Beverage

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.

A little more mellow. A little less sweet.

A little less complicated. A little more fun.

We feel like cocktail trendsetters are taking a deep breath in 2017. While artfully made craft cocktails continue to be in demand, bartenders just aren’t trying as hard to impress us — and that’s a good thing. We’ve noticed six new cocktail trends that are getting the year off to a refreshing start.

What does a craft cocktail sound like?

The rattle of ice in a shaker. The squish of a lemon in the juicer. Maybe the whisper of a basil leaf, muddled gently in the glass. And — the whir of a blender?

Frozen craft cocktails are coming into their own. As Punch puts it, “blended cocktails are no different than any other classic cocktail with a rich history: They’ve enjoyed a heyday, seen a resurgence, suffered a dark period and are poised on the brink of another comeback.” They’re novel, they’re popular, and they’re profitable. Here’s how, and why, frozen drinks are being revived.

Lemon coffee. Birch water. Shrubs.

Where do beverage trends come from, anyway? Often, it’s a collision of big consumer trends and individual innovation. In recent years, the beverage industry have seen consumers turn away from sugar; embrace drinks billed as all-natural, organic or clean; and expect the ability to customize drinks to their preferences. Millennial consumers, in particular, crave novelty: 40 percent are “bored with standard fruit and juice flavors,” a 2016 Fona report found. Then, too, there’s the Instagram factor. Beverages that are unusual, beautiful or colorful (see “smoothie stacks,” below) have greater potential of catching on.

Here’s our take on nine non-alcoholic beverage trends that may become mainstream in 2017.

At Hamilton Beach Commercial, we build our blenders to last. And now, we may have a new record for the hardest-working HBC blender. At Doolies Coffee and Juice Bar in Sydney, a six-year-old HBH850 Summit recently clocked 138,000 cycles. That’s 63 drinks per day, on average, for six years. And it’s still going strong.

Here’s a look at how Doolies has been blending success for 20 years — plus a few surefire smoothie recipes from Down Under.

Italian water ice is having a moment. Once found mainly in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, this sublime summer treat is becoming popular all over the country. Never had one? Try mango water ice swirled with vanilla custard. First, you taste the rich and velvety frozen custard; then, just when you think you can’t eat any more, your spoon breaks through to an icy oasis of fine-textured, flavored ice.

When Rob and Paulette Lamb, both Philadelphia natives, visited Richmond one blazing August, they noticed one big thing missing from this Southern city. “If we’re going to move here, there’s got to be water ice!” they joked. Then they realized they had found the perfect business opportunity. In 2005, they opened Ray’s Italian Water Ice, and now have two thriving Richmond locations. Here’s how they succeeded.

Plain chocolate or vanilla? So passé. We’d like a milkshake garnished with cookie crumbs, hot fudge, rainbow sprinkles, an entire brownie and one perfectly toasted marshmallow, please. If you think that sounds decadent, you should see what else restaurants are cramming into their shakes. Are you ready to invent a crazy milkshake of your own?

Planning a school breakfast program isn’t as simple as it once was. Schools have to come up with meals that meet new nutrition standards, can be served in classrooms or the cafeteria, can be prepared in a hurry, are easy to eat on the run and won’t make a mess. Oh, and they have to please kids’ picky palates. The solution? Smoothies. Here’s why, plus tips on how to successfully launch a school smoothie program.