fcuker) and Zombie.

Add your own twists so you seem unique. Remember, if it's a party bar, guys will be drinks because they are strong, girls will buy drinks because they are pretty and classy looking. So don't skimp on the right glassware.

Do you plan to hire a local or Ex-Pats as your bartenders? It shouldn't be too hard to find someone with a basic knowledge of cocktails.

Good luck with your bar, and if you're planning to hire an Irish guy and can sponsor me for a visa.....

Martyn1989

Sounds great!

In that heat fruit and ice will suffer, make sure you have it set up so you can easily access properly stored ice and fresh fruit.

If you want to make good quality drinks you can premix stuff in advance (such as the long island spirit mix) and it'll be fine, but when people talk about premix they usually mean store bought mojito mixes etc where you just add ice and rum. These are generally woeful.

Are you set on the Irish bar theme? Maybe something like a tiki bar or something could work?

If your going upmarket you should look at fresh made Mojitos, Caipirinhas, proper Daiquiris (original/strawberry etc), tall Tom Collins, Margeritas, Sours (gin/rum/vodka/ammeretto/bourbon), you could include a beer cocktail or two like a Michelada. Keep it the drinks tall over plenty of ice. Go for juicey, citrusy drinks and try stay away from premixes and poor quality purees.

If its more of a party place, things like Bulldog Margeritas? Chilled vodka shots with flavours (purees) like strawberry, peach, blueberry etc. Sex on the Beach, Electric Lemonades (homemade lemonade is a great mixer and very versatile), Shirley Temples.

If you want to get away from Jager Bombs you can chill espresso and serve it with vodka as a shot and in your 'house white russian'. Put Iced coffees on your menu and have flavoured syrups for them. Try an Iced Irish Coffee, it may work, who knows?

I don't know just some ideas off the top of my head, I'll post more when I think of them.

Martyn1989

minidazzler wrote: »

Good luck with your bar, and if you're planning to hire an Irish guy and can sponsor me for a visa.....

And if you want one not from Cork........:p

I kid, I kid, right I'm off ice-skating :cool:

smurfjed

If we had beach access I would go for the tiki bar concept with lots of staff running around in bikinis :) But alas we are not that close to the beach, looking on the bright side, I would probably end up divorced if we did have lots of staff in bikinis

I love the idea of an Iced Irish Coffee, what an awesome idea.

As for jobs, are you wiling to work for local rates? I'm kinda hoping that we might attract some wanders with a guitar over their shoulder as they make their way towards OZ, who knows! The hostel has give us an insight to the demographics of young travellers in that part of the world, only 1 Irish guy so far, but lots of Europeans and a lot of them traveling alone. So our goal is to give them an easy place to hang out, watch sports, free internet, cheap beer. Most of these will travel by scooter, so I'm inclined to avoid drinks like AMF and Zombies,

I was in Bali last year, young honeymooners sitting close to us during breakfast, the guy had a broken arm, scratched body, face, legs, all from getting pissed and riding a scooter. I don't want that kind of thing on my conscience.

smurfjed

Martyn1989

smurfjed wrote: »

If we had beach access I would go for the tiki bar concept with lots of staff running around in bikinis :) But alas we are not that close to the beach, looking on the bright side, I would probably end up divorced if we did have lots of staff in bikinis

I love the idea of an Iced Irish Coffee, what an awesome idea.

As for jobs, are you wiling to work for local rates? I'm kinda hoping that we might attract some wanders with a guitar over their shoulder as they make their way towards OZ, who knows! The hostel has give us an insight to the demographics of young travellers in that part of the world, only 1 Irish guy so far, but lots of Europeans and a lot of them traveling alone. So our goal is to give them an easy place to hang out, watch sports, free internet, cheap beer. Most of these will travel by scooter, so I'm inclined to avoid drinks like AMF and Zombies,

I was in Bali last year, young honeymooners sitting close to us during breakfast, the guy had a broken arm, scratched body, face, legs, all from getting pissed and riding a scooter. I don't want that kind of thing on my conscience.

smurfjed

Just make sure you ask the missus to be one of the bikini ladies, otherwise she'll be insulted

I like making iced coffees for myself, and one of the best white russians I ever had was served to me in Budapest where the barman had layered pouring cream over the vodka/kahlua mix, it was ice cold and gave that mixed texture you get. Theres no reason why it wouldn't work flavour wise, I'll probably make one up soon and see.

Its a nice concept you have, hopefully it works out it goes well, the best of luck. The key to your drinks will be simplicity, freshness and again ice. Theres a reason why all the popular/classic cocktails are 3 or 4 ingredients.

rubadub

I would like to see a choice of varying qualities, like bog standard orange juice, pressed juice in a carton & freshly squeezed. Same with the spirits going into it.

smurfjed

You can tell that building standards and health safety rules don't apply in this part of the world

smurfjed

minidazzler

Doesn't look like too bad a space... is there room out front for some chairs and such?

smurfjed

Yes there is, but smoking is permitted inside buildings here so it will all depend on the temperature, humidity and rain, to see if its practical for people to sit outside.

We had great fun experimenting with Iced Irish Coffee's, 2 bottles Jamesons used in our tests while sitting in the swimming pool.... This is turning out to be fun.

smurfjed

Martyn1989

What I wouldnt give to hang around poolside in the sun right now

How are they tasting? I havn't got to try it out yet.

How I'd do it: Make the coffee prior and let it cool itself, if you try chilling it on ice it dilutes way too much. In work I'll fill one of our mason jars with the hot coffee and bury it in one of our ice wells. Takes about 10 mins to cool. Its a good idea to add your sugar now so it dissolves properly. Once cool pour into a glass packed with ice with your whiskey and I suppose for this you could get away with canned whipped cream but you can't beat pouring cream layered.

smurfjed

bury it in one of our ice wells.

I was wondering what was an "Ice Wall", then i noticed your location

The ice melts pretty quickly here, so adding coffee over ice just ends up too watery and tastes like c5ap. So version 1 is based on using coffee with very little water to create a paste, adding brown sugar and Jameson's and whipping cream, mixing in a shaker, then pouring over crushed ice. It has more of a baileys look about it, or San Francisco style Irish Coffee. But trying to have the the traditional look just isn't working.

smurfjed

Martyn1989

smurfjed wrote: »

I was wondering what was an "Ice Wall", then i noticed your location

The ice melts pretty quickly here, so adding coffee over ice just ends up too watery and tastes like c5ap. So version 1 is based on using coffee with very little water to create a paste, adding brown sugar and Jameson's and whipping cream, mixing in a shaker, then pouring over crushed ice. It has more of a baileys look about it, or San Francisco style Irish Coffee. But trying to have the the traditional look just isn't working.

smurfjed

An ice well is a large basin that sits behind the front bar that you fill with ice and 'well spirits' (the cheap drinks) and everything else you need for serving customers. They then put their beer taps on the back bar. Something like this http://www.visioncook.com/images/dsc_0064.jpg

I just made one of these, its nice but you lose alot of the richness and flavours because its cold. I used a 500ml glass (which when full of ice will hold about 250ml of liquid) I chilled down 500ml of very strong coffee, added 3 sugars and chilled it for a while. Iced up the glass (which is frosted), added about 5cl of Jameson, topped up with coffee, layered the thickened cream on top. I snapped a photo about a minute after and the cream had started to sink, but it held up ok after that, no worse then a regular Irish coffee, I also used a little too much cream so I scooped some out. Heres the photo


You could serve it as a large double shot, shot of whiskey, shot of iced espresso with a bit of cream on top, in a short glass. Here in Calgary theres a drink called a Shaft, its vodka, kahlua, milk (a white russian) with chilled espresso in a tall glass over ice and a straw, everyone drinks it through the straw as fast as they can and last person buys the round. Its a bit of fun and has the 'pick me up' effect of a jager bomb or vodka redbull, you could do a Irish version, but you have to name it after me

smurfjed

its vodka, kahlua, milk (a white russian) with chilled espresso

Could try it with Baileys as a "Irish Martyn"

Now back to my real job, builders are doing a great job, so hopefully things will go according to schedule.

smurfjed

the beer revolu

smurfjed wrote: »

Could try it with Baileys as a "Irish Martyn"

Now back to my real job, builders are doing a great job, so hopefully things will go according to schedule.

smurfjed

I don't know of anywhere that the words builder and schedule go easily together.

smurfjed

I don't know of anywhere that the words builder and schedule go easily together.

Should have listened to you :(:( 01st March come and gone....... doors to open 17th March. (Fingers crossed :):))

smurfjed

minidazzler

smurfjed wrote: »

Should have listened to you :(:( 01st March come and gone....... doors to open 17th March. (Fingers crossed :):))

smurfjed

Good luck to ya, get a few pictures up when the place is done

smurfjed

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Opening tonight once the sun goes down :) I really dont know how they pulled it off, its not 100% perfect, but its a bloody good imitation.

Happy St Patricks Day

smurfjed

smurfjed

Worst complaint of the night, "why do you have a TOYOTA jersey on the wall, a REAL Irish pub wouldn't have a TOYATA jersey", gotta love Americans

smurfjed

Martyn1989

Looking good, did you manage to work out the Irish Coffee in the end?

smurfjed

1st night, no we didn't, too much drama with just getting the place open But they will be there, they work great with coffee turned into a paste, so that the fluid comes from the ice and whiskey, otherwise they become too watery as the normal coffee and ice melt together.

smurfjed

smurfjed

Strangest feeling in the world sitting in MY BAR, listening to MY BAND....... Thanks for all the advise on cocktails....

smurfjed

smurfjed

Had 2 customers on Sat night, Irish and English guys both barmen based in LA. They tried to Iced Irish Coffee and loved it, so much so that they wanted the recipe

So as "boardies" helped make this cocktail, anyone who gets to visit the Irish Bar in Jimbaran Bali (Google is your friend for the name) Tell the manager that the owner sent you and the first Iced Irish Coffee is on us

smurfjed

bnt

This may be relevant: I just made a Rum Old-Fashioned by accident, and it's a very easy one to make. I have some rum that's a bit harsh, so I thought it would be improved by some sugar and Angostura bitters, and that's the basic recipe: 2 parts dark rum, 1-2 tbsp of sugar, 2 dashes of bitters, and a splash of water. My version has more bitters and no water, but will still do very nicely. The only effort required was stirring in the sugar.

(I hope this thread's not too old - it's the newest Cocktail-related thread I can find! Things do last longer when pickled in alcohol... )

irish_goat

zombie thread. Feel free to start a new one.