Serious Cocktails: A Sour Subject
In today’s Washington Post, Jason Wilson touches on a topic that’s the pet peeve of many craft bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts: the prevalence of sour mix in many restaurants and bars. In "Sour With a Natural Power," Wilson notes that squeezing a lemon (or a bunch of them before a shift) and adding some sugar or simple syrup is a pretty simple and straightforward activity.
Why, then, during this supposed golden renaissance of mixology does commercial sour mix persist? This mix usually sneaks up on you, like a mullet seen from the front. And you usually spot it too late, once you've settled onto the bar stool. It's a hot day, and you're maybe thinking about a Tom Collins, and suddenly you hear someone down the bar order an Amaretto Sour or a Long Island Iced Tea, and out of the corner of your eye you see the bartender reach for the artificial sour mix in all its glowing-yellow, high-fructose glory. And then you start thinking a whiskey neat might be the safe way to go.
Bar manuals from the 19th and early 20th centuries always reference the use of fresh juices; it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the convenience of industrially produced, often artificially colored and flavored sour mix began to appeal to a large number of bar owners. Until relatively recently, sour mix was a standby in virtually all bars, either poured from big plastic bottles or fired directly off the gun—a device hooked to a hose that dispenses sour mix, soda water and other mixers at the push of a button. Home mixers haven’t been immune; bottles of sour mix cluttered up our refrigerator when my parents hosted cocktail parties back in the ‘70s.
With the growing interest in craft cocktails, fresh lemon and lime juice is finding its way back into drinks. Squeezing a lemon for a drink at home is no problem, but on a commercial scale, for a restaurant or bar, it can get a little trickier. Some bars have kitchen staff or bar backs squeeze large amounts of lemons and limes before the bar’s busiest hours, while others buy fresh juice from local vendors that service a number of regional bar clients. In Las Vegas, some casino bars buy massive quantities of a freshly produced sour mix—made by mixing fresh lemon and lime juice with simple syrup, which helps extend the product’s life span for several days—from a local producer. At the opposite end of the spectrum, bars such as Drink, in Boston, regularly replace hours-old juice over the course of an evening to ensure that all the citrus juice at the bar is at the peak of flavor and freshness.
Even in restaurants that emphasize fresh, local and seasonal cuisine, it’s not uncommon to see sour mix used at the bar. What’s your experience at your favorite places? Have you seen the fresh-juice mantra spread outside the small core of ambitious cocktail places, or is your whiskey sour still made with mix that’s been sprayed from the gun?
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14 Comments:
Margaitas are my favorite cocktail yet I rarely order them because they will use sour mix and taste terrible. Unless we are in Mexico or in Chicago at Frontera or at home using fresh lime juice I'll stick to beer.
chazmo at 4:20PM on 05/06/09
Especially considering the price of a drink in a bar, it should be a crime to use that dreck. The same goes for "mojito" mix - it turns could be a refreshing drink into an overly-sweet, eucalyptus-tasting mess.
sscoffee at 4:28PM on 05/06/09
Sour mix makes me vomit. (Literally. I had a frozen margarita with too much sour mix one evening and barfed my guts out later in the night!)
I never thought of trying citrus juice with simple syrup. I bet it would be a lot easier on my tummy.
IbisFlight at 5:52PM on 05/06/09
I vote for fresh juices in everything (especially mojitos). Okay, now I need some input on this as well. Having recently foresworn bottled margarita mix, I got a recipe for sour mix (2 parts simple syrup, 2 parts lemon juice, 1 part lime juice) that looks promising. But I also will miss the convenience of the store-bought mix. Does anybody mix up their own sour mix and freeze it?
Likeswords at 7:07PM on 05/06/09
@likeswords - i can't see why not.... forget the store bought mix, use the fresh fruit.... it's worth the effort. freeze it in an ice cube tray.....
pooch at 9:09PM on 05/06/09
Ah! The other night @ The Presidio Social Club in SF the fellow next to me ordered a Screwdriver which immediately caught my attention as this is hardly a Screwdriver kind of place. I then watched the bartender proceed to freshly squeeze a bunch of oranges to make the juice for the drink. Mr. Screwdriver was paying no attention to any of this. When the bartender put the drink down in front of this guy, he took a sip and then it was as if some amazingly bright light went on in his head. He said to the bartender: "Did you just squeeze this juice to make this drink?" At this point I chimed in: "Yes he did! Think about that. Amazing, no?" It almost slipped past him. So perhaps if more people paid attention to the details of how their cocktails were being made, more bars would bother take these extra steps.
Mr Manhattan at 10:16PM on 05/06/09
At The Velvet Tango Room in Cleveland, we cut and squeeze the lemon and lime for each and every cocktail right then and there. It doesn't get fresher than that.
paulius at 11:02PM on 05/06/09
Ugh - I couldn't agree more. Sour mixes literally make me sick to my stomach. As a result, I rarely order sour drinks, although I like them when they are real. There is only one bar in town that I could imagine using fresh sour, but even there I'm too gun shy to pay the high price for a drink that won't be touched.
peachypear at 12:11AM on 05/07/09
Have you ever read the ingredients in the sour mix they sell at the grocery store? It's usually high fructose corn syrup (big surprise), citric acid (cheaper than real lemons and doesn't spoil as quickly), artificial coloring (usually yellow with a little green), and water.
BrianPrestonCampbell at 10:09AM on 05/07/09
Of course you're well aware, Paul, that even here in Seattle, you're usually better off enjoying a draft beer and a shot of something you don't have at home. Even if a place does use fresh fruit, it doesn't mean the good folks behind the bar know how to use it- I can tell you firsthand it's a training issue. But this is a whole other, rather deep, topic...
Anyway...the poor, mistreated Margarita. The ones you get at "Mexican" restaurants (shot of Cuervo Gold, four or five ounces of the green stuff, a float of Grand Marnier if you pay a buck-fifty more) are awful, but the ones that baffle me are the ones where they muddle, oh, a fistful of lime wedges, add a decent tequila and some Cointreau...and then top the whole thing off with the stuff from the gun. Why, guys? Why?
@Likeswords, the problem with even fresh sour mix is that it's pre-sweetened. Which makes it fine, I guess, for a whiskey sour, but something like a Sidecar doesn't necessarily need any additional sugar- if you find the frequently recommended 2:1:1 ratio for sour drinks too tart, screw with the ratios until you get what you want. I haven't tried freezing citrus juice, but I've been told it works reasonably well as a backup.
Kilbeggan at 2:56PM on 05/07/09
it's one thing for a dive to use sour mix but any place that takes cocktails at all seriously should be squeezing the juice themselves (or at the very least using real juice) and adding the simple syrup if the drink needs it. there are plenty of places around brooklyn that i will only order beer at because they are willfully clueless about mixers.
sloppy at 4:29PM on 05/07/09
I've found that when I ask for a Tangueray and tonic with a twist of lime it's pretty difficult to screw up. Otherwise, any drink with "sour" in its title at a bar....yech.
buffy at 8:25PM on 05/07/09
It is easy to screw up a gin and tonic. If the tonic comes from a gun, it's never going to taste vibrant. I spend a fortune on those little bottles of Schweppes tonic. I let the gin sit with some fresh lime juice, and muddle the rind in there as well, for two minutes. I add a dash of bitters, then ice, then slowly pour the very fresh tonic down the side of the glass. Give it a gentle stir, and enjoy. I promise you'll never order another G and T at a bar again.
darly gross at 7:43AM on 05/08/09
One thing I frequently notice about tonic off the gun, other than the "off" flavor, is how damn sweet it is. I don't know if it's the brand of syrup places use or what it is exactly, but it's often much more sweet and much less bitter than what comes in bottles. And also they usually use too much of it and drown out the gin (although that's certainly going to be harder to do with Tanqueray).
Kilbeggan at 12:56PM on 05/08/09