Episode 136

Combine these ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well chilled, strain into a stemmed cocktail class, and garnish with a lemon zest cone filled with pink peppercorns.

We love this drink because it’s very balanced–using intense flavors like smoke, grapefruit, and peppercorns and then integrating them into a classic sour cocktail. It showcase’s H’s background, but it also advances the conversation about using fresh ingredients to jazz up tried and true drink formats. If you head on over to Elixir, H’s bar in the Mission District of San Francisco, you can try this cocktail for yourself.

Show Notes

Eric caught up with H at the American Distilling Institute’s Annual Judging of Craft Spirits, where distillers, bartenders, and spirits experts from around the world gather to evaluate products made primarily by small producers. The neat thing about this judging event is that judges provide detailed feedback to producers, which can really help new operations improve the quality of their products and keep craft spirits competitive.

Fresh Victor

H has spent a lot of time recently helping to grow Fresh Victor, a line of fresh-juice-based cocktail mixers designed to create delicious, high-quality cocktails even in higher-volume settings. Fresh Victor eliminates the need to have staff members spend hours behind the bar juicing citrus and fresh ingredients by hand. With the perfect ratio of sweetness, citrus, and herbal notes, you can simply combine Fresh Victor mixers with spirits at a 2:1 ratio (mixer : spirit), or use them in combination with other ingredients to create your own mixological creation.

Check out this info deck to learn more about Fresh Victor, and keep an eye out for these products behind the bar at a venue near you. You can download a PDF version of this deck here.