Welcome to Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, <Cocktail Name Goes Here>!

It's not what you do. It's how you do it.

The light at Hemingway’s is dreadful for photos sometimes.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. This week, let’s zoom out a little bit and take a look at the big picture when it comes to bartending. Instead of focusing on one drink, I’m going to talk you through the process of coming up with a bespoke cocktail from scratch. How do I make a drink for a customer based on something as simple as “something spicy” or “A bourbon drink”? How do you make a cocktail for yourself based on what you keep in the house? Let’s walk through making a bespoke cocktail. And yes, I’ll give you a recipe to play with — I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch after a week like this. Try this:

<Cocktail Name Goes Here>

2 oz bison grass vodka

¾ oz lemon juice

½ oz Canton ginger liquor

¼ oz pineapple syrup

¼ oz passionfruit syrup

Shake and strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.

It’s 4:15 on a rainy Wednesday. We’ve got twenty reservations on the books. Not a night for walk-in traffic. Slow, but not dead. The first customers of the night are two saleswomen complaining about their territories. One woman orders a showstopper of a drink — the Burlesque Martini. Tommy wrote this as an upscale version of the Porn Star Martini, and boy howdy does it deliver. Bison grass vodka, a custom hibiscus cordial, passionfruit syrup, lemon, all served with a shot of champagne and a flaming lime wheel. (No, I don’t have the recipe. Come see me at Hemingway’s and Tommy will make one for you.)

After that one’s over, the saleswoman looks me and says, “I liked the base spirit of this drink. Can you make me something else with it?” It’s the perfect time to make something from scratch. I crack my knuckles and get to work.

I’ve been working my way through The Cocktail Codex (Wonkette affiliate link!), a book from Death & Co. The central thesis of this book is that there are only six cocktails: the old-fashioned, the martini, the daiquiri, the margarita, the highball, and the flip. Every cocktail recipe is a riff or variation of those six core drinks. I was dubious at first, but I’m coming around to their point of view. On a practical level, this approach gives me a starting point whenever I make a drink from scratch. In this case, I’m going to be making a restrained “margarita” that leans into the inherent spiciness of bison grass vodka.

Bison grass vodka has a subtle, herbaceous flavor. It’s spicy like cilantro, rather than pepper. Ginger is a good complement to that spiciness. The ginger liquor is sweet, so we need some acid to balance the drink. Lemon and ginger play nicely together. I know from experience that a 3:4 ratio of acid to sugar makes a solid margarita. So far, so good. But I don’t want the ginger to overwhelm the cocktail. What else can we use to keep the drink focused on bison grass?

One of the advantages I have at my bar is the number of syrups and acids I have at my disposal. Offhand, I’ve got syrups behind the bar and five different acidic components to play with. I love pineapple syrup as a secondary flavor in drinks. In tiny amounts, it doesn’t read as “pineapple,” but it provides a little more depth and character than plain sugar syrup. Ditto passion fruit syrup — there’s some richness there that you can’t quite identify but provides body. Two parts ginger, one part pineapple, one part passion fruit. That’s a full ounce of sugar vs. ¾ oz of lemon.

I’m tempted to add a little soda water to lengthen the cocktail, but after I taste the drink and consult with Tommy, I decide to serve it neat in a Nick and Nora glass. Garnishing a bespoke drink like this can be tricky, but a little rosemary clipped to the side of the drink works here. It provides an herbal scent that complements the bison grass. Our saleswoman loved it.

Let’s talk ingredients, but in a general sort of way. It doesn’t matter what I used so much as why I used it.

Pre-cocktail ingredient shot. Maybe I cheated some honey syrup in there, too. A boy’s got to keep some trade secrets.

Bison Grass vodka: Bison grass vodka is a different beast from Tito’s. It’s a grassy, herbal spirit that barely resembles American vodka. The customer specifically asked for bison grass vodka, so all our decisions revolve around that choice. If you’re rummaging through your liquor cabinet trying to make a cocktail from scratch, necessity will probably dictate your choice of base spirit.

Canton ginger liquor: This is what makes this drink a margarita — if we used syrup, but no spirit, to sweeten the drink it would be a daiquiri. Orange and tequila are great together — that’s a classic margarita. In this case, bison grass and ginger paired up well. What’s the sugary stuff in your liquor cabinet? Got some creme de cacao from a chocolate margarita last Valentine’s Day? Chocolate and rum love each other. So do chocolate and whiskey. Pick a second bottle from the liquor cabinet that pairs well with the first.

Other Syrups: I’ve got a lot of sweet syrups at the bar. But then again, so do you. Maple syrup, honey, sugar that you can melt in a little water — all these work as cocktail components. Layered flavors make great drinks. Be creative. Put things in a glass that would taste good together.

Lemon Juice: I use lemon juice or lime juice in 75 percent of my cocktails. But I’ve got grapefruit juice and pineapple juice to play with as well. Use what you’ve got and see if you like it. Remember, a 3:4 ratio of acid to sugar works (but adjust to your taste). You’ve got this. I believe in you. Drink well.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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