Beverage

Hong Kong’s Penicillin, winner of the 2021 Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award, is more than green. It’s a new shade of super-ultra-green.

On the menu, you’ll find vodka infused with scrap bread, rum flavored with used tea leaves, and the One Penicillin, One Tree cocktail, which funds the planting of a Mallotus muticus tree in Borneo. The bar’s tables were built with tropical storm debris, and even the lights were salvaged.

Does it all sound a little… fussy? Here’s the kicker: Penicillin owners Agung Prabowo and Roman Ghale also operate a traditional dive bar, Dead&, that serves cocktails on tap and canned beers. Dead& provides ingredient sourcing for Penicillin, Agung tells 50 Best — for instance, Dead&’s discarded paper cups are recycled to make coasters, menus and labels for Penicillin.

The moral of the story: Whether you run an upscale cocktail bar or a neighborhood watering hole, sustainability is within reach. All it takes is creativity and collaboration.

Dessert or a drink? How about both in one glass?

There’s something delightful about a frozen drink that’s as pretty, palate-pleasing and carefully constructed as a fancy dessert. They don’t have to be overly sweet. The key difference is thoughtfulness: “taking something basic that everyone understands and building it out to a memorable experience. In this case, sometimes less is more, but a balanced recipe, great ingredients,

 elevated glassware, and creative presentation tells a story in itself,” Andrew Pollard, Beverage Innovation Director at Monin,tells Bar Business.

Bartenders are creating sophisticated new takes on frozen cocktails that incorporate fresh, plant-based and housemade ingredients. A high-performance commercial blender is the last ingredient you need to craft frozen dessert drinks with the perfect consistency: no grainy texture or chunks of ice. Consider putting your own spin on a few of these drinks and adding them to your menu.

Smoothies will never grow old.

They’re always being reinvented: as an afternoon pick-me-up, a pre-workout booster, a post-workout reward, a meal replacer, a refreshing breakfast, or an indulgent dessert. Consumer tastes have evolved right along with them, as smoothie fans continually ask more from their drink. What do on-trend smoothies look like right now?  

In the spring of 2021, NPR asked Americans what they most wanted to do once the pandemic ended. 28-year-old Hannah Moran knew right away: “I want to go to an old-fashioned diner and order a great big breakfast and a milkshake from a menu that I could hold in my hands and flip through and choose from.” 

She’s not the only one. Milkshakes are in high demand, whether they’re dairy-free or dairy-full, novelty-themed or old-fashioned. Hamilton Beach Commercial takes a closer look at the trends.

Pâtissez Freakshow Shakes (Image source)

Is coffee really good for you? The consensus, according to research, is yes. Studies show that drinking 3 to 5 cups each day is associated with a lower risk of premature death, and that coffee can decrease the drinker’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer and other conditions.

It goes without saying that loading up coffee with syrup, cream and sugar makes it less healthful. But customers are now going the other way, seeking out coffee drinks that add extra benefits.

Here’s a look at some coffee trends that promise a health boost.

How do you redesign an icon?

Keep everything that makes it great. Then, make it more powerful, more efficient, and more durable than ever.

That’s what we did to the classic Hamilton Beach Commercial® blenders: the 908® Bar Blender, the Rio®, the Tango® (shown here), and the EXPEDITOR™510 and EXPEDITOR™510S, part of our family of culinary blenders.

Hamilton Beach Commercial amped up the motor on all of these new models, doubling the horsepower for each. The newly redesigned jar clutch design is easier to replace, too. The stainless-steel jar has a new design that’s engineered for better blend performance, plus a triple-seal lid.

We also added some other major upgrades — read on to discover more.

The global craft-cocktail movement was reaching ever-loftier heights, with more and more creative, fanciful and expensive concoctions — and then, suddenly, the bars went dark.

From Los Angeles to New York and beyond, restaurant and bar operators have turned to takeout cocktails to bring in much-needed revenue. And it seems to be working! But before you start batching drinks by the barrel, you need a plan.

The espresso martini was born in a scene right out of Ab Fab. In 1983, an actress or model (depending on who’s telling the story) walked into London’s Soho Brasserie and asked for a drink that would “wake me up and [mess] me up.” Bartender Dick Bradsell crafted a high-octane cocktail that would become legendary: espresso, vodka, Tia Maria, Kahlua and sugar syrup. 

The drink became a symbol of ‘90s bar culture, growing sweeter and stickier until it fell out of favor. Now, bartenders are getting excited about coffee cocktails once more. 

“As we continue the third generation coffee movement in the U.S., I expect to see a celebration of specialty coffee in cocktail bars. … Breathing new life to old caffeinated cocktails is an easy pivot that the large majority of Americans can get excited about,” Stephen Kurpinksy, president of the United States Bartenders Guild San Diego Chapter, tells VinePair. Here’s a look at some of the exciting trends we’re seeing in coffee specialty drinks. 

By now, you’ve probably heard the news: Drinking isn’t as cool as it used to be.

Compared to millennials at the same age, Gen Z consumers are drinking over 20% less per capita, a groundbreaking report from Berenberg Research revealed. Conscious of their health and image, they instead opt for low-alcohol or nonalcoholic beverages. (This is not true in every nation, of course; alcohol consumption is rising overall in countries like Vietnam, India and China.)

As demand for alcohol dries up, culinary innovators are trying something new. “Juices and other interesting beverage pairings will take another leap again to the main stage,” Justin Cogley, chef of Aubergine in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, predicted in Food & Wine.

Juice pairings aren’t brand-new. The concept is credited to Rene Redzepi, founder of world-famous Noma restaurant in Denmark, who began serving sophisticated blends to non-drinking customers more than a decade ago. At the time, other chefs doubted the idea would go mainstream. Now, however, juice pairings are proving popular with customers who don’t drink, who are drinking less, or who just want to experience something new. Here are some tips for trying it yourself.

Is this the year consumers finally start saying no to sugar? We’re learning that sugar hooks our brains; pummels our livers; swells our bellies; and accelerates aging, among other effects. Ugh.

Unsurprisingly, interest in low-sugar cocktails has been rising. Mixologists are turning away from fruity syrups and sweet juices and instead experimenting with savory flavors. During a recent visit to Longoven, the celebrated restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, sweet cocktails were notably absent from the menu. In their place were drinks flavored with ingredients like smoked ice, juniper, Chinese shawo fruit (which is actually a radish), coconut oil and coconut water, kombucha and prickly pear.  

Is your mouth watering yet? We take a look at some savory alcoholic drinks that don’t need sugar to be delicious.