Meet Chris Kiertz, one of the faces behind The Home Bar Awards, and learn how he turned his passion for mixology into a friendly competition for other home mixologists!
Name:
Chris Kiertz
Location:
Originally from CT but have spent the last 8 years in MA! Currently on the South Shore
Go-To Cocktail:
Boulevardier
Instagram:
@cocktail_chris
Website:
www.homebarawards.com
Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you first get into mixology? Who/what/where taught you what you know?
I’ve had a passion for hospitality since I can remember! I love meeting new people, learning from them, and helping them feel welcome, no matter the setting.
I spent many years in the industry, from waiting tables during college summer breaks to managing a F&B program at a hotel. Mixology at that point was flipping through the pages of gross, soggy bartender’s manuals and making whatever crazy drinks we could find. While mixology has changed since then, the lessons I learned will stick with me forever. You really don’t know hard work until you’ve had the, ahem, opportunity, to change a banquet hall from 12 rounds to full classroom style at 1am all by yourself!
I didn’t start getting serious about mixology until five years ago when I read The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. I was so fascinated by the science and history behind fermentation and distillation. Literally everything we drink comes from the earth in some way or another! At that point I obsessed over learning as much as I could, learning the classic recipes and techniques, but also reading every book I could get my hands on, cover to cover.
Now most of my inspiration comes from talking with professional bartenders and of course, the Instagram community!
Aside from my personal account and Home Bar Awards, I’m also the co-founder of Sidecar (@sidecar_hq), which is basically a social network for cocktail nerds. We’re in the final phases of our beta program and will be launching publicly this fall!
What was the inspiration behind the Home Bar Awards? What is it and how did it come to be?
When I first started getting into mixology, I started an Instagram account called Socktails (@socktails_co). I started noticing cocktail competitions everywhere and really wanted to participate, but they were all only open to professional bartenders. So I thought, “why not build it myself?!”
At the time, I partnered with Jeremy Thompson (at the time, worked for Tales of the Cocktail) and Jabin Troth (of Licensed to Distill). It was a huge undertaking to put it all together and I’ll never forget the day we launched. 0 followers. No idea what to expect. But the account almost instantly took off. It’s crazy to think that it’s grown to 40,000 in less than 3 years, and I haven’t spent a cent in advertising.
Tell us about a recent experiment!
When it comes to making cocktails, I’m not a purist by any means. But I do love to read about more efficient or more accurate ways of doing things, and some of those stick with me. One of these is weighing simple syrup ingredients. If you’re just using measuring cups, you’re actually not getting a true 1:1 ratio. This is because sugar and water have different densities, so they fill up the space differently.
I tested this out recently by using measuring cups to measure out the ingredients, and then weighed them out individually on a scale. The sugar came in at 210g, the water, 232g. This means the ratio was not 1:1, but 1:1.1. Put another way, this would’ve resulted in 10% more water content in my simple syrup. Not a huge deal, but depending on your measuring cups and sugar coarseness, your syrup ratio may be way off (and hence, your cocktails will be out of balance). Scales are cheap on Amazon and come in handy for all sorts of cocktail-related things!
What is one recipe that you created on your own that you’re really proud of?
Let me just start by saying I’ve created a lot of really bad cocktails, like just awful. It’s taken a long time for me to feel comfortable creating my own recipes. At home, we don’t have the luxury or business incentive to experiment a cocktail to death, so it just comes with the territory. Over the past year I’ve noticed my ratio of good to bad cocktails has gotten much better; you start to develop a sort of instinct for it. My favorite as of late is a riff on the Toronto, one of my all-time favorites. First, I was inspired by the Death & Co Denver menu, which is rife with whiskey/rum split base cocktails. Then, I wanted to incorporate sarsaparilla, one of the main ingredients in root beer and pair it with this beautiful vanilla syrup that I had just made. I couldn’t believe how good the final result was!
The Wilshire
- 1 ½ oz aged rum (I used Zacapa)
- ¾ oz bourbon (I used Eagle Rare)
- ½ oz sarsaparilla-infused Fernet
- ½ oz homemade vanilla syrup
- 3 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Express lemon peel and add as garnish to your drink.
