If you happen to stop in at Tonic on 4th, the downtown bar that used to be Twist, and get into a conversation with Josh Durr behind the bar, don't be surprised if he offers you a tour behind the cocktail scenes.
If you take him up on it, he'll lead you deep into the basement, where there's a one-ton government-surplus freezer that reaches 58 degrees below zero. It flash-freezes ice from water that has been micro-filtered and boiled twice so that the ice is exceptionally clear. Back upstairs, in a room behind the bar, you'll see the Kold-Draft ice maker, pumping out perfect geometric cubes of ice, used for shaking cocktails and serving drinks on the rocks.
This is also where Durr's laboratory is, where he makes citrus and floral bitters, tinctures of basil and clove and vacuum-packed bags of raw ingredients like chamomile. That's all before he shows you what he can do at the bar.
Welcome to the world of the craft cocktail, where romance and science, history and trendiness mix together like the elements of a Sazerac. A well-established trend in New York, Chicago and other larger cities, the craft cocktail is arriving in Cincinnati.
"This approach to making drinks is not a trend," said Durr. "It's a movement."
Durr, as one of the partners in Molecular Bartending, is a consultant to bars, restaurants and liquor companies all over the country, but he has settled in at Tonic to help get its program up and running.
No one else in Cincinnati is doing anything quite as elaborately as Durr at Tonic, but the craft cocktail has its devotees at several bars around the city.
Molly Wellmann, the lavishly tattooed and supernaturally friendly bartender at Lavomatic in Over-the-Rhine, has been experimenting with her own crafty drinks. Rommel Wells, a former philosophy major working at the Rookwood Pottery Restaurant in Mount Adams, mixes up moody, romantic drinks like his Les Fleurs du Mal. In a few weeks, Senate, across Vine Street from Lavomatic, will open with a bar that also features craft cocktails.
What exactly makes cocktails "craft" cocktails? Durr said it's more about just "making drinks the way they should be done," but you could call the following the tenets of the movement:
Romance and history: Craft cocktails are classics, or based on the classics. The bibles of the movement are old mixology guides, like the one Jerry Thomas wrote in 1862. If possible, drinks are served in antique glassware.
"It's about looking into the past," said Wellmann, "and using the procedures, sophistication and ingredients of the classics."
You'll find sazeracs, sidecars, absinthe, negronis and Manhattans on craft cocktail lists, bringing with them the romance of books and old movies, of cocktails served in elegant settings, in speakeasies and saloons.
The recipes come from a time before peppermint schnapps, canned grapefruit juice or vanilla vodka and are based on well-balanced mixtures of ingredients.
"It's more of a cereberal approach to mixing drinks," said Wells, who likes matching drinks to the Rook's historical atmosphere.
No overly sweet or one-note flavors. But mixologists apply their own ideas to the traditional recipes, adding a new ingredient or substituting an element. Wells' negroni includes his own campari-soaked onion.
From scratch: Wellmann has a cocktail called the Marlboro Man that features a few drops of a tobacco bitters that she makes herself, by infusing grain alcohol with tobacco.
"I'm like a pharmacist or an apothecary," she said. "Some of my customers call me a witch."
Everyone has their own recipe for falernum, a spiced rum cordial. It's one version in Wells' Rookwood Swizzle and a little different in Wellmann's Butternut Squash-tini. Juices are always freshly squeezed. Wells uses an antique citrus squeezer for each drink.
They would all make their own tonic water if they could, and they're all good customers at Colonel De Ray's herbs and spice stall at Findlay Market.
"It's just like what's happened with food," said Durr. "It got faster and cheaper, then we had to re-learn how to do it right."
Made with care: Not everyone has the ice program at Tonic, where some of the ice is carved into perfect spheres, used for pours of scotch or bourbon because it melts more slowly and won't dilute the drink.
But craft cocktails are as much about the procedure as the ingredients. It's a pleasure to watch any of these crafters rinse a glass with absinthe, shake a drink or peel a twist from an orange. Each drink is carefully put together so that every element blends together, the sweet, the bitter, the alcohol, the sour.
Order a mint julep at Tonic, and it will be served in a silver cup, with the straws placed in the crushed ice right next to a sprig of fresh mint. When you drink it, your nose is right in the mint, so its aroma adds to the experience.
Enthusiasm: These bartenders are really into their cocktails, and it's infectious. "A woman came in and ordered a Between the Sheets, which is a classic cocktail," said Wellmann, "I almost ran around the bar and gave her a hug."
Said Durr: "I don't know if you can taste passion in a cocktail, but it's definitely in these."
But if you're not into it, and you just want your cosmo or Jaeger-bomb, they're not going to kick you out.
"Some of the best bars can be snobby," said Durr. "We want anyone to feel comfortable in here, and to order whatever they usually drink if they want. We may suggest something similar from our menu because we want to educate people to enjoy cocktails in a sophisticated but fun way."
Wells takes pride in being a bartender, and a good one will always make what you want, he said.
Wellmann said she'll make you something else if you don't like her invention. "I'm just so excited about this movement. It's huge in other cities, but we've got a lot of smart, well-traveled people here who are getting into it."
