Tales of the Cocktail 2015

Do Your Measures Measure Up?

When is a Kilogram not a Kilogram? When it’s ‘The Kilogram’, the official standard measure which is getting slightly lighter every year, mocking the very idea of timeless, perfect precision in measurement of weight and volume. But rest assured, the Ounce is no better, being one of a half dozen wildly inconsistent measures used under the Imperial System.

The modern bar world has an almost religious belief in the importance of measurement, mocking those unbelievers who don’t use the jigger. But is there such a thing as true precision? Are our jiggers and measuring cups calibrated correctly, and were they ever reliable in the past? We treat old cocktail books with a lot of reverence, but their recipes made up of gills, ponies and drams today make no sense, if they ever did. In this seminar, we’ll explore the history of ‘weights and measures’ and decipher the quirks hidden in the measurements in old cocktail books, by demonstrating classic recipes made with one of the world’s largest collections of historical cocktail equipment. We will examine how the world has arrived at two incompatible measurements – the ML and the OZ – and why almost every country has a different ‘standard’ measure, and what that means for bartenders around the world as they adapt recipes from other countries and other eras. We’ll look at the pros and cons of today's bar tools and share research on how you need to know the quirks of your individual tools to be able to make better drinks. And we’ll also discuss the various methods – free pouring, jiggering, batching and more – by which you can ensure you are serving your guests the best drinks possible, wherever you are in the world.