Have you ever accidentally stumbled into completing a task faster or better than ever before, and then you realize that for the past several months, or even years, you had plateaued at the task without improvement until this moment? The “ah ha” moment of breaking limits is so satisfying; it always makes me thirst for more knowledge, growth, and improvement. Sometimes, however, I get caught off guard, surprised with new improvements I never expected to make, or realized could even be made. Of course, a lot of times I find myself stuck in a rut, battling for the tiniest wins and failing most of the time.
To explain my tangent, in the earlier part of my serving career I served in restaurants without trays where we would carry individual plates to tables. In more recent years, I’ve primarily worked in places where we expedite the food on large service trays. Now, in the interest of returning to day hours that align with Angie’s teaching schedule, I have returned to a more café-like position as the front of house manager of a craft coffee and farm-to-table restaurant. With this shift in restaurant style, I’ve also returned to a trayless food delivery environment. My previous limitation was always two plates per hand (four plates total) to deliver food. Earlier this week, however, I had a party of about 30 people walk in when I was the only person on the floor. Without a thought, I ended up stacking plate after plate along my arm, achieving four plates on a single arm. At the end of my rush, I realized how confident and stable I felt carrying so many plates, and now I am comfortable delivering food in such a way on a regular basis.
It’s a small victory, but a good example of something I no longer expected to improve upon, but then I leapt up to a new level of capability on happenstance. I’ve recently also improved my milk frothing to create a wonderful, tight milk foam for latte art, so I’m feeling pretty accomplished in my hands-on service as of lat(t)e. This new professional adventure also meant developing my intellectual and physical knowledge of the coffee world. Naturally, it pulled me away from our Big, Beautiful Book and cocktail routine, but I have enjoyed surfing articles and picking the pages of James Hoffman’s The World Atlas of Coffee to expand my arsenal. That being said, now I want to develop and find the next level of training skills and management to further boost my rapport with my employees, and enhance their service and daily work experience for the better. For me, these relationships and leaderships skills are really hard to objectively improve, but it is so incredibly important that I do.
I’ve always been treated like a leader among my friend groups and workplaces, and I don’t want to let others down by leading poorly. Relationships and team building is a crazy art and challenge, and it is hard to remain patient in the midst of chaos, stress, and frustration. It really is like making a fantastic cocktail. You need to know what liquor to use, what your target flavor or inspiration is, and how to season and balance the cocktail with each tool in your arsenal, all while serving guests en masse. Translating these technical skills to a consistent training and leadership method is mind-boggling to me though.
Speaking of crazy things, Angie and I decided to tackle a strange cocktail with a suiting title this round. Our cocktail contacts who are sifting through the recipes of the Aviary expressed their own personal fears of this cocktail’s flavors too. I was eager to see how the final product would play out. Enter: Mad World.
What makes this beverage so out-of-the-box is the source of its inspiration. Mad World is a cocktail inspired by French onion soup. You read that correctly, French onion soup. I have not been disappointed by the Aviary cocktails yet, but I would be lying to say that I wasn’t nervous about this one. Mad World is bourbon at its core to act as the beef broth with caramelized onion syrup, pear liqueur, citrus, and madeira ice cubes.
To get started on our prep, Angie cooked onions for three hours at low heat. Once the caramelized onions were ready, she transferred them to a container and stored them in our fridge. When I got home from work, we sous vide the onions to produce our caramelized onion syrup. This syrup truly tastes like liquid caramelized onions. It actually made Angie a bit nauseous and uncomfortable how eerily similar it was to the real deal. Liquid onions, anyone?
This was my first introduction to madeira. It fits in with other fortified wine experiences I’ve had. Honey-like and reminiscent of Lillet Blanc, but somehow more port-like in structure. Perhaps ice wine would be another fun sibling of the category/experience. I don’t have the world’s most professional palette, so picking apart flavors is still a skill I am developing. The application of the madeira couldn’t have been easier. We diluted it with some water, added a touch of sugar, stirred it until it was completely dissolved, and froze it in 1.25 inch ice molds.
After the prep was done, this drink was an easy build and serve. The technique was much like a whiskey sour, built with egg white to develop that creamy foam and texture. Eagle Rare bourbon, St. George Spiced Pear liqueur, caramelized onion syrup, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white, dry shaken, then shaken over ice. It’s important to be vigorous with egg if you want a lot of foam. Lastly, we expressed an orange peel over the top. This added aroma to the cocktail and it helped cover the sulfur smell that tends to come from egg white cocktails after a few minutes of sitting.
The photo op was straight-forward, but I don’t think this is our best looking drink. I will say, the color of the Madeira and the cocktail, in general, was considerably more dull than Allen and the Aviary’s expert visual display in the Big, Beautiful Book. I can’t help but wonder if Allen worked with color saturation more to develop the final product. We even compared the color of the Madeira ice to Allen’s and it lacked the vibrant color despite being the exact same ingredients called for in the recipe.
But I’m sure the real question everyone is dying to hear is how did it taste? Well, I didn’t know what to expect from bourbon, caramelized onion, spiced pear, lemon, egg, and honey-like ice. Serious props to the creative team or team member at the Aviary on this one, I never in all my years would have thought to put the flavors together. The result was a unique, and yes, delicious cocktail. The caramelized onion sat more at the back of the palette and in the after taste (and the breath; I wouldn’t recommend this one for date night, especially if you knock back more than one). That said, it was greatly enhanced by the pear liqueur and balanced to be a crisp, refreshing beverage thanks to the depth and spice of the bourbon and the bright citrus tang.
I know my description sounds like a mixed review, but I definitely went back for seconds on this one. This cocktail has shown a new light for me and expanded my horizons on what a cocktail could be. I have always looked at the flavor equation as something black and white; savory or sweet. This cocktail shows me an entire realm that I don’t think I’ve ever understood until now. The shades of gray between savory and sweet are huge. My poetic description of this experience is that it offers a subtle, savory flavor carried on the waves of a sweet and tangy current. It really stretches my imagination in a new way, and I am grateful for it.