The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

Lol, am I nuts or did you not add the cointreau???

Also three quick questions

1) Is this your bar in all these episodes (the black feather?)

2) What Cognac do you recommend using as a “house brand”

3) Finally, did you get your hands on those Mr. Bitterman Bitters I keep hearing about and if so how are they?

You forgot the Cointreau?!

You don’t have the “dash of bitters” in the recipes…

Yup, the Cointreau is still sitting there.  But we get the idea. 

The Black Feather bar… what are your hours?

:->

My “intention” was to quickly post the first comment, in which I fessed up about the Cointreau, but I was stuck in meetings all day and you guys beat me to it.

Yeah… I got to pontificating and totally spaced on adding the Cointreau. After we finished filming this segment and were getting ready to prep for the next drink, I looked down and saw my jigger with the Cointreau in it… Du-ohhh! We filmed a “cover” for that, of me just pouring the Cointreau in, but when we got to the editing stage we noticed that it really didn’t work right, so we just left things as they are.

Oh well :->

Max, as to your questions…

1) Yes, this is my bar in all of these episodes.

2) The cognac I’m using here is “Chalfonte”, which is a relatively inexpensive cognac ($20) that I think works reasonably well in cocktails. I don’t like it for sipping however. Would a $50 bottle of Hennessy make a better cocktail? Probably, but not one that was nearly three times better.

3) Bittermans Bitters… yes, I do have some of the bittermans bitters. Although I haven’t yet had the chance to do much playing around with them.

-Robert

That is why I would likr to see you TASTE every drink you make for us…

Very informative and very relaxing to watch Mr. Hess.
An excellent viewing for those of us who wish to advance from bartender to mixologist.

Now not to “backseat bar” you’re presentation, but I have just one question:

In your videos, you never use pour spouts on the bottles, why is that?
I’m referring to a simple, spill stop spout or maybe the 12 measured kinds with the ball bearing. The latter of which I abhor using cause it regulates the bartenders performance too much.
Just curious on your take in reference to the use of pour spouts. }:^}

Adam,

Glad you are enjoying the shows!

I don’t use pour spouts for several reasons, most importantly perhaps is because I “measure” all of my drinks using the OXO jigger you see here. Pour spouts are mostly used for freepouring liquids whereby the bartender will mentally “count” as they pour, hopefully getting the proper amount of liquid in. You can use them to also pour into a jigger for measuring, but for that I prefer simply pouring straight from the bottle without messing with a pour spout.

-Robert

Robert,

Always enjoy your podcast and always learn something. Please keep them coming. You inspire me to do great things behind my bar (at home, that is)!

PS - I think it’s time to go HD and W-I-D-E-S-C-R-E-E-N! Alberta Straub’s leading the way! Okay, I’m rambling… a well-made cocktail in standard res is the same as a well-made cocktail in HD. Just glad you are both doing what you do so well.

I am glad you bring HD up Rob. We just shot a whole new season of The Cocktail Spirit all in HD!!

All of our new series, like Resonance, a series on independent music, will be in HD from now on.

Colin

Well, since someone brought up the question of HD video, and since I’ve been curious about this—may I continue off topic for a moment?

How do the economics of these video presentations work? You don’t seem to have any prominent ads or messages from sponsors. Of course I greatly enjoy the site, and long may you continue, but I presume you don’t do it just as a hobby?

Ian,

Small Screen Network is a small company with big dreams and do not consider this show or others as hobbies. We love to do it and hope to make it our careers. To that end we are seeking sponsorship on a per episode basis up to a whole “season”. We have done so for the first 12 episodes of the next season and are always talking to potential sponsors. The hope is that any advertising or sponsorship will not impede the but rather compliment or become integral with the content adding to the information we can provide the audience.

Thanks for the question!

Robert,
I notice you use Cointreau quite a bit.  Can the same effect be obtained with Triple Sec in places as my budget does not currently allow for Cointreau.

Harry, fledgling Mixologist

Harry, Technically Cointreau “is” a Triple Sec, just a very high end one. You can substitute triple sec for any recipe I use Cointreau in, but it will usually result in a drink of lesser quality.

I first became convinced of the value of using Cointreau in cocktails when I was messing around with the Sidecar, and tried a wide variety of recipes to determine which worked best. Cointreau quickly showed how it produced very fine results.

-Robert