What happened to classic?

Here's one for ya. As the years went by and the cosmopolitan revolution moved into the pomegranite cosmopolitan revolution, which moved into the rhubarb and papaya mojito with a sugar rim and a carmelized star fruit garnish revolution, classic cocktails have fallen into obscurity, giving us bartenders an oppurtunity to bring them back under the guise of something "new and cutting edge." It's actually quite absurd.

These days, as people become accustomed to walking into fancy bars and having the option to order one of several drinks off of the cocktail menu that infuse tropical fruits and bizzare spices with trendy liquors, muddled bacon fat with bourbon, and house made tonic water made with sweet brown sugar, it's fun to really blow someones mind by making them a proper gin martini ( with vermouth ).

The cocktail craze is peaking hard. Bartenders around the world are getting more and more outrageous, using stranger and stranger ingredients, and becoming, in my mind, more and more disconnected with the fundamentals of what a cocktail is, or how to build one. I think we need to take a look at some of the original American cocktails again and think about why we're not ordering them.

1. Manhattan-Rye. Sweet Vermouth. Agnostura bitters.

Genius. Made correctly this cocktail is balanced, charming, and delicious. The sweet vermouth cuts the raw burn of the rye, the rye makes you feel warm, uninhibited and randy, and the bitters bring out these sensational spicy flavors on the back end.

2. Negroni- Gin. Campari. Sweet Vermouth

My personal favorite. The painfully bitter taste of Campari is enveloped by the sweetness of vermouth, creating a beautiful balance, and complimented by the gin ( which is also the part that allows you to have unprotected sex without feeling guilty).

3.Champagne Cocktail- cheap champagne. bitters. sugar

Awesome. Bubbles are always satisfying. Throw a little of the intensive spiced bitters in the glass, round it out with a drop of sugar, and freakin drink a million of them. You will want to.

I could go on forever. There are tons of these wonderful cocktails out there, living mostly inside the pages of a Mr. Boston guide, or as a fond memory of your grandfathers, but I assure you, they can easily be recreated and enjoyed the next time you go out to dinner.

I don't know for sure why the younger generations aren't enjoying the classic cocktails. I've speculated that perhaps we're just a lazy, spoiled, impatient culture. Why bother allowing your taste buds to acclimate to the enjoyment of a new and interesting taste profile when you can just drink some sugary and overly fruity 'martini,' which coinsides with the flavor profiles of all the candy you consumed as a child, and get nice and drunk in the process? I think that this has been the driving force of the wild gastronomy drink revolution. I think that the origin of it all has been the concept of copping a buzz while sipping something that tastes like a slurpee, and I think that is why the 'classics' are getting lost. Fortunately, I think that the entire thing can, if I'm methodical enough, backfire.

I believe that the bartenders quest to become creative and innovative, for the sake of pleasing the lazy sugar hounds, has become a movement in itself, which has made it really trendy to try new and interesting things. Bartenders have been making candy cocktails of all sorts, designing menus that look like a box of Lucky Charms, offering pink diamonds, green clovers, lycheetinis, and whatever else. It's cool and trendy to try all these silly things.

So, when a group of youngsters come into my bar, and ask me to make them something exciting, I whip up a negroni, even though Im sure they're tring to get me to muddle some strawberries. Hey, negronis are new and exciting these days. And thanks to the trend of trying new and exciting things being born from the mother concept of making new and boring candy cocktails, I can reintroduce what I like without worrying much about people not giving it a chance. The trend, I believe, is shifting from drinking cocktails that taste the most like something that isn't a cocktail, to just drinking whatever is new and different. These days, all of the famous and fundamental cocktails are, in fact, new and different.