A Bar Without Glasses and a Dedicated Cocktail Course

1/18/05 Madrid, Spain - Ferrán Adrià is stretching the bar. His demo at Madrid Fusion Chefs Congress on Tuesday unexpectedly unveiled his view of the future of cocktails. His vision: a bar without glasses and cocktails as a standard part of the gastronomic menu.

Adrià, who has been blazing trails in gastronomic experimentation for over 20 years, has taken the bar glass out of the mixologist's hands and discarded it, along with our standard notions of what a cocktail can be.
Adrià took the widely adopted deconstruction concept - along with his other innovations - and applied them to cocktails. His deconstructed Pina colada in the past was served on a spoon and consisted of rum gelee, coconut foam, dehydrated pineapple and sherbet. In another version, alginated rum balls explode on the tongue. An eau de toilette martini in 2003 took the form of a mist. Contained in a perfume bottle, the diner spritzes 4-5 sprays into his or her mouth.


This year Ferrán went further. He first toyed playfully with a caipairinha. He froze the caipairinha on a Silpat and then set it upright. The diner places the paper-thin cocktail to melt on his or her tongue. With a youthful manner, it is like an adult version of a Kool-Aid pop. The guest eats the cocktail (no longer just an alcoholic beverage).

His Hot Frozen Gin Fizz consisted of lemon juice, simple syrup and gin - frozen and topped with hot lemon foam.

Ferrán then unveiled his avant-garde water course to the enlightened crowd. He froze water to form a beeker, and served in it simply water with a hollowed out vanilla pod as a straw.

Jose Andres, the renowned Spanish chef based in Washington, D.C. summed it up Ferrán’s accomplishment. "He synergizes food and drink. is What’s news here is the eating of a cocktail in the gastronomic menu.” Undoubtedly, the king of culinary innovationstrying to establish another.