One of the points he raised was the difference between chefs and bartenders. It’s a point that many have discussed in recent times. There’s obviously many crossovers, and many bartenders – myself included – are taking pointers from the kitchen. We’re also trying to achieve the same respect and recognition that chefs currently enjoy. However, what’s also often said is how chefs cater to a very real need – that of sustenance and fuel – whereas we as bartenders simply provide a means of luxury and escapism. It’s a point that’s jarred with me. Of course we don’t need alcohol, but similarly we don’t need fois gras or pig fat ramen. Alcohol has evolved alongside us for many years. At one point it was a necessity. However, the main point aside from the argument towards the merits of alcohol (another time) is the fact that this takes the wrong viewpoint of drinks to me. Luxury food is a luxury. We have strived for comfort and thankfully fewer of us are starving nowadays. We can enjoy our food; Sustenance is not the primary goal. Similarly, getting loaded shouldn’t be the primary goal of cocktails and fine drinks. Of course it does provide a necessary escape every now and again, much like that double helping of clotted cream ice cream after a big meal, but the focus is the enjoyment. Food and drink are social billings. We as bartenders are doing exactly the same as a top chef.

The main point he raised however was that of social enterprise. There are so many talented people in this industry. I’d argue given the nature most people fall into it, I’d say there’s a wider range of talents in food and beverage than in any other industry. There needs to be so much more scope to explore this talent.

This was very much a motivation underpinning the Mr Lyan projects. One of my hopes for White Lyan and its concept wasn’t to alienate the industry and traditional drinks practice, but to generate a discussion. My objective going forward was to challenge convention and explore as many things creatively as I could. However the key part to this was the people that I’d bring on board. To me this industry has always been about the people who are part of it, and I’m honoured to have some of my peers I respect the most as part of this. Many of you will know Iain Griffiths who is currently working like a jacked up energiser bunny to get White Lyan together, but I’m similarly honoured to welcome Geoff Robinson and Nathan O’Neill as part of the Mr Lyan team going forward. Expect many more fun things and lovely people soon, but as before, we’re staying hush hush for a little while longer.

My discussion with them was very much that we’d do things differently. Mr Lyan as a platform is very much about an honest and open discussion and we hope to be able to work with a plethora of different industries, but the goal is to also challenge the trajectory and longevity of working in this industry. We are a young company, but this is very much part of the founding ethos. We need a better tag line, but I think it does sum a lot up; do heaps mad shit.

We’ going to try and push boundaries, explore what we think we understand and try to understand much much more. If you’re interested in taking on these challenges, please get in touch: Ryan@MrLyan.com

I’d been researching lots of different techniques, and I still had no answers. And neither did anyone I asked. But everything was still taken as gospel. If I questioned something, the answer was always “that’s the way it’s done”

No one questioned the level of dilution for each drink, or the consistency.

No one questioned the actual resulting water in the dilution:

And have you tasted the melt water from ice? It tastes like shit, and makes up a potential 25% of your drink.

And there were those who didn’t usually drink cocktails, didn’t want to be lectured, and didn’t want to wait 10 minutes (plus!) for a cocktail!

Temperature of serve was also the bitch. The temp curve, the body, the opening…

And we all know how shit citrus is in the UK, and how inconsistent it is. AND, how many other acidic agents there are… But the nerdistry is an aside.

Most of all, it was weird how far we’ve fallen from the purpose of a bar; Good folk, and good times, supplemented by good drinks, not centred around the notion of good drinks.

So, lovely peeps, we can finally present our bar through which we wish to covers all this, and so so much more.

Keep posted!

Whisky has dominated a lot of my time in fact (no surprises) and there’s some VERY fun stuff coming up…

Also keep an eye out for forthcoming Mr Lyan partnerships, including some super exciting projects with long term collaborator Shay from the Rebel Dining Society. Some sneak peeks of Lyan Bar developments will also be coming soon. Again, all is vague and shrouded in mystery still. Apologies

However, thought this would be good timing to talk some of the fun recent cocktail stuff. Aside from some great projects with the fine folk at Elliot’s and Selfridges, I’ve been having some fun with char. I’d explored the idea of burnt notes before in my ‘Chip Pan bitters’, and of course recent products such as Ardbeg’s Alligator and Buffalo Trace’s Experimental 7 looked which not only take some of the heavier burnt notes, they explore the reductive qualities of the charcoal layer.

I’d also come across some some cocktails that used this before; The ever inventive Jason Scott from Bramble had the ‘Mexican Limeade’ from many years ago, which I had taken inspiration from (and in part from breakfast style grilled grapefruit) by using charred pink grapefruit to compliment the notes of Auchentoshan Valinch in a sour.

You also come across hints of this with the burnt orange zest found on Cosmopolitans and some Toddies which eludes to and compliments the flavours found in the drinks.

It’s been fun exploring other aspects of char though. Charring fruit brings out interesting contrasts to the sweeter and acidic notes, and gives a darker contrast to the ‘plumper’ side. Obviously the heat impact does affect the flavours too, but it has been great to explore. Burnt sugar and caramel notes also work well, lending towards the meatier notes created by Maillard reactions too.

I’m intrigued to see if I can introduce some of these char notes without having the heat damage to ingredients, and avoiding the interchange with charcoal (there can be some loss of flavour too). Actual wood char can work for this, but I am interested too see how much pushing these bitter notes can act as a pleasant contrast to some brighter aspects. I’ve even explored ‘darkening’ powders too – baked salt, reducing bicarb (this didn’t really work), toasted yeast and roasted flour. I’m unsure whether the acid powder will work this way too.

As ever, more news to come soon.

I think I’ve long documented my love of Whisky. It constantly and consistently fascinated me how the range of flavours could develop in something so simple.

In a crude sense, I couldn’t figure out how some water, cereal and wood could bring up a plethora of fruits, spice, herbs and some things all together more ethereal. You have the mind blowing tropical fruit of old Bowmore and Benriach, the leather and forest in Karuizawa , beeswax and orange of Clynelish and old Springbank and the mysterious pepper of Talisker…(I could go on) Of course this was present in other spirits too; how could there be white flowers in Cognac or chocolate-cinnamon-bananas in rum when these weren’t present in any of the process?

With this in mind, my curiosity was lent towards the different processes and more specifically, maturation. This led to research and experiments in ageing (and of course, alternative ageing), different processes (low pressure, high pressure, different materials) and also all the variables that were available to the distiller (firing rates, cuts, heating method…) but I was still left baffled.
So I began thinking of the start point of all of these; fermentation. Slowly, I became more intrigued by the impact of this stage: distillation concentrates flavours (and although maturation adds/alters/removes a lot, it still is dependent upon the original make) so it was necessary for the building blocks to be present at the initial stages.

I started to attempt new brews; wild yeast/long fermentations, different saccharifying agents, trying to isolate specific yeasts… Many many attempts, and all fascinating. However, consistency was completely beyond me (although not the focus of these projects) and often, they didn’t taste great (although again, still always interesting and often they tasted better once distilled).

It was with this that I cast a particular eye towards some of the interesting work going around with craft beer in the UK (and further afield) and a perfect occasion came about through Craft Beer Rising. Not only was I interested by the products themselves and a revival of quality beers, I was fascinated by seeing how these producers were exploring the world of fermentation.

Needless to say, there were many incredible beers at the festival (and of course some fantastic food, music and *ahem* masterclasses) and some brilliant new looks at the process.

One that particularly impressed amongst a whole host of amazing products was the work of Sharp‘s brewery. I knew of the guys from before as Tris- a good friend and owner of many a fine bar- had worked with them down in Cornwall, but some of their small batch experiments were truly mind blowing. The enclosed snap of the Quadrupel Ale (with a dram of Port Ellen 1979/2012) was not only an incredible drop, but also a fascinating brew; four different malts and four different yeast strains. Wonder what it would taste like distilled…

On Tuesday I’ll be in Manchester discussing the wonders of Whisky cocktails at World Class. Not only do I get to discuss the merits of Scotch in mixed drinks and my experiences of drinking whisky around the world, I also get to chat with potential competitors about something that was a key part of my bartending career having won World Class a few years back. After enjoying some Talisker hi-balls, I will be travelling back home to Edinburgh to chat similarly about Scotch in its homeland. Those in the North, register if you haven’t and come say hey.

At the end of the week, I will be back in London for Craft Beer Rising – where you can try a range of wonderful beers, listen to some great music and eat some fine street food. I’ll be talking about beer cocktails so register for a trade pass, or get some tickets to the event.

I’ll also have a pair of tickets to give away. Keep an eye on twitter – @RyanCheti or on facebook – www.facebook.com/MrLyan for more details

So as part of some of my experiments, I’ve been having fun playing around with other cocktail ingredients (some are really stretching the imagination). These have often been exploring flavours I couldn’t easily find in the spirits that dominated the cocktails I’d been making. This was a motivating factor in my alternative ageing experiments (ultra-violet, radiation, biological, oxidative…) but I also found many examples when exploring some of the fortified wines (see below) and lambic beers. Yeast, botrytis and malo-lactic fermentation create some fantastic notes.

The wine side has also thrown in interesting additions such as tannins and minerality as well and I’ve had great success exploring these. I had used a very mineral-led wine in my winning recipe for the No3 Gin competition a few years back, and had also explored tannins and yeast at The Whistling Shop.

It was great then when a friend asked me to judge the Enotria wine competition (and I’m very honoured to be doing so alongside Peter Dorelli and the lovely Laura Foster). It was fascinating to see how different people from the trade- both sommeliers and bartenders- approached the brief and used a shared list of wines in so many different manners.

In terms of using wines and beers on the bar, I feel they offer a lot. Practically, they need to be used differently though. They obviously don’t have the shelf life of spirits, but aside from providing the aforementioned flavours and textures, they can offer excellent GP and also give you lower alcohol cocktails in your menu. Manipulating them through a series of techniques can create fascinating bases too.

These lower alcohol cocktails are interesting to explore- they have a certain delicacy about them that behaves very differently to spirits. Subtle nuances to herbs and spices shine through in an interesting manner, and it allows you to pull apart complex concoctions such as bitters in a great way.

I have high expectations for the competition at the end of the month. The preliminary judging showed a huge variety of approaches. It will be great to see how the competitors translate these out and justify their approaches and I’ll be keen to hear what has been their motivations and whether practicality has affected their choices.

I’ll keep you posted on the winner, and try and restrain my jealousy of their trip to Sicily!

Either way, it’s good to know the ins and outs of what you’re putting into the drink and it will help you manage to have a more coherent drink where each of the flavours unfolds through the drink

However, this is one I’m very excited about. It’s a product that people from all around the world used to ask me about when they visited the Whistling Shop and now everyone has the opportunity to enjoy it. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you for your purchasing pleasure ‘CREAM GIN‘

It represents a rebirth and re-imagining of a historical product and a genuinely new entry to the gin category. May your gin drinks never be the same again.

A great effort by the lovely folk down at Master of Malt.

Much of the complexity and diversity in Cognac comes from a mind-bogglingly complex amount of cask management, blending, re-casking and interestingly, reduction.

Hearing Alexandre Gabriel discuss the creation of his ‘1840‘ added more to this mix- they age every element (including the sugar for their dry curacao) and use a careful reduction technique to dilute their aged eaux de vies.

This also occurs in whisky- some have explained that some of the ‘extra-aged’ blends (40 yrs) use very old whiskies that couldn’t be sold as singles as they’ve fallen under the required 40% abv, as a means of reducing the final strength (and of course, to add a whack of flavour).

I wondered whether the same could be used in cocktails; whisky friends have talked about bottles that have been left open too long with too large a head space and the whisky has ‘gone’. I’ve not encountered this as friends and I polish off bottles at a reasonable pace and I limit my open bottles, but it of course makes sense (decant whiskies into smaller bottles if they’re sitting lower than half way!).

So, with the aid of Chris up at Edinburgh Whisky Blog