Absinthe Cocktails Competition in UK

For the last year or so, my bartender presentations on absinthe have included much more about the role of absinthe in cocktails. Absinthe was first distilled commercially in 1798 (in Couvet, Switzerland) and  1798 is also the year that the word "cocktail" first appeared in print meaning a drink. Absinthe and cocktails seem to have been "paired at birth."

Around the world, bartenders now seem to realize that a lot of the old stories and ways of drinking absinthe were myths and fabrications to prey on the ignorant. But some bartenders still don't seem to know what to do with absinthe (apart from rinses in Sazeracs and dashes in Corpse Revivers, that is).

So I was delighted when James Fowler contacted me about an opportunity to talk about absinthe in cocktails with the Bournemouth Bartenders League (BBL). James will be well-known to regular readers here as the owner of The Larder House (home of the first UK absinthe dinner) and more recently the UK winner of Diageo's World Class Bartender competition. I don't know whether there is "something in the water" around Bournemouth or whether it is the inspiration of people like James, but it is clear that there is a lot of bartending expertise there. James put me in touch with Salvatore Damiano of the BBL and a few weeks later, I drove to The Larder House and I gave a short presentation about absinthe in cocktails (with the behind-the-bar help of Franco) ...

I have no idea what I was doing with the iPad in that top right shot, but by the time of the bottom right shot, I had finished my talk and was enjoying watching the cream of local bartenders at work. Why? Well, I have spent far too much time in the last year or so analysing history, the ways in which absinthe was used in cocktails back in the days of Harry Craddock at The Savoy (1930), and how modern bartenders are now using absinthe. For example ...

The first column of numbers shows the % of absinthe cocktails which used specific other ingredients in The Savoy in 1930. Not surprisingly absinthe was used in a lot of cocktails with gin and/or vermouth. The second column of numbers is based on the best absinthe cocktails book, A Taste for Absinthe, published in 2010, with cocktails provided by many of the world's best bartenders. Gin and vermouth have slipped down the list, and lemon/lime along with sugar or simple syrup have become the most popular ingredients to be paired with absinthe in cocktails.

Interestingly both La Clandestine and Pernod are working extensively with cocktails made almost entirely with absinthe, limes and sugar. The Clandestino was first made in 2007 and The Green Beast was first made about three years later.

So why was I at the Larder House? Here there was a team of contestants who were not thinking of the 1930 or even of 2010. They were thinking of creating the next great absinthe cocktail. Their brief was to use a full measure of absinthe, either La Clandestine or Butterfly, in creating their own new cocktail, and here is what they created and what I had the pleasure of judging ..

1. David Hall, Urban Reef

The Boston Cocktail

25ml Butterfly Absinthe

25ml Green Apple syrup

75ml Water

4 dashes of Orange bitters

Shaken and pour in a tumbler

I loved the way that David took elements from Butterfly's past: especially the fact that the owner of Dempsey, Boston, was one of the major US players fighting the threat of prohibition.

2. Connor Sanderson, The Captain's Club Hotel

Alice's Fairy Elixir

25ml La Clandestine

15ml Koku Kanu

15ml Mozart white liqueur

1 egg white

A spoon of New Forest Strawberry Jam

Nutmeg

Shaken and pour over crushed ice in a jam jar

Beautifully made with some great ingredients; excellently presented.

3. Harry King, The Library at The Larder House

Parasite

20ml Butterfly absinthe

10ml Creme de Violette

10ml Kamm and Sons aperitif

5ml maraschino

20ml lime juice

Stirred over ice and topped with elderflower tonic water and finished with a lavender foam

The foam was an interesting challenge for a judge; of course one has to taste through it too, in order to understand how the taste of the cocktail will develop. The one small issue I had with this cocktail was the name which didn't quite communicate how wonderful this cocktail was.

4. Thomas Quy, The Captain's Club Hotel

Fancy a Cuppa

40ml Butterfly Absinthe

20ml lemon & ginger tea syrup with mint

15ml lemon juice

20ml Violet Liqueur

2 dashes of grapefruit bitters

Shaken and poured into a tea cup

A very full measure of Butterfly here: 40 ml. Great taste and presentation. This is getting difficult ...  

5. Joel Whitmore, The Larder House

Covert Beets in the Back Streets of Couvet

Per serving –

40ml Apple & Ginger Juice

20ml Beetroot Juice

0.1g malic acid
Pour all ingredients into iced filled absinthe fountain.

Stir. 
Add 25ml La Clandestine Absinthe into Absinthe glass.

Turn taps and add desired amount of apple and beet mix to absinthe. 
Garnish with Swiss mountain flowers.

I had met Joel previously and, honestly, I didn't want him to win if he seemed to have any inside advantage! But I couldn't fault the concept or the final presentation and taste. Absinthe and beetroot do work together well, both visually and in a cocktail. It wasn't the punchiest of names for a cocktail but apart from that, it was faultless.

So I chose two winners: Joel (for the best cocktail with La Clandestine) and Thomas (for the best cocktail with Butterfly).

And I was delighted that Salvatore chose another winner, David, for the Bournemouth Bartenders League prize.

It was a great day for me, in which I learnt a lot about the process of creating cocktails: from naming, through to preparation and execution. Thank you to the Bournemouth Bartenders League, thank you to Matt Pollard for the photographs (hopefully my collages did not spoil them too much!),and above all thanks to Salvatore for organising it all. It is clear that great absinthe cocktails can be made with much more than a few drops or dashes as used by Craddock in 1930. If this happens elsewhere, absinthe distillers will be very busy keeping up with demand in the near future!

"A cocktail is much improved by the addition of two or three drops of Absinthe."

James Fowler, World Class UK Bartender of the Year 2014

C.F. Lawlor's "The Mixicologist" provides one of the first versions of the Absinthe Suissesse (an adapted version of which I enjoyed last year at New York's Dead Rabbit):

The Mixicologist also contains the famous quote about absinthe in the title of this post: "A cocktail is much improved by the addition of two or three drops of Absinthe." Of course Lawlor's Suissesse contains far more than two or three drops, so don't feel limited by the quote!

Fast forward 119 years, and Gaz Regan writes in the Regan Report 2014 (quoted here) that absinthe is a "very important ingredient” in the bartender’s tool chest. “Apart from the fact that it pairs so well to both Scotch and to mescal — both known for their smoky characters — absinthe, when used judiciously, can bring fabulous nuances to cocktails that can be gotten from no other source.”

From time to time, I come across bartenders who are not fully convinced about absinthe. In some cases, that seems to be down to bad experiences bartenders have had with absinthe in the past, and that seems to be especially true in markets where the Czech-style of "absinth" appeared before the real absinthe that is now more globally dominant. Or they see that absinthe is burnt and/or shot in other bars, and they don't want to encourage practices like that in their own bar. 

So how can I convince bartenders and those making cocktails at home that absinthe can add so much to a cocktail? By quoting Lawlor and Regan? Well, that's one way, but "theory" is not as effective as "practice." And over the last month I have seen two great examples of world class practice (literally "World Class"), using absinthe in cocktails that have helped their creators win two of the top prizes in the cocktail world globally. 

I have written previously about the Maid in Cuba cocktail created by Tom Walker at The Savoy for the Bacardi Legacy competition. As Tom said, the inclusion of absinthe makes this a more mature and more interesting alternative to the mojito and the daiquiri, the main drinks which helped inspire the Maid in Cuba, and the audience certainly enjoyed the cocktail at our "Savoy's Green Fairy Secrets" seminar at Tales of the Cocktail 2013. 

Nine months later, I was one of many following the global final of the Bacardi Legacy competition on Facebook and was thrilled to read of Tom's victory (here's an interview with Tom about the competition and the cocktail). As I read the news unfold on Facebook, I remember thinking that the Maid in Cuba was not just an exceptionally good Bacardi cocktail, but that it was also probably the finest new cocktail with absinthe to come from the Savoy since Harry Craddock's Corpse Reviver #2. Of course there are other new cocktails with absinthe available at the Savoy including Erik Lorincz's Monet's Moment, but I suspect the Maid in Cuba is already much more famous. So I was delighted to see that the Maid in Cuba will appear in new editions of the Savoy Hotel Cocktail Book. And here's the proof (in more ways than one!):

Tom is a highly motivated, detail-obsessed bartender and maybe his time at the Savoy has given him a special understanding of absinthe. However Tom is definitely not unique in appreciating what absinthe can do for cocktails.

Today after a week of competition in London and in Hong Kong, the UK winner of the Diageo World Class competition was announced. James Fowler of The Larder House, Southbourne (near Bournemouth) has been a long-term fan of good absinthes, and hosted our first Absinthe Dinner at The Larder House on Valentine's Day, 2012. Later that year, he and Joel Solomon came to Boveresse for the world's largest Absinthe Festival. James told me that he uses as much absinthe as vodka in his restaurant and bar, a fascinating statistic, especially given that it is not positioned as an absinthe outlet.

James progressed through the early stages of Diageo's World Class with his speciality cocktail, Copper Colours. Here's the recipe:-

Mixing Glass filled to the top with fresh cubed ice
Add the following to the mixing glass in the order below:-
1.25 ml Butterfly Absinthe
20 ml Pacharan
20 ml Lepanto Olorosso Spanish brandy
40 ml Ketel One
Stir with bar spoon to chill & dilute. 50 revolutions.
Strain into chilled glass
Serve with Iberico Jamon, borage and burnt tangerine segment salad

(photo of James and his prize-winning cocktail from the Bournemouth Echo)

Over the course of a whole week in London and Hong Kong, James and the other finalists had to do far more than just preparing one cocktail (e.g. food pairing), but this speciality cocktail was a key element in James progressing to the later stages. James shows a keen appreciation of what absinthe can bring to cocktails (as well as to food), even if only in dashes. Congratulations, James!

Two great examples of prize-winning bartenders in the UK making good use of absinthe in amazing cocktails. But there are many more prize-winning bars around the world which feature absinthe as an important part of their mix. Here are just a few of the finalists from this year's Spirited Awards at the Tales of the Cocktail that make very good use of absinthe:

The Nightjar (London)
Big Easy, Covent Garden (London)
Dead Rabbit (New York)
The Anvil (Houston)
Cure and Hotel Bellocq (New Orleans)
Canon (Seattle)
Spare Room (Los Angeles)
Clive's Classic (Victoria)
Black Angel's (Prague)
Widder Bar and Old Crow (Zurich)

If you're a bartender and don't currently use good absinthe, maybe you could consider why do all these top bars (and many more) make such good use of absinthe. If you make cocktails at home and don't have absinthe, well, it's almost like being a cook without having salt and pepper.

Congratulations to Tom and James! Good luck to all the nominees at Tales of the Cocktail! And to all future potential prize-winners and those of you striving to make great cocktails at home!

Nin