Themes

In a world with a seemingly bottemless supply of different liquors, liqueurs, bitters, and non-alcoholic ingredients, I find having a themed menu helps give me direction. I've overheard people say "He makes up drink names that go along with a theme." While that statement isn't untrue, it oversimplifies what is actually going on. If you look closly at the menus you'll discover that the drink names always dictate attributes about the cocktail, whether that be the style, flavor, an ingredient, or a particular brand of liquor. Occasionally the connection between name and cocktail requires a bit of trivia knowledge, but most of the time it's based on word play. For example, on the Grateful Dead menu we have "Cucumberland Blues > Friend of the Devil." Each song dictates an attribute. The wordplay on the song Cumberland Blues dictates that a prominent flavor will be cucumber. The second half, Friend of the Devil, gives me a brand-based direction on the base spirit: Devil's Bathtub Gin. Gin + Cucumber? My wife is going to love me for this one! That nomenclature holds true for all my drinks, and the task of coming up with these direction providing names might be my favorite part of the process.