sour

It's a balancing act!

May 19, 2010 - 1:01pm | by Daniel Priseman
It seems like the simplest thing in the world: take a bit of lime juice, add some sugar and rum, shake it up with ice and strain it into a glass… the perfect daiquiri right? Well then why is it that sometimes I am left so disappointed by what should be the simplest of drinks? At other times I see the bartender reaching for flavours that are strong and counter-intuitive, but the finished drink is the embodiment of liquid perfection. It comes down to a matter of balance!
 
 
I was judging a cocktail competition recently and got talking to a young bartender who’s new to the trade, is passionate about cocktails and wants to learn more. He comes from a food background so understands flavour, but as he put it, ‘I just don’t quite know what I have to do to balance one ingredient against the next’. It made me wonder just how many young bartenders are banging out drinks to the spec they’ve been given by their bar manager, but who have never actually been shown how to balance a drink.
 
 
Well that seemed like the perfect reason for me to have a look at what it takes to balance a drink. It’s something that experienced bartenders seem to make look so easy but is the difference between having a great drinking experience or vowing never to return to the bar you’re visiting. It’s definitely one of the most important factors in making a drink and yet it seems it is seldom discussed.
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Has LAB still got it? Oh hell yes it has!

January 11, 2010 - 6:28pm | by Daniel Priseman

Jager

There are a handful of bars that have become truly iconic and have stood the test of time; Milk & Honey in New York springs to mind, Lonsdale for many years, but go into any quality cocktail bar almost anywhere in the world and mention LAB bar in London’s Soho and bartenders know exactly where you’re talking about.

For those of you who are scratching your heads and saying, ‘LAB? never heard of it!’ it’s about time you crawled out from under your rock and had a look around. LAB has been at the sharp end of the bar scene in the UK for over a decade and while it’s had it’s ups and downs it’s never really fallen from grace. Right now LAB feels as though it is on an up-swing again, so I’m readily anticipating many more years of greatness from them.

You see LAB was created as a proving ground for bartenders, a place where good bartenders went to become great bartenders. The name stands for ‘London Academy of Bartenders’ so you get the idea… Some of the leading lights of the bar world learnt their trade here and the list of ‘star-tenders’ who can trace their roots back to this bar is long and legendary. The fact that half of them have gone on to become brand ambassadors and are now leading the life of luxury shouldn’t put you off drinking here though, as each in turn earned their reputations by putting in the hours perfecting their craft. LAB has always been a place bartenders work to take that step beyond just making drinks; to learn the craft of tending bar.

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