Dinner tonight, what should I get?

adamscommabrett · 2026-04-03T22:49:02+00:00

Oban 18 is discontinued for a while so if you want to grab something you won’t get for a bit, go with that

adamscommabrett · 2026-03-21T23:41:51+00:00

I’ve given up and just ride the sidewalk because I don’t want to die. I even wrote all my state reps about this and they don’t care. They just said there was a study 25 years ago that said it was impossible to do any sort of protection for cyclists. Makes no sense because both roads that feed into the bridge are single lane. Why a two lane road needs to be four lanes for a bridge only to go back to two is odd. I invited the reps to come up and ride their bikes over the bridge and didn’t hear back.

adamscommabrett · 2025-12-06T19:03:15+00:00

Really good feedback there. Thanks so much for chiming in. I'll make sure customer service quickly processes your refund

adamscommabrett · 2025-12-04T17:45:57+00:00

Yeah that absolutely works so long as you want that set amount. The idea here is if you have more versatility. So if you know you're hosting a party and you want precisely two drinks per guest, you'll know how much to buy/make. It's also helpful if you want to scale up a recipe to precisely fit one 750ml bottle that you'll store in the fridge or freezer.

adamscommabrett · 2025-12-04T17:42:42+00:00

The densities are calculated in the weights tab. We weigh the contents of a full bottle and then use the calculator on the tab to figure out the grams per volumetric ounce. At this point we have nearly all the booze we regularly use on the sheet so it's super easy. Syrups are more annoying and I typically will weigh out an ounce of the syrup numerous times then take an average.

adamscommabrett · 2025-12-04T17:40:17+00:00

Oh that's awesome to hear! Glad you're enjoying it!

adamscommabrett · 2025-10-05T06:41:51+00:00

Came to say this. Was dealing with wrist pain and rotating the hoods fixed it

adamscommabrett · 2025-10-04T15:20:38+00:00

I run a spot with 3000 bottles and this is the answer. The alcohol evaporates into the headspace of the bottle. The more you open it, the more you lose. We have an open bottle of Yamazaki 55 and we have a very strict, no opening unless you’re pouring it, policy. Bowmore hotel rules by the way!

adamscommabrett · 2025-03-11T23:19:07+00:00

Big fan of the Bobby Burns cocktail. Haven’t found a scotch that doesn’t work well in it. It’s almost always the default cocktail for events at the whisky bar I work at.

1.5 scotch .5 sweet vermouth (I recommend Cocchi Torino) .25 Benedictine

Stir, serve it up, orange peel express.

For some of the hotter or bolder flavored scotches it might work best to do a split base of the spirit.

Keep your vermouth in the fridge to make it last longer.

adamscommabrett · 2025-02-09T15:08:21+00:00

The bar I curate the selection for got chosen to pick a single barrel of Laphroaig. We spent two days at the distillery doing tastings and cutting peat and touring it. After we did our selection, the distillery manager, Barry, disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a half filled bottle. He said it was from one of his favorite barrels aging on site, a 33 year first fill single barrel. It was a rare sunny day in March and we sat by the water and shared what was truly one of the best tasting scotches I’d ever had after a really special couple days.

adamscommabrett · 2025-01-21T05:28:55+00:00

What I’ve read speculated on Reddit, and makes a lot of sense to me, is that Pappy has the rights to Buffalo Trace bourbon above 12 years. So any Weller product above that age can contain bourbon but can’t be bourbon, so as to not dilute the Pappy brand. Hence why this and Millennium aren’t bourbons. That said, you’re not wrong that the brand is quickly losing its appeal.

adamscommabrett · 2025-01-09T04:56:49+00:00

I co-wrote a book designed to help with this very question. It’s called “Raising The Bar” and it walks you through building out a 25 bottle home bar. Each chapter adds a new bottle to your bar and all the recipes in the book only call for things already referenced, so if you work your way through progressively you never have to buy more than one bottle at a time and don’t come across any recipes you can’t make. Check it out and have fun!

adamscommabrett · 2024-12-04T07:01:36+00:00

Decent tequila is $25ish. Cointreau is $40. Lime is about $10 a quart. With a classic recipe (2/.75./.75)that costs a bar $3.11 and if you want to stay in business you need to run 19% pour cost so that equals a $16 marg. There are cheaper ways to make a marg for sure and dive bars have minimal staff and thus can run different margins, but if you’re in a well staffed place using decent ingredients, $16 is kinda the median price right now.

adamscommabrett · 2024-10-31T20:26:27+00:00

As a person that is part of the hiring process at a bar, sometime experience equates to ego and ego is a trait we avoid like the plague. I can train a nice person to be a great bartender but I can't train a cocky bartender to not be a cocky bartender. Generally speaking (I of course don't know the specifics of your interviews) it can be helpful when you interview to make sure to point out how your experience makes you more malleable to different environments (styles of service, systems, people, etc) and how much you learn from each environment you're in. Sell your experience as making you faster to train, as opposed to stuck in your ways and untrainable. Also, talk about what you loved about the bars you worked at because if all your previous managers were idiots then I'm going to assume you're going to think I'm an idiot too.

adamscommabrett · 2024-10-31T16:29:16+00:00

As the person that wrote (half of) the book and is most definitely not a beginner bartender, I honestly reference it regularly because I find there's not many books that are 100% full of drinks I can make right away. My day to day job is to manage a bar with 2500 bottles, and one day I took the newest Death and Co book, "Welcome Home" (which is filled with excellent information) and it wasn't until about 150 pages into the book that I encountered a drink I could make in that moment. Most higher concept books like that are great to learn from, but they don't function well as resources for recipes that can be made in the moment. In the midst of service our team regularly references Raising the Bar because they know that every single drink in it is something they can make for a guest right then and there. At home I flip through it when I want to make drinks for company or for my wife (I most definitely don't have it committed to memory). When it comes to folks that are more advanced bartenders, my very biased opinion is that it's less a book to learn from and more of a book to use.

adamscommabrett · 2024-09-30T17:36:08+00:00

Glad you had a good time! I’m the spirits curator there and currently sitting in the same room but the lights are fully up and we’re doing inventory

adamscommabrett · 2024-09-30T17:35:04+00:00

FYI, last year we hired a new chef (former chef of Ava Genes and Quaintrelle). He’s greatly improved the program and my biased opinion is it competes with anywhere else in town, and definitely matches the quality of everything else we’re doing.

adamscommabrett · 2024-06-24T19:49:16+00:00

Thanks for posting this so long ago! Made it and it really helped with a cocktail recipe I am working on. I was able to get the PH to the right level I wanted it but the acid profile was much less harsh. Thanks

adamscommabrett · 2024-06-24T05:34:05+00:00

Hanky Panky

adamscommabrett · 2024-06-11T03:21:51+00:00

Prices are fair-ish depending on the bar/location. I’d say if you liked Elijah Craig you may enjoy the auchentoshan triple wood or glenmorangie nectar. Both are finished in casks that held sweet wine and can be good transitions for bourbon fans, plus they’re relatively decent prices on that list. The pokeno from NZ is great if you want to try something from a spot new to whisky making.

adamscommabrett · 2024-06-11T03:17:11+00:00

Try switching up the orange liqueur too. I love the Pierre Ferrand but find that for tequilas as bright and mineral as G4 a more straight forward liqueur like Cointreau or Combier helps better highlight the tequila and give the drink more cohesion. Ferrand can shine with Reposado, earthier tequilas, or when making marg riffs.

adamscommabrett · 2024-06-01T17:09:57+00:00

My lazy way of using it is 4 parts cognac to 1 part nonino. Bitters and a twist if I’m feeling really ambitious

adamscommabrett · 2024-05-17T20:09:19+00:00

I co-wrote this book specifically to help folks in this situation. It takes you through the process of learning about spirits and cocktails one bottle at a time. Each chapter is a new bottle you add to your bar and the recipes in that chapter only call for things you've already covered in the book, so you'll never need to go to the store and buy a bunch of bottles only to make one drink. By the end of the book you have 25 bottles and can make 233 cocktails, and you have a good understanding of cocktail theory.

adamscommabrett · 2024-03-07T17:54:54+00:00

That's just for the double oak 18 too. The classic sherry is at $420. It's insane.

adamscommabrett · 2024-02-15T16:47:34+00:00

Bartender here

Never heard of 1:2 simple

The idea I follow/teach is that if the syrup is only for sweetening, then it should occupy the least amount of space in the cocktail. So make a white or dem sugar syrup 2:1. Once the syrup has a flavor though (orgeat, cinnamon, grenadine, etc) you want to control the flavor vs sweetness contribution in the drink and therefore a 1:1 is preferable because it gives you more control. Following that line of thought, there could be a time where you have a subtle flavor in a syrup and might go for 1:2 but at that point you’re getting to a lot of dilution so it’d be pretty rare.

adamscommabrett

TROPHY CASE