Step up your bartending game in 2013

Already given up on those New Year's resolutions? Well, there's still time to make a new one: Experiment behind the bar in 2013.
This can include a checklist with a handful of ideas or maybe just one. And if you need somewhere to start, Portland's Jeffrey Morgenthaler has plenty of ideas on his website. The bar manager at Clyde Common has won kudos from everyone from other local bartenders to the James Beard Foundation (nominated last year for best bar program) for innovations such as barrel-aged cocktails and drinks that are carbonated and bottled in house.

"Bars all over the country are now serving bottled sparkling cafe cocktails as an homage to our little experiment," he says.

But you don't have years of mixology experience? Morgenthaler has a couple of easy ways for novices to get started.

"Pick a drink, one drink, and learn how to make it perfectly," he says. "Don't make anything else, just that one drink, over and over and over again. When people come over to your house, make them your 'famous' drink. The next year, perfect another one."

For those who've mastered a repertoire of recipes, Morgenthaler suggests offering up your own twist by taking a classic and swapping one ingredient for another: "The key here is to pick ingredients that make for a fair swap. You don't use pear purée in place of Grand Marnier; that's not exactly a swap. But using apricot liqueur in place of Cointreau for an Apricot Sidecar? That's a great trade."

Morgenthaler, a University of Oregon grad who worked in Eugene bars for 13 years before coming to Clyde Common in 2009, has his own goals for the new year. He's working on opening Pepe Le Moko, a buzzed-about companion speakeasy-style bar in the basement of downtown's Ace Hotel, where Clyde Common is located at 1014 S.W. Stark St.

"My goal is to bring more refined cocktails to the building, drinks that we can spend a little more time on, which is something I haven't really been able to do at Clyde, as it's so high-volume," he says. "The focus will be on simple, as nearly perfect cocktails as possible, as well as European and Japanese whiskies, Spanish sherries and French sparkling wines courtesy of our own Star Black."

If that's not enough to keep him busy in 2013, Morgenthaler is also working with cookbook author Martha Holmberg on a bar book.

"The book is going to be a little different from most other cocktail books out there," he explains. "When I train bartenders, I always teach them that there are three things, in equal importance, that make a great drink: 1. The recipe you choose. 2. The ingredients you select. 3. The technique you employ. There are plenty of books out there about the first two, but nobody has really written a book about bar technique. This book will be all about technique. So, not very many recipes, no chapter on rum, none of that. Just how to juice fruit, how to make syrups and bitters, how to infuse liquor, how to shake, stir, strain, how to use a blender the right way, garnish, all of that."

It's aimed to hit shelves early next year. So, if you don't manage to meet your resolution on becoming a master mixologist, Morgenthaler will be waiting for you.