Have you ever wondered how to create your very own cocktail? Well not only are
we going to show you one of our signature cocktails, The Patsy Collins,
which mixes up spiced rhubarb syrup, fino sherry, verjus and soda
but we're also gonna be joined by my good friend and fellow bartender Rachel
to give you some handy hints and tips on how to go about designing one yourself.
After taking you through a few classic cocktails I figured it was about time
that I introduced you to the process of coming up with your own drinks.
Making a new cocktail list is simultaneously the most fun and the most stressful part of
being a bartender, obviously in hospitality situation when you're
writing a whole list you want to be making sure that you've got a range of
drinks to suit everyone's taste and then the other major things the bear in mind
which applies at home as well is seasonality. So that's both in terms of
the flavors that you're using obviously it's more cost effective and eco
friendly to use fruit or vegetables that are in season and also in terms of
what people want to drink at that time of year, so obviously if you're having a
barbecue in summer you're gonna want to serve different drinks than at a
bonfire in winter. So at Bomba where I work at, it's a rooftop bar and we are a
little bit open to the elements and a Melbourne that can mean in summer
reaching over 40 degrees so obviously we're looking for really bright spritzy
refreshing easy drinking cocktails and then in the winter it gets a little bit
colder obviously being Scottish I actually don't think that Australians
know what cold is, but it definitely cools down and so we always have a
couple of hot serves on the menu and we just leading towards more warming
flavors in general. Most of all you want to be making sure that your drink is balanced.
So that's that perfect marriage of your sweet component, your acidic or
bitter component and the dry and boozy component.
So Rachel here is my right-hand woman at Bomba and she's done a really awesome job of
spearheading the new winter cocktail list, so I asked her to come along and share a little bit of
insight into her creative process and give us some tips and techniques for you
to use when masterminding you on the signature drink. So what are we
gonna do today? So I'm going to introduce you to a drink
that I've just done for the new cocktail menu at Bomba, the Patsy Collins which is
a mix of Fino sherry, verjus, a spiced rhubarb syrup that I've made and a bit of soda.
What is it about this drink that you love? For me it's the sherry.
Personally I love using something different than lemon juice because
essentially every bar is going through lemon juice there's a lot of waste going
on there as well yes I use the juice. Because that's s a pretty massive issue now.
Absolutely, they use the juice and generally throw away everything else which is a
huge waste, so this is a great way to introduce verjus which is unfermented
wine grapes which come off really really quite tart and sour but also quite complex.
Yes, that's kind of the things that you need to be thinking about I guess when
you're trying to balance a cocktail is where the sweetness is coming from where
the acid is coming from and where the dryness is coming. Yeah exactly, and
that's how you make a balanced drink. So where did the idea for the Patsy Collins
come from? When I'm making a drink I like to think of one ingredient,
generally finding something seasonal, I spend a lot of time on the internet
looking at what fruits and vegetables a seasonal, choose one that I like
and then build on flavors that work with that. Yeah which was the rhubarb in this one?
Yeah I mean rhubarb's a delicious flavor, it really draws people in and then
essentially - there's a book called the "flavor of thesaurus" which is great to
find flavors that'll work with it. I speak to chefs anyone that I know that really
enjoys cooking and knows flavorings, talk to them. Honestly one of the hardest
things about making a new cocktail is deciding what to mean it my signature
move is just to go on Google Translate and look up the Spanish for whatever the
main ingredient is because I run in Spanish bar so it's a bit of an easy way out,
but what was your thinking behind the Patsy Collins. Honestly I love making
drinks I love doing everything every other process in designing a drink
except for naming them, so I to tend to go with what the drink is based on every
cocktail I make is based on a classic so this one's a Tom Collins which is a
gin, lemon juice, sugar and soda tall drink
so I stole the end of that, Collins, because it is a Collins drink, and
because at Bomba you kind of tell the drinks that are going
to sell really well so this being a long and refreshing rhubarb drink is
essentially the 'fall guy' for someone who's like 'which cocktail should I get?' and
patsy is a old time named for the fall guy, so The Patsy Collins.
Alright, we're going to talk about the hero of our drink
our spiced rhubarb syrup, which has been spiced with cardamom and
pink peppercorns, which are like a sweeter less peppery version on the black peppercorn.
So syrups are obviously something that bartenders use a lot to
kind of pack more flavor into the drink and the pretty easy to make a like you
just add whatever fruit you're using usually about one part of the fruit to
one part of sugar. So if you start fruit in sugar it makes the syrup but a
flavorful really delicious one. Yes and you can kind of layer in those other
secondary flavors like the pink peppercorn and the cardamom just by
cooking it down with them a little bit yeah and again it's like a really easy
way to just add complexity to your drink. And then the next one is the fino sherry
it's obviously my favorite part of the drink. So Fino sherry is a Sherry
that's been aged entirely under what's known as flor, so like a little layer of
yeast which protects it from oxygen getting in so it stays really clean and
crisp and fresh and was there a reason that you use fino sherry in particular?
To me it's just like really light and bright but still has the
complexity to like work well with the rhubarb. Yes yes without overpowering it
and I guess you may want front yeah you want all of your ingredients to be
supporting each other and not shouting over each other. That's the perfect way of saying it.
I'll let you explain the verjus because I know that's your favorites.
Yeah, so this is actually a verjus from outside of Melbourne is essentially
their unfermented wine grapes that they've been bottled it's just really really
citric but still complete complexity and use it instead of lemon juice.
It's just a lot less wasteful because you're not having to juice a heap of
lemons and then discard all the husks especially for making cocktails at home
it makes sense rather than having to go through a heap of limes or lemons.
So is that everything or do you have a garnish for as well? Of course I've got a garnish.
So today we're using dill. Again I looked on the internet I found out what was
gonna work really well and pair well with the rhubarb, as our hero flavor
of the drink. Dill works really well, it's very
aromatic and it's absolutely beautiful look at that pink and that green.
Because you do drink this your eyes first.
All right, to make this drink are you gonna need 45 mil of the fino sherry.
This is just a built drink? Yeah no shaking involved. 20 mls of verjus,
20 mils of your own rhubarb syrup, so now some ice. And you want to get as much ice in the
glass as possible. I know it seems strange more ice you'd think that would
make a more water we drink but no one's sitting on this too very long, are they?
Top with soda.
And garnish with a very healthy sprig of dill.
The Patsy Collins. So now you know.
So you said before that this drink is part of the Collins family
of drinks, most drinks are kind of based on classics
this drink is also really similar to Spanish Collins essentially called the
Rebujito which does use fino sherry, you can get it in some
not-so-nice bars as just fino sherry with some Sprite which sounds a bit
gross but don't knock it until you're trying to survive a 40 degree day in
Andalusia, but to do it properly if you pop a couple of mint leaves in, some
sherry, some lemon and lime juice and some sugar syrup and then top it up
with soda it's really refreshing it's kind of like a lower alcohol mojito,
which is awesome on a hot day and obviously this drink itself can be
really easily modified for the seasons. Absolutely, here the easiest way to do
that would be to and change the rhubarb syrup to say like a peach or cherry, you
could do that in the same method we've used here by me it's doing down with
fruit or another way would be to mix equal parts fruit and sugar and left in
the fridge overnight and it will make a really delicious syrup there. So this
drink made with a peach syrup would be much fresher and more suited to the
summer and spring months.
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