Our house-made herbal syrup lab is a busy place these days. One of the most potent products of our ongoing experiments is our ginger syrup, which is great in iced tea but also breathes some spicy life into a martini! – [Ongoing thanks are due Kevin Cosgrove and Mike Taberski for their inspiration and hard work behind the bar, and to Judith Prescott for making these videos!]

Categories: Cocktails, Drink, Liquor

Tagged: bartending, cocktails, ginger, ginger syrup, Judith Prescott, kevin cosgrove, lemon, Max Steinberg, Mike Taberski, vodka

One Happy Elephant

Mike Millea

Posted on July 6, 2012

Some days the restaurant business can be a real grind, others can be tremendously rewarding, and others still can just be fun! Today was the last of the three. I spent a good portion of the day working with two of our bartenders, Mike and Kevin, on our cocktail program. We recreated each of our “specialty” cocktails, built an on-line and paper directory of them for staff training, and brainstormed ideas for future concoctions.

The photo depicts one happy elephant who got in on the photo shoot for the training binder surrounded by the completed cocktails. And by happy coincidence he even seems to be reaching for the straw of one of the drinks! Seriously, we did not plan that in the staging of the shot.

Some of these drinks are familiar, like the Dark & Stormy and the classic Negroni. Others are modifications of a classic, like the Rouge Manhattan, which features Maker’s Mark bourbon and a fantastic Rouge cherry liqueur imported from France which adds a subtle sweetness to the drink and rounds out the sometimes sharp edges of the whisky. Finally there are several drinks which feature some special ingredients: our house-infused spirits and house-made syrups. Kevin and Mike have been taking ingredients from our kitchen and finding ways to use them behind the bar, and the guys in the kitchen are only mildly annoyed by their presence. – Actually, the kitchen guys are having fun too.

Kevin took a unique product, Mehkong rum, a sweet and mildly spiced spirit from Thailand, added some of his house-made ginger syrup, mint and lime and created a mojito you can’t get anywhere else. Mike has taken a rather dull drink that has been on the list and made it unbelieveable. He took the Ginger-Lemon martini we had that anyone could make and re-crafted it using our house-made lemongrass and ginger syrups to create an amazingly bright citrusy drink that has surprising bite from the ginger. Other interesting items are house-infused pear vodka, vanilla syrup, and the guys tell me we have Chai infused bourbon on the way.

I will do my best to keep you up to date with the exciting changes to the beverage program, but these guys are wearing me out with new ideas. Be on the lookout for something very different: we don’t have a name yet (suggestions welcome), but it includes our pear and clove infused vodka and – this may sound weird but hear me out – turmeric syrup. I know, I wasn’t sure myself, but it has brilliant color (you guessed it) mustard yellow, and the earthy spiciness of the turmeric meshes incredibly well with the sweetness of the pear.

Next time you are in. ask “what’s new behind the bar?” Chances are it’s something pretty cool, and the people who made it had a lot of fun creating it. – I know I’m having fun in my position of “Official Taste Tester!”

Categories: Cocktails, Drink, Liquor

Tagged: bartending, bourbon, chai, cocktails, drink, ginger, homemade, lemongrass, lime, manahattan, mint, mojito, negroni, pear, turmeric, vodka, waltham

A Benefit Restaurant® serving award-winning Cambodian and French cuisine. Located at 663 Main Street, Waltham, MA. – (781) 899-2244

Posts tagged “ginger”

Ginger Syrup

Bob Perry

Posted on August 3, 2012

One Happy Elephant

Mike Millea

Posted on July 6, 2012

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