🍸 Inside the R&D Shift: Pivots, Infusions & Rebuilding a New York Sour
Every week at Melinda’s Alley in downtown Phoenix, part of my job is helping create an entirely new cocktail menu.
That means every R&D shift looks a little different.
Sometimes I walk in with an idea, build it, make a couple small adjustments, and it is
basically there.
Other nights I make something, taste it, realize it is not hitting the way I imagined, and start moving pieces around.
Last night was definitely one of those nights.
I was responsible for both the gin and tequila cocktails, while also clarifying leftover batches into milk punches, making cordials, defrosting purées, working on infusions, and somehow trying to squeeze in my submission for Creation Dinner No. 3 at Citizen Public House.
A lot was happening at once.
But that is also what I love about R&D.
It is not always about coming up with the craziest idea possible. Sometimes it is about knowing your ingredients, trusting techniques you have used before, and knowing when to pivot when something just is not working.
🌿 Cocktail #1: Green Cardamom, Guava & Reposado
For the tequila cocktail, I went back to the DNA of a drink I originally created for a Rosalina tequila competition.
The original version was basically my own elevated Margarita riff using reposado tequila, Italicus, caramelized pineapple purée, agave, lime, saline, and a salted lime air foam.
I already knew I loved the structure.
So instead of completely reinventing it, I wanted to take that same foundation and move it somewhere different.
This time I started with Tres Agaves Reposado.
Before building the cocktail, I infused the tequila with green cardamom pods using sous vide at 130°F for about 45 minutes.
And green cardamom is such a cool flavor to work with.
It has this almost eucalyptus-like freshness with citrus, floral, and slightly spicy notes underneath it.
That immediately made me think of Italicus.
The bergamot and floral characteristics of Italicus connected really naturally with the cardamom, so I used it in the place where you might normally expect an orange liqueur in a Margarita-style build.
Then I swapped the caramelized pineapple from the original cocktail for guava purée.
Same basic DNA.
Completely different personality.
🍹 The Build
1.5 oz green cardamom-infused Tres Agaves Reposado
0.5 oz Italicus
1 oz guava purée
0.5 oz agave
0.75 oz fresh lime
1 bar spoon French grapefruit liqueur
2 dashes saline
Salted lime air foam
Shaken and served over ice in a rocks glass, then finished with that salted air foam.
This one was super crushable.
You get the cooked agave and light oak from the reposado, bergamot and florals from Italicus, tropical guava, fresh lime, and then that green cardamom sitting underneath everything with this bright, refreshing aroma.
Then the salted lime foam hits and ties the whole thing together.
🔥 R&D takeaway: You do not always need to completely abandon an old cocktail to create something new.
Sometimes keeping the structure you already know works and changing the infusion, fruit, modifier, or garnish can create an entirely different drink.
Same skeleton.
New cocktail.
🍌 Cocktail #2: My Hanky Panky Idea That Became a Negroni
For gin, I wanted to push myself outside of what I normally gravitate toward.
I love acidity.
I love tropical flavors.
I love purées, syrups, foams, texture, and cocktails with a lot happening in the glass.
Spirit-forward cocktails are honestly not usually my first choice.
So naturally, I decided I should make one.
My original idea was a riff on the Hanky
Panky.
Gin.
Sweet vermouth.
Fernet.
But obviously, I could not just leave it alone.
I infused Carpano Antica sweet vermouth with banana peel, thinking the natural sweetness and richness from the banana would help round out some of the Fernet.
On paper?
I liked it.
In the glass?
Not so much.
It was not necessarily bad.
I just did not love it.
And if I am creating something that is going on our weekend menu, I do not want to have to talk myself into liking it.
So I pivoted.
🥥 The Banana-Coconut Negroni Pivot
Part of me felt like switching over to a Negroni was almost a cop-out.
But the guest drinking it does not know what Plan A was.
They only know what ends up in their glass.
I already had the banana peel-infused Antica.
I knew that tasted great.
So I grabbed some Campari and did a quick coconut oil wash.
From there, the drink came together pretty quickly.
🍸 The Build
1 oz Tanqueray Gin
1 oz coconut oil-washed Campari
1 oz banana peel-infused Carpano Antica
1 dash saline
1 dash chocolate bitters
Equal parts.
Simple structure.
But each ingredient brings something different.
The coconut oil rounds some of the bitterness from the Campari.
The banana peel gives the Antica a subtle tropical richness without turning the drink into a banana cocktail.
The chocolate bitters connect really nicely with the banana, bitter orange, vermouth, and coconut.
And the saline just helps everything pop a little more.
A touch of Chocolate Bitters ties everything all together nicely.
Served over a large cube, it also looks clean as hell.
Would a Negroni normally be the first thing I order?
Probably not.
But that is part of why I wanted to make one.
R&D is also about forcing yourself to work with styles of cocktails that are outside your normal wheelhouse.
After a couple tweaks, we got there.
🥛 First Thing on the R&D List: Milk Punches
Before I really got into either cocktail, I started the shift by working on clarification.
We had leftover batches from previous menus, and instead of letting them go to waste, I decided to turn them into milk punches.
I started those first because clarification takes time.
That is one of those little workflow things that becomes really important during an R&D shift.
You only have so many hours.
So while one thing is clarifying, something else should be infusing.
While that is happening, the purées are defrosting.
Then I am making cordials.
Then I am building cocktails.
Then I am tasting.
Then changing something.
Then tasting again.
You learn pretty quickly how to have five things happening at the same time.
And that clarification experiment ended up teaching me something else later in the shift.
Just because you can clarify a cocktail does not always mean you should.
🥃 Somehow I Also Decided to Make a Competition Cocktail
Apparently two new menu cocktails, clarification, infusions, cordials, and prep were not enough.
I also wanted to work on my submission for Creation Dinner No. 3 at Citizen Public House.
Originally, I wanted to do something completely different and pretty elaborate.
Then I looked at the clock.
Yeah.
Not happening.
So instead of forcing something complicated just for the sake of being complicated, I went back to something familiar.
A Whiskey Sour.
More specifically, a New York Sour-inspired cocktail that I could pull apart, remix, and move into a more tropical direction.
The concept actually came from something I played with during my very first cocktail competition.
That eventually became:
🎭 RENAISSANCE
I started with Bulleit Rye because I wanted that rye spice and whiskey backbone.
Then I split the base with Zacapa 23 Rum.
That was probably one of the most important decisions in the entire drink.
🥃 RENAISSANCE
1.25 oz Bulleit Rye
0.75 oz Zacapa 23 Rum
0.25 oz falernum
0.5 oz rich 2:1 simple syrup
0.5 oz fresh lemon
0.25 oz fresh lime
2 dashes saline
1 dash Angostura bitters
Then instead of doing the traditional red wine float you would normally associate with a New York Sour, I turned that element into a spiced vanilla strawberry Cabernet foam.
That is where the cocktail really changed.
The rye brings spice and structure.
Zacapa brings this richer molasses, dried fruit, and almost stone-fruit character.
Then you have falernum adding those tropical baking-spice notes.
Lemon and lime keep everything bright.
And the Cabernet foam sits on top connecting it back to the inspiration.
🍓 The Strawberry Cabernet Foam
The foam was built roughly around:
8 oz egg white
6 oz Quilt Cabernet
3 oz house-made strawberry syrup
3 oz fresh lemon
Approximately 2 oz water
1.5 oz Licor 43
A couple heavy dashes saline
Small amount of simple syrup
About 1 bar spoon xanthan gum
Everything went into the iSi, got double charged, and then went onto ice.
The texture came out exactly how I wanted it.
Thick.
Rich.
Almost dessert-like visually, without turning the whole cocktail overly sweet.
You get strawberry and Cabernet immediately, followed by that warm vanilla spice from the Licor 43.
Then underneath it you have rye, aged rum, falernum, citrus, Angostura, and saline.
There is a lot happening.
But somehow it still drinks really easy.
🔄 RENAISSANCE Definitely Did Not Start There
This cocktail moved around a lot before I landed on the final version.
I tried more rye.
I tried different levels of sweetness.
I tried cinnamon Demerara.
I tried it without falernum.
I changed the citrus.
At one point, I even experimented with Don Julio Reposado in the split base.
And honestly?
That version was probably cleaner.
It was smooth.
It was good.
But it did not have as much personality.
Once I put the Zacapa back into the drink, everything made more sense.
The rum connected naturally with the falernum.
Then splitting the citrus between lemon and lime gave the cocktail more dimension than lemon alone.
The lemon-only version was not bad.
It just felt a little flat.
Adding that small amount of lime tied the rum, falernum, and tropical side of the cocktail together.
That is one thing cocktail development constantly reminds me of.
Sometimes the difference between good and there it is is not some crazy new ingredient.
Sometimes it is literally 0.25 oz of lime.
🧪 Clarified vs. Original: The Original Won
Because I was already clarifying things during the shift, I decided to clarify RENAISSANCE too.
And visually?
I loved it.
The clarified cocktail was clean, polished, lighter, and just looked cool.
You could still get some strawberry.
But when I tasted the clarified and original versions side by side, I knew immediately which one I preferred.
The original cocktail won.
The clarified version softened everything.
The rye spice disappeared into the background.
The rum lost some of that darker richness.
The falernum became quieter.
The alcohol presence almost disappeared.
It became a much cleaner sipping experience.
And sometimes that is exactly what you want from clarification.
But not here.
The original had more punch.
More spice.
More layers.
More personality.
Then you had that thick strawberry Cabernet foam sitting on top adding an entirely different texture and flavor experience.
It was just more fun.
🔥 R&D takeaway: Clarification is an amazing technique, but the technique still needs to serve the drink.
A cocktail does not automatically become better because it is clear.
Sometimes removing the rough edges also removes the things that made the cocktail interesting in the first place.
🎨 Why RENAISSANCE?
The name eventually made perfect sense.
Renaissance is about rebirth, renewal, and taking something familiar and seeing it in a new way.
That was exactly what I had done.
Start with the idea of a New York Sour.
Split the whiskey base with aged rum.
Bring in falernum.
Split the citrus with lemon and lime.
Take the traditional red wine float and completely change its form by turning it into a strawberry, Cabernet, and vanilla foam.
You can still see where the cocktail came from.
But it became something completely different.
Not necessarily reinventing the wheel.
More like chopping it up, remixing it, and rebuilding it.
🔬 This Is What R&D Actually Looks Like
Last night’s shift was a pretty accurate example of what creating a new menu every week actually looks like.
It is not always some perfectly organized process where every idea works on the first try.
Sometimes there are guava purées defrosting everywhere.
There is tequila sitting in a sous vide.
Something else is clarifying.
Campari is getting washed with coconut oil.
Banana peels are sitting in Antica.
An iSi is chilling on ice.
You taste your Hanky Panky riff and realize you do not really like it.
And meanwhile, the clock is moving because you still have another cocktail to finish.
But that is exactly why I love doing it.
Every R&D shift gives me another opportunity to practice techniques, revisit old ideas, learn something new, make mistakes, and figure out how to make the next version better.
Creating a new menu every week at Melinda’s Alley constantly pushes me to keep learning.
And sometimes one of the most important skills behind the bar is not coming up with the wildest idea.
It is knowing when to pivot.
🥂 Join the Saints & Spirits Community
If you enjoy seeing what actually goes on behind the scenes during my weekly R&D shifts, cocktail competitions, menu development, private events, and everything else I am building through Saints & Spirits, come join the community.
I’ll be sharing more of my cocktails, recipes, techniques, competition stories, R&D experiments, private-event planning, and probably a few ideas that absolutely do notwork the first time.
🍂 Planning a Fall Party or Private Event?
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Or maybe you just want an excuse to have really good cocktails at your house.
If you’re looking for something beyond simply having someone pour drinks, Saints & Spirits creates elevated cocktail experiences and custom menus built around your event.
Let me bring the same creativity, attention to detail, and passion I put into creating new speakeasy cocktails every week directly to your guests.
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