From the golden age of cocktails in the 19th century to the modern revival of the 1990s and early 20s, there have always been some defining characteristics of cocktail bars. For a long time, the back bar was stocked with carefully selected bottles of spirits and liqueurs, from which bartenders danced back and forth as they fetched, poured, and mixed spirits. The back bar has long served as a visual representation of the range of the bar. For the most part, these shelf-fixed bottles were all that bartenders had to create a library of memorized recipes beyond simple syrups, juices, and other condiments.
But over the past decade, cocktails have evolved into something more conceptual, endlessly spent on complex preparations. As a result, the back bar has become more minimalist.sometimes disappear completely. More and more, bartenders are using lab-grade technology to create drinks behind the scenes. high concept Cocktails for life. At the heart of this new type of bar is the rotovap, a vacuum still used to create particularly sophisticated and flavorful cocktails. And it’s popping up in bars all over the world.
At Crossroads Bar in London, one of the brands of vacuum stills, Gilovap, is placed front and center in the minimalist back bar, giving you the chance to see the stills in action in real time. Served to guests. At A Bar with Shapes For a Name, also in London, owner Remy Savage sets the stage for the bar. Büchi rotary evaporator Adjacent to the bartender’s workstation in the second-floor lab, visible through an interior window. At Ships in Barcelona, guests have a front-row view of rotovap on the back bar.
Vacuum distillation may be most prevalent in cocktail bars today, but it’s been around for nearly two decades, first gaining traction in London in the early ’80s. In 2014, Dave ArnoldHe was also experimenting with vacuum distillation in the United States, and published a masterpiece that made full use of the technique. liquid intelligence And the rotary evaporator came to be in the spotlight even more. Since then, vacuum stills have become popular in bars around the world.
How it essentially works: A vacuum pump lowers the atmospheric pressure within the environment of a liquid sample (usually contained in a spherical flask or closed vessel), lowering the boiling point of the solution. By lowering the boiling point, bartenders can gently distill infused spirits and solutions with minimal oxidation and without the excessive heat generated by traditional distillation, resulting in more flavor-packed liquids. can be obtained.
At Himcock in Oslo, Norway, Paul Aguilar, Head of Flavor Research and Development, is one of many bartenders using the equipment to create cocktails that push the envelope. He describes rotovap as being able to “capture the essence of different ingredients and enhance the flavor profile of cocktails in a cleaner format.”
For the bar’s beetroot martini, Aguilar creates a clear beetroot distillate composed of vodka, beetroot juice and chili through vacuum distillation. The resulting infusion, despite containing layers of flavor, is clear and light-bodied, a perfect beauty for a martini. This process also removes the capsaicin compound found in chili peppers, leaving the chili’s complex flavors intact while eliminating the tingling sensation in your mouth. A component that would not be possible without a rotary evaporator.
Alex Francis, bar director at Little Red Door in Paris, said in 2020 the bar’s ‘Don’t judge a door by its color’ menu will begin using rotovap, with key flavors from other menus. Separated or removed to “explore flavors and sensations”. recognizable ingredients. The list included drinks with descriptions such as “coffee without bitterness” and “honey without sweetness.”
In “Chili Without Spicy” Francis and his team created a Carolina Reaper chili distillate. This accentuated the aromatic profile of his mixed dry vermouth and pepper cordial. Similar to Aguilar’s beet martini, the distillate expressed a sharp peppery aroma without any capsaicin. Across drinks and menus, RotoVap has completely changed the recipe development process. It was not only a tool for making drinks, but also a starting point that enabled creative ideas.
When you think of distillation, you might think of alcoholic ingredients, but some bars use rotovap techniques to create non-alcoholic cocktails. At the two-Michelin-star kitchen table in London, bar manager Mikolay Kwasniwski presents a range of hydrosols (water-based herbal distillates) that he uses as the base ingredient for the restaurant’s contemplative ‘Soft His Pairings’ menu. ) is being created. This is the fastest growing zero-proof option. Popularity is growing along with plain curiosity.
Distillation helps restaurants preserve seasonal ingredients and isolate individual flavors, says Kwasniwski. This is especially important when designing drinks that pair with food without overpowering it. In keeping with a rotating series of fish courses on the kitchen table, he developed an oyster leaf hydrosol by mixing brine leaves with water and distilling the solution on a rotovap. He then blended the distillate with lemon cordial and water, then force-carbonated the whole thing and served it as a salty and citrusy highball that was perfect for the fish course.
Meanwhile, while it is still illegal to produce distilled alcohol products in bars in the United States, the technology is being embraced as a tool to enable state-of-the-art non-alcoholic programs. At Wild Child, a brand-new cocktail bar in Shawnee, Kansas, that opened in July, owner Jay Sanders invested in Guillopup to remove alcohol from spirits. “Commercially available non-alcoholic spirits are often about the same price as alcoholic spirits,” says Sanders. So he decided to invest in a distillery to create his own non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ for his drinks list.
For Wild Child’s alcohol-free Negroni, Sanders mixes equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari and uses a rotovap to separate the alcohol from the solution. He replaces the lost amount of alcohol with a gin-flavored hydrosol made from plants commonly found in spirits, such as juniper. According to Sanders, this is “the closest thing to a true Negroni” Barr could come up with.
Of course, buying an expensive vacuum still doesn’t automatically elevate your bar to world-class territory, nor does it make sense for every bar’s cocktail program. A certain level of expertise is required to operate this technology and develop creative drink concepts. In that sense, rotovaps have become like any other tool in a bartender’s arsenal. “Nothing in the lab makes the idea better,” says Francis. But with practice, “you’ll be able to express your ideas in the best possible way.”