People may attend mixology classes – a routine thing in New York – for many reasons: enhancing their home bartending skills, composing the optimal Instagram post, discovering the most cost-effective way to get plastered.
Hidden among the crowd of bar patrons are the adventurous and passionate few who blend nutritional science with the culinary sorcery of flavor to elevate alcoholic drinks out of the stigma of poison and into the realm of healthy lifestyles.
On June 26, at the Bouley Test Kitchen in the Flatiron District, a fourth option emerged: health mixology. Three men hosted a special mixology and tasting class at the restaurant with the purpose of introducing the patrons to the realities of clean cocktails; David Bouley, Albert Trummer, and James Hibler.
David Bouley and Albert Trummer have worked together in the culinary industry for decades, and both are fixtures of restaurateur circles in New York City. Bouley works with what could be considered traditional cooking; fresh ingredients for healthy, filling, personal meals. Even after opening his own restaurants, he still prepares meals himself.
Trummer on the other hand specializes in top-shelf alcohol and a flair for the dramatic. He’s encountered legal trouble in the past for lighting drinks on fire during performances and his penchant for incorporating dubiously sourced exotic fruit to fuel his cocktail experiments. “If the fruit is illegal, it must be good,” he told one guest during the event.
A culinary odd-couple style partnership formed between these two men as each sought to refine their craft using the expertise of the other.
“I always tell Albert, ‘You know, Albert, you don’t want to make drinks from those gallons of things that were sitting in an Oklahoma warehouse. If we’re going to make beverages, try to make them as healthy and pure as possible,’” Chef Bouley said. “That was where he coined ‘bar chef’ in the late 90s. There were a bunch of stories in the New York Times calling him ‘The Bar Chef.’ Many times, he cleaned out the kitchen [using organic ingredients].”
There are currently four organic labeling categories for alcoholic beverages provided by the United States Department of Agriculture.
• 100% Organic: Containing only organic ingredients and processing aids. No chemically added sulfites.
• Organic: Containing at least 95% organic ingredients with no chemically added sulfites.
• Made with Organic [ingredients]: Containing at least 70% organic ingredients and may contain up to 100 ppm of sulfites from sulfur dioxide.
• Ingredient statements: A product containing less than 70% organic ingredients may only identify each organically produced ingredient in an ingredient statement.
Both men were instrumental in championing organic ingredients in beverages and establishing the concept of the “bar chef,” although each credits the other for its creation.
“David was really the first supporter of, they call it now mixology or bar chef,” Trummer said. “We created the bar chef 20 years ago having elements of David’s food: fruits and vegetables and I would say, the techniques of the chef.”
Bar chefs, as the name suggests, are a cross between bartenders and chefs. They need an intricate understanding of how to blend drinks together to establish optimal flavor, as well as the insight to combine fresh ingredients into those drinks that are not normally considered off a plate.
Trummer and Bouley complement each other’s culinary and cocktail styles further by directing their research in separate directions. Trummer focuses on fruits and herbs — “It’s like a healing process for your body” — while Bouley sees the spice kingdom as the unsung hero, “It’ll help some people better than a pharmacy can,” he claimed at the event.
The mixology class welcomed over two dozen attendees and was divided into multiple segments. Each segment began with an introduction to a particular drink prepared by Trummer. After tasting the cocktail, each patron would be offered a small dish such as raspberry and red pepper sorbet or pan seared sea bass with a garlic and coconut froth, to pair with the drink. Every dish was created with wholly organic ingredients by Bouley and his staff, and every beverage was mixed with top level alcohol selected by Trummer.
However, both men acknowledged that utilizing expensive alcohol normally reserved for the top shelf is not healthy, physically or financially, for the average consumer. In order to create a cleaner cocktail that was accessible for everyone, they needed a better base. This is where James Hibler comes in.
Hibler founded Champagne Tea in 2009. Despite the name, his products are neither. Instead, they are a kombucha derivative distilled from chaga mushrooms, turmeric, red ginseng, and a nutrient rich algae known as Aphanizomenon flos-aquae. Even the water used as a foundation is specially filtered until it meets pharmaceutical grade standards. “We use a de-ionization resin to purify the water,” Hibler said.