{"id":812,"date":"2008-06-26T02:55:07","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T02:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2008\/06\/minimalist-mixo.html"},"modified":"2008-06-26T02:55:07","modified_gmt":"2008-06-26T02:55:07","slug":"minimalist-mixo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"Minimalist != Mixologist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hate to slam the NYT<\/em> twice in reasonably-quick succession<\/a>, but I gotta say that I don’t care much for "Minimalist<\/a>" Mark Bittman’s recipes. (does he test them?  Why are my experiments with his "How To Cook Everything" cookbook largely failures, when failed recipes from other cookbooks — including Julia’s, Joy of Cooking<\/em>, The Best Recipe<\/em>, et al, et cetera — are vanishingly rare?)  This goes double for his takes on cocktails.  <\/p>\n

His most recent column<\/a> is especially egregious, in which Bittman sits down and cogitates about cocktails, and makes the shocking discovery that they run in families, and presents the various members of the Sour family:<\/p>\n

\n

Then I did some thinking and reading about cocktails. It turns out
\nthat if you use vodka instead of tequila, the margarita becomes the
\nkamikaze. Swap cognac for the vodka and lemon for the lime and you have
\na sidecar.<\/p>\n

Look at the pattern \u2014 you might call it the basic
\nrecipe \u2014 of these drinks, many of which might be grouped as \u201csours\u201d:
\nthey combine liquor with water (usually in the form of ice), a sour
\nflavoring (usually citrus juice) and a sweetener (simple syrup, or
\nsomething more expensive and flavorful, like Cointreau). You might add
\na splash of soda or, if you like, fruit juice, which gets you into
\nbeachcomber or cosmo territory. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, yeah.  And, for the record, I don’t really object to his presenting this information, but I do object to his acting like this is a Major Discovery that was Revealed By The Gods To Mark Bittman.  For one thing, Gary Regan<\/a> has been explicating the theory of the families of cocktails for literally years, most notably in his tour de force<\/em> "The Joy of Mixology<\/a>."  And Regan’s hardly the only person to talk this way; a simple perusal of the cocktailian literature will bring scores of other mentions of the theory to hand.<\/p>\n

You know what?  I actually really like most of the rest of what Bittman has to say:  figure out what drinks you like by making them, and by trying variations on them, and figuring out what you like best.   But, as I commented on Bittman’s blog post<\/a> about his column, drinks have names for a very good reason; they signify (to drinkers, to wait staff, to bartenders who have three-quarters of a clue and a lemon squeezer to rub together) an agreed-upon collection of at least ingredients, if not the proportions of those ingredients.  If you ordered Eggs Benedict, you’d damn well expect Hollandaise sauce.  (And you’d damn well expect the Hollandaise to consist of butter, lemon juice, and egg yolk.)  Anything else is, well, something else.  And it might be tasty, but it wouldn’t be Eggs Benedict.  Similarly, a Sidecar should consist of brandy, lemon juice, and triple sec.  There might be — there is<\/em> — vigorous debate and vast differences of opinion on what proportions to use when combining these ingredients, and what sort of glass to serve it in, and whether to sugar the rim, but no one seriously advocates that a Sidecar with Campari, or barleywine, or Clamato added is still a Sidecar.<\/p>\n

And, while I’m at it, let me address the video that accompanies the column:  First off, Bittman addresses the camera and says "I’m not a big cocktail drinker, but I do make cocktails for other people."  I submit that that’s his first problem right there.  I don’t believe that one has to be a cocktail expert or even a "big cocktail drinker" to make good cocktails…but if you’re making drinks for other people, you should have a basic sense of the flavor profiles of the classics, and be willing to taste your way through your efforts to evaluate how close you’re coming to your goal.<\/p>\n

Some other things that occurred to me:<\/p>\n