Twisting Classics with Leonardo Zuccardi Merli

Hello, my name is Leonardo, Bar Manager of Rockpool bar and grill Sydney.

I will start talking about me and my past experiences. 

I am Italian, born and raised in Rome, my mother’s family side of side owns a coffee brewery in the north side of Rome, and a bar opened more than 70 years ago, I grew up with my grandmother, in that bar Mondi Caffè. 

After school when I was 19, I decided to go to London, obviously my English was poor, my bartender skills and knowledge were even worse, so as any other bartender in London, I started as a bar-back, for a very famous company of Private members club. I spent 4 years working for Soho House, in my opinion, one of the best hospitality school in London, there you really have an idea of regular customers, floor service, busy, not busy, fine dining situations and big functions or weddings. 

It is a very good place to learn classics cocktails, and to understand the importance of mise en place, and how both of teams, morning and evening are equally important, when you do more than 1500 espresso martini, picante, and margaritas the only thing to keep the standards up is mise en place and teamwork. 

I will start talking about this article and what we will talk about, main topic is classic cocktails and how to twist them. 

In my experience if we talk about classic cocktails, we can’t just talk about how to twist them, but we need to start from the story, is very important to understand the recipes we will choose, especially the oldest ones, how they became so popular, how they were executed in the bars during the decades. 

This is really important because technically, even if now the Bar world is on a completely new era in terms of flavours and community around the world, the cocktails we choose has been already twisted hundreds of times during the years by other bartenders and they were probably already on other menus of great bars. 

So, it is important to understand the story of the cocktail and turning it into a selling point or using it in a competition. 

The story and popularity of the cocktails is still changing the palate and the choices of our customers, otherwise there was no way that someone was asking you a mojito in a basement in London when outside is minus 2. 

When the costumer knows the full story behind and how you arrive to that combination of flavours, you will see the reactions and interest growing up in your costumers. 

Perfect example is the Pina Colada, I think that is cocktail with so many memories about places a moments that any type of twist, milk punch, champagne, sorbet, carbonated or a classic frozen will be always one of the best sellers in any city in the world on any menu. 

Now that I made my introduction, I would like to talk about our cocktail menu down in Rockpool, Is divided in two parts, one is called “ Forgotten Classic”, as the name suggest, is a page dedicated to fun cocktails, old or not, that we choose based on the popularity, or hidden recipe or maybe just to show our own way to balance it and choosing products we think are the best for it, we have all types of classics on the menu tiki, sours, straight up, martini, highballs…. 

The first part of the menu allows to go a bit further with flavours with the second one, the second is dedicated to our way to see a classic and how could be an interesting way to adapt it to our days. 

The introduction I made is to support the concept that when we choose a drink must be iconic, or we need to make it iconic trough the storytelling, otherwise will be more difficult to push the flavours on cocktails like old fashioned, negroni, martini…. 

When the original cocktail and the culture behind is so significant that sometimes is difficult to make the costumer try something new. 

Our approach starts from finding a hidden classic or something iconic to twist it in a modern way, we study the elements and the flavours of the original cocktail, and later on we start to propose the best way to make it funny and delicious. 

Making an example one of our bestseller in Rockpool is the Pendennis Highball, in this case we didn’t change much in terms of flavour, comparing to the classic sour cocktail, instead what we did is proposing the same set of flavour in an Highball cocktail, but using the carbonation as primary technique and clarifying the lime juice and make it part of dilution of the entire batch, the result is very similar to the original cocktail in terms of “sourness and sweetness”, the bubbles, instead they bring up the all balance of the cocktail with an incredible result; my opinion as soon you find the right dilution in a carbonated cocktail you will have great result from the beginning. 

Going forward, another key point is how to develop the flavours, so if we are talking about modern techniques obviously everyone would love to have Rotovap, or centrifuge or a freeze drier or any other amazing machines, but without it, we can still reach  a lot of results , only using a sous vide you can develop great flavours with a lot of consistency, making different trial versions based on time and temperature. 

The more curious you are, better will be the result, to bring up flavours you just need to choose the right technique. 

Before to finish I would like to talk about my favourite technique to use, the milk washing, let’s start saying that the milk, actually the fat inside of any dairy or plant-based products, carry the flavours in the best way as possible, boosting flavours increasing scents and textures, bringing more flavour and having a crystal clear effect on the drink. 

Sometimes the answer is even more simple than what you think, I mean you can do something great only using a simple a thing or technique; Try to cook in sous vide cocktail based on vermouth, make the fortified wine open bringing up new flavours, using the fat wash on simple classic like miso butter Old Fashioned, or cacao butter Paloma or maybe chilli oil Tommy’s, this are all example about a simple preparation but with great results, you will understand straight away how the fat affects the flavour and texture making the cocktail more enjoyable for every palate. 

Chipotle Margarita – Clarified
35ml Espolon Anejo
10ml Connemara
5ml Ancho Reyes Original
5ml Ancho Reyes Verde
15ml Chipotle Agave
15ml Coconut Cream
25ml Lime Juice

Batched, clarified and served on block ice.