Shake, Shake, Shake

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday July 15, 2000

PERRIE CROSHAW

Long Island teas after midday, martinis in the evening ... the key to a great cocktail is timing.

Golden cadillac, grasshopper, stinger, palm tree in the snow - what's your favourite cocktail?

"What time of the day is it?" responds the president of the Australian Bartenders' Guild and world champion cocktail maker, Alex Beaumont.

"Cocktails are so diversified that you should drink them at particular times of the day. Like pre-dinner cocktails such as martinis. You wouldn't sit down in the middle of the afternoon and drink martinis, because you'd be dead for the rest of the day," he says.

"After-dinner style cocktails like brandy alexanders, which tend to be creamy drinks, are meant to be sipped slowly after dinner, helping you digest your meal. You wouldn't have them before a meal at 6 o'clock or you'd fill yourself up before dinner. You wouldn't have long cool drinks, say a Long Island tea or mai tai, before going to bed at night - they're best for the afternoon.

"So if you asked me, 'What's your favourite cocktail at what time of the day?', then I'd probably end up giving you four or five examples. Pina coladas, if they are done properly, are a fantastic drink, but if you get up in the morning and have one, it would probably kill you."

While Beaumont disputes that cocktails are an American invention, few will argue that they came into their own in the US, aided by movies featuring Hollywood starlets sipping from shapely glasses at locations such as 21 or the Stork Club.

Bacardi would have it that the Cuba libre, a mix of rum and coke, is the world's oldest cocktail, invented by American soldiers in 1898 during the Cuban war of independence. But while the US may lay claim to these "long cocktails", it is in Australia that the creamy cocktail has hit its straps.

"When I first came to Australia years ago, the only cocktails you could get were martinis, daiquiris, Tom Collins, marguerites, manhattans, stingers - American-style cocktails where everything was based on lemon juice and the martini short style. These cocktails came from the Northern Hemisphere where it is cold, windy and dark. They needed a short sharp drink to warm up.

"But here we were tropical. We wanted to drink sweet creamy drinks.

A lot of blended fruit - mangoes, strawberries, pawpaws, everything was rich," Beaumont says.

"Now the younger set is reverting. The yuppy types and young executives have gone back to marguerites, martinis and daiquiris, but with a twist, and are prepared to experiment with new flavours - hot chilli, melon or mango martinis. They are keen to blend the daiquiri, which is basically Bacardi and lemon juice, with rich exotic fruits such as guavas and kiwifruit."

The indulgence doesn't stop there. According to Gabriel Roberts, room service minibar manager at the Hotel Inter-Continental, Sydney, the creamier and more exotic drinks are most popular, especially with women, who seem to throw dieting caution to the wind when huddled over their cocktails.

For $15 a glass, there's the Treasury Lady, with strawberry liqueur and cream, or the Toblerone, with Frangelico liqueur, cream and creme de cacao - a long drink that takes a short time to drink but a long time to get off the hips.

But you don't have to pay quite that much for a cocktail if you live in the western suburbs.

"Lots of people in the west are regular cocktail drinkers, because clubs such as the Penrith Panthers have exclusive cocktail bars," says Beaumont. "They sell about 2,000 cocktails a week. And I'm talking proper cocktails which are shaken, stirred or blended. Some of the footy stars have created them themselves."

Creating a world-renowned cocktail isn't easy. "No-one in Australia has hit the jackpot and come up with a cocktail that is as recognisable and well liked as the brandy alexander or Golden Dream - something that is known to cocktail drinkers everywhere. These drinks take 10 to 15 years to become popular," he says.

But allow me to offer a suggestion - hangover by chocolate. Why not liquidise a Mars bar and add some vodka? But wait, I believe a bar in Sydney is serving that one already.