Cutting edge cocktails

Posted in TECH by AnnieFox on Aug 02, 10:00AM

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Xavier Herit stands before his customers holding a syringe mid-air. But he is not a doctor and it doesn't contain any medication.

The syringe is filled with strawberry-infused Cointreau and sodium alginate and is part of an arsenal of tools that are pushing Herit's cocktails to drinking's cutting edge.

The head bartender at New York City's Daniel restaurant is one of many mixologists who are reinventing drinks by infusing non-traditional flavors into alcohol or altering the physical properties of drinks to form gels, foams and mists.

"The bar is like a theater," Herit said in an interview.

After delicately pushing drops of his strawberry-liqueur mix from the syringe into a calcium bath, minutes later they emerge as tiny pink caviar-like beads.

At Tailor, another New York restaurant, bartender Eben Freeman tosses rice crispies in Kahlua, dehydrates them and repeats the process. He adds them to a vodka milk mix for a White Russian breakfast cereal.

Molecular mixology is a movement inspired by molecular gastronomy, a science-meets-cooking trend popularized by chefs including Ferran Adria of El Bulli restaurant in Spain and Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck restaurant in the English town of Bray.

Molecular mixology blurs the line between food, drink and chemistry. The drinks are not cheap and can cost up to $29. But the hours of experimentation, meticulous preparation and elaborate presentation offer curious cocktail lovers and gastronomes a completely new experience.

"It resets your palette and has you taste things in a whole new way," said Freeman.

One of his earliest molecular incarnations was a gelatinized gin and tonic on a lime chip.

"If you're someone who drank gin and tonics regularly, you probably don't put much thought into it when you're drinking one," he explained in an interview.

"But if it's presented in a different way, suddenly it's like you're tasting the gin and tonic for the first time."

But some cocktail connoisseurs wonder if molecular mixology is just another passing fad.

"It can be fun, but ... if it's just a novelty, it wears thin pretty quickly," said David Wondrich, a drinks correspondent for Esquire magazine.

He worries that flair will replace quality, but he hopes a timeless drink will come from the molecular movement.

"Eventually someone will come up with something classic that works out. People always do," he said.

For mixologists like Freeman and Herit, their imaginations run wild with molecular mixology possibilities.

Freeman is working on a spicy greyhound push-pop, consisting of gin, grapefruit juice and chili pepper, as well as absinthe gummy bears and Negroni caviar.

Herit plans to fast-freeze cocktails in front of customers.

"This is on my to-do list," he said.

By Deborah Jian Lee

(Editing by Michelle Nichols; editing by Patricia Reaney)