The Art of Cocktail Embellishment - The Garnish

Holy Moai!!!!!!!

Go big or go home! :lol:

Holy Moly! That's a big drinkie-poo! Gives you a workout while you drink it then . . . time for a nappy-poo!

was there a drink? i only noticed a good-looking woman...

:blush:

Here are some video demonstrations of creating fancy garnishes:

http://liquor.com/articles/5-easy-fancy-garnishes/

I thought of something new to try out as a garnish - a cookie cutter.

So I got some:

I used a muddler to tap one into a piece of pineapple skin, cut round & voila:

The pineapple skin was a little thick & the garnish may be a little better in a punch bowl but it's something fun to try :)

On 2015-05-29 13:21, AdOrAdam wrote:
I thought of something new to try out as a garnish - a cookie cutter.

So I got some:

I used a muddler to tap one into a piece of pineapple skin, cut round & voila:

The pineapple skin was a little thick & the garnish may be a little better in a punch bowl but it's something fun to try :)

Good idea! easy and festive.

This was posted on another garnish thread, thought I would add it here for posterity

On 2015-05-20 11:56, Thrift Tiki wrote:
I like sweet --not overly sweet--tiki drinks and have been experimenting with these hibiscus flowers in syrup.
They are pretty interesting and can be found at BevMo and I am sure other booze warehouses.

The syrup tastes good in daiquiris and we even made a hibiscus mai tai that was rather awesome.
Just a suggestion!

I tried it out in champagne and they were pretty good, look like baby squids :lol:

I thought my flaming skull was fancy, but some of these put it to shame.

On 2014-05-04 10:24, AdOrAdam wrote:
Not necessarily a garnish, but presentation related; For a while now I had been thinking of getting a VacuVin Pineapple Corer - I got one & put it to work:

The begining:

The end:

Easy peasy :)

My pineapple corer just broke on me. The little buttons you push to separate the plastic handle from the coring apparatus snapped off. Not sure if it was a Vacu Vin or a knockoff but it worked great while it lasted. The ones I'm seeing from Vacuvin on Amazon all appear to be plastic and only $10 with three different size attachments which seems a good deal. The last one I had was stainless though. Anyone know if there is an advantage to getting a metal one over plastic? Other brands have stainless ones for slightly more money.

I got this one from QVC for $15. The shaft and blade are stainless steel and it comes with a silicone cover for the blade that can also be used to cover the cut top of the pineapple. So if you only want to use a few slices at a time, you can leave the rest in the pineapple and put it in the fridge without it oxidizing. Honestly, I haven't used the slicer yet, but it seems like it will do a pretty good job, assuming the plastic handle doesn't break. Most of the customer reviews are very good. Unfortunately, they don't currently have it in stock, but items that are this popular usually come back at some point.
http://www.qvc.com/Stainless-Steel-Pineapple-Slicer-with-SiliconeCover-Green.product.K42051.html?upsh=1&sc=K42051-CSWB

On 2015-07-07 23:06, mikehooker wrote:
My pineapple corer just broke on me. The little buttons you push to separate the plastic handle from the coring apparatus snapped off. Not sure if it was a Vacu Vin or a knockoff but it worked great while it lasted

My first corer broke the same way after a few uses. I looked at the stainless steel Vacu Vin pineapple corer - the catch is the same. I just got another plastic one & use it (infrequently) with care.

After all this talk about pineapple slicers I found this at the 99 c store. Haven't tried yet.

Damn, I just ordered the $10 plastic Vacuvin one off Amazon last night. Didn't think to check the dollar store! Oh well, mine comes with three different size attachments which should come in handy. My previous one only had one size and often times a lot of "meat" would be left inside a fatter pineapple when I go to pull it out.

On 2015-07-09 10:46, hiltiki wrote:

After all this talk about pineapple slicers I found this at the 99 c store. Haven't tried yet.

Wow. That's looks just like the OXO brand one I bought last year for $20.

Maybe this is too avant garde for tiki drinks but still very cool (pun intended :wink: ) Saw it in a YouTube video and had to try it out myself (these pics are from the YouTube video)

91% rubbing alcohol is placed in an insulated container and dry ice added. After a few minutes the alcohol starts to thicken a bit and reaches a temperature of -107F

Rinse the inside of balloons to rid them of talc. Your drink of choice is placed in a sport top water bottle and squeezed into the balloon, the balloon is tied off.

The filled balloon is placed in the cooling bath. BE SURE NOT TO SPLASH YOURSELF! The alcohol is VERY cold and will stick to you like napalm. The video states it will take "about a minute" but that wasn't my experience. Non alcoholic fruit juice took about 2-3 minutes and the pre-made Margaritas I had laying around took about 10 minutes. I just placed the balloons in the solution and fished them out by the "tail" with tongs. You can gently squeeze it to see how firm the shell is.

Dry off the alcohol with a towel and cut the balloon off with a sharp blade or scissors

Place the sphere in a glass, poke a straw in it, and enjoy. The center remains liquid

I saw that video the other day as well. I immediately started wondering how I could incorporate it into some of my cocktails. I'm thinking perhaps a painkiller or something with lots of juices in it could potentially be turned into the cocktail ice ball. With Halloween coming up, I'll be purchasing a bit of dry ice, so I'll have to give it a try and post my results.

I used a couple of pounds of dry ice and a couple quarts of alcohol - total about $8

On 2015-09-16 05:57, MadDogMike wrote:
I used a couple of pounds of dry ice and a couple quarts of alcohol - total about $8

Sounds good...Mahalo!

Frozen balls in your drink?!

Here's one I've come up with:

I brought a twig of fake orchids, cut the flowers off (leaving a short stem) & inserted the remaining short stem into a straw that was cut to the required length:

I popped one in my Mai Tai & voila; there's an orchid in my Mai Tai :)

Nice idea! This is how you handle a situation where you invite people over spur-of-the-moment and don't have time to run out and get fresh garnishes. You just gotta keep the garnishes squeaky clean and appealing, or use fresh ones every time.

Star Fruit or Carambola makes a quick and exotic tropical garnish

I'm sharing that this device is out there for anyone who owns one of those fancy-schmancy tabletop mixers. Not sure how well it works, especially for hard-skinned limes and lemons. But if it does, COOL! It's widely available for about $100, but only as an attachment to the tabletop mixer.

I know one of these mixers is showing up at my home in the not too distant future, so I may be tempted to get the dang thing soon thereafter. We'll see... Can't say I'd buy it unless I knew specifically ahead of time that it would work decently well with citrus fruits.

Can't say I'd buy it unless I knew specifically ahead of time that it would work decently well with citrus fruits.

QVC has a 30-day refund policy. Return for whatever reason even if you've used it every day for 29 days. You only pay the shipping cost (both ways) if you return it.
Spiralizer

Unless you need like a mile of them, you can usually get by with a hand tool. We have a Straw Hat barman that can do a pretty good job getting quite a bit of mileage out of a single fruit:

Yup, in other words, a big (and expensive) hammer for a small nail.

Sure could help if you had a big event.

Fun and informative video about Lost Lake's garnishes as told and demonstrated by Paul and Shelby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNv8hN1NA_I

I had a pineapple and had to try the pineapple parrot - it isn't pretty but at least it's recognizable. Not a very subtle garnish is it?

Chicken "paws" in the meat department of my local WalMart. Garnish for the Backscratcher/Tropical Itch? :lol:

That's definitely a respectable parrot, Mike!

The chicken "paws" made me a bit queasy though. Nice! :)

I didn't have any cloves, the eyes are capers :lol:

Hong Kong Orchid trees (brauhinia) are starting to bloom in the temperate areas of the West and the South. My research shows that they are not toxic and they are a lot cheaper than orchids

They also come in purple but I couldn't find any low enough to pick :lol:

A fellow TC member, who shall remain nameless, sent this to me :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's creator says it was inspired by the banana dolphin at Chicago's Three Dots and a Dash

:)

Nice Jon! Looks much better than the meat snake up above it :lol:

:)

Nice!

I have decided that the garnish is what separates the enthusiasts from the lushes. If you are drinking to get drunk (or to stay drunk) you don't bother with a garnish. If you are celebrating (say a wedding, a graduation, or any day that ends in a "y") you use a garnish. (Cross post, don't tell the moderators :wink: )

Nice article "Tiki Garnish 101" from Lost Lake in Chicago. At the bottom of the page are some video tutorials but they are not a link, you need to copy and paste them.

I thought these 2 garnishes were pretty cool;

Palm tree and Island - Cut a green paper umbrella into a palm tree, stick it into a cinnamon stick for the trunk. Cut a pineapple island and put it at the base of the tree, add a few coffee beans for coconuts. From the video it looks like they just floated the island on the foam of the drink but that doesn't seem very stable. I would put a bamboo BBQ skewer into the bottom of the cinnamon stick so that the skewer rests on the bottom of the glass.

Simple but elegant - cut a thin cross-section half slice of pineapple with the skin on and curl it around the inside of a coupe glass. Put a pick through the pineapple about the liquid level and tuck an orchid or plumeria (real or silk) behind the pick

EDIT - On second thought I decided to copy the article here, insurance against net rot (I just brought over the text, not the pretty pics)

Fact: no one does a garnish like a tiki bar. We love a simple lemon twist or a subtle, restrained expression of orange oil over a classic cocktail, but there's just something about a drink served with a bright, whimsical, completely over-the-top array of florals, fruits, swizzle sticks and paper goods that just feels like pure, old-fashioned fun. From the classic paper umbrella to the more modern banana dolphin, tiki has been at the forefront of garnish innovation since Harry Yee first plucked an orchid flower and placed it in a drink.

Few pay homage to this legacy quite like Lost Lake, Chicago's beloved tiki bar that opened in January 2015. Partners Paul McGee and Shelby Allison ensure that the bar has a seriously impressive garnish game, without ever taking it too seriously. So, we asked the duo to join us for a shakeup and walk us through some of the ins and outs of crowning a cocktail with piranha-shaped swizzle sticks, sailboats made of limes and lemons, and of course, the beloved banana dolphin. Read on to see what they had to say — and for a couple GIF tutorials of their favorite garnishes.

1. When it comes to tiki garnishing, remember: more is more.
   One of the things that really differentiates tiki or tropical cocktail garnishes from standard classic garnishes is a more “maximalist” approach. “When we're making classic cocktails like a Negroni or an Old Fashioned, we're trying to be a little bit more minimal where there's not 3-4 ingredients; our garnish is in the glass itself. Usually you're just expressing some oils and discarding and there's a much cleaner look,” says Paul. Shelby adds: “there's nothing frivolous. Nothing for you to take out and put in your hair.” But, as we all know, tiki has plenty of frivolity, which is what makes it so enjoyable. “The fun thing about tiki is that it's really over-the-top, you really have to commit to doing something that's completely different from your typical pre-Prohibition cocktail era bar,” Paul says. “One of the ways to do that is to go completely overboard with the garnishes. It makes it a lot of fun but makes it a lot of work, too.”

2. But, don't forget to keep your guest in mind.
   While Lost Lake does follow the “more is more” approach, Shelby adds a cautionary note: “If it makes drinking the drink impossible, that's when it's [become] too much.” She adds that Lost Lake uses bamboo picks to anchor the more top-heavy garnishes into the cocktails so that the whole thing doesn’t plop out of your drink and onto the table as soon as you take a sip. “As long as things are staying in the glass and not prohibiting you from getting every last sip, I think it's fine.”

3. Paper and wood are just as important as fruit and spice.
   Lost Lake classifies their garnish material as organic — your standard pineapple, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and so on — and inorganic, which are the paper parasols, fans, flamingos, lobster picks, and custom piranha-shaped swizzle sticks (not to mention the ceramic glassware). “The reason why we use inorganic materials in our garnishes is because we really think that you taste with your eyes first,” says Shelby. “You see the tray coming towards you, and the very first sip you take is with your eyes: It's a big mug, colorful, filled to the brim with all kinds of stuff. The prettier it looks, the better it tastes.”

4. Garnishes can get complicated, so simplify with a basic template.
   In addition to the organic materials that correspond with ingredients in the drink (a pineapple crescent in pineapple drinks, Luxardo cherries with drinks that have maraschino, and so forth), Lost Lake likes to add 2-3 other items to each garnish. “Always the bendy straw,” says Shelby, adding that everyone has their own preference for bending and knotting it. Then, the bar’s custom swizzle stick, and finally, “something paper: an umbrella, a flamingo, a fan,” she says. If it’s a large cocktail meant for sharing, there might be fire, typically executed by pouring 151-proof rum over a piece of toast inside a lime hull. “We do it for the larger formats because you usually have a bigger bowl that’s less dangerous,” says Paul. “If it's a smaller glass, you don't want to put fire in there because it could come dangerously close to your beard or eyebrows.”

5. Proper prep is everything (and smart bar design helps, too).
   Lost Lake isn’t a huge bar, but Paul says they can still serve more than 700 cocktails in one shift. “On average, that’s about 100 banana dolphins that get made ahead of time,” he says. The bar was designed, as Shelby puts it, to be “a garnish machine” — the layout includes a 36” bin full of ice, and a 12” bin filled with containers of pineapple crescents, cherries, orange peels, lime hulls, pineapple leaves, orchids, and so forth. “So, we're not opening up a door and having to dig through; everything's at our arm's reach, chilled and fresh the entire shift,” says Paul.

6. Let your staff experiment.
   “When we made the banana dolphin for the first time, it was just for a photo shoot, and then our very hardworking servers and bartenders decided to take it upon themselves to make that the actual garnish that went in every drink that has banana,” says Shelby. Paul adds: “I think that's important, too — a lot of times, we'll come up with a garnish, and one of the other bartenders or servers will trump that garnish and make it their own, and it turns out to be way better than my garnish.”

7. But also, make sure staff understands the cost.
   An over-the-top garnish towering over a cocktail can add to the drink’s overall cost, which can translate into a higher price for the customer. As a neighborhood bar, Paul wanted to keep Lost Lake’s prices reasonable for regulars. So, the staff is tasked with keeping that in mind when experimenting with new garnishes, and everyone is kept apprised of the exact cost of ingredients. “We let our bartenders know the cost of everything so that they're thoughtful when they're garnishing a cocktail,” he says.

8. Paper garnishes are great for those with tight storage.
   Tiki drinks are often kind of complicated, which can be tough when your storage space is limited and you’re working in tight quarters. For bars who perhaps don’t specialize in tiki but would like to have a few drinks on the menu, Paul recommends paper garnishes for one simple reason: they don’t go bad. “We go through about 3,000 orchids a week, and sometimes you'll open up a container and they don't look great, or they're spoiled, or maybe they sat on the truck a little too long in the wintertime and got frozen,” he says. Paper umbrellas and fans, however, stick around and don’t require cold storage. As for where Lost Lake acquires its goods? The pair didn’t explicitly list their sources, but: “You'd be surprised at what your party supplies store has, and also Restaurant Depot,” Paul says.

9. Remember: yesterday’s banana dolphins are tomorrow’s banana daiquiris.
   “We try to use underripe bananas [for dolphins] and save the nice ripe ones for the actual drink,” Paul says. “We order two different bananas on each produce order - one specifically for the drink and one for the garnish.” Shelby adds: “We don't usually have leftover dolphins but when we do, they become the next day's drink dolphins.”

And now for a few garnish demos: (fortunately TC automatically made the video links so you don't have to copy and paste)

To make a palm tree on an island:

1. Cut your paper parasol into a palm tree.

http://imgur.com/r86JHoo

2. Put the parasol stick inside a cinnamon stick, stick that through a pineapple round (which you can cut using a jigger), and place a few coffee beans on the pineapple.

http://imgur.com/d62D33W

3. Add bendy straw and orchid.

http://imgur.com/eZBNvjX

To make a boat:

1. Make your sails by spearing a bamboo pick through lemon peel.

http://imgur.com/Orjlu5T

2. Add your masts to a lime hull.

http://imgur.com/xuC5G7M

To make a planet garnish for The Saturn:

Spear three bamboo picks through a lime hull, and add one Luxardo Maraschino cherry to each pick.
http://imgur.com/SqAGQ63

To make a simple tiki garnish for a coupe glass:

1. Place a pineapple crescent into the glass, and pierce on opposite sides with a bamboo pick.

http://imgur.com/amrsNgs

2. Place an orchid with a longer, more rigid stem on the pick, resting against the pineapple.
   http://imgur.com/Abyby2x

And finally, to make a banana dolphin:

1. Remove the tip of the banana and cut a line from the tip for its “mouth.”

http://imgur.com/0rQ09im

2. Make small incisions on the sides and top of the banana for its fins.

http://imgur.com/1SoBlSG

3. Add eyes using cloves.

http://imgur.com/7knpRrv

4. Cut fins from pineapple leaves and place in incisions.

http://imgur.com/v3vOFgc

5. Remove the bottom of the banana and insert a coffee stirrer to anchor it in the drink. Add a maraschino cherry to its mouth.

http://imgur.com/1mItSHa

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2017-12-08 15:03 ]

Simple but elegant Missionary's Downfall garnish

A bit whimsical but still interesting. Looks like the eyes are blueberries? If you leave the bottom half of the banana intact, it will stand in the mug

The eyes could be blueberries, or maybe Luxardo maraschino cherries.

Quick and easy with blueberry eyes

Would a Montecristo cigar be an appropriate garnish for a Cuba Libre? (Photoshop :lol: )

LED ice cubes usually are considered more "garish" than "garnish" but in the right setting the can be perfectly Tiki.

Krakatoa Punch

Love the Krakatoa Punch picture, looks great.

On 2017-12-29 18:40, MadDogMike wrote:
LED ice cubes usually are considered more "garish" than "garnish" but in the right setting the can be perfectly Tiki.

Krakatoa Punch

Mike, that pic bears repeating.
Cheers