The GOLDEN RATIO is simply this:
2 parts spirit : 1 part tart : 1 part sweet
You might be saying to yourself, “well, duh!”, but its incredible the number of people who overlook this when building most of their cocktails, no matter how simple the concept may seem.
This ratio is critical to understand, so that we may create a wide variety of original cocktails.
SO WHERE DO I START?
This idea comes quite simply from observation of the BASE SPIRIT. When picking out a base spirit, it is essential to taste several in the category you would like to work in, to get a sense of the base of your final cocktail.
It is also worth noting that the base can be split, so that means we can have more than one rum (for daiquiris), or more than one tequila (for margaritas), or more than one whiskey (for whiskey sours, derbies, etc.). This can really lend itself to some amazingly complex flavor profiles.
COMPLEMENTING THE BASE: SWEET
Alright, let us continue with the example of rum for now. We have a rum, a white rum from the Dominican Republic, lets say. Rums from D.R. are a bit sweeter (a lot of producers add sugar to their rum) and lighter in texture. With that, we look for a way to complement with the sweet component that we choose.
Rum is made from SUGAR CANE, so we would want to find a sweetener and tart component that lends itself to the expression of this sugar cane distillate. Simple syrup will do, as it is from sugar. To go even further, there are different fruits (almost all) that lend themselves really well to the rum we would be using. This is because most fruit has its inherent form of sweetness AND tartness, so it blends beautifully.
That being said, we can make a syrup with any fruit we would like to complement the rum with. Lets say, passion fruit! To make a passion fruit syrup, we would just steep the fresh fruit in a mixture of either rich syrup (2:1 sugar to water) or simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water). Let sit and simmer at medium heat, and the fruit will begin to release its notes of flavor and aroma. Strain, and syrup is ready! We have a passion fruit syrup. This is important, and we will cover more about syrups in a later post.
COMPLEMENTING THE BASE: TART
It is time for the tart component, which more often than not, is a juice of some sort. Now that we have the passion fruit syrup in place, we would need an equal part of tartness to balance the sweet to create the balance in our drink.
Simplicity is key: we can choose either lemon or lime for our tart component. We could choose any citrus (orange typically disappoints, as it is sweeter than most other citrus). But using citrus like grapefruit or a kumquat, or even a blood orange would change the balance of the drink, and it would be more difficult to have a focused, flavor or flavors in the drink. With that, we need to keep the fundamental flavors intact and enhanced.
Lime has a stronger tartness to it, so we will go with that, to help balance the sweetness and cut through.
FINISH THE DRINK
The only thing left, now that we have lime, passion fruit syrup and rum, is to SHAKE!
Now why do we shake sour cocktails? It is typically customary to shake these types of drinks because the juice needs to mix well with the spirit and sweetener. If our cocktail were only spirits-focused (think a manhattan, negroni, or martini), we would stir. We will ALSO cover these specific techniques in another post.
Usually, it is customary to shake until the shaker is super-frothy. However, this all depends on the ice used. If the drink will ultimately be served in a martini glass/coupe, then we would shake a bit longer. If our cocktail were served over ice, much like a margarita would, then we would shake a bit shorter period of time, to control overall dilution and experience of the drink to the patron. We will also cover ice in a future post.
We shake for about 15 seconds, for our passion fruit daiquiri, and strain into a chilled coupe glass. The drink is complete.
The sour cocktail, with its elegant simplicity, is one of the most important concepts to revolve our heads around when building different drinks and experimenting behind the bar. If there is one thing that I can say really helped me throughout my career and in the competition that I did in 2016, is the golden ratio. This ratio is truly the basis for flavor combination and understanding of foundational mixology.
Happy shaking.
Cheers!
Jonathan Echavarria 