Liquid Intelligence The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail
Author: by Dave Arnold
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014
Price: $35
The most ambitious of the three is Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold. Arnold, founder of MoFaD, the Museum of Food and Drink, runs Booker and Dax, a sort of mad scientist’s laboratory for drinks, hidden behind Momofuku Ssäm Bar. The dark space is a magnet for cocktail aficionados who crave adventure; they come to watch the bartenders employ any number of wild and intricate methods to achieve an exceptional drink. The centrifuge in the basement is just the beginning.
Arnold’s book isn’t a conventional collection of cocktail recipes; rather, it’s a primer to applying scientific methods to liquid ingredients in the service of creating a better drink. In Arnold’s view, “It is impossible to make a good gin and tonic using traditional techniques.” His current version requires clarifying lime juice and sourcing quinine sulfate USP for a simple syrup, though that’s likely to change given his constant tinkering. As for a Daiquiri, he employs nitro-muddling.
Whether or not you actually take up the challenge of Arnold’s scientific approach to cocktails, his cheeky voice and obsessive tendencies make for amusing reading.
Caitlin Griffith knew her future career would entail food and drink when, at the age of six, she munched an anchovy from her father’s Caesar salad thinking it as a small strip of bacon—and was more than pleasantly surprised. While enrolled in New York University’s Food Studies program, she learned the secrets of affinage in the caves of Murray’s Cheese.
This story appears in the print issue of October 2014.
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