So many tiny, precise decisions go into a well-made cocktail: choosing ingredients, deciding how to assemble them, and paying attention to the smallest details with the same vigor as the large ones — the accuracy of a dash, the precision of a manicured lemon twist. In our second book, Cocktail Codex, we dove deep into six “root cocktails” that are the foundation of the entire cocktail canon: the Old-Fashioned, the Martini, the Daiquiri, the Sidecar, the Whiskey Highball, and the Flip. Every cocktail shares DNA with at least one of these drinks.
If you understand the root six — how and why they work— then you can use them as a springboard to innovate and create new drinks. Mastering the root cocktails is an important part of our intellectual approach to cocktails. Drawing inspiration from our personal experiences, cultural references, and flavor preferences is part of our emotional approach.
We think all great cocktails must be a marriage between an intellectual understanding of the cocktail — its core architecture, what makes it work from a technical level — and the emotional, the human connections that evoke feeling, provoke thoughts, and ultimately produce more delicious drinks.
While we now use this strategy to build cocktails at the bar, we also employed the same technique in creating our line of canned cocktails with Craft Spirits Cooperative. Each decision was made with care and consideration without sacrificing quality and craft. The end result is accessible drinks that are as delicious at home as they would be at the bar.
