Fred Siggins knows a thing or two about a good drink. The Melbourne drinks writer and bartender has spent 30 years working across the hospitality industry. He’s clocked time behind the bar at cocktail institution The Black Pearl, and he’s also held the title of chef, venue manager, brand ambassador and educator across a rich career. Siggins is something of an authority on cocktails, spirits and drinks culture, too, with his writing appearing in local and international publications including Good Food, Boothby, Punch, T: The New York Times Australia Style Magazine, Time Out Melbourne and Halliday.
Now he brings that knowhow to the pages of his brand new book Equal Parts Cocktails, a collection of cocktail recipes each made with equal parts, and each easily made at home with easy-to-find ingredients.
The most common misconception around making cocktails is that you have to be a creative genius, or have really specialised skills and tools. Those people and skills certainly exist at the pointy end of cocktail culture, but it’s the same as cooking – just because you’re not a Michelin-starred chef doesn’t mean you can’t make delicious meals at home. You also don’t have to go out and buy a million esoteric ingredients. All the ingredients in this book can be found at a standard bottle shop or supermarket.
The main thing I learned writing Equal Parts Cocktails was that there are so many great cocktails made with (yes) equal parts ingredients. When I first sat down to start writing, I could only think of maybe 15 or 20 drinks off the top of my head that would work with an equal parts formula, so I was worried that it would be a struggle to fill a whole book with equal parts recipes. But with a little research and some help from great bartenders both here in Australia and around the world, I ended up with more options than I could fit, so I was able to pick and choose to have a nice balance of famous classic cocktails, fun and fruity stuff and also some really interesting modern concoctions.
Three of the most versatile ingredients for anyone wanting to get into making cocktails at home are… Campari! It’s probably the most used ingredient in the book. Campari and other amari like Aperol and Montenegro are so useful because they provide a huge amount of complexity, as well as balancing bitterness, to cocktails. It’s like a cheat code. The other ones are aromatised white wines like Cocchi Americano or Lillet Blanc, and fortified wines, in particular dry sherry. Like amari, these wines add a huge amount of complexity to cocktails, but they’re brighter and fresher and mix with almost anything. The great thing about fortified wines, aromatised wines and amari is that they tend to be inexpensive, too, so you can use them to build a well-stocked bar without breaking the bank.
If you love a classic Negroni, why not try making the White Mezcal Negroni. It’s a wonderful showcase for agave spirits like tequila and mezcal while retaining the essential bittersweet, aperitif nature of the classic Negroni. And so easy to make.
And if you fancy a Manhattan, try the Buckskin Playmate, which comes from my friend Greg Best and his team at the Ticonderoga Club in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s like a traditional Manhattan turned up to 11. The use of two different whiskies, rye and bourbon, lends extra complexity and depth to the drink, and Greg recommends using barrel-proof (i.e. full strength, undiluted) versions for some real punch. It also employs Madeira, another wonderful fortified wine, and just a dash of absinthe for some incredible aromatics.
If you take one thing from this book, it should be that making great cocktails doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. It takes five minutes to batch up a full bottle of Martini or Negroni, stick it in the freezer and then when your mates come round for dinner you’ll look like a total pro. Many of the recipes in Equal Parts Cocktails like the Piña Colada, the Aperol Spritz and the Mojito have tips on how to make big batches for company quickly and easily.
But I’d also love it if you tried messing around with the recipes, because they’re not supposed to be rigid – they’re designed for experimentation and to be flexible depending on your preferences. Don’t like tequila? Great, put rum in your Margaritas. Want it to be sweeter? Fine, add more Cointreau. Don’t like Cointreau? Switch it for apricot liqueur. There’s no wrong way to make a cocktail, as long as you enjoy drinking it. Most of the cocktails in the book have little sidebars called “mess with your drink” where I offer tips on how to modify or enhance the basic recipe, so once you have the hang of that, 50 recipes easily becomes 200.
If you’re relatively new to making cocktails, give the Gin Gin Mule a try. This modern cocktail featuring gin and ginger is super-easy to make; no shaking or stirring required, just put everything directly into the glass you’re going to drink from. But it still feels like a real craft cocktail with great balance and complexity, and with a sprig of fresh mint or a few wheels of lime it’s easy to make it look amazing.
If you’re looking to extend yourself a bit more, meanwhile… The last chapter of the book is full of original recipes from some of my bartending compatriots all over the world. Drinks like the Ola Verde start to look at home-made ingredients – in this case an incredible sugar-snap pea syrup – that can really take your cocktails to the next level, while drinks like Tsukikage Martini from the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong start to show off some lesser-known ingredients like shochu.
When you’ve finished reading Equal Parts Cocktails I hope you’ll put it down with a sense of comfort around creating cocktails at home, and a better understanding of how various ingredients work together to create drinks that are far more than the sum of their parts.
Equal Parts Cocktails by Fred Siggins is published by Hardie Grant Books. Photography: Kristoffer Paulsen. Available in stores now including at great independent retailers such as Readings and Hill of Content.