How We Got Into This Mess

Whenever we have someone new in our house, at some point their eyes will travel over our liquor collection. It’s always amusing to watch because they see it, look away and then immediately do a double-take.  Our nearly 85-ish bottle collection does attract some attention. We’ll explain that, like cooking, making a really delicious cocktail is actually a great skill to have and we enjoy visiting bars all over the US and sharing our finds/knowledge with friends.  Then we get asked how this even all started….

It started with a quest to make a better cocktail than our local P.F. Chang’s. 

I know, not a high bar. Let me back up a bit…

While this blog is written by me (Abby) everything here also includes my husband, Ben. One of the things we first bonded over was cooking. Around 2014 we found ourselves in New York for work trips about twice a year. While we were in the city we would hit up all the trending restaurants and fun little eateries we could find. We were big fans of David Chang, Christina Tossi and Anthony Bourdain.

Fast forward to early spring 2016. I told Ben I wanted to go to a bar…  sit there, have a nice drink and just hang out. It’s always sounded appealing to me, but I had never really been to a proper bar. I didn’t drink much because I had no idea what I liked. And the few cocktails I had were horribly sweet or I just hated the way they tasted… they probably contained vodka. 

Since we had zero tolerance for alcohol we needed to find some place we could walk to. And that happened to be our local P.F. Chang’s. For the first few visits I would get a glass  of wine and Ben got something called a “Twisted Whiskey Sour”. I don’t know what was twisted about it, but each time I would take a sip and discovered I liked this bourbon/fruit juice thing more and more. On one of the trips I got the nerve to order my own drink and it was really awful—a coconut mojito— (its still on the menu and makes me shudder just thinking about it).

On our way home that night we decided there has got to be some books out there (just like all the cookbooks we own) on how to make a good drink. Ben went down the reddit rabbit-hole and a few days later some books arrived at our doorstep. 

Death & Co. : Modern Classic Cocktails

The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff 

The PDT Cocktail Book

I will say, at this point, this was mostly all Ben. I remember him reading the D&C book, making notes and soon some cocktail making supplies arrived and we made a trip to the liquor store. I don’t remember our first purchases, but I do know the first recipe we “figured” out on our own was that Twisted Whiskey Sour. Our version was infinitely better— probably because we added a bar spoon of Booker’s on top.

From here we started slowly adding the bottles, bitters and syrups from recipes found in the D&C book. Some were instant hits and others not so much. In August of 2016 we were in NYC again for work and we gathered our courage and went to Death & Co. for the very first time. We had read that the bar is first come, first serve so we got there right when it opened. I could write an entire post about this bar (and maybe I will….) but this one experience changed us forever. We sat down and instantly fell in love—

“This is it” we whispered after we ordered our first drinks. There was something about the whole atmosphere, the way the space was designed, the attention to detail, the gorgeous menus, the way the bar smelled… everything was just right. Till this day it remains very close to our hearts and is responsible for really launching this hobby of ours. 

Since then we’ve dived deeper into creating good drinks. Everything from ice, shaking techniques, adjusting citrus acidity and the importance of accurate measuring. I love learning about how to build out and run a bar. Every time we visit a major city, we seek out the interesting bars. In New York, we used to plan our nights around what restaurant we wanted to go to, now it’s which bar. We usually only go to one bar a night, so we’re able to spend quality time there, enjoying the space and community. Over time we’ve formed delightful relationships with some of the bartenders at our favorite spots and always make a point to come see them while we’re in town. 

I began to keep a journal— documenting every visit, to every bar and every drink that was consumed (ingredients included). I’m so glad I started this! It’s been fun trying to recreate some of our favorite drinks at home with varying degrees of success. 

Since 2016 we've collected coasters, stories, recipes, tips and helpful tricks that I hope to get out of my brain and on to this blog. A place I can point people to when they ask "How do I build a home bar?" There's a lot of info out there and I want to share what's worked for us. 

One of the best parts of this whole thing is taking the bits that resonate with you and adding them to your knowledge pool. There's an amusing video from Jeffery Morgenthaler detailing how to (not) make a cocktail video. At the end he mentions you should always say "cheers or enjoy". We found this to be pretty funny and we'll add "cheers enjoy" when we serve a drink. It's a nod to someone we learned a lot from, had the pleasure of meeting and to not take this whole thing too seriously. In the end, it's all about creating something tasty to share with the company you're with. 

On that note, thanks for reading! 

Cheers, enjoy, 

-Abby