Crafting the classic cocktail Shake, stir your way to mix mastery By: Jill Wilson Posted: 3:00 AM CST Monday, Jan. 21, 2019 Last Modified: 11:09 AM CST Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019

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Ask five bartenders to name five definitively classic cocktails and you’ll get… well, a bar fight. Some would strive to include an example of a drink from five different base alcohols — rum, gin, vodka, tequila and whisky. Others would insist upon the inclusion of the cobbler — the cocktail that first capitalized on the ready availability of ice in the 1830s, it introduced the shaker and the straw to the drinking public.

Some would claim you can’t stop at five, because you’d need to include all six of the basic cocktails outlined in David Embury’s seminal 1948 guidebook, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks: daiquiri, Jack Rose, Manhattan, martini, old fashioned and sidecar. Others would swap in a margarita or stump for the Vesper, James Bond author Ian Fleming’s vodka invention.

What about the Corpse Reviver No. 2, the 1930s equal-parts gin cocktail so named for its purported ability to cure a hangover? Or the Mai Tai, that tiki-bar rum-based standard?

Whatever drinks you include, one thing everyone can agree on is that the ability to make a decent cocktail is a valuable skill for anyone who likes to entertain in their own home.

For aspiring mixologists wanting a grasp of the basics, Josey Krahn leads cocktail classes at the bar at Forth (the Exchange District space where he formerly bartended; he now runs his own company, Tiny Bar, which does “weddings, house parties, any and every event from five people to 1,500 people”).

His list of the five cocktails everyone should be able to make at home — gin martini, old fashioned, daiquiri, negroni and spritz — focuses on classics that are popular, easy to make and don’t require outlandish or exotic ingredients.

In his classes he features the whiskey sour, but he’s left it off the home-entertaining list because of the complications of the egg white froth on top, and the difficulty of making it for multiple people at once.

“Because if you’re making cocktails at home, what are you making them for?” he asks. “You’re making them for your friends to come over, right? These are all super simple. They’re technique-driven, so the better care you take in doing it, the better they’re going to be. And you can pretty much bet that you’ll have all these ingredients if you have a modest wet bar in your house.

“They’re also all gateway cocktails. If you know how to make a daiquiri you can make hundreds of other sour-style drinks with those same principles,” he adds, pointing out that if you swap rum for bourbon, lime for lemon and maraschino liqueur for Aperol, you’ll have a Paper Plane.

Krahn got his start behind the bar at Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club on Main Street (he does pop-up Tiny Bar engagements there these days), but his love for cocktails was stoked during his time at Exchange District restaurant Deer + Almond. He started reading everything he could get his hands on and experimenting with combinations and flavours.

“The basic thing I try to talk about is how important balance is in cocktails, and proper measurement,” he says of the Cocktail 101 workshops he’s hosting this month. “That’s one of the things that people really overlook, both in professional and home settings. You can’t make anything good with a bunch of bad ingredients and improperly balanced portions.”

Krahn stresses that he’s not trying to dictate hard and fast rules or impose his tastes on other imbibers.

“I will make you a really nice whiskey and Coke, if that’s what you want,” he says. “It’s not about me or my preferences. That’s why it’s the hospitality industry, not the do-what-I-say industry. I’m inviting you in with the intention of helping you have a great time. If that’s a shot of vodka or a whiskey and Coke, fine.

“I maybe would draw the line at those very sexually named shooters,” he says, laughing.

1. Gin martini: “Everybody has their own version of it, just like any cocktail — there isn’t a right or wrong way,” Krahn says. “That being said, I call this a ‘perfect martini,’ only because Sasha Petraske at Milk and Honey, a really influential cocktail bar in New York, he called it that.”

Krahn prefers Plymouth gin for its smooth quality, and its juniper and flowery notes; he also uses a drop of saline solution and a garnish of lemon peel (though you can chose to garnish with olives or a pickled onion, if you prefer). And 007 be damned: he stirs (rather than shakes) the mixture “vigorously for 20 seconds, so it gets ice, ice, ice, ice-cold and properly diluted.” He finds stirring gives the drink a more velvety mouthfeel, without ice chips.

2. Daiquiri: “This can be a totally sh– drink,” Krahn says, referring to the oversweet blended concoctions made with simulated fruit-flavoured syrup.

His version uses dark and white rum and fresh-squeezed lime juice, shaken, not stirred (he uses a shaker for any cocktail that contains fruit juice), and rich simple syrup (which is a two-to-one ratio of sugar to water).

3. Old Fashioned: This simple cocktail — spirit, sugar, bitters, water — dates back to the 1800s, but it never goes out of style (it actually saw a resurgence in popularity in the 2000s, as it was the preferred quaff of Don Draper on TV’s Mad Men). Many recipes call for a sugar cube doused in bitters, but Krahn prefers to use simple syrup to avoid the grit of sugar granules that don’t properly dissolve in cold liquid.

4. Negroni: The bitterness of the Campari in this classic Italian cocktail is intended to stimulate the appetite. Many recipes use a 1:1:1 ratio of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari; Krahn’s version doubles up on the gin.

5. Spritz: This festive sparkling option is one of Krahn’s favourites on the list because it’s simple — his example is four ingredients in equal parts — and can be made in larger quantities for a party; the flavour profile is easily switched up.

“The variations are infinite — that’s why I like them so much,” he says. “You can make huge batches of them and have them in your fridge for when pals come over.”

Tiny Bar Wpg’s Cocktail 101 workshops at Forth, 171 McDermot Ave., include drinks, snacks and a take-home cocktail guide. Tickets are $100 (including fees and taxes) at Eventbrite; the next date is Sunday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. Class size is limited to eight participants.

For more information, follow @tinybarwpg on Instagram, go to tinybarwpg.com or email tinybarwpg@gmail.com.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier

Jill Wilson
Senior copy editor

Jill Wilson writes about culture and the culinary arts for the Arts & Life section.

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