I do a lot of thinking about modern classic cocktails. The majority of the drinks that have achieved this status in the last 20 years are by white males since, like most industries, the bar industry is dominated by white males and has been for a long time. When the author of a modern classic cocktail is a woman, it’s usually either Audrey Saunders or Julie Reiner. But perhaps I’m overlooking some obvious candidates. Are there any classics by women bartenders that I’m missing, perhaps drinks that have more a presence outside of the United States?
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Might be useful to list what we’ve already got in terms of drinks by women:
Modern Classics:
Earl Grey MarTEAni - Audrey Saunders, Bemelmans Bar, New York City, 2003/4
Gin Gin Mule - Audrey Saunders, Beacon, New York City, USA, 2000
Old Cuban - Audrey Saunders, Beacon/Tonic, New York City, 2001
Second Tier:
CIA - Tonia Guffey, Flatiron Lounge, New York, 2011
Gin Blossom - Julie Reiner, Clover Club, Brooklyn, NY, 2009
Jamaican Firefly - Audrey Saunders, Beacon, New York City, 2000
Little Italy - Audrey Saunders, Pegu Club, New York, 2005
Siesta - Katie Stipe, Flatiron Lounge, New York City, 2006
The Slope - Julie Reiner, Clover Club, Brooklyn, 2009
Tantris Sidecar - Audrey Saunders, Beacon, New York City, 2000
Wildest Redhead - Meaghan Dorman, Lantern’s Keep, New York City, 2011
Critic Picks: (chosen by Robert, some with cajoling from me)
Ce Soir - Nicole Lebedevitch, The Hawthorne, Boston, 2010
French Pearl - Audrey Saunders, Pegu Club, New York City, 2006
Kill-Devil - Erin Williams, Pegu Club, New York City, 2008
Mr. Brown - Franky Marshall, Clover Club, Brooklyn, NY, 2011
Star and Garter - Jessica Gonzalez, Elephant Bar, NoMad Hotel, New York City, 2012
Early Foundations:
Juniperotivo - Jerri Banks, Fressen, New York City, 1999
Notably, all but one of these is from NYC. (The full modern classics list is heavily New York-weighted, too, for various interesting reasons.)
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Yes, those are the drinks from the app. Thanks, Martin. Very New York-centric, it’s true. (Though you didn’t list Ce Soir by Boston’s Nicole Lebedevitch.) But there were three cocktail capitals in those early years of the cocktail renaissance: New York, San Francisco and London. Nothing I, or anyone else, can do about that. Though, as I said earlier, I’m always eager to learn new knowledge that has escaped me until now.
Whoops! Blew right past Ms. Lebedevitch. I just updated the list.
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So, an extremely cursory survey of the first several pages of Punch Magazine’s recipe database makes it clear there are plenty of women creating original drinks in places other than New York. Many of their drinks may be too recent to have had much chance to infiltrate other markets, let alone ascend to classic status, and some of them may just not be the stuff that contemporary classics are made of.
Going back a ways, gaz ran his 101 Best New Cocktails project for five years, and while that was also dominated by men, there are a bunch by women represented from far flung places (I haven’t sat down and counted them). Many of the drinks in 101BNC were fussy enough they wouldn’t travel, but some could have. And yet, for whatever reason, it seems they did not.
Maybe the drinks weren’t “good enough”, but maybe the bartender networks through which recipes travel just weren’t as strong as in New York? And certainly New York has always enjoyed a particular advantage by being the preeminent media center.
I think, as in so many fields for so many years, the deck has long been stacked against women. If you don’t own the bar and don’t run the bar program, and if the male-dominated press doesn’t choose to interview you or focus on you, how are you going to get your drinks out there and better known by the public? The reason Reiner and Saunders stand out as exceptions is they owned their bars and ran their programs and could thus promote their best cocktails. Makes you wonder about all the great cocktails invented by women that may have gotten away during the early years of the cocktail revival.
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Hi there! Newcomer here, first of all, thank you all for being here. You are a fountain of knowledge and that is something very important to share.
Regarding the topic, I’d say that with the rise of social media the access to female-created drinks is wider but still very male dominated. In the last few years I’ve seen just a few women have an impact here in Spain (Adriana Chia, Yhanna Prado and a few others) but signature drinks are not as remarkable as in the american bars, I like to think that is because they have a better documentation process in their drinks program.
Anyways, we have to keep pushing equality and improve the general behavior of the industry towards women.
Cheers!
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I am happy to join the community. I am from Taiwan, an editor and a bar owner. Sorry for my poor English.
The best age for modern cocktails is 2000-2010. Bartenders started to explore the craft of the cocktails and make simple yet refined cocktails.
There are three main types of the modern cocktails I defined:
1.New Ingredients
Bartenders try to use new ingredients into craft cocktails.
Ex, Samuel Ross created Penicillin with ginger.
2.New Brands into the U.S.
Because of the revival of craft cocktails, more liqueur and liquor were imported and created to the U.S. and U.K.
Ex, Audrey Saunders created Intro to Aerol with Aperol.
Samuel Ross created Paper Plane with Amaro Nonino
3.New Skill in cocktails
Because of the revival of the craft cocktails, bartenders started to do “infused” “milk-washed” “fat-washed”, etc.
Ex, Don Lee created Benton’s Old Fashioned.
There were still some modern cocktail twisted from re-discover classic cocktails. For example, when the Last Word came back, lots of twisted edition happened in Seattle and NY. One of my favorite one is The Laphroaig Project by Owen Westman.
As stated above is about 2000-2010. The society was very closed in our industry. We had MSN,Internet Forum. When a bartender created a cool cocktail, people were easy to made it in their own bar because of the simple construction of the recipe.
At that time, we also had a media’s center. Dale DeGroff, Ted Haigh, Gary Regan, etc. In San Francisco and NY, the modern cocktails were easy to spread in f&b industry. (And also their books inspired people to explore classic&twist cocktails)
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After 2010, cocktails’ recipes became more complex. That’s one of the important reasons why we have no more modern cocktails. And after 10 years’ development, the society became huge. Even if one bartender created a good recipe, it was difficult to spread. And bartending became a show! The secret recipes and complex recipes appeared in our menu. Some marketing bullshit blinded customers’ eyes.
The modern craft cocktails’ trend happened in Asia after 2010. For example, Hong Kong 28 in Singapore , Quinary in Hong Kong, Alchemy Bar and Ounce Taipei in Taipei. All bars opened after 2010. Angus Winchester, Steve Schneider, Shingo Gokan, lots people bring the U.S. and U.K. style craft cocktails into Asia market. That’s why we didn’t see few modern cocktails from Asia. The cocktails’ Renaissance was about from 2012.
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Back to the topic, when we talked about modern cocktails, it’s maybe from MH. Maybe it started early from Dale and Dick. The Renaissance in bar industry was from male bartenders. In 2000, bartenders were not a good job on the Earth. People still thought that’s a part-time job when we were young. There were not so many female bartenders played a important role in a bar.
I am glad that more and more female bartenders join our industry. Now in Asia, we have lot of good female bartenders, Bannie Kang in Singapore, Shelly in HK, Summer in Taiwan, Okazaki san in Ginza. However, the best age for modern cocktails has passed out of existence. We can still drink their good cocktails, but it’s hard to make more people to know the recipes. One reason is too much information in the internet everyday. Another reason is the recipes become complex and not so important. Cocktails become not only a drink but also a experience. Marketing language hiddened the essence of the cocktails.
Maybe Mr. Simonson can record female bartenders’ cocktail in the next book. I will expect it!
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Not sure how a list that includes Boston leaves out Misty Kalkofen with drinks like the Bohemian, Maximilian Affair, and Little Guiseppe that have gotten published in several books, magazines, and newspapers, and still get made at bars she had never worked at.
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