The Bartender's Manifesto

“The Bartender’s Manifesto is the best thing to happen to cocktail lovers since Dale DeGroff’s The Craft of the Cocktail! Toby Maloney has worked behind the stick at some of the most respected cocktail bars in the United States and has dedicated his life to hospitality—in this comprehensive guide, he brilliantly explains the techniques used by the best bartenders to create award-winning drinks. This book should be required reading for both up-and-coming bartenders and home enthusiasts alike who want to know the secrets behind crafting impeccable libations.”—Julie Reiner, Cofounder of Clover Club, Leyenda, and Social Hour Cocktails

“Like skilled alpinists, Maloney and Janzen lead the reader from the trailhead of mixology up a steep path to the base camp of bartending; pointing all along at the summit; where service and hospitality converge in history. Toby’s The Violet Hour is a mountain few will have the fortitude to scale, but you can admire it faithfully from a distance thanks to the meticulously transcribed recipes and profane tales of those who have. This is the Everest of bartending books.”—Jim Meehan, author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual and The PDT Cocktail Book

“Toby Maloney is one of the OGs of the modern renaissance in bartending and drink mixing. Maloney is as crusty as he is creative, and it’s enormously useful to finally have his approach to the craft on record, particularly in a form as entertaining as The Bartender’s Manifesto.”—David Wondrich, author of Imbibe and editor in chief of the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

“If anyone is equipped to write a bartender’s manifesto, it’s Toby Maloney, who has worked at or launched some of the best cocktail bars of the century. There’s no nitty-gritty he doesn’t get down to here. He and co-author Janzen discuss everything from bartending philosophies to a cocktail’s narrative arc; season the text with folksy maxims and tall tales; and tie in figures from Olmsted to Thompson. Topping it all may be the most specific drink-building instructions to grace any cocktail manual to date. If cocktails are art, as Maloney asserts, here’s your canvas.”—Robert Simonson, cocktail writer for The New York Times and author of A Proper Drink

“As Pegu Club’s first head bartender, Toby was already a real leader and gifted visionary in his own right. During his tenure, we shared numerous technical conversations, and it is an utter joy to see them so intuitively developed here. Without question, this book reflects a real mastery of technique and understanding. Pure poetry to read.”—Audrey Saunders, founder of the Pegu Club

Auteur

Toby Maloney and the Bartenders of The Violet Hour with Emma Janzen

Texte du rabat

"Take a raucous romp through the essential stages of fashioning cocktails and learn the hows and whys of bartending with acclaimed mixologist Toby Maloney and the team from The Violet Hour. When the pioneering cocktail bar opened in Chicago in 2007, it set a high standard with an innovative training program that teaches not just how to replicate classic cocktail recipes flawlessly, but how to embrace ingenuity, make smart decisions, and create original, inspired recipes from rote. Like cooks who can peer into their pantry and whip up dinner on the fly, no recipe needed, those who follow the methods in The Bartender's Manifesto will have the technical foundation and confidence to take their cocktail skills to the next level and fabricate a drink from any ingredients at hand."--

Résumé
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • Offering a foundational approach to cocktails, this manual from a James Beard Award-winning trailblazer will have you understanding and creating original drinks like a seasoned barkeep.

Take a raucous romp through the essential stages of fashioning cocktails and learn the hows and whys of bartending with acclaimed mixologist Toby Maloney and the team from The Violet Hour. When the pioneering cocktail bar opened in Chicago in 2007, it set a high standard with an innovative training program that teaches not just how to replicate classic cocktail recipes flawlessly, but how to embrace ingenuity, make smart decisions, and create original, inspired recipes from rote. Like cooks who can peer into their pantry and whip up dinner on the fly, no recipe needed, those who follow the methods in The Bartender's Manifesto will have the technical foundation and confidence to take their cocktail skills to the next level and fabricate a drink from any ingredients at hand.
 
First, dive deep into the mechanics of creating cocktails with the right balance, texture, aroma, and temperature. From there, Toby goes well beyond the fine-tuned mechanics of the craft, covering how to kickstart the creative process and bring professional-level complexity and sophistication to drinks. Additional essays offer insider intel on how to offer top-notch hospitality (at the bar and at home), find comfort in the everyday rituals of the craft, and spark surprise and curiosity in the process. With detailed insights into The Violet Hour’s greatest recipes, expert tips from bar alumni, and helpful step-by-step illustrations and photographs, readers will come away with a deeper understanding of what makes the bar’s training program so legendary, plus the superpower of creating imaginative cocktails that reflect their personal style and creativity.

Échantillon de lecture
Introduction

Welcome to The Violet Hour. My name is Toby Maloney. I’m a bartender and I f***ing love my job.

For reasons I can’t begin to understand, not everyone respects the title of bartender. For most of my career, people thought bartending was a stopgap, something one did while waiting for their life to really start. But in those golden days that we bartenders dream about, the tavern was the focus of the town and the bartender was at its center. That person was thought of highly for all the things they could do—recount jokes, introduce new friends, and listen to tales of woe with furrowed brow. They knew when to say something, when to hold back. Their skills were not limited to knowledge of beverage recipes, but encompassed charisma, character, and empathy. We bartenders still hearken back to the days when Jerry Thomas wore diamond pins and threw fire for an awed audience because we know there is so much more to the profession than just slinging drinks.

I tend the bar, I keep the bar; I keep things moving, I keep people satisfied. Not just for an evening, but for the many fruitful evenings in guests’ lives. On the nights it goes well, there is nothing else like it. Patrons sit gobsmacked and the air is afire with adulation, adrenaline, and Angostura. The chit and clack of the impact printer sets the pace, the mechanical hare just ahead of us greyhounds. Simple movements seem choreographed. The impromptu cocktail creation is just as good as you imagined it. You’re in sync with the other bartender, ducking just when their sledgehammer shaker is coming down, slipping straws and garnishes in passing drinks, requesting a bottle from the back bar with a nod.

Working a shift in a cocktail bar is like a ten-hour squash game in a dirty submarine* being battered against a rocky shoal. But it is worth every bruise and cut and pair of sticky boots, because when someone sips from that frosty glass and shivers or closes their eyes or curls their toes, I feel it, too. There is a heady combination of physicality, creativity, study, showing off, and camaraderie that keeps me coming back for more.

I’ve been in the service industry since I was eleven. I started…