The Bar Journal

This week we went to see Alex Kretena and the team at Artisan bar at Langham Hotel in London and we asked what the inspiration behind his wonderful libation………..

AGEING IN OAK CASKS, GLASS AND CLAY JARS AT ARTESIAN BAR, THE LANGHAM HOTEL, LONDON.

I’ve started experimenting with ageing spirits and cocktails only over two years ago and after inquiry from Giuseppe I’ve written this to share the little I know, my experience and things we have discovered. We are certainly not the first establishment to introduce this and I’d like to mention I’ve seen home aged cocktails and spirits in various bars around London since long time ago.

As anything in the bar, ageing has from my point of view many pros and cons and I’d like to highlight the most interesting things we do. At the moment our menu offers several home aged cocktails and spirits.

We really enjoy our twist on Mai Tai, which we keep for period of one month in oak cask; also we make vermouth using ‘Solera’ method and in other casks we then keep our house rum as well as we do our signature finish to Zacapa rum.

We make a great use of clay jars imported from Japan, typically used to keep schochu. In these we keep sake to which we applied selection of botanicals commonly found in many vermouths and we also age our twist on ‘El Presidente’ called ‘Prosperity’. Apart from that, clay jars are great to keep infusions and for that purpose we use one of these jars with our sundried mango and Silver Needle tea infusion.

We do keep some cocktails and spirits in glass jars too, however I can’t really tell whether refer to it as ageing, seasoning, or reverse ageing. You make your opinion.

CASK

Our Cask My Tai recipe consists of secret blend of rum, liqueurs, syrup and citrus juice. I don’t reveal actual recipe to any of Artesian bartenders exactly as Don Beachcomber used to do, just for the fun element.  I simply blend all ingredients including fresh citrus together and keep it in European white oak for period of 1 month. Then shake it!

Recipe then as follows: 

Cask My Tai

40ml A

20ml AA

10ml AAA

20ml L

20ml 3S

My inspiration for use of clay jars for ageing I’ve found in Lebanese Arracks, many of them are made of grapes and flavored with anise and then aged for several years in jars.

CLAY JARS

Artesian’s Prosperity cocktail is seminal twist on El Presidente reflecting oriental heritage of Langham Hotels International and our bar, Artesian.

It consist of equal parts of Angostura 1919 and Mount Gay Eclipse, Umeshu, Noilly Prat and home made yuzu bitters as well Amargo Chungo and Angostura bitters, finished with mandarin zest. We serve it in traditional masu cup, which brings fun and creates great experience to the guest who usually expects classic glassware for cocktail service in a 5star deluxe hotel bar.

Prosperity

30ml Angostura 1919

30ml Mount Gay Eclipse

And secrets ingredients……

VERMOUTH

I got inspirition in from the house vermouth from Dushan Zaric of Employees Only. They make their signature vermouth Provencal by making concentrated infusion of Provencal Herbs in small amount of vermouth and then blending it into liquid from rest of the bottle.

That got me into blending four different vermouths and wine together, make concentrated infusion and once married all together we keep the liquid in Limousine Oak, which adds tannins and creates other taste profiles too.

I found that important thing was to make essential blend quite light as it gets lot of character from infusion and then from barrel. Otherwise you are likely end up with pretty much non-palatable liquid.

GLASS

With glass jars we apply different wood chips and nuts to spirits as they have fairly quick impact on the liquid. After recent trip to Venezuela I used selection of South American nuts (one of the biggest exports after cacao bean from many countries of Latin America) with Venezuelan rum.  Delightful!

Wood chips are great agent too and I find it fascinating how quickly they actually affect the spirit.

PLUS AND MINUS OF HOME AGEING!! 

The disadvantages of house ageing I mainly address to difficulties achieving consistency, lot of work maintaining the ageing system, which leads to higher staffing costs, long time spent experimenting and wasting liquid if you omit proper monitoring, or especially at the beginning with freshly charged cask the interaction between wood and liquid is just too intense that some of the liquid just got way too woody, or went off and I was forced to pour it down the drain. I assume that’s why many people age cocktails in bottles.

When working with perishable ingredients, like citrus, we have found out vital to use liquid of higher ABV. Casks get eventually worn out with every use and therefore final result is every time slightly different.

Advantage of home ageing is great tasting liquid if you get it eventually right, unique POS as well as great visual aspect of the back bar.  Home ageing brings great talking point, and fantastic PR opportunities. Other important factor I’ve noted is efficiency of the task of simple pouring liquid out, strain, or shake etc.  which is faster then classic preparation making your bartenders more efficient and faster, therefore serving more customers and very likely making more money especially when busy.

I found absolutely essential keeping accurate records of everything and tasting liquid on regular basis as this helps to improve results.

In London I have seen some great examples of home ageing at The Connaught, Montgomery Place,  American Bar at The Savoy, Nightjar, 69 Colebrooke Row and of course Artesian at The Langham.

Alexino Kretena

Mixologist

Artesian bar at Langham Hotel

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