Tropical Standard, by Garret Richard and Ben Schaffer is hitting the shelves. You can—and should—order it from the usual places. I am excited to have my advance copy, and I was one of the draft readers telling @ben everything he was doing wrong and generally driving him to question his life choices. (That’s the extent of my skin in the game, beyond being a fan, and Ben still seems to be talking to me, which is gracious of him.)
This book is interesting because:
- it focuses on new techniques for elevating mixed drinks that have been proven over the last decade of Garret Richard’s career
- these techniques are quite exciting, because they’re all accessible and broadly applicable
- it documents a big pile of Garret’s highly refined recipes that some of us have the pleasure of indulging in over the last decade—now others can make them, too!
- the book is kind of the sequel to Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence and documents some of the techniques developed at Existing Conditions
- it’s one of the rare intermediate-level cocktail books
I believe this is an important book, one of the most important of the year.
Topics explored:
- managing dilution, texture and aeration
- flash blending
- different ways 0f shaking drinks
- blending drinks (“frozen” drinks)
- did I mention managing dilution?
- use of shaved ice, creating using ice molds (ice shells and cones), lining glasses with ice
- tropicalizing stirred drinks
- infusions
- emulsification
- aromatics
- acid adjusting juices to perform like lemon and lime
- sugar adjusting ingredients (perhaps the most demanding topic in the book) to optimize sweetness, and yes, manage dilution
- creating useful syrups and cordials that build on the above
- applying all the above (example recipes)