David Kaplan - Death & Co Modern Classic Cocktails, with More than 500 Recipes

Some of the recipes in this book include raw eggs. When eggs are consumed raw, there is always the risk that bacteria, which is killed by proper cooking, may be present. For this reason, always buy certified salmonella-free eggs from a reliable grocer, storing them in the refrigerator until they are served. Because of the health risks associated with the consumption of bacteria that can be present in raw eggs, they should not be consumed by infants, small children, pregnant women, the elderly, or any persons who may be immunocompromised. The author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the recipes and information contained in this book.

Copyright 2014 by David Kaplan
Photographs copyright 2014 by William Hereford
Foreword copyright 2014 by Toby Cecchini
All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
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Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kaplan, David (Bartender)
Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails / David Kaplan, Nick Fauchald, Alex Day; photographs by William Hereford; illustrations by Tim Tomkinson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cocktails. 2. Death & Co. (Bar: New York, N.Y.) I. Fauchald, Nick. II. Day, Alex. III. Title.
TX951.K1654 2014
641.874dc23
2014004245

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60774-525-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-526-6

Design by Katherine Tomkinson
Illustrations by Tim Tomkinson

v3.1

My Reidy, here is a very long response to your note:

Holy Christ, was it ever bittersweet to hear from you last night when I stepped in at two in the morning from doing my third guest bartender training shift at this freakish cocktail geek stronghold here called Death & Co. My hands are all cut to pieces and my lower back is stabbing me in perma-rictus, but the larger damage has been done to my psyche.

Some background: There is this fairly tight coterie of extreme cocktail fanatics that stretches from London to San Francisco and Seattle, with outposts in Tokyo and Portland and certain bars in Boston and Philadelphia. However, New York and London are, I would say, the central hubs. Im acquainted with most of the big players and everyone kind of knows who I am, but Ive always been fairly peripheral to it all.

This is a very young, earnest, geeky setall of them madly debating so-and-sos take on the real recipe for Abbotts bitters or crme de violette (both products that disappeared decades ago) or issuing raging diatribes on ice (the shapes; the purification processes; whether to chip block ice, like the Ginza school in Japan; whether its okay to use a Scotsman machine to make crushed ice or must one hammer it in a canvas Lewis bag to get the perfect consistency). Meanwhile, theyre busy crafting every conceivable tincture and infusion and finding thousands of liqueurs, pimento drams, amari, you fucking name it. It is, in short, a subworld, like many others: in cooking, in music, in writing, you will always have these berfanatics who just like to push it to the outer limit of exclusivity.

Some of this is kind of great, but a lot of it Ive always found fairly exhausting. Overall, the movement (and it is a movement at this point, really) reinforces my belief that drinks should be made with care and knowledge and employ the best and freshest ingredients. On the other hand, a waxed mustachio or gold-plated Hawthorne strainer does not a good drink make. And so I was quite interested to see if style would supersede substance among this new crop of bartenders.

There is one place I have found where this slavish allegiance to the craft of fine cocktail making is all for the goodwhere the drinks are just so skillfully and artfully constructed that even an old cynic like me has to sit back and take note. This is Death & Co, a quite well-known, very small and intense cocktail bar in the East Village. A few weeks ago, Brian Millera very nice chap and the places head bartendercalled me and asked if I would be amenable to stepping behind the bar to fill in some shifts while the staff was at a cocktail convention in New Orleans. Theyre all super nice cats and ferociously fast, adept bartenders. Very admirable.

I like Death & Co, and Ive always found that, unlike most of these geeky cocktail joints, the guys are superspiff bartenders and spot-on in their knowledge and execution. When I walk in and ask for a Scotch on the rocks, they dont try to talk me into a cumin-lavender-habanero Rob Roy instead. I must admit that they all know who I am too, and so are very respectful, and that has always buttered me up and brought me back there. Once when I took some friends there, the place was closing up and turning people away, but they spotted me, called us back, and bade us come in and drink with them while they closed up. Quite nice.

So it was that when Brian called and said he didnt mean to insult me, but that they would consider it an honor if I would deign to step behind their bar and help them out when everyone was gone, and possibly as a backup after that, I thought, You know, of all the serious bars Im familiar with, that may be the only one I would, in fact, step behind.

I laughed at the offer and assured Brian I was flattered to be asked. I told him I thought maybe it would be good for me to get off my ass from staring at a computer screen all day working on this diabolical book proposal, and get back behind the stick. He was very excited and grateful and said all the guys were vying to work with me, to see what Toby Cecchini would teach them about this and that. I warned him that knocking a years rust off would be an endeavor in itself, and that I always tread very lightly in someone elses sandbox, so it would be quite enough for me to trail for a bit to get the hang of how they did things there.