Beverage

If you’ve ever had a high-performance blender conk out after many years of hard use, the culprit was probably the brushes.

“Brushes?” you might ask. “I didn’t know my blender had brushes.” Most people don’t, because busy restaurant operators never think about the innards of their blenders. But we do. For eight years, we’ve been thinking about how to design a better blender motor that doesn’t die when the brush wears out — and now we have it. It’s called Endura™ Motor Technology.

Celebrity chef Kathy Casey’s favorite word is “wow.” She applies it to everything she does: cocktail creation, menu consulting, restaurant development, TV hosting and cookbook writing. She’s the owner of Kathy Casey Food Studios - Liquid Kitchen, a global food, beverage, and concept development and innovation agency.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, how can restaurant and bar operators serve up that wow factor? “Always do something that is a little bit different, whether it’s a serving vessel, a garnish or an unexpected ingredient. Do something that sets you apart,” Casey says. “For instance, using a tiny wooden clothespin to secure a cocktail garnish; that extra little touch makes it memorable. When it comes to food, a combination of textures, unexpected flavors, and a unique presentation can make it a photo-worthy snap.”  

Does your bar blender gather dust from November through April, only to roar back to life when it’s margarita season? This winter, put the blender back to work by mixing some frozen drinks that will invigorate your cocktail program. The secret to selling frozen drinks in winter is simple: Channel customers’ seasonal moods. We’ll tell you how.

But first, remember the basics of successful drink blending: Always put liquid ingredients in the jar first. Follow by adding solid ingredients such as fruit and ice. And for a consistent blend every time, invest in a powerful, commercial-quality bar blender.

Take a trip back through all the cocktail trends of the last few years, and the variety is dizzying. Produce-driven cocktails. Revivals of classic cocktails. New twists on classic cocktails. Craft frozen cocktails. Tiki drinks. Even the once-scorned staples of college bars, like the Long Island Iced Tea, have gotten a makeover from modern mixologists.

Is there anything left to try? Oh, yes: The last frontier in cocktails is all about science. Mixologists at places like Washington, D.C.’s barmini and Chicago’s Aviary are adapting the techniques of molecular gastronomy to serve up drinks that change color, fizz and smoke. But there’s a method to this madness. Here are five principles they follow.

Dr. Thomas Campbell remembers how, in his medical-school days, he would make up for his poor eating habits by drinking a kale smoothie: “I put about 6 cups of raw, cleaned kale tightly packed in a mixer along with a little water and nothing else and made the ultimate green smoothie,” he recalls. It was, unsurprisingly, awful: “It was like a grassy tasting slime, or perhaps cow cud.”

Adding fruit would have solved the flavor problem, but that can turn a veggie smoothie into a high-sugar beverage, notes Campbell, the medical director of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. A typical smoothie with spinach, strawberries, blueberries, a banana and orange juice might include 32 grams of sugar, he calculates.

Many sugar-conscious consumers want smoothies with no fruit at all. What’s the secret to offering healthy, fruit-free smoothies that don’t taste like a cow’s breakfast? We’ll tell you.

Crowning the menu at Malibu-based chain SunLife Organics is the Billion Dollar Smoothie, a blend of 16 ultra-premium ingredients that some health enthusiasts promise will nourish the body and mind. It won’t enrich the wallet, though — the Billion Dollar Smoothie costs $28. (The Million Dollar Smoothie is a comparative bargain, at $15.95.)

The $28 price tag is due to exotic ingredients like goat colostrum, adaptogenic mushrooms and silica. (Oddly, the smoothie just tastes like vanilla.) While the health benefits of ingredients like these aren’t always proven, many customers are avidly seeking out ultra-premium smoothie ingredients.

Sometimes, action is the best relief for grief. When Jeremy Lefkovits’ beloved mother Andi was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2009, she sought natural healing through raw superfood nutrition in addition to conventional medicine. Andi lost her battle with cancer, but Jeremy and his wife, M’Lee, found their calling: growing organic wheatgrass and sprouts.

In 2012, M’Lee and Jeremy left their high-paying corporate jobs to found Andi’s Way, a small farming operation outside of Atlanta, Ga.  “There was no guarantee of success,” Jeremy says, but the couple’s commitment to quality and stringent safety standards won them a loyal following.

Andi’s Way now has customers in 27 states, including juice bars, health food stores and Whole Foods. They’ve also helped Hamilton Beach Commercial perfect our commercial wheatgrass juicer.

Here’s what the Lefkovits have learned in their five years running the business.

Put all the hottest food trends in a blender — hyperlocal sourcing, natural ingredients and local produce. Give them a quick whirl, and voila: You get a farm-to-table cocktail. The concept has been around for a few years, but drinkers show no sign that they’re tiring of creative produce-based concoctions. Here are a few ideas for innovative, fun and fresh garden cocktails.

Whether you’re in Florida or Los Angeles, you can get a little taste of Brooklyn under the blue-striped awning of Uncle Louie G Italian Ices & Ice Cream. Just look at the ice flavors: N.Y.P.D. Blue. F.D.N.Y Cherry. Coney Island Cotton Candy. Holi Canoli. Soprano Spumoni. 

Uncle Louie G began 20 years ago as “a hole in the wall” in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, says Dino Russo, owner and director of research and development. Russo took over when his brother, the company founder, retired. In just seven years, he grew Uncle Louie G from eight locations to more than 50. Hamilton Beach Commercial spoke with Russo to find out how he’s winning over customers from the East Coast to the West.

When you’re buying a high-performance blender or other restaurant equipment, you care about how much it costs. You care about how easy it is to operate and how long the warranty lasts. You probably don’t care about all the mysterious agency certifications it has: NSF, ETL, UL… Should you?

Yes. For one, health inspectors look at these marks. They want proof that your kitchen equipment is certified to be sanitary and safe. Also, certified foodservice equipment is better for your bottom line: more durable, safer for employees to use, and easier to clean so your risk of foodborne illness is decreased. But restaurant equipment certifications can be cryptic and confusing. There’s a lot of overlap between them, yet standards recognized in the United States may not count elsewhere in the world.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know.