Influencer Definition: a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. The world of spirits is a vast and community based industry. When you bring mixology into the mix, it becomes that much wider.
Today we are switching our spirit influencer model just a bit. We bring you a very interesting and informative interview with a mixologist by the name of Faith. She will guide us through some classic cocktails and of course some of her own favorite concoctions.
Faith, tell us a little about yourself.
F: I grew up in suburban Texas and have been in the Bay Area for just over 5 years now, and well, California definitely lives up to the hype. 😉 I’m fortunate to be in San Francisco, which has an amazing cocktail and bar scene (way too many places I’ve yet to explore!), not to mention incredible food, wineries, and outdoor activities. Outside of my cocktail/spirits hobby, I’m pretty much into fashion, beauty, shopping, fitness, and all that basic jazz.
How did you find yourself in the world of mixology and cocktail craft? Is there a backstory how that all came about?
F: When I was in college, my friend hosted a ‘fancy’ cocktail party. She had a cocktail menu with recipes like Sour Apple Martinis, Sex on the Beach, Cosmos, and the like. That was actually my first time learning about the purpose of a cocktail shaker. I helped her prep for the party, and was absolutely fascinated by the concept of mixing drinks in a ‘fancier’ way than just pouring Captain & Coke or Cranberry & Sprite into a plastic cup. After that, I decided to host a couple of my own cocktail parties, which I quickly discovered to be super challenging on a college kid’s budget.
Nevertheless, I spent that year drinking cheap spirits mixed with all sorts of mixers I could get my hands on (and forcing them onto my friends), and added a bucket list item to have a legit home bar one day. Fast forward a few years – I was on vacation in Portland, Oregon and stumbled across a sleek-lookin book on a shelf at the huge Powell’s book store. It was The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler. I got the book, and that was it. That was really the beginning of my serious pursuit of craft cocktails.
What is your process when it comes to coming up with new drink cocktails? Is it all just knowledge of spirits, bitters and other flavors, or is it more spontaneous? Also where do you draw your inspiration from?
F: I don’t have any formal bartending experience and am purely a home enthusiast. At home, I don’t ever *need* to memorize recipes (so easy to look up) and am never making drinks at a high volume or frequency as a forcing function to remember recipes, so really one of the reasons I started my Instagram was to familiarize myself more with the classic recipes thru creating them, posting about it, and in turn making a conscious effort to internalize them. As such, I draw most of my inspiration from the classic recipes, or modernized versions of them created by many of the top bartenders/mixologists published in books, blogs, etc.
I refer to recipe aggregation apps like PDT, Total Tiki, and Martin’s Index often (all totally worth getting!) and books like Death&Co and Smuggler’s Cove. As I’ve discovered this amazing community of cocktail enthusiasts on Instagram, more than half of the things I make these days are bookmarked recipes from others. Everyone is more than happy to share recipes and tips. As I’ve experimented more, I’ve learned suitable substitutes to try for variants (sometimes because I don’t have the original ingredients, and other times because I’m just feeling creative!). They don’t always work, but that’s the fun of the learning process!
Your Instagram account has a good mix of visuals as well as a very light and bright theme. How did you come up with this theme, what was the inspiration behind it?
F: Haha, great question. This was largely inspired by the “Instagram themes” that many fashion/lifestyle Insta-bloggers have, along with my personal obsession with monochromatic black&white styling (my wardrobe is mostly black, white, and shades of gray). I followed a lot of style influencers who would do all these crazy things to “stay on theme” by sticking to only certain colors, matching white and black hues between photos, alternating photo perspectives and zoom levels, etc. My personal food&cocktail photos were usually always yellow-y tinged (which I hated, but I mean come on…dim bar lighting is the worst), so I decided I would embark on my Instagram journey with a bright white-focused crisp theme. I haven’t seen too many other cocktail/spirit pages with this styling, so it was also a way to distinguish my content. Of course, I never expected to get more than a couple hundred followers, but I’m glad to have adopted a distinctive style. ^_^
Regarding my lighting arrangement for that bright look, I’m actually totally lazy when it comes to that and have never invested in any lighting equipment. Luckily my condo conveniently has some amazing super bright white LED lamps right in front of my bar setup, so I’m good any time of day.
What do you think it is about your posts that allows you to connect with your followers so well?
F: Instagram obviously emphasizes visual content, and to be honest, I am no photographer and have pretty limited artistic skills….so other than the whole ‘white’ theme thing, it’s probably not the visuals (I mean come on, one of my most popular posts of all time is a photo of a plain messy Angostura bitters bottle taken from my iPhone).
I started my Instagram as a learning journey for myself, with the intention to hopefully help maybe just a few friends who might be interested in learning more about building up a home bar and cocktail creation at home. So, I’ve always focused on the caption and message behind each post. My goal was to help make the liquor store, cocktail menus, and craft spirits in general less intimidating for the ‘normal person.’ I started off making every other post a “Bottle Talk” to share information about different spirits, liqueurs, and other ingredients, and even now still only post actual cocktails every other photo.
My goal was (and still is) to share a bit of interesting/useful knowledge tidbit with each post, described in a simple to understand and interesting to read way…something I myself would actually enjoy reading and find worthy of my time (I’m a pretty impatient reader :P). I’m really glad to have had positive feedback on this, which has helped form a strong community of not only cocktail/spirit drinkers, but people who love learning and sharing information about the craft and spirit world.
As you may know, many people prefer their whisky or rum neat or on the rocks. In your opinion, what makes these spirits perfect to use in cocktails creations?
F: I enjoy my spirits neat just as much as I enjoy them in cocktails! It’s a completely different sensory experience and it really just depends on my mood. Enjoyed neat, your spirit is obviously center stage with all the flavor nuances resulting from the unique combination of the distillate, fermentation process, distillation process, and aging/wood interactions. In cocktails, it’s all about the creative flavor pairings and harmonious combinations of other ingredients with the spirit. I honestly don’t use longer-aged or more complex spirits in cocktails because the subtle nuances that are oh-so-enjoyable in a dram get lost when combined with so many other flavors. Of course, you aren’t going to mask a crappy spirit and transform it into an amazing cocktail, but fortunately there are so many great bottles out there in the sub-$30 price range that absolutely work wonders in cocktails
Can you share your top 5 favorite cocktail recipes with us?
F: Oh man, this is a hard one. There are sooo many great ones out there, and to be honest, I actually rarely make a cocktail more than once (still so many on my list to try!). So…my palate tends to favor boozier, more spirit forward drinks. I tend to shy away from sweeter drinks for the most part and totally gravitate towards bitter, smokey, and all sorts of funk. If I had to choose…
– Gin & Tonic: always been my go-to, and the variations are endless, especially with fresh garnish combos. I love Monkey47 gin with Fevertree tonic water, and also am a big fan of using tonic syrups. Enjoying these “Spanish style” in a wine glass has been life-changing.
2:1 is my ratio of choice. Always at least topped with citrus oil from a fresh peel if I can.
– Ti’ Punch: short for “Petite Punch,” this is a classic way to enjoy the French-style sugarcane-based agricole r(h)um in the French Caribbean. It is super simple, no tools required, and I prefer it without ice.
2oz agricole rhum (I really like Damoiseau Blanc), a lime disc/wedge (juice squeezed and entire peel dropped in), and a dash of sugar syrup (to taste). Give it a mix in your glass and you’re good to go.
– 151 Swizzle: potent and delicious, tiki without all the sweetness.
1.5oz Hamilton or Lemon Hart 151 rum, .5oz lime juice, .5oz simple syrup, dash of Angostura bitter, few drops of absinthe. Add lot of crushed ice and mix well. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.
– Hampden’s Velvet Hammer: one of my top favorite cocktails of all time, but you’ll need to seek out a bottle of the somewhat hard to find Jamaican white overproof funk-bomb Rum Fire. I’m obsessed with this incredible rum that is absolutely like nothing else. Opening the cap of the bottle will fill the room with its amazing scent…what other spirit can do that?
1.5oz Rum Fire, 1oz orgeat almond syrup, 1oz lime juice, and a pinch of salt. Shake with ice and then strain over fresh crushed ice.
– The Clint Eastwood: this one pretty much epitomizes everything I love in a cocktail- boozy, bitter, complex, and unexpected.
2oz high proof rye, a full .75 teaspoons of Angostura bitters, .25oz 2:1 sugar syrup, 1 teaspoon Green Chartreuse. Stir with ice and strain over a large fresh cube. Express the oils from a lemon twist over top and discard.
As someone who loves the classic old fashioned cocktail, I know the difficulties that come with creating just the right amount of balance between the spirits and the bitters, as well as other ingredients. What is the secret for the perfect old fashioned.
F: I seriously love all variants of Old Fashioned cocktails. Whisky, rum, tequila, even gin…anything goes. I feel like the ‘perfect’ old fashioned is really a very personal preference, as everyone’s tastes vary, but here’s the template: 2oz of your spirit of choice, .25-.5oz of sweetener (personal pref), a couples dashes of bitters of choice. Other than that, 3 key things that are absolutely critical in my opinion are:
1 – a twist of fresh citrus oils from a peel – the freshness is a total game changer for the entire experience. You can drop the peel in, or discard it, but don’t skip this.
2- good ice. You can use the best whisky, perfect ratios, but if you put it over crappy freezer-burned ice…thanks for playing, try again. Large cube molds are cheap and definitely changes the experience.
3- nice glassware. No matter what, a cocktail is absolutely not going to taste the same in the wrong serving vehicle (plastic cup, completely wrongly shaped or sized glass). A nice rocks glass is a necessity.
Here are some fun combos to try:
– bourbon, maple syrup, chocolate bitters
– rum, falernum liqueur, Angostura bitters
– gin, elderflower liqueur (St. Germain), orange bitters
Do you have any long term goals for your Instagram account @Barfaith?
F: Just takin it day by day and enjoying the frequent engagement with such a vibrant and kind community! I’ve learned so much thru the community and can only hope to be a positive influence for others. My personal interest in rum has led me to become somewhat of a rum advocate, so you can always find me trying to bring some justice to the super misunderstood sugarcane spirit. When you have “premium” brands sugar-ing up their high end products and selling it as their top-of-the-line rums, you can understand why whisky drinkers may shy away and dismiss the category as “too sweet.” Far from the truth and many quality unadulterated rums are every bit as complex, dry, and sensory-awakening as your top whiskies…you just gotta know where to find em.
Do you have any upcoming projects that your followers should be excited about?
F: I’ve just finished up a couple series for homebar starter kits, and a lengthy all-about-rum one, so will probably take a break back to regular programming for now. I love hearing what people are interested in, so an idea could strike at any time! 😉
Anything else you’d like to share with our followers?
F: I’m so absolutely thankful for all the support and friendships I’ve made thru this, and thank you so much for inviting me to share my story! Find me at @barfaith on Insta and @barfaithtweets on Twitter. Cheers!
