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Philip Duff, of Dutch liquor house Bols fame, and now owner of the first speakeasy in Amsterdam was the brains behind organizing the symposium in 2005. Philip has trained more than 8,000 bartenders around the world not only in the art of fine bartending, but the craft of MM. His view on MM is sim- ple: it is still bartending, just a specialist version of advanced bartending. Molecular Mixology can be as hard or as simple as you make it. Philip is one of the most recognizable and prolific bar- tenders in the field of MM in the world and continues to push the envelope at door 74 in downtown Amsterdam. How about a Carpano brulee’d foam on a Rowan’s Creek Manhattan with bitters flamed through a little blow- torch? Eben Klemm’s role in MM actually started long before his move to bar- tending. Originally a Molecular Biologist at MIT in Boston, Eben turned his hand to bartending and fell further still into the MM scene. His background at MIT and thirst for pushing the boundaries of cocktail culture has influ- enced his innovative combinations and techniques, playing not just with flavor but also with form and perception. His experimental nature has lead him to become Director of Cocktail Development for B.R. Guest Restaurants/James Hotels, a New York City-based collection of concept restau- rants, lounges and boutique hotels. He oversees not only all the training for bartenders and staff but also the devel- opment of the group’s specialty drinks. They say that chefs influence what bartenders do in the bar, and when it comes to MM this cannot be more true. Eben Freeman began working with a few burgeoning chefs that were tinker- ing in the art of Molecular Gastronomy and began to take some of the con- cepts and ideas they were using and applying them to the bar. His combina- tions of flavors, textures, and tempera- tures have made him a household name in MM and his role as Bar Manager at wd-50 in New York has brought MM to the masses. His main goal is to show the simplicity of MM and give the customers an exemplary experience. Most recently he was com- missioned by Bacardi to create the Mojito of the future. His example is a mixture of lime and mint flavored spheres suspended in a Bacardi, soda, and xanthum gum liquid. Martin Lange and Dustin Davis of Sling Lounge in Brisbane, Australia have brought MM down under and taken it to the extreme. Their list of 350 cocktails has a section of about 30 that are completely devoted to the art of MM, and the first Tuesday of every month they hold an intimate seating for their cocktail degustation menu. They practice all forms of MM except for the lasers, which in Martin’s opinion is too expensive for the final results. Items that stand out on their MM list are deconstructed classics such as the Deconstructed Hemingway Daiquiri and the Bloody Mary in different tem- perature layers. The locals have responded so positively that the bar goes through three liter canisters of their signature Kaffir Lime and Pickled Ginger foam a week. Both Martin and Dustin are pushing the envelope of MM in Brisbane and think that it will proba- bly plateau soon, which they feel will be a good thing as it will have time to mature and become more user-friendly. New Mexico may not particularly seem like a place where you would usually find a Molecular Mixologist at work, but head to La Casa Sena Cellar Lounge in Santa Fe and you’ll find Chris Milligan creating something new for his clientele. Chris thinks that MM will one day be like any other aspect of the trade, similar to flair or bar magic. He believes that bartenders will find a way to use these practices in everyday life and almost “pick and choose” what works for them, very similarly to how a bartender breaks flair into “working flair”. At Chris’s bar though, he dazzles guests with textures and sensations. Jellies, foams, sorbets and caviars top his list for giving his guests something they can’t get anywhere else. TONY CONIGLIARO EBEN CLEMM EBEN FREEMAN PHILLIP DUFF www.chilledmagazine.com 51 GIN AND TONIC BY EBEN FREEMAN
