lunes, 7 de junio de 2010

A SIGNATURE DRINK

Life is always about making choices. What school you’re going to, what you will be when you grow up, who will you marry, and even what you would like to drink. If I have learned anything during the past 25 years of my life, it is that every decision you take will define the next. And this may sound cliché, but part of growing up is discovering, creating and finding a style or way of life and making it your own, whether it’s picking an eye shadow, scent, shoe or even a cocktail.

So why just order a drink when you can order YOUR drink???

But what will define your search for the right kind of cocktail?? Many times we pay little attention to what we’re drinking, creating mediocre palates and settling for any mixed drink. We underestimate the basic components of a good cocktail, and are misled by the overpowering dullness of sweet and syrupy flavors or coloring agents. As quoted in the “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” by David A. Embury, a drink will never be any better than the quality of the cheapest ingredient in it and a great cocktail will always be defined in the end by the quality of the spirits, liqueurs, and modifiers.

According to Embury, the base is the principal ingredient of a cocktail. In the art of making cocktails, the base is generally one or more spirituous liquors, typically rum, vodka, gin, whiskey, tequila or the zealously produced mezcal. Making up 75 percent or more of the total volume of a cocktail, we should be conscientious of what it is we’re actually drinking.

In the search for my signature drink, my eccentricity and insatiable curiosity have led me to stumble upon all different types of liquors and cocktails. As a foolish young girl I was willing to try anything and sometimes settled merely for what was available. But as in all aspects of my life, my passion for knowledge and perfection has helped me discover horizons otherwise unimaginable, and it was in the middle of this search that I found what I was looking for.

After a troubling love affair with vodka, a tedious encounter with whiskey and a customary relationship with rum, it never amazed me to find myself dumbfounded by the mysticism and romance captured within a bottle of mezcal. Captivated at first by the mystery of the unknown, I let myself get taken away by desire. A desire that slowly turned into passion and then a full understanding for everything that is behind a single sip of mezcal. In the quest for knowledge I was taught that after an investment of over eight years of passionate hard labor, the end product is a handcrafted artisanal potion that captivates even the most skeptics of us, but most importantly, in the end, I learned a lot more about myself than I did about cocktails.

May it be mezcal, vodka, whiskey or gin; straight up, on the rocks, neat, dirty or dry, remember to be true to your own nature and always follow your instincts, they'll rarely steer you wrong. In the mean time, I’ll take mine straight.