When James Bond famously ordered his “shaken not mixed” martini, he was only telling part of the story. Because those are not the only bartending techniques available. There’s also escanceado, in which a drink repeatedly cascades through the air from one container to another.
Supporters of escanceado affirm that it aerates the drink, resulting in a cocktail with a delicate texture. At the very least, the process amounts to a great show. Call it mixology with style, but with a real purpose.
The technique is old. But by the end of the 20th century, it had all but disappeared and was mainly practiced in old-school bars in Barcelona, Spain. However, in recent years it has made a triumphant return to many bars in the United States.
The most frequently released drinks are the martini and the Bloody Mary. But nowadays almost anything goes. At Milady’s in New York, the bartenders pour an apple martini. At Nubeluz, chef José Andrés’ new bar on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in New York, they are staging a version of the Hanky ??Panky, a cocktail traditionally made with gin, vermouth and fernet.
“If I want a lot of water and a lot of air, I shake,” said Miguel Lancha, the “cocktail innovator” at Andrés’ restaurant group. “If you want little water and no air, then we mix. If I want a hybrid that combines both stirring air and little mixing water, I’ll scan it”.
Most escanced drinks are cold. But Milady’s plans to start serving flaming hot toddies, a hot whiskey cocktail.
“I like to pour them over a fire because it caramelizes all the sugar,” said Natasha Mesa, beverage director at Milady’s. “It gives it more texture than a regular toddy.”
The practice was particularly associated with the Havana bar El Floridita. Miguel Boadas, a bartender there, brought the skill to his native Spain, where in 1933 he opened a bar in Barcelona. If there is an epicenter of the escanceado culture, that is still Boadas Cocktails.
A Boadas bartender traveled to New York in 2006 in search of cocktail historians Jared Brown and Anastatia Miller. A short time later, they followed him to Barcelona, where they were taught the technique and asked for their help in reviving it.
“As far as we knew, no one outside of Boadas and his local influence was slipping away,” Brown said. “We took him around the international bar show circuit.” He estimated that he and Miller have taught thousands of bartenders how to scan.
While Mesa’s reasons for employing the technique are “10 percent for the show, 90 percent for the taste,” his clients could reverse those numbers.
“Customers love it,” he said. “Cocktail nerds get it. They are familiar with the texture and the effect it has on the drink. But the average consumer just thinks it looks cool and you get a chance to show it off a bit.”
By: Robert Simonson
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6509171, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-12-27 21:40:07
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