Meet the Mixologist: Heather Wibbels, Better Known As: Cocktail Contessa

Meet Heather, better known as Cocktail Contessa, and find out how she got her start in the world of mixology!

Name:
Heather Wibbels

Location:
Louisville, KY

Go-To Cocktail:
Manhattan or Old Fashioned

Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you first get into mixology? Who/what/where taught you what you know?

Like most people who become fascinated with cocktails, I started because I had great cocktails while out and wanted to recreate them at home. I entered and won the amateur division of Bourbon Women’s (www.bourbonwomen.org) cocktail contest three years in a row and kept creating, learning and researching. After the third year they asked if I might like to be a judge instead of continuing to enter the contest!

I’m fascinated with flavors and using all of your senses to create an experience while sipping a cocktail. I learn so much from watching master mixologists at work, reading books about how and why techniques work one way or the other. Absorbing the Bar Book and the Cocktail Codex and perusing The Flavor Bible for flavor pairings have been so much of my education, and it always continues!

I’m a huge proponent of batching and gifting cocktails. I love to scale a cocktail up to 8 or 10 servings and use it as a hostess gift (or any kind of gift really) when invited to a party. It’s easy to do with spirit-forward cocktails and punches and I just use an empty whiskey bottle to serve from.

My passion is introducing more people to whiskey as a base spirit and converting people to bourbon and rye. And cocktails are the gateway to whiskey. I want to make whiskey cocktails fun, tasty and easy for people to experiment with. My goal: for everyone to drink more bourbon and whiskey!

What’s one cool thing that you’ve learned that you can teach our community?

GarnishBlog.com had a post about using a milk frother to create lovely foam on sours and shaken drinks without wrenching your shoulders. It’s a “cheat” of sorts, but you still have to shake the cocktail. I still do a wet shake, then usually a dry shake, but if I still can’t get the foam I want from the shaker, I use the milk frother to build it up. It’s something that also makes taking pictures of cocktails easier.

I personally haven’t seen it out in bars, but I would imagine that in a bar environment it could save the shoulders of the bar staff. At home it’s a perfect cheat that helps me make gorgeous sours in 15 or 20 seconds, rather than shaking for 30 to 60 seconds.

You do have to be careful with it as you can over-froth it, but as someone who just does a few cocktails at a time, I’m no longer hesitant to put together sours. I know I can get the foam I want if I get out the milk frother!

Where do you draw inspiration from?

I draw most of my inspiration from the ideas of aromas and flavors in combination. I love seeing what other mixologists are creating all around the world, from tropical or local seasonal ingredients I’ve never heard of to infusions and spirits that are new to me as well. Sometimes inspiration comes from a meal or a dessert, or from looking through a book of food recipes.

I love when I see another mixologist of any level combine two flavors that I’ve never tried before but know well individually. If I have them, I’ll often play with them together, just to see how they interact when consumed.

Like enjoying great whiskey, enjoying a great cocktail is about thoughtfully consuming something that has layers of taste and aroma. It’s not a time to toss something back, and the more I delve into mixology, the more I realize that cocktails change as you sip them, by the temperature of the drink, or the shape of the glass. You want to experience the cocktail, not just consume it. And you use all your senses to engage in that kind of thoughtfulness with a drink.

What is one recipe that you created on your own that you’re really proud of?

That’s a hard question to answer! It’s like choosing between your children. My day job has been affected by the pandemic, so I’ve been creating about 5 recipes a week since mid-March. But I have two that I’ve come up with recently that I am in love with.

One is a finalist for a cocktail contest sponsored by Whiskies of the World for Sagamore Rye. I called it the As You Wish – Chocolate Lavender Sour. I was hesitant to put lavender and chocolate together in a cocktail, but it is such a fun combination to have those strong floral notes and the chocolate play together.

The other is a strong Manhattan riff called the Exit Strategy that’s this balanced cocktail featuring licorice, orange oleo, chocolate and absinthe blended together. If you love licorice, you’ll love the cocktail. I found the flavor combination in the Flavor Bible book – one of my reference books for creating cocktails. It is an intriguing and very strong combination of flavors, but I love it because it ended up so well-balanced that you can pick out all of the flavors in the cocktail. As you drink it and the temperature changes the flavor and aroma notes move around, some moving to the forefront while others recede.

Lavender Chocolate Sour – As You Wish

2 oz Sagamore Spirit Rye
½ oz lavender simple syrup
¾ oz crème de cacao
1 oz aquafaba or egg white optional
3 dashes chocolate bitters
Garnish: lemon peel and lavender sprig

In a shaker, combine whiskey, syrup, liqueur, bitters and egg white/aquafaba if using. Shake for 30 seconds. Add ice and shake for 30 to 60 more seconds – until the shaker is frosted over and so cold it hurts. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel and lavender sprig.

Lavender Simple: Brew 2 tablespoons of lavender with 1 cup of water. Steep and let cool. Strain, add 1 cup of sugar and stir until combined. Store in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. Great in homemade lemonade, any whiskey sour, added to a champagne cocktail/mimosa, mixed in a refreshing mule or in added to a vodka tonic.

Exit Strategy – Black Licorice Manhattan

½ oz oleo saccharum
¾ oz Ballotin chocolate whiskey (do not use a cream-based chocolate liqueur)
¼ oz Copper & Kings absinthe
1.5 oz Barrell Bourbon batch 15
10 drops Woodford Reserve orange bitters
2 dashes Bitter Truth chocolate bitters
Garnish: orange wheel with star anise or chocolate shavings

Combine oleo saccharum, chocolate whiskey (or liqueur), absinthe, whiskey, and bitters in a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with an orange wheel and a star anise. Sip slowly and savor it.