Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Once upon a time, bright, neon colored cocktails were all the rage. But we can get a similar result without the need of reaching for that bottle of Midori, blue curaçao, or even food coloring 🤩!

Instead, we’ll extract the bright colors from our ingredients with high proof alcohol, which is not only a great solvent, but it will also prevent the infusion from oxidizing and changing color. This is a technique I learned from Berlin’s Velvet Bar, where they use it along with seasonal ingredients, but you can easily apply it to any ingredient that can quickly brown like mint or basil.

To do this, just combine your ingredient with 96% ABV alcohol, and leave to infuse for a couple of weeks, or use a sous vide to get the same result in a few hours. Then just store your infusion in dasher bottles, and use them when building your drinks to get both the flavor and color of each ingredient. If you want to see this in action, you can check out my episode covering the technique here: https://youtu.be/UU9-GufJJ-w?si=HTEFb... 👈. Cheers!

3 days ago | [YT] | 133

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

One foraging trip, four cocktail ingredients, and one of the best Negroni variations I've ever made 🌲🤩!

Starting from a single spruce tip infusion, I turned one seasonal ingredient into a homemade vermouth, a syrup, and a liqueur - all in just minutes. Then I used all of those to build the Forest Negroni Bianco, a white Negroni twist that just might change how you think about seasonal cocktails. I just covered the full process in my latest episode: https://youtu.be/05pJoPYMKE0 👈

But more than just the recipes, this video is about a system you can apply to almost any seasonal ingredient, giving you the freedom to keep experimenting long after the season is over. So head on over to the full episode to see it all come together, and let me know in the comments which ingredient you'd try this with first. I'll see you there, cheers 🥂!

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4 days ago | [YT] | 157

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Distillation is not just a tool to make spirits 🤔. Instead, use it to create crystal clear ingredients that are packed with flavor. I recently did this to make a lemongrass and sichuan pepper hydrosol for a special Margarita, and all you need to do the same is a small distiller geni.us/waterdistill 💧. Just add some water to your still, and your ingredients in a basket above it so that the steam can capture their flavors as it passes through.

What’s great about ingredients like hydrosols is that you can then turn them into clear syrups, acids, and cordials by adding sugar and acids. Not only this, but by clarifying just the modifiers and not the spirit, you get to preserve the color and texture of your whiskey or gin, unlike other clarification techniques like milk washing.

As a bonus tip, you can also wrap your setup in saran wrap to prevent any steam from escaping, making sure you get as much hydrosol and as much flavor as possible. Cheers 🥂!

1 week ago | [YT] | 115

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Bugs on Guinness, the world's best bar, and a kayak that almost escaped without me… this is what 11 days in Hong Kong and Bangkok looked like 😅. The full travel vlog covering this and more during my latest Asia trip is now live on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/bugs-and-tuk-tuk-159741808?u…

It started out in Hong Kong, where I visited Bar Leone, currently holding the title of the world's best bar, followed by guest shifts at Gossip and Socio HK that brought together industry professionals and Friends of Cocktails from across the city. Bangkok was a completely different story though, being a lot louder, hotter, and full of surprises like TAX Bar's insect and cocktail pairings 🤩.

Head over to Patreon to watch it all unfold, and while you're there you'll also find exclusive recipes, early access to new episodes, and a lot more. Cheers!

1 week ago | [YT] | 30

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Not all ingredients react to heat the same way, and knowing the difference can make or break your cocktail 🌡️.

Take cucumber as an example. Fresh cucumber has a clean and vegetal character that works well in fresh and refreshing cocktails, but if you apply even a small amount of heat it quickly starts to taste like cucumber soup instead. The same goes for floral notes like elderflower or rose, or fresh fruit flavors like strawberry and grapes. So when you are developing things like liqueurs or cordials, you need to consider how you are processing your ingredients.

Techniques like freeze clarification, cold infusions, and water distillation are valuable for when you want to concentrate heat sensitive flavors. So before reaching for a pot, ask yourself if heat is really what your ingredient needs, because sometimes the best way to get the most out of it is to keep things cold 🧊.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 87

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Making great cocktails starts with great ingredients, but getting the ratios right every time shouldn’t require a math degree 😅. That’s why we built the Cocktail Time Calculators, a growing collection of tools designed to help you skip the guesswork and focus on what matters most: making perfect drinks. Click here to start using them: www.kevinkos.com/cocktail-calculators

From Super Juice and honey syrup, to cordials, flavored syrups, and liqueurs, each calculator gives you the exact amounts you need based on your yield, so no more wasted time or ingredients. We’ve even added an ABV calculator recently to help you get more insights when designing your next cocktail menu.

Whether you’re a home bartender looking to level up your ingredients, or a bar professional trying to streamline your prep, the Cocktail Time Calculators are here to make your workflow a lot smoother. So grab your scale, and let’s get calculating. Cheers 🥂!

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 155

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

With patio season here, it’s a great time to cood down with a Mojito or a Paloma - but if you want to take bubbly cocktails like these to the next level, try clarifying your juices first 🤩.

As Dave Arnold points out in Liquid Intelligence, juices have a lot of small solids floating in them, which then work as perfect sites for bubbles to form. This means a lot more CO2 escapes your drink, making your cocktails flatter than they could be. So to correct this, you can use agar agar, freeze clarification, and even classic milk clarification to craft base ingredients that hold onto carbonation for longer.

Keep in mind that ingredients like shrubs and cordials will also benefit from clarifying, and that most clarification techniques will strip some of the flavor. This is why I was excited to learn about water distilling, which I used in a recent episode to make a clear acid packed with lemongrass and sichuan pepper. Learn more about it here, and make sure to enjoy a Mojito this weekend too: https://youtu.be/TQc6LrdjJsQ?si=5HWkX... ⛱️. Cheers!

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 117

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

We are in the Top 10 finalists for the Tales Spirited Awards 🏆!

Last week, as we were getting ready to celebrate the 6th year anniversary of Cocktail Time, we found out that we had been chosen as one of the best broadcast, podcast, or online video series by Tales of the Cocktail 🤩. It feels amazing not only being nominated, but also to share a spot with many other amazing creators - all of which you can see along with each of their categories in this post: www.instagram.com/p/DYkJLAmDbzu/?img_index=6

This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without you, our Friends of Cocktails, so we want to thank you for tuning into Cocktail Time on any platform, for trying out the recipes, and for helping us share more knowledge about mixology and bartending around the world 🌎. The finalists will be announced soon during the second week of June, so stay tuned to see if we make it to the grand stage in New Orleans, and in the meantime I’d love to know your favorite Cocktail Time episode down in the comments. Cheers 🥂!

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4 weeks ago | [YT] | 323

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Shaking and stirring are not the only way to build cocktails 🤩!

If you want to get more aeration than stirring does, without adding the cloudiness of shaking, then throwing is the perfect technique. To do it, just fill the small shaker tin with ice and cover it with a hawthorne strainer, then build the cocktail and begin throwing it from the smaller tin to the larger.

You can increase the distance as you get more comfortable, and after a few throws you’ll notice the tins will get colder and the amount of liquid will increase. This is your signal to serve the cocktail, but make sure your guests have enjoyed the show too 😉.

Throwing is a great technique when you’re using wine-based ingredients like vermouth, as well as more delicate ingredients that open up with aeration like floral or vegetal flavors. This makes it one of my favorite ways to build a Martini, as well as a fun way to serve clarified cocktails. Let me know in the comments if you've tried throwing, and until next time, cheers!

1 month ago | [YT] | 107

Cocktail Time with Kevin Kos

Want to feature your drinks on Cocktail Time 🤩?

I am building the largest cocktail survey ever made to find out how bartenders make their cocktails stand out. It covers 5 classics, including the Old Fashioned, the Martini, and the Margarita, and after 1000 people have sent in their answers I’ll feature them in a new episode. You can send in your answers here 👉: forms.gle/JRrwyuuWLTjjNuRD8

As a thank you for sending in your answers, by joining the survey you’ll get the chance to win a yearly Patreon subscription. This will give you early access to new episodes, along with free copies of every Cocktail Time e-book, more cocktail calculators, and even access to member-only livestreams. Thank you for your help, and I’ll see you soon in another episode. Cheers 🥂!

1 month ago | [YT] | 74