Before telling you everything I’ve learn about mixing cocktails I would like to start with my invitation for the Mix it like a Woman Final. To be honest with you, I didn’t really now much about cocktail mixing so I was super excited to watch the eight girlbosses mixing their own drinks with the high quality spirits from Puchheimer by Spitz. We also had the opportunity to try out their drinks and it was super nice to see what they’ve created and to hear the story behind the creation and naming. That night was really exciting and Svetina and me had quite a lot of fun tasting – hihi.

The perfect location

The final party was the first time that I got in touch with the hight quality spirits from Puchheimer. I usually don’t drink spirits so it was very interesting to try them in Cocktails. One week later I got an invitation to a Cocktail ail Mixing Workshop with Sammy Walfisch -Barkeeper of the year 2018. I was so thrilled about the invitation and also super nervous as I’ve never really mixed a Cocktail before.

The workshop took place at the Botanical Garden where I’ve never been to. It is such a lovely bar – I fell in love the minute I walked in to. The first thing I did after getting my pear gin tonic – which by the way was super yummy – is texting my girls that we had to come here to get a drink or two in the future. It was the perfect location!

It’s time to mix

We were a group of five girls and we pretty much started right after we finished our welcome drink. We were separated in two groups and each group got it’s own barkeeper. Each of us had to play different roles – one was the guest ordering a drink by just saying what the drink should taste like  and the other one was being the barkeeper trying to find out which drink would suit the guest. Thank god we got a little card with 4 recipes on it – which you can download here! I first had to play the guest, so I told my barkeeper that I like it more fruity and sparkly so I got to taste  the Into The Woods Cocktail. The Cocktail was garnished with pomegranates and was my favorite drink from all. After enjoying my drink it was my turn to get into the role of a barkeeper and to make my guest happy.

I’ve learned that every barkeeper knows exactly what moves he/she is going to make and that there are different ways to shake cocktails. I got to mix the Donau Espresso for my lovely guest. So I cooled down the glas with crushed ice, got all the bottles that I needed for making my drink and started mixing all ingredients together. After everything was in the shaker it was time to shake – haha it was definitely one of the most funny experience ever. After shaking the Cocktail for about a minute I got to garnish and serve it.

Teamwork makes the dream work

… or let’s say the cocktail 😏 After we got to mix different Cocktails we had one last task as a whole team – mixing a pre bottle cocktail. We had to calculate the amount of each ingredient, label the bottle and fill up the bottles. Sammy told us that most bars pre bottle their cocktails so they don’t have to do each cocktail at a time – I din’t know that this was possible as I never though about premixing. Which I think is pretty nice, as you get to enjoy more time with your guest than with mixing cocktails. The last cocktail for the workshop was the From Barbados with Love. We pretty much nailed it and got almost 2l of Cocktail out of it.

I head a great time getting to know more about high quality spirits, how to mix cocktails and how much more there is about being a barkeeper. Not that I thought that being a barkeeper isn’t much – don’t get me wrong! But it was just great to learn every step there is behind creating a drink, naming a drink, finding the right ingredients, finding the right proportion of each ingredient, mixing and shaking it right and being able to make someone happy with just a drink.

Thank you Himmelhoch PR for the invitation and organization, thank you Spitz for making this event possible, thank you Adrian Almasan for the great pictures and last but not least, thank you Sammy for taking us into your world.