Few figures within the trendy bar world are as influential as Dave Arnold. Even earlier than the opening of his pioneering New York bar Booker and Dax in 2012, Arnold was referred to as somebody who pushed the business ahead by way of his rigorous, scientific strategy to drink-making. He adopted a Mythbusters-style course of, documented on his Cooking Points weblog, to find out the perfect strategies to create the best-tasting cocktails.

The 2014 publication of his e-book, Liquid Intelligence, which codified many of those strategies and supplied a blueprint for different bartenders to observe, acted as a catalyst for the trendy growth in bars that double as laboratories. As we speak, the groundbreaking strategies he helped popularize—together with clarification, liquid nitrogen infusions, acid-adjusting and force-carbonation—are thought-about de rigueur for a lot of top-tier cocktail bars.

Arnold’s most up-to-date undertaking, Bar Contra, a collaboration with cooks Fabián von Hauske Valtierra and Jeremiah Stone, opened its doorways this summer season. The cocktail menu looks like each a fruits and refinement of Arnold’s strategy. The drinks that seem on his menu inventively leverage the instruments and elements he popularized behind the bar, like centrifuges and carbonation rigs alongside components like acid powders and glycerin—however towards a cocktail panorama rampant with overengineered, tech-driven drinks, his intentional strategy feels refreshingly easy. The Sagittarius B2, for example, a cosmic concoction of rum, raspberries and orgeat, options nothing greater than these three components, bolstered by characteristically Dave Arnold strategies: fruit juice clarified with enzymes and a centrifuge and orgeat clarified with a 5-ton hydraulic press—the one strategy to make clear it sufficient to work on this specific drink.

We checked in with Arnold to listen to how Bar Contra differs from his previous tasks, how he thinks the cocktail panorama has modified within the final decade and whether or not something is absolutely new within the bar world anymore.

John deBary: Within the 12 or so years since Booker and Dax opened there’s been a development—there are strategies that nobody else was doing whenever you applied them at Booker and Dax and Current Situations, and now these strategies are considerably ubiquitous. How has that modified the way in which you approached constructing the menu for Bar Contra, if in any respect?

Dave Arnold: It’s type of humorous, proper? Numerous issues that [I was doing] even at Current Situations previous to the pandemic, not very many individuals have been doing in the USA. However after the pandemic, it’s a very completely different panorama and now you’ve got lots of people utilizing these strategies, which to me is gratifying. So we needed to resolve first if we wished to do all of this stuff [at Bar Contra], as a result of area behind the bar is extraordinarily restricted; we don’t even have room for lowboys.

However we’re going to do liquid nitrogen, as a result of in any other case why would you even name me? And we’re going to do carbonation. These are the non-negotiables.

It might be ridiculous if I did a bar and not using a centrifuge as a result of I’m within the enterprise of promoting centrifuges—it could be absurd. So we constructed it round that core and shaved stuff off, and the 2 primary issues that acquired shaved off have been the rotary evaporator and the red-hot poker, as a result of we simply don’t have room within the backbar. Think about working a red-hot poker in that tight area: It might be terrifying. Sometime, I may perhaps determine a special know-how to try this. 

As soon as we acquired that out of the way in which, it seems that lots of people are utilizing these strategies now however there aren’t many individuals utilizing it in the way in which that I’m keen on utilizing it. Most individuals are utilizing it in comparatively difficult builds, whereas I’ve at all times been keen on straight-ahead taste and presentation [and a] dialing in of the elements themselves.

If you discuss in regards to the pandemic, are you utilizing it as only a time reference, or is there one thing in regards to the pandemic that modified issues?

I feel the pandemic did a few issues—many issues, clearly, however quite a lot of the previous guard went into different issues. In contrast to our mayor, Eric Adams, who believes that everyone in hospitality is there as a result of they couldn’t discover the rest to do, the alternative has been my expertise; I’ve solely labored with individuals who wished to try this job. In dropping the previous guard, quite a lot of the previous camps have been erased and younger folks care much less about whether or not they’re in a single camp or one other. 

The opposite factor is that, for a couple of years [during the height of the pandemic], quite a lot of consumption was on-line and the stuff that goes properly there’s technique- and presentation-heavy.

Have you ever rolled out any new strategies for Bar Contra?

We use much more bodying brokers than [we did at] Booker and Dax and Current Situations. The way in which we acquired physique at Booker and Dax was by jacking the alcohol content material of every thing. Just like the Gin & Tonic had the equal of 4 Brix, so very, very dry, and it had quite a lot of physique as a result of it had one thing like 14 p.c [alcohol]. At Current Situations, we wished to have a sturdy non-alc program and I needed to begin utilizing bodying brokers; my primary one was glycerin. Opening this bar, I added to the arsenal polydextrose, as a result of in contrast to glycerin, which is nice, it doesn’t add any sugar acid to the steadiness, tastewise.

There’s extra acid-adjusting now than there was at Current Situations and Booker and Dax, and I’m now utilizing succinic acid, which has an outsize impression [compared to other acids] and provides complexity.

We’re additionally utilizing IQF (particular person fast freezing) for fruit as a result of it offers me a product I can rely on. Our carbonated drinks are extra trendy—a bit decrease ABV. I’d say our base carbonated drink is now 10 p.c or 11 p.c and never 12 p.c to 14 p.c, which doesn’t sound like lots, however positively makes a distinction.

Do you’re feeling like quite a lot of these strategies are much less stunning to folks now? Does that even matter to you?

 Good query. No, I imply, it doesn’t matter to me, proper. The way in which that we current these things [at Bar Contra] is, our colours are nonetheless actual punchy and we pay quite a lot of consideration to the way in which the liquid feels.

At Booker and Dax, “no garnish” was type of a mission assertion—apart from twists and whatnot. At Current Situations, I went to the crew and mentioned, “I’ve made my level,” and so they have been like, “No, no garnish.” And right here, folks have been like, “We don’t dwell in a world the place folks come to style drinks anymore. We dwell in this type of Instagram image factor, so with a view to be a participant, that you must have garnishes and whatnot.” And I used to be like, “Nice—you give you them.” After we opened, there have been no garnishes, and now, slowly, they’re including garnishes one after the other. Any garnish concept I’ve is so ridiculous that it might probably’t be performed. We’ve a drink known as the Brandy Savage, and I need an precise glass-wrap picture of Macho Man Randy Savage with tassels and massive spangly hat, and so they’re like, “Nah, no.” And I’m like, “Alright, I’m out of concepts.”

I really feel like again within the early 2010s there was quite a lot of novelty, and perhaps it’s simply me personally being weary with every thing, however do you assume there’s room for something genuinely new anymore?

I imply, look, you by no means know what the brand new factor goes to be till it occurs.

Earlier than Booker and Dax opened, I spent my time on the French Culinary Institute growing an arsenal of strategies I’d use. And on the time, there was a bunch of novelty as a result of basic cocktails have been nonetheless novel.

At this level, I feel I’m appreciating playfulness once more. I need folks to be good at what they do, and when you do something out of the norm, I’m type of like, “Effectively, you must do an excellent job otherwise you’re a joker.” I’m type of OK with playfulness, even goofiness generally. It simply has to work and never get in the way in which and hijack your complete expertise. So I’ve come again round to it.