Tradition with a Twist of Ingenuity: the Secret Ingredients of a Cocktail

A man walks into a bar and orders a Cosmopolitan to numb his recent breakup wounds.

No, he doesn't.

Saccharine red syrup, sour patch kid-colored “juice” and hoity-toity stemmed glasses give cocktails a bad rap for the serious connoisseur. But good cocktails are undeniably celebratory, indulgent but festive, like a decadence that was never meant to be daily.

Katie Neal focuses a celebration each year around her love for the cocktail and for her home state: the annual Kentucky Derby party, starring the mint julep.

The drink is “refreshing, usually cool; maybe it's the mint that just makes you feel happy,” she says.

The secret, she notes, is in the simple syrup, which works best made the night before to chill overnight. She fashions a sterling silver julep cup with fresh mint, smashes it to unlock the aroma and pairs it with crushed ice, simple syrup and Maker's Mark Kentucky Bourbon.

Matched with floppy hats, pastel seersucker and a smorgasbord of beer cheese, casserole and derby pie at the annual party, the Kentucky derby mint julep “is delightful,” Neal says with a smile.

Tim Nolan, a Winston-Salem local and bartender at Single Brothers Bar, Tate's Craft Cocktails and Hoots Roller Bar and Beer Company, concurs: “I think food…and cocktails are intertwined, one kind of art form,” he said.

With experience as a bartender and musician for ten collective years in Winston-Salem and New York, Nolan has seen the balming power of a cocktail on a couple's first date:

“I can have a quick conversation, tailor drinks for them, and it's something for them to talk about. Not everyone's into tasting—just like not everyone's into listening to music or admiring visual art—but for the people who are, I think they're looking for an experience.”

In Winston-Salem, Nolan sees the best cocktail experience as an Old Fashioned at Tate's and anything with fruit and fresh ingredients at Single Brothers. Eric Ginsburg, associate editor of Triad City Beat, conceptualizes the cocktail as warm and summery, a reprieve from straight spirits like tequila or vodka.

Nolan, however, sees the cocktail as a source of empowerment and education.

“In Winston-Salem, people don't know what [cocktail] to order so they just go easy,” Nolan said. People will request a sweet drink or a popular drink instead.

“In New York you have a much more educated population. Here, it's about teaching people that a drink isn't ‘too good' for them; it's about getting people out and making experts out of laymen.”

And if Nolan had his way, a man could walk into a bar (hopefully in better spirits) and order a Cosmopolitan if he wanted to.

“If you raise a young man to think he has to be macho he's going to show up and only order whiskey on the rocks. If you raise a young lady to think she's going to only drink sweet, fruity drinks she's going to do that. But people with open minds drink whatever they like.”

Cheers and cocktails to that.