constructing Cocktails
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will not shake martinis. I will not shake martinis. I will not shake martinis…This was the lesson of the day at Bar Congress, that — judging by the neat script on the chalkboard — at least one employee failed to learn. “When you shake a martini it gets cloudy, and one of the coolest things about a beautifully made gin martini is its crystal clarity. It should be so still and so clear that after a hard day’s work, you look at that, and it just calms you down.” This is bar manager Adam Bryan’s romantic philosophy behind his rule. He is one of the growing number of bartenders in Austin serious about their craft.
While the artisanal cocktail movement, inspired by pre-prohibition bar culture and libations, has been gaining momentum here, with the East Side Show Room and The Good Knight to the east, The Woodland and Perla’s to the south, and of course Peché and FINO, the arrival of three new downtown restaurants with dedicated cocktail programs — Haddingtons, Congress and Second Bar + Kitchen — signals that Austin is in for some serious sips. These restaurants have recruited a few of the town’s most dedicated barkeeps and handed them the reigns. Which hopefully means that they will maintain the integrity of the impressive drink lists they have unveiled thus far. Award winning bartender Bill Norris, formerly of FINO, is helming Haddingtons. He’s put
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together a stellar cocktail menu, containing a mix of classics and his own creations, and assembled a solid team, which includes Tiffany Short, who earned renown in D.C. for her veggie-infused cocktails. At Chef David Bull’s new ventures on the ground floor of The Austonian, Adam Bryan, formerly of the Show Room, is running Bar Congress, with Billy Hankey, once the bar manager of his family’s restaurant The Good Knight, serving as Second’s lead barman. It may be tempting to look at this recent bartender migration downtown and increased focus on artisanal cocktails with some skepticism, especially since the mixology trend has hit Austin, and we have already seen establishments trying to capitalize on the craze, but many of these individuals shy
away from that term, preferring to use craft bartending to describe their trade. Jason Stevens, a bartender at the Show Room as well as North Loop’s noteworthy cocktail lounge, Tigress, echoes this apprehension; “The only thing that concerns me about it [the growing attention being paid to cocktails] is it becoming too much of a fad, and losing its core, [with] people trying to cash in on a trend and not having bartenders who are trained properly.” Stevens, a former barista, is a member of the U.S. Bartenders Guild Austin Chapter and has taken Tipsy Tech courses from the popular cocktail bloggers behind the Tipsy Texan to develop his knowledge and skills.