Beverage Menu: Making Cocktail History

McCormick & Schmick's first national cocktail menu celebrates the history of the American cocktail.

By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 8/1/2007

It’s a good bet most Americans don’t know a Sazerac from a sidecar. But McCormick & Schmick’s hopes to change that. The 67-unit chain’s first systemwide cocktail menu celebrates high points in American libation history, one drink at a time.

Starting with the late 1700s mint julep and finishing with the 1945 Moscow mule, the menu clusters classics by decade, telling tales about legendary bartenders and the ingredients they combined to make the 20 drinks. Tested in 2006, the cocktail menu is rolling nationally now.

The theme is a good fit for McCormick & Schmick’s "classic American style," says Director of Operations Jeff Skeele. "Looking around the industry, we saw so many people drinking nothing but neon-colored vodka cocktails, which didn’t fit us and seemed a shame when you realize that the cocktail is a truly American creation with so much history and variety."

Prior to the new menu, each unit made its own cocktail menu, offering standard drinks and preparing guest requests. "Which meant a lot of vodka drinks," says Skeele.

Beyond Vodka

While vodka drinks are included in the new menu’s Modern Cocktail Creations section, most of the classic cocktails are made with whiskey, rum, brandy or gin.

For example, the Jamaican Daisy, a recipe published in Professor Jerry Thomas’ bartending guide in 1862, is a mix of rum with orange curacao, fresh-squeezed lemon and orange juices, pasteurized egg white and a dash of bitters.

While it’s too soon to give percentages, Skeele says the chain has achieved its goal of increasing sales of cocktails made with spirits other than vodka. Alcoholic drinks represent 31 percent of overall sales. Spirits account for 43 percent of bar sales, wine makes up 42 percent, and beer generates the remaining 15 percent.

Providing Guidance

Promoting this variety, bartenders stand ready to tempt guests to try something new. "Something a bit more spirit forward and sophisticated than the candied-alcohol sweet bombs that typify many beverage programs," says Ryan Magarian, a Portland, Ore.-based spirits and cocktail consultant who shaped the program with McCormick & Schmick’s.

"Say, for example, somebody always orders a lemondrop because they like that zippy sweet lemon in a pretty glass," says Magarian. "Then it’s a natural step for the bartender to say, ‘Hey, since you like lemondrops, I’ve got this lovely drink I do called the white lady that you’ve got to try.’" While mixing, the bartender tells the story of the drink, a soft, frothy concoction of gin, orange-flavored liqueur, fresh lemon and pasteurized egg white that bartender Harry MacElhone invented in 1919 at Ciro’s Club in London.

"We empower the bartenders to say, ‘If you don’t like the drink, we’ll pay for it,’" Magarian says.

But usually, says Magarian, guests appreciate the bartender guiding them to try something new that fits their taste but has a story, history and more complexity. "I tell the bartenders when somebody sits at the bar rather than at a table, they’re looking for input," he says. "It’s like the bartender’s the pilot and somebody just stepped on their plane asking for the journey. So where do you take them?"

Precision Culture

With this program, McCormick and Schmick’s isn’t just reviving classic drinks, it’s reviving bartending the way it was during the late 1800s and early 1920s when it was a revered profession. So the training program infuses McCormick & Schmick’s with the culture of precision cocktails.

Magarian split training between teaching managers, corporate trainers and bartenders to "learn the history, tell the story and be passionate about it," and refining bartending skills. "There’s got to be absolute precision with a great cocktail," he says, "which means you bring back the jigger, not as a cost tool but to get the right balance in the drink between the spirits and modifying sweet and sour ingredients."

It also meant the chain switched to house-made simple syrups, rather than sugar cubes, for a more evenly mixed drink.

Training took longer than Skeele anticipated. "My goal was to go faster with the rollout," he says. "But to familiarize the bartenders in the system with 30 drinks took weeks of training. We really want to own this thing, so there’s no rushing that."