Up front, this one is for the nerds.

Follow along if you are into puzzles and I'll at least start you off with one of my trademark "ramblin' Andrew" stories, but this one is a logic problem.

So I'm finishing up my post lunch glass of rosé, 'cause I'm a classy fucking guy, and I'm talking to my old buddy Eli. He and I used to work together 10 years back. He is a great bartender, great bar manager and was about to open up his first bar program from scratch. Eli, that guy, well he is actually the real classy guy because:

1. He picked up the check

2. He's letting me talk at him about menu design

3. He's actually asking me questions

Do you know how kind it is to ask an old person questions?

That is saintly stuff. In between grenache sips, I start plucking coasters off the bar and writing cocktail recipes on them. I mansplain to him (yes, men can mansplain to other men too!) that the way I used to design menus was to take every trendy idea I had, every trendy ingredient I wanted to use, each piece of glassware, special technique and cocktail family and write them on coasters. I grab a stack of a dozen coasters from the bar, you know, not unlike taking $3 off the bar, and start drawing examples for Eli. Fast forward a month and Eli has successfully opened Foreign National— not that he needed any help from me. And I decided to formalize the "Coaster Method" of cocktail menu design. Eli has a greater accomplishment to show for a month after our lunch, bars are hard to open, but I did design this coaster so I don't have to take them from other bars in the future.

Front of Coaster

Fill this out loosely, exacting recipes change brand to brand and seasonally with produce.

Back of Coaster

List the applicable drink families, supporting ingredients, circle the glassware and note the base spirit.

Let me say here, for those of you that have overly democratic bars that solicit recipes from the staff, this new technique will be your new best friend. After you've filled out all of your potential menu items, throw them all on the floor. Now that you are surrounded by dumb lil' cards, it's time to undergo the artist's tradition of découpé or as the english speakers would say "the cut-up technique." This technique is rooted in the dadaist movement and is what museum docents call an "aleatory art technique," meaning, "shit glued together." Examples of it's original use would be writing poems from random words drawn from a hat, making collages, and perhaps in some modern cases, "making a vision board." I think a modern example is more the person that writes the platitudes plastered on t-shirts that people wear to the gyms but, I'm a cranky old so & so. However, for our purposes, to do this at full random wouldn't really serve to "balance" a menu. Full random is the patron saying "dealer's choice." The goal of this cut-up technique is to achieve the following:

Not repeating ingredients-

"Guess what? I hate this brand/flavor/category, so that's 1/3 of your dead to me."

Not repeating glassware-

"Um yeah, I know it looks like I have a lot of glasses but I only ever use the rocks and cocktail glass so you'll need to wait until this load of dishes is done for me to strain your drink."

Showing the full depth of the techniques you've mastered-

"I think the extent of your knowledge is weakly shaking or stirring viciously, so, I'll probably stick to beer."

So, start spinning a vinyl pressing of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, (because you know this is a classic David Bowie technique) and begin sorting out your new menu. The concept is simple, try to avoid having any 2 corners of a coaster have the same word in them. When you run out of non-repeating corners, then you have a cocktail menu. If you want a bigger menu, and you have repeating corners then you just need to be more creative and not put St Germain in everything, what is this, 2010?

Another trick to creating a menu this way is to expand the definition of base spirits used in the cocktail you are choosing. For example, within the category of whisk(e)y, you don't just have bourbon, rye, Irish and Scottish, you also have Canadian, Japanese, corn whisky, oat whisky, grain whisky or even moonshine (when made from grain, not the sugar cane bullshit they sell in suburban grocery stores).

Here are a few galleries loaded with 70 classic and neo-classic cocktails.

Try literally using them like "dials" to create a menu that doesn't repeat glassware, ingredients or base spirits. Furthermore, try to avoiding having all of any 1 particular spirit family; sours for example, be all from 1 spirits category. For example, if all of your gin & vodka drinks are sours "because they are for girls" you are a misogynist, or if all of your strong drinks are the "amaro crutches" so popular these days, then, you are a hacky ass clown. Moral of the story: DIVERSIFY YOUR SHIT.

Vodka & Gin Cocktails

Cosmopolitan

The Cosmopolitan is a great cocktail when made correctly with just a touch of cran and high quality triple sec. It's also great with "complex character" vodka AKA, vodka with flavor or with gin.

Moscow Mule

I PAY THE FUCKING BILLS, I AM THE MOSCOW MULE. Vodka and ginger beer are the beast of burden that cary the bottom line. And, as Jesse at the Bit House Saloon likes to say, it's "Tinder fuel."

Martini

The Martini is made with gin. I'd try using a unique vermouth or even better, a bespoke vermouth. A 50/50 gin/vermouth mix is always a classy way to not get completely drunk before dinner.

Last Word

Everyone riffs on the Last Word but the equal parts gin, lime, maraschino and green chartreuse original launches standard sour drinkers on a new journey.

Gin & Tonic

Just because it's a "2fer" doesn't mean you shouldn't try. The Spanish Gin & Tonic allows to showcase puts the "b" in "subtle" when using a wine glass to accent botanicals and aromatic garnish.

Pendennis Club

This is the best pink drink ever. It's the best use of apricot liqueur. Gin, apricot brandy and lime is a little simple by itself, the Peychaud's dash makes is pink and sublime.

Vesper

True Bond fans know that Flemming mixed up dry vermouth with Lillet, when he was served the cocktail from Casino Royale, he hated it. However, creating a delicate balance of vodka, gin and Lillet is an artistic triumph— even if it was a mistake.

Pegu Club

The best known of the "club" cocktails, at least by today's standards is another exercise in not burying gin under the lime and good triple sec. Let the citrus flavors highlight the backbone of the gin.

French 75

Had Rick James been a ragtime musician in the 1920's, he would have said, of the mix of gin, champagne and lemon that is the French 75: "French 75's a hell of a drug."

Ramos Gin Fizz

I mean, if you are stupid you can put the delicious but tedious melange of gin, lemon, cream, egg white, sugar, orange flower water and soda on the menu. You know, if you got nothing else to do.

Gimlet

Less is more, Take your ego out of it. Make a Gimlet.

Martinez

Mixing gin with sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur and orange bitters could have been part of the martini family tree. Either way, if you like this, the 1890s have dozens of near clones of this style of cocktail.

Aviation

It's a basic gin sour with lemon, the now ubiquitous maraschino and a little dash of violette liqueur for aroma and color. It's the most diplomatic way to try both maraschino and violette.

Bloody Mary

Oooo, look at me I'm drinking on a plane aren't I cheeky. I guess this is cool because it's a cocktail with umami, but also, I don't give a fuck.

Harvey Wallbanger

MAKE IT A BANGER! If making a Bloody Mary chokes my soul, conversely, crafting a glass of fresh squeezed OJ, spiking it with vodka and floating Galliano on top make my soul don a leisure suit with angle wings and fly to the heavens.

White Russian

There is a world of high quality coffee liqueurs to elevate this lazy man classic. Coffee bitters help it a lot too.

Negroni

The cocktail of infinite jest. Just equal part gin, Campari and sweet vermouth yet tiny variances in brand, ratio or attitude make it so no 2 are every the same.

Clover Club

The softest of the clubs, the silky mix of gin, grenadine or raspberry syrup, lemon and egg white is ultimate crowd pleaser. Were someone to no like it, that is someone who surely cheats on their taxes and kicks puppies.

Corpse Reviver No 2

Of all the drinks that absinthe is dashed into this is likely the one in which it makes the most difference. Otherwise, it's just a subtle equal parts sour of gin, lemon, Lillet and triple sec.

Martinez Again

Did you know that you can just swap gin for his malty cousin genever to make a twist on an old drink? Yeah, I do lazy shit like that all the time and it still impresses people.

Bee's Knees

Gin, honey and lemon, add an egg white if you are feeling fancy and you've got a simple fun to drink cocktail for everyone from grandma who used to drink 'em at down at the Bijou back in '39 to grandaughter who just wrote a listicle of top 7 summer gin drinks that grandma likes too.

Cane Cocktails

Ti Punch

Rhum Agricole with fresh cane sugar and a whisper of key lime is still a great DIY cocktail for people to understand balancing acid, spirit & sugar.

Caipirinha

Brazil's national cocktail is just cachaça, lime and sugar. Cachaça is basically rum, unless you are smart enough to listen while someone explains otherwise, but for the sake of these classics, it's a rum alternative.

Mai Tai

The Trader Vic Mai Tai is just rum, orgeat (almond syrup) lime and orange curaçao, sugar to taste but you likely won't need it. It's always out of this world to introduce someone to the original rather that the fruity clusterfuck it has become.

Corn & Oil

It's a drinker's drink for drinky times. I imagine myself at the end of a long day of piracy, kicking back to enjoy this 2fer of dark rum and falernum, a spiced lime liqueur.

Mojito or Old Cuban

Either cocktail is drinking a refreshing spa of mint, rum and bubbles be it the Mojito with soda and a highball or the Old Cuban in a flute with a dash of bitters and champagne.

Queens Park Swizzle

The swizzle is the funnest way to drink a crushed ice cocktail— with a little swizzle toy to keep things cold. This combo of lime, rum mint and bitters is all about presentation and stretching the amount of bitters one cocktail can take.

Batida

A batida is just cachaça and juice but most commonly, coconut milk. Coconut milk is a great way to subdue crazy flavors that would normally take over a cocktail. Also, with a batida, you have another chance with a crushed ice cocktail.

Rum Punch

Rum Punch is the official drink of "fuck it, I'll have another, where do I gotta be? Hey, what's your name?

Hemingway Daiquiri

Another manly man drink named for the manly-est man is also in the halls of classic pink drinks. It's just a daiquiri with a little grapefruit and maraschino or as Hemingway might say: "It's adds flavor, earthy and bitter."

Happy Buddha

Okolehao has nothing to do with cane or rum, it's a root. But this exotic style cocktail fits into the tiki flavor profile and actually uses an ingredient native to the lands that tiki culture appropriates. You'll often see people say "substitute okolehao for x,y,z" but the people that say that are the same people that say "rap music" instead of "hip hop."

Hot Buttered Rum

This is a warm dessert you drink while walking brick lined paths and discussing Patrick Henry. You are always in danger of discussing colonial America when sipping butter, sugar, spices and hot water.

Cable Car

This modern classic is only as good as you'll let it be. Will you use good orange curaçao? Will you use bespoke spiced rum? Basically, if college you could afford to make this cocktail for a group of friend, then you need to be using better ingredients.

Dr Cocktail

This is the seersucker suit of the cocktail world— comfortable, simple, classic, casual yet the man that can pull if off is a deep, dark weirdo. It's just a daiquiri that subs the sugar for the funkytown, smoky, complex sweetener of swedish punsch. It's not crazy like a loon, it's crazy like a fox.

Agave Cocktails

Vicious Virgin #2

BLUE CURAÇAO, tequila, gin, lime, orgeat, this one is a big winner, fun to say AND IT'S BLUE.

Margarita

A margarita should be treated delicately, made with all of the care you'd put into a $400 cocktail, and it's poetry. Triple sec is key, no tequila is good enough to cover cheap triple sec.

Armillita Chico

A classic from the Gentleman's Companion, I serve it over crushed ice rather than up. Tequila, lime, grenadine and orange flower water.

Diablo

From Trader Vic's old Mexican food restaurants, it's the juicy, complex version of a Moscow Mule with cassis and tequila instead of vodka.

Rosita

The tequils dry vermouth Negroni is better with subtle mezcal and strong vermouth.

Oaxacan Old Fashioned

I couldn't respect Phil Ward more for giving this mezcal old fashioned inspired cocktail a simple name. A lesser person would have named it some pompous bullshit, but hey, it's just a Oaxacan Old Fashioned, touch of maraschino, no big deal, be cool everyone.

Paloma

When in Mexico, I buy a Jarritos, sip the top off, and then brass monkey a shot of raicilla and a squeeze of lime into the bottle.

Mezcal

Just have a mezcal with worm salt. Have a varietal you haven't had before. That's a good digestif, aperitif, palate cleanser, night ender, night beginer, idea in general...

Whisk(e)y Cocktails

Sazerac

Rye, simple, Peychaud's and absinthe, real absinthe, fake absinthe is for college students.

Blinker

This drink is best at the middle of the winter. Grapefruits are ripe, grenadine can be made from fresh pomegranates, it's a window of summer to come in the darkest months.

Boston Sour

The Boston Sour is just a Whiskey Sour with an egg. I make them for my mom at Thanksgiving. My 71 year old mommy drinks egg white drinks and so can everyone.

Toronto

The Toronto is great example of the "less is more" school of amaro drinks. When it isn't it's a shitty cocktail.

Penecillin

Thank Sam Ross for making this subtle scotchy drink a hit. Yet again, if the ginger burns, if the peat prevails, then the cocktail isn't balanced.

Suffering bastard

The split base of gin and bourbon with ginger beer is an easy sell for adventurers but frighten Moscow Mule adherents. Better to just make this and slide it in front of a guest.

Mint Julep

Not a bourbon mojito. Use high proof bourbon or don't bother. Don't worry about making it too sweet, just have a folksy saying ready "this Mint Julep is sweeter than a _______ on a _______ when I'm ________ on Sunday."

Seelbach

This is an excellent aperitif, bone dry do the the too many dashes of bitters. I like to freeze the spirits going in to cocktails like this before mixing them.

Boulevardier

The bourbon Negroni is not as good as a Negroni but I might prefer it in the winter.

Rob Roy

I don't want to get kicked out of America but the Rob Roy, not the first and not the last cocktail to be named for a musical, I greatly prefer to most every Manhattan.

Commodore

Think bourbon sour, sweetened with créme de cacao and a dash of grenadine, when made correctly, it's much more than the sum of it's parts.

Old Fashioned

I don't mind that the BFC is the default way to serve an Old Fashioned now. I kind of like watch people deflate when they see normal ice used.

Redhook

The Red Hook is a modern classic from Enzo Errico that drinks like it's 100 years old. It specifically calls for Punt e Mes which is more powerful than most sweet vermouths. I prefer the post modern take on this by Jason Stratton called the Pink Hook— just add grapefruit.

Vieux Carre

A bit of a cluster-fuck of syrupy what nots, improved greatly by using calvados or armagnac instead of cognac.

John Collins

You might think you are better than John Collins but you are not. Spirt, sugar, lemon and soda are the Collins' words and there clan is deep. Tom, John, Jack, Juan, Jiro or Jabari, all Collins are great Collins.

Brooklyn

You know what, use Amer Picon or fuck off. I've tired of "substitute with blah blah" or it "tastes similar too fucks it." Just use Amer Picon.

Irish Coffee

This is by far the best tasting racist-named cocktail.

Brandy Cocktails

East India Cocktail

A fun way to add depth to a tropical cocktail through the classic pairing of maraschino and pineapple, also, a cocktail that calls for Boker's bitters.

Bittered Sling

This is the Erik Adkins version of the bittered sling. It's just the most standard cocktail definition, on big ice with nutmeg on top, but it's a great way to introduce people to armagnac.

Pisco Punch

Pisco is great, expensive pisco is better, in the case of this stuff, I'm talking about the sweet grapes of Peru, pot distilled, and mixed with luscious pineapple gomme and lemon— simple and perfect.

The Avenue

A really sexy aged spirit sour that is basically equal parts passion fruit syrup, bourbon, grenadine and calvados.

Sidecar

Never sugar more that half of a rim.

Japanese

This is the type of cocktail that requires too much skill and nuance for most everyone. I had 1 good one, once.

Jack Rose

AMERICA, trying to rip of calvados is the American tradition. Applejack, a uniquely American spirit, anchors this simple sour.

Pisco Sour

Why bother even making one because "it wasn't as good as the one I had when I was working in the Peace Corps." Ugh, shove that sentence and your inflated sense of self importance up your ass. Oh, a Pisco Sour is a sour made with pisco.

A few menus I might write using this sample set would be:

Aperitif Menu

Corpse Reviver No 2- in cocktail glass

Hemingway Daiquiri- in coupe

Rosita- on the rocks

Seelbach- in a flute

Bitter Sling with Armagnac- on a BFC

Ironic Menu as in, the opposite of what's expected

Genever Martinez- much flavor!

Batida- cachaça not in a caipirinha?

Armillita Chico- wait, some of the ingredients of a margarita, but not a margarita?

Blinker- how you gonna mix juice and whiskey?

Pisco Punch- outside of San Fransisco? I'm freaking out.

Poolside Bar

Cosmo- So good! WOOOOOO!

Rum Punch- MOAR, WOOOOOOOOO!

Vicious Virgin No 2- sex **giggle** WOOOOOOOOO!

Avenue- I don't know, it's whiskey but it's still fruity WOOOOOOO!

Jack Rose- It's named for a flower maybe WOOOOOOOO!

Dessert Menu

Clover Club- made with Lingonberry Reduction

Corn & Oil- served with scoop of Madagascar Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Shot of Mezcal- with Sal de Gusano and Candied Orange Slices

Irish Coffee- with fresh whipped cream of course

Diamondback- on Hand-Carved Ice

You get the point. Obviously, this would be easier when mixing in house cocktails or more modern inventions. These foundational cocktails almost all call for "cocktail glasses." Also, in their original printings, many of them would have been part of cocktail families that are now somewhat defunct— like "bracers," a cocktail to be taken in the morning. But when you look at this problem through a modern lens, with new ingredients, centuries old baking projects like egg nogs, mid century tiki, or the hits from the cocktail renaissance then you'll find that creating a dynamic menu this way becomes much more easy.

For example, here is a video of me using this technique on a few of my old menus from MistralKitchen.

Love this idea? Then you should hire me to give a workshop to your staff.

If you really like it and you are a bartender, email me and I'll give you a copy of the PDF so you can make your own coasters, because I didn't get into the writing to sell coasters. But you can buy me a drink next time I'm at your bar.

If you really like it and you are brand/company, c'mon, just don't steal my shit without giving me credit. I mean, I have a lot of intellectual property lawyer friends, really, I do.

And if you just think it's moderately interesting, tell a friend, and tune back in later for something less heady, more funny and probably more entertaining.

How to build and balance the best cocktail menu.