Angel was obsessed with getting this puppy out last night. Pretty cool to see. There’s this thing, at least I went through it before as a budding chef and in the past as a young bar manager, where you have the blinders on and put something on the menu at the 25th hour. These days I usually plan a little further in advance…There are times when ingredients don’t come fully together and it all has to change or it just goes down the toilet (or used in a mocktail, ha). This one, however, he had down pat already, it was more about whether or not the lemon curd would come together with ten minutes left until service, but the kid pulled it off. No name of course, but hey, that’s what I’m there for I guess. My two cents in this drink was the sprinkle at the top. I feel like every foam needs a sprinkle, maybe because it so resembles a creemee (soft serve ice cream to you west coasters) and well, creemees need sprinkles unless you’re some sort of souless, AI entity.

The hardest part about this drink is quaffing it with facial hair. You’ve got to dip your face in this thing and go for it. You can also mix with a straw I suppose. One of our regulars did that last night and made me feel like an idiot after I thought to myself about how people were supposed to drink it. Anyway…Using an iSi is always fun as well as nerve wracking. There’s something soothing about piping out the foamy curd that provides a moment of solace and a touch of anxiety…Especially after doing a bunch of these last night as the whipper got progressively lighter…Toward the end, each time I piped I thought about it going empty and not having enough…I could have just 86’d it of course, but 86’ing stuff to me is slightly embarrassing, especially behind the bar where 90% of everything doesn’t go bad…Anyway…This isn’t neurosis corner…

We all love a foam. It’s become more popular as of late, I think, due to Cantina OK! down in Sydney, Australia. They do a lot of foams down there with jellies, bubbly water…It seems like a cool place…Small, tiny, minuscule even…The type of place I’d like to own myself where I could keep an eye on everything and close up shop anytime I wanted. Cantina OK! was made from an old garage I think. There’s standing room for ten or twelve people but I think they can bleed out into the alleyway a bit. I love the idea of a small, open place you can stop by and have yourself a damn good tequila or mezcal drink with seasonal items (they only serve tequila and mez, maybe only just mez) and then be on your way.

As you can see, it’s just a hole in wall. They somehow squeeze an old school ice shaver in there on the bar top. I actually have no idea how the hell the bartenders are able to work. I’d like to know. There doesn’t seem to be room for a glass washer or a sink back there either. And a walk in cooler or even a small freezer don’t seem to be present either from what I can tell. Do they just buy one big block of ice and then use shaved ice into every drink?

Ok, upon further inspection it looks as if the shaved ice wheel goes over a grate where water can drip and there does seem to be enough space back there for a glass washer and a small cooler of some sort. Shit, we could do that over the sink…

Here’s another angle. Shit, it’s small but they do the damn thing. Last I checked they were way up there on the list of the world’s best bars. Goes to show you don’t need technology to do all the work for you. This bar is even smaller than what we have at Rustic.

And here’s a smattering of the cocktails they pump out. As you can see they’ve got the one big foamy guy and then two with shaved ice but the purple dragonfruit one does have what appears to be Kold Draft ice inside it so they must have a small ice machine back there somewhere too? I don’t know. The foamy guy in the middle with what looks like nuts? Is really foamy. They went for it. Ours seems not as epic in retrospect…And our glassware isn’t as good either…Shit, I complain about space restrictions all the time but look at these guys…

At any rate, here’s the specs. It’s late, I gotta go get this kid outside.

Angel Dust

1 oz. Gin

.5 oz. Raspberry Syrup

.5 oz. Razzmatazz

.5 oz. Lemon Juice

.5 oz. Lime Juice

.25 oz. Lemon Sherbet

1 Dash Shio Koji

2 Dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

Shake strain over BFR, top with lemon curd from the iSi, then a sprinkle of lacto fermented blueberry powder.