Few figures within the trendy bar world are as influential as Dave Arnold. Even earlier than the opening of his pioneering New York bar Booker and Dax in 2012, Arnold was generally known as somebody who pushed the trade ahead by means of his rigorous, scientific method to drink-making. He adopted a Mythbusters-style course of, documented on his Cooking Points weblog, to find out one of the best strategies to create the best-tasting cocktails.
The 2014 publication of his ebook, Liquid Intelligence, which codified many of those strategies and supplied a blueprint for different bartenders to comply with, acted as a catalyst for the fashionable growth in bars that double as laboratories. Immediately, the groundbreaking strategies he helped popularize—together with clarification, liquid nitrogen infusions, acid-adjusting and force-carbonation—are thought-about de rigueur for a lot of top-tier cocktail bars.
Arnold’s most up-to-date undertaking, Bar Contra, a collaboration with cooks Fabián von Hauske Valtierra and Jeremiah Stone, opened its doorways this summer season. The cocktail menu looks like each a fruits and refinement of Arnold’s method. The drinks that seem on his menu inventively leverage the instruments and components he popularized behind the bar, like centrifuges and carbonation rigs alongside components like acid powders and glycerin—however in opposition to a cocktail panorama rampant with overengineered, tech-driven drinks, his intentional method feels refreshingly simple. The Sagittarius B2, as an example, a cosmic concoction of rum, raspberries and orgeat, options nothing greater than these three parts, bolstered by characteristically Dave Arnold strategies: fruit juice clarified with enzymes and a centrifuge and orgeat clarified with a 5-ton hydraulic press—the one solution to make clear it sufficient to work on this explicit drink.
We checked in with Arnold to listen to how Bar Contra differs from his previous tasks, how he thinks the cocktail panorama has modified within the final decade and whether or not something is actually new within the bar world anymore.
John deBary: Within the 12 or so years since Booker and Dax opened there’s been a development—there are strategies that nobody else was doing whenever you carried out them at Booker and Dax and Present Circumstances, and now these strategies are considerably ubiquitous. How has that modified the way in which you approached constructing the menu for Bar Contra, if in any respect?
Dave Arnold: It’s form of humorous, proper? Numerous issues that [I was doing] even at Present Circumstances previous to the pandemic, not very many individuals had been doing in the US. However after the pandemic, it’s a completely totally different panorama and now you may have lots of people utilizing these strategies, which to me is gratifying. So we needed to resolve first if we needed to do all of these items [at Bar Contra], as a result of house behind the bar is extraordinarily restricted; we don’t even have room for lowboys.
However we’re going to do liquid nitrogen, as a result of in any other case why would you even name me? And we’re going to do carbonation. These are the non-negotiables.
It could be ridiculous if I did a bar with out a centrifuge as a result of I’m within the enterprise of promoting centrifuges—it will be absurd. So we constructed it round that core and shaved stuff off, and the 2 fundamental issues that received shaved off had been the rotary evaporator and the red-hot poker, as a result of we simply don’t have room within the backbar. Think about operating a red-hot poker in that tight house: It could be terrifying. Sometime, I may perhaps determine a unique expertise to try this.
As soon as we received that out of the way in which, it seems that lots of people are utilizing these strategies now however there aren’t many individuals utilizing it in the way in which that I’m concerned about utilizing it. Most individuals are utilizing it in comparatively difficult builds, whereas I’ve all the time been concerned about straight-ahead taste and presentation however dialing in of the components themselves.
While you speak concerning the pandemic, are you utilizing it as only a time reference, or is there one thing concerning the pandemic that modified issues?
I feel the pandemic did a few issues—many issues, clearly, however numerous the previous guard went into different issues. In contrast to our mayor, Eric Adams, who believes that everyone in hospitality is there as a result of they couldn’t discover the rest to do, the other has been my expertise; I’ve solely labored with individuals who needed to try this job. In dropping the previous guard, numerous the previous camps had been erased and younger folks care much less about whether or not they’re in a single camp or one other.
The opposite factor is that, for a couple of years [during the height of the pandemic], numerous consumption was on-line and the stuff that goes properly there’s technique- and presentation-heavy.
Have you ever rolled out any new strategies for Bar Contra?
We use much more bodying brokers than [we did at] Booker and Dax and Present Circumstances. The best way we received physique at Booker and Dax was by jacking the alcohol content material of all the pieces. Just like the Gin & Tonic had the equal of 4 Brix, so very, very dry, and it had numerous physique as a result of it had one thing like 14 % [alcohol]. At Present Circumstances, we needed to have a strong non-alc program and I needed to begin utilizing bodying brokers; my fundamental one was glycerin. Opening this bar, I added to the arsenal polydextrose, as a result of not like glycerin, which is nice, it doesn’t add any sugar acid to the steadiness, tastewise.
There’s extra acid-adjusting now than there was at Present Circumstances and Booker and Dax, and I’m now utilizing succinic acid, which has an outsize influence [compared to other acids] and provides complexity.
We’re additionally utilizing IQF (particular person fast freezing) for fruit as a result of it offers me a product I can depend on. Our carbonated drinks are extra trendy—a bit decrease ABV. I’d say our base carbonated drink is now 10 % or 11 % and never 12 % to 14 %, which doesn’t sound like quite a bit, however undoubtedly makes a distinction.
Do you’re feeling like numerous these strategies are much less stunning to folks now? Does that even matter to you?
Good query. No, I imply, it doesn’t matter to me, proper. The best way that we current these things [at Bar Contra] is, our colours are nonetheless actual punchy and we pay numerous consideration to the way in which the liquid feels.
At Booker and Dax, “no garnish” was form of a mission assertion—apart from twists and whatnot. At Present Circumstances, I went to the crew and mentioned, “I’ve made my level,” they usually had been like, “No, no garnish.” And right here, folks had been like, “We don’t dwell in a world the place folks come to style drinks anymore. We dwell in this type of Instagram image factor, so in an effort to be a participant, it is advisable have garnishes and whatnot.” And I used to be like, “Nice—you give you them.” Once we opened, there have been no garnishes, and now, slowly, they’re including garnishes one after the other. Any garnish concept I’ve is so ridiculous that it could’t be accomplished. We have now a drink known as the Brandy Savage, and I need an precise glass-wrap picture of Macho Man Randy Savage with tassels and massive spangly hat, they usually’re like, “Nah, no.” And I’m like, “Alright, I’m out of concepts.”
I really feel like again within the early 2010s there was numerous novelty, and perhaps it’s simply me personally being weary with all the pieces, however do you suppose there’s room for something genuinely new anymore?
I imply, look, you by no means know what the brand new factor goes to be till it occurs.
Earlier than Booker and Dax opened, I spent my time on the French Culinary Institute growing an arsenal of strategies I might use. And on the time, there was a bunch of novelty as a result of basic cocktails had been nonetheless novel.
At this level, I feel I’m appreciating playfulness once more. I need folks to be good at what they do, and when you do something out of the norm, I’m form of like, “Nicely, you must do a great job otherwise you’re a joker.” I’m form of OK with playfulness, even goofiness generally. It simply has to work and never get in the way in which and hijack your complete expertise. So I’ve come again round to it.
