Vive La France

Vive la France

As a student, my cooking fell squarely in line with the stereotype of being cheap, stodgy and quite frankly often plain unpalatable.  The problem was not the quick and easy ready meals that tempted me on every visit to the local supermarket, but rather that fact that I insisted on ‘experimenting’ at every opportunity despite lacking any gastronomic flair.  It wasn’t until I benefitted from the  intervention of a female cohabitant that things started to improve.

 I learnt that to do things properly you need to get back to basics, to walk before you run, if you will.  As one of the staples of any students diet is pasta, mastering the sauces seemed like a decent place to start and I was advised that my, ‘chuck whatever is in the fridge/cupboard in a pan and hope for the best’ approach was not one that is usually recommended.  It was French cookery that saved the day; specifically the five ‘mother‘ sauces that, once mastered, offer limitless opportunities to be creative within a foundation that you know will work.

Fast forward a few years and these early culinary masterclasses offered a very good starting point for creating cocktails at home.  Whilst the ability to make a roux has yet to prove a desirable skill in the mixology stakes, the principle that the basics are worth learning most certainly has.  In cocktails there are a much larger number of ‘classic’ recipes than the five French ‘mother’ sauces, and it is a subject of regular debate among the libation geeks as to where exactly a specific drink falls.  Geekery aside, there are actually some very helpful foundations in classic cocktail making that open up endless possibilities once mastered.

Take a ‘sour’ for example, one of the oldest recipes and the base to thousands of drinks.  Consisting of spirit, citrus juice (usually lemon or lime), sugar and bitters, the sour is a cocktail category that includes such favorites as the daiquiri, margarita, white lady and the plainly named whiskey sour.  The trick to pulling off each of these drinks is learning how to balance the spirit, sweet and sour elements, something that I have found is best achieved through regular consumption.  Once mastered, swapping the sugar for a liqueur, or changing around the citrus fruit enables small changes to create a totally unique drink.

The downside to such experimentation is that I now find it impossible to go shopping without imaging the mixing possibilities of seemingly innocent-looking fruits and herbs.  What to most people is an attractive and tasty-looking pile of tropical fruit is to me an opportunity to create a delicious sugar syrup; and what might at first glance appear to be a selection of garden herbs, is to me an infusion just waiting to happen.  Combine this creativity with the knowledge of classic cocktails and you’re on to a winner so go on, have a play!

The Cocktail Geek