Beverage

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.

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.

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.

The term "milkshake" first appeared in print in 1885 and at that point it referred to an adult drink containing eggs and whiskey. But by the early 1900s, a milkshake had come to mean a drink made with ice cream and chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla syrup. 

Even when summer temperatures reach the triple digits, most beer enthusiasts think of ice as something you put beer on, not something you put in beer.

Ice—or anything else one might add to beer—dilutes the flavor, traditionalists say. And taste is increasingly important to American beer drinkers, as the growing popularity of craft beers would seem to indicate.

But adding other flavors to beer actually has a long tradition going back to those beer-loving Germanic cultures. The “radfahrer,” or “radler” as it’s commonly translated, which means “cyclist” in German, is a mixture of beer and lemonade or beer and lemon soda.

The legend is that an Austrian innkeeper had a large group of cyclists arrive and had to stretch his limited beer supply by cutting it with lemon soda. The mixture became popular in warm weather, especially among young and active imbibers, and is now sold all over the world in some form or another.

The Test Lab at Hamilton Beach, led by mechanical engineer Arthur Hudgins, Manager Engineering Test Lab and Model Shop, is a kind of punishment chamber for food service equipment and hospitality appliances. It’s a noisy place consisting of several rooms—some piping hot, some ice cold, some dry and others tropically humid—where appliances made by Hamilton Beach and its competitors are tested for performance, safety and durability.