The aughts were a stupendous decade for spirits and cocktails, incontrovertibly the most lively and fertile period since before Prohibition. Cocktail mixing, a near-moribund craft, blossomed into an art form. Spirits elevated from the suspect currency of stale dive bars to something celebrated by even the fussiest of palates. The resurgence came in stages -- but the effect was nothing less than the rebirth of a vibrant American tradition.
The Rise of the Cocktail Bar
As if knowingly kicking off a movement, Milk and Honey, the speakeasy on New York's Lower East Side, opened in January 2000. It offered a temple to the cocktail, which in the preceding decade had shown signs of new life in New York and London. M&H's secrecy and appointment-only trappings gave the cocktail the style and cachet it needed. M&H is a small bar and not mainstream -- but, like the cocktail movement as a whole, it reflected the passionate efforts of a few tireless professionals. The last decade welcomed an unprecedented multiplication of dedicated high-end cocktail venues across the nation, notably the Pegu Club and the Flatiron Lounge in New York City, and Bourbon & Branch and Rye in San Francisco. Wonderful cocktail bars are still opening all over, from Seattle to Atlanta. Like M&H 10 years ago, they offer more than just a home for this gastronomic art. They provide a stage.
The Rise of the Mixologist
The elevation of the bartender follows the rise of the cocktail bar, but it warrants its own entry. In the past, the occupation of bartender appeared a bit shady. Hence the entry of "mixologist" into the lexicon. The bartenders who worked at these wonderful new cocktail bars did far more than pouring shots and beers. They were akin to chefs, fueling the movement with their experiments. They exhumed long- forgotten cocktails from the recipe tomes of a century or more ago. They mixed their own concoctions, modeled on the proportions of the past, yet entirely new. Then they began to craft their own ingredients, essentials such as syrups (of all flavors), bitters, tonics, infusions. With this burst of creativity, bartender/mixologists rose in respect. Suddenly, they were quoted in The New York Times, finding their pictures full-page in Food & Wine, appearing on the "Today" show and publishing their own recipe books.
Fresh Juicing
No one used to care about juice. Canned or bottled orange juice from concentrate would be poured into drab concoctions such as the screwdriver. A lemon was something to be squeezed into a vodka and soda. Lime juice came from some preserved mixer like Rose's, straight into your gimlet. But mixologists began to realize that it wasn't so hard to juice a lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruits before a shift or, better yet, to do it by hand right in front of customers, straight into their drinks. With this simple realization, the cocktail went from black and white to technicolor like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz." Now, fresh juices are de rigueur. Any cocktail bar that wants to be taken seriously better be juicing. Today, anything that can render fresh, vibrant flavor -- from basil to pineapple to bacon -- is being crushed, soaked and infused into drinks.
Return of Forgotten Spirits
The most notable spirit before this decade was vodka. Vodka is still king, by far the leading spirit in the world. But as drinkers and bartenders dug more deeply, they began to cherish older, under-appreciated spirits. And they started to turn against vodka, much as wine drinkers did against Chardonnay in the late '80s and '90s. While gin never died, it had stagnated. Then, thanks to bartenders, it was a category redeemed. Not only were great old brands such as Plymouth, Tanqueray and Beefeater celebrated, but a cottage industry of gin-making sprung up, perhaps inspired most by the new label Hendrick's, started in 2001. Many more followed, from Junipero of San Francisco to Death's Door of Wisconsin.
Something similar happened with rye whiskey. As cocktail historians discovered that classics such as the Manhattan and the Old Fashioned originally were made with rye (not bourbon, as was thought), they began to crave the stuff. The thirst for this new (old) product was ineluctable, and soon there were new rye bottlings from the old Kentucky distillers -- Heaven Hill, Buffalo Trace, etc. And new rye labels hit the market too -- Old Potrero and High West, to name a couple.
Absinthe, too, made a comeback in the U.S. After picking up a following in Europe, it was legalized in the States two years ago. For the first time in generations, Absinthe was produced on U.S. soil: St. George from the folks at Hangar One, Germain-Robin Absinthe from Mendocino County, Delaware Phoenix from New York. It has turned out to be amazingly delicious stuff, more complex than any spirit ever produced here.
The Reinvention of Liqueurs
Prior to the last decade, liqueurs -- or cordials as they were often known -- gathered dust on the back bar shelves, pulled out on rare occasion for women with a sweet tooth. Thanks to the cocktail, liqueurs have exploded as ingredients in newfangled drinks. Originals Grand Marnier, Cointreau and Cherry Heering have been rightfully restored to positions of honor, and spectacular new liqueurs such as St. Germain (elderflower), Qi (black tea and white tea), Domaine de Canton (ginger), and many more have been introduced. And the rehabilitation of older brands continues as antique but obscure brands such as Combier and Benedictine are reasserting themselves, and Creme de Violette is just around the corner. Why are these so critical to cocktails? They contain alcohol, so they can be added to a drink without diluting it. At the same time, the alcohol carries flavors and aromas much more effectively than sugar and water, so these liqueurs are more intense and complex than a flavored syrup ever could be.
Jordan Mackay is the wine and spirits editor for San Francisco's metropolitan magazine 7x7 and writes The Juice column for Chow. In addition, he's a contributing writer for Wine and Spirits magazine and a regular contributor to Decanter and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Photo by Juan Monino
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