Making Your Own Cocktails

The Vodka Soda is pretty much the un-cocktail. It’s typically meant to be as tasteless and chuggable (is that a word?) as possible. Admittedly, most of the time when I thought of a Vodka Soda, I thought of a drink meant to induce drunkenness with as few calories as possible. And that’s about it. I definitely dismissed it altogether for a while there. But it was actually my aversion to it made me want to do some tweaking and throw a few back in the name of R&D. After trying a bunch of easy variations, I’m ready to stand behind the Vodka Soda as a really fun and delicious cocktail template.

If it’s possible that there’s one thing I’ve become a bit known for in my little corner of the internet, it’s making a pretty cocktail garnish. As a photographer and a highly visual person, I have always been immediately drawn to a drink (or a plate, for that matter) that is beautifully presented. It’s in our nature to be drawn to beauty, to seek it, and even to be influenced by it. Yes, in many ways, beauty truly is power.

Even though there are lots of combinations of flavors that a lot of folks would agree go great together, science still isn’t really clear on why these combos appeal to us. Theories have tried to prove that foods that share some of the same chemical compounds will naturally taste good together. But studies have shown that that is not always the case, and in fact, in certain world cuisines, foods which don’t share any of the same compounds work best together. You can read more about the studies here.

Today I want to talk a little about creating cocktail recipes. This is obviously a major passion of mine and something that I love to study both the art and science of. One of the things about creating, making, and drinking cocktails that fascinates me endlessly are all of the different flavors we can experiment with. This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to the elements of crafting your own cocktails.