I think the most common way that is a new drink is born is called the 'substitution method', meaning you take an existing cocktail and start swapping out one ingredient for another and just trying things until you like one combination as much or more than the original. This is definitely the best way to start tinkering with your own recipes, it gives you an opportunity to benefit from the sense of balance of the original drink, you'll definitely notice if you throw a good drink off, but it's very easy to lose your way entirely if you start from scratch, I remember one of my own misguided attempts at originality involving butter ripple schnapps, vanilla liqueur AND sour puss, I think I still have a tartar deposit on one of my lower molars that is a direct result of THAT glass of crap.
The most important aspect of this method is to take note of the common thread of the ingredients in the existing drink and how your new one connects with this thread, then, you can begin to apply the 'philosophy' of your cocktail to a completely new one. Obviously there will always be an element of trial and error involved and some combinations might never work for you even though someone else has managed to get the ingredients/flavours just right so that it just barely comes off.
If you must begin from scratch, I will reveal to you a secret weapon that will allow you to at least marry complimentary flavours, then all you have to do it get the level of sweetness and strength right. I found this book as I was wandering Granville Island Market here in Vancouver looking for new ingredients to play with. I walked into the soon to be closed GI outlet of Barbara Jo's Books To Cook store, to check out their cocktail book section and saw, sitting out on the counter, a big thick, glossy book called The Flavor Bible, it is an amazing tool for a mixologist, I highly recommend it.
It's funny though, sometimes I've used both methods and arrived near the same place. This first drink is a direct substitution creation, I was tinkering with a drink from Salvatore Calabrese's Cocktails by Flavor that called for agave syrup, which I didn't have, but I did have a fresh batch of ginger syrup and I knew that the ginger would go well with the grapefruit in the drink so I gave it a shot, you should too.
Primo Jalisco
1.5 oz El Jimador Reposado Tequila
0.5 oz Campari
0.5 oz fresh grapefruit juice
juice of half a lime
0.5 oz of ginger syrup (to taste)
Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into an ice filled rocks glass, garnish with a lime wedge and candied ginger.
The next one started from an attempt to make use of a free bottle of Tuaca that had come my way. Tuaca is a mainly vanilla flavoured brandy liqueur that is about 38% abv so it makes a pretty good cocktail base for a liqueur. Problem is that it's still a liqueur so it's fairly sugary so I knew I'd have to do some bittering and figured that i might as well try Campari, it's Italian, as is Tuaca, and it adds some great colour to any drink it sneaks in to. A bowl of fresh oranges was staring me in the face as I was figuring this one out so I knew that orange goes with vanilla, and that orange peel is an element of the flavouring of Campari, so I squeezed a half an orange into the mix. Around the time that this drink was born, I was afflicted with a bit of an obsession with ginger beer/Moscow Mules, and it hasn't waned much since, so I just poured the Tuaca/Campari/OJ into a Collins glass with crushed ice, topped it up with ginger beer and sipped...and by God it worked, actually it worked really well, I'm craving one right now actually.
Tuscano Toro
1.5 oz Tuaca
0.5 oz Campari
juice of half a medium orange
top with ginger beer
Build all ingredients over ice and garnish with an orange slice.
Cheers
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