Back again, at an undisclosed location...
Wait... hold on.
This is--where are we?
This bar sucks!
[ laughter ]
Because I'm a Modern Rogue!
>>synthetic voice: Building a 5-Bottle Bar.
All right, you've got nothing.
What should every modern rogue's bar have?
Dude, I don't know, but I know a guy who does know.
His name's Trever.
Thank you for coming out of your dark, dank ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) secret cave!
Oh, absolutely.
And joining us all the way out in the homestead.
So what should every modern rogue start his bar with?
I like to start off with a nice, good whiskey.
I chose Buffalo Trace, which is a kentucky straight bourbon.
All right, now when you say "whiskey," I get all intimidated because there's scotch, and
ryes, and bourbons.
Do I need to know any of that?
Just stick with a straight bourbon out of Kentucky and everything should go fine.
The reason I chose this, because it's smooth and you can mix it with just about anything.
Or you can just drink them straight-up.
Right, that's what I thought it would look like.
Sadness.
Okay, comradery.
I'm sorry, I was mistaken.
Sadness?!
You mean joy, joy!
I like to start off with a good vodka next.
This is Tito's, a handmade vodka out of Austin, Texas.
So every time I hear about vodka, it's all about how many times it's been filtered, right?
Is vodka so inherently nasty that what you want to do is filter out all the vodka-ness?
Well it's a neutral grain spirit, so the more that it's filtered, the more that it gets
all of that kind of nasty junk out.
But, quite honestly you don't really have to spend a lot of money on vodka to find a
good vodka.
So there's two different types of vodka, right?
There's grain vodkas and potato vodkas.
Right, and you're going to see more grain vodkas on the market.
What it boils down to is preference on that.
I typically like a grain vodka, and like I said you don't have to spend much money to
find a good one.
In fact, all of these are in the sweet spot of price versus taste.
None of them are going to break the bank, and none of them are well drinks.
Next up, just a simple blanco tequila.
I chose Espolòn.
This is becoming more and more popular, you're starting to see this kind of all over the country.
They're really starting to explode.
So is this one you would drink straight, or mainly for mixers?
A lot of people like to do shots of this, quite honestly, around here.
But, it's good for mixers, it's good for a margarita.
This is actually the tequila that we used in the Spicy Texas Margarita.
Oh, so good.
This is the tequila for Gary's Fire Crotch.
Right on.
Again, we gotta talk about that name.
I didn't name it, it's not me!
Next up, gin.
>> Brian: Ah, the old pine needle serum.
>> Trever: And that's actually why I chose Boodles, because Boodles is a very neutral, dry gin.
Wait, really?
It's that juniper that really makes it pop and makes me think of Christmas, because it's
like you're eating a Christmas tree.
A lot of people think that gin smells like hairspray.
Really?
Yes. I love gin!
No, I do too.
You know what I love about gin?
Is that, every time you drink gin, you know you're drinking.
There's no fooling yourself, you're like, "Oh, I'm having a cocktail!
It's a sweet little treat!"
Now Boodles is not one of the more floral gins like Hendricks, right?
Correct.
It's more neutral, like you were saying.
So, this is good for mixers but can you drink this straight as well?
Yes.
You can drink any liquor straight if you really want to.
Man, it smells good.
Maybe if you're a committed alcoholic, hold on.
That is way more neutral than I would have expected!
It's all in the aftertaste, you'll taste nothing on the upfront, it'll all be just in the mouth-feel
afterwards.
Oh that's good.
It's dangerous.
That's what that is.
I like it.
Just a little splash a little right there.
It's so clean smelling, you know?
Just ah, love it.
>> Brian: And to round out our core hard alcohols, what do we got?
>> Trever: We've got rum! And I chose
Appleton Estate, which is a Jamaican rum.
Yeah! Okay, so there are dark rums and light rums.
I assume that's, is that just all coloring, or is that the nature of the rum?
It's the distillation process, it's how much sugar is in it, it just depends on where it
comes from.
Jamaican rums are often, you're going to find a little bit sweeter.
Okay.
And that's why I like this rum, it's a good mixing rum.
So on a spectrum from like Bacardi Silver to Meyer's Dark, where would this end up?
It would fall in the middle.
Okay, right on.
Not quite like a Captain Morgan.
No, no.
Not at all.
Would you prefer this to Captain Morgan? - Oh man!
Oh absolutely!
This is real rum.
I mean, Captain Morgan is a cartoon.
It's all branding, right?
It's... yeah.
It's all about the ~spicing.~
Well if you want to feel like a pirate.
Yeah, it's like, it's got a real fresh bite to it, but then it's also got that sweetness.
It's a very interesting taste.
So, all right, we've got the core alcohols covered.
So you can make most drinks using these five different hard liquors.
Talk to me about the extra stuff, the stuff that's too fancy for me to understand.
Okay, well first up we've got just our regular sweet and dry vermouth, and these are going
to be for our martinis, our manhattans, things like that.
And vermouth is basically a supremely condensed white wine, basically?
Fortified wine, and the sweet vermouth has sugar added to it.
Got it.
So what do the vermouths make possible?
The dry vermouth is going to be for your martinis, gin martinis, vodka martinis.
Sweet vermouths, drinks for like the manhattan we did earlier.
Over here we have a bottle of simple syrup.
You want to add this to certain things, just to take bitterness away from some of your drinks.
This is just sugar and water, and you can make this yourself or if you're lazy like
me, you can buy it in a bottle.
So I guess this basically saves you the time of pouring sugar into a drink, and then muddling
it, or mixing it enough for the sugar to dissolve.
This is all just pre-dissolved sugar?
Exactly.
Next up we have Angostura aromatic bitters.
Okay, now this is one that I guess has been at bars all my life but I never really noticed
or whatever?
Don't let him drink any.
No no no, I just want to...
I might have to drink it.
I knew it!
I just want to know- - At least he uses a glass.
Well, and if you remember when we made our manhattan, and when we made our old fashion,
we involved a lot of bitters in there. - Yeah.
It's got that tangy-ness, and it's got that um, I don't know.
All I can describe is that the sides of my tongue feel electric now.
As we've discussed before, there are lots of different types of bitters but this is
one of the most popular.
You can get them in various flavors, like orange, and peach, and blueberry,
et cetera, et cetera.
So what does this do to the flavor profile of most drinks that you add it to?
Well, I mean with it being bitters, it actually makes the drink a little bit bitter, but it
also makes it just a more complex drink.
So if you are crafting a drink, and you can tell that it's just too sweet in general,
that will offset it and add a more robust texture?
Yes, and you only need a couple of dashes.
And then we've got our old standbys here.
Well, club soda I think we all are familiar with, but tonic water.
Uh, look man, I ain't got malaria.
I don't need your quinine.
Explain to me why I need sugar in the bitterest drink on the planet.
I mean really that comes down to preference.
I've noticed a lot of people moving to soda these days over tonic, because less
calories and people are more health conscious.
It's all in how sweet you want it, you can actually go out and buy diet tonic now, if
you want.
So it's less sugar in your drink.
Confession time, when I want to feel like I'm drinking, but I'm not drinking.
I drink diet tonic water.
Because it's hard to drink, I'm just, "Ooh!
Uh, this must be a drink!"
That's so sad.
That is so sad.
All right, look.
You've got your core kit.
What can you make the moment you pick all this up?
Well, how many times have you been in my bar and I had to make you drinks?
I'm in your bar now.
Oh, so you're saying we're the ones who have-- all right, what's something we can make with this?
I think you can make our manhattan right now.
Okay, I remember two-one-two.
It was two-one-two.
Uh, it was two bourbon.
Dash of bitters.
Yes.
And, two sweet vermouth?
Yes?
No?
No!
I don't remember. God, what was it?
I'm going to watch the episode.
Okay, all right.
So we need this.
Uh, we need the bitters for sure, and the bourbon.
All right.
Ah, do you want to do the chilled glass and all that?
Here, I'm going to chill the glass, you watch the rest of this.
Okay.
Two, one, two.
Two ONE!
Two.
Oh, I got the ingredients right!
Yes.
I got the ingredients right, I just got the proportions wrong.
All right, look.
We're going to start off, we're going to chill the glass, just like we were taught.
Boy I, I didn't realize we were up for the bar exam.
I think I can pass this!
Does this mean we're lawyers now?!
All right, so I chilled the glasses.
Let me get ice inside the shaker.
Team effort, dude.
This is an open-book exam.
The bar cops are watching us.
They're here.
All right, so I have ice inside the shaker.
Okay.
I've chilled the glasses, I seem to remember after the glasses are totally chilled, we
have to dump those out.
Yeah.
And it's two one two, what are the parts?
Is it sweet or dry vermouth?
No no no, it's sweet vermouth.
It's two,
one,
and then two.
Okay. All right.
Well then we're going to use the Bar10der, we'll do a, here give me two parts,
in here right?
Yep.
All right, so... that's one.
Two, for me.
Now one, two,
for you.
Got it.
The one is right here.
Okay got it, all right.
This is the sweet vermouth.
I'm just like!
Don't look at him, don't look at him!
We're taking our exam.
There you go.
That's one, for me and one...
There you go. ...for you.
And then what, dashes of aromatic bitters.
So we've got about four dashes total in here.
Yep, dash it up!
One, two, three, four.
Got it, okay.
All right, here.
You stir that gently.
How many rotations? 20?
Uh, sure.
I think it was 20 rotations. I think that's what he said.
I just remember I'm supposed to ditch this on the ground, but I'm going to do it in the sink.
One, two... five, six. - I'm so excited.
>> Trever: Smartass. - Stupidly excited.
[ stirring ]
>> Brian: Are we good? >> Jason: Nope.
[ music cuts out ]
[ all that is left is the deafening isolation of the stir ]
How about now?
Now we're good. - All right.
Here we go.
Don't shake it!
I will not, I will not shake it, because we don't want to dilute it.
We don't want to break up the ice.
There's no egg in there.
Here's one.
There's two.
We don't have any cherries, but that's okay.
No, that's fine. Okay, real quick.
What the hell are these glasses anyway?
Shhhut up!
What are we, on the deck of the Interprise?
I don't judge you, they were free!
Did you get these from the Ten Forward?
They came with booze!
Did Whoopie Goldberg serve them to you?
It's fine.
Welcome to Ten Forward!
>> Trever: I get to be the judge here.
Not bad guys.
We got the nod!
Not bad at all.
When last we met I was but a learner, now I am the master!
Trever, thank you so much for joining us, man. - Absolutely.
Awesome!
This is amazing, I have a bar now!
This is awesome!
Well... you have most of a bar.
We!
Oh, motherf***er.
Get back here!