In our Community
Maggie Hoffman, Author and Drinks Editor
On the tail of the launch of her book “The One-Bottle Cocktail,” the author chats testing over 200 (!) drinks with a toddler in tow.
Welcome to Scratchpad, an ever-growing glossary of I-don’t-have-time-for-this-interview interviews with the badass producers, teammates, and customers that make up the Good Eggs community.
Today: The ex-drinks editor of Serious Eats, new author, and Bay Area mom looks back at the challenges of filling a fridge to test over 200 (!) drinks for her new book “The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes with Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit” while, you know, getting dinner on the table, too.
When I place a Good Eggs order, I’m usually doing about twelve things at once. I’m guessing this isn’t rare, especially for folks with young children at home. I’m often negotiating with my 2-year-old about whether she can continue applying stickers to every one of our floorboards while I’m simultaneously prepping tomorrow’s lunch box, emptying the dishwasher, coordinating schedules, and considering the week’s meal plan. But I have an additional task as well: making cocktails in my kitchen, then describing them, for a living.
When I was writing The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes with Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit, my Good Eggs orders tended to pull double duty: stocking my fridge for both family meals and recipe testing as my deadline approached.
The book’s premise made getting the freshest ingredients crucial. Instead of allowing the 70+ bartenders who contributed recipes to make use of their extensive booze collections, I narrowed every drink down to a single bottle. The recipes paired spirits people might already have in their freezer or liquor cabinet with the fresh stuff. I was ordering grapefruits, lemons, and limes (in bulk) for plenty of citrus juice, but that wasn’t all. This book has a celery drink, a bell pepper cocktail, a honeydew cooler made with lots of fresh herbs, and even a spin on the Boulevardier that gets its savory, bittersweet flavor from vibrant purple radicchio.
To make my deadline, I’d plot things out a few days in advance, gathering supplies with the hopes of finding a winning recipe every day. Sometimes I’d hit the jackpot on the first try, and would be able to write up a headnote and send the recipe out for a second round of testing right away. Other times I’d tweak and adjust, corresponding with the bartender about any changes, and sometimes I’d just move on to another option if a recipe wasn’t working. I connected with more than a thousand bartenders for the project, and ended up making between 200 and 300 drinks to narrow things down to my 83 favorites, which are all in the book now (shot by photography goddess Kelly Puleio and her team at a studio in the Dogpatch).
Once properly provisioned for the recipe testing side of life, I try to find space in our fridge for, well, food. Easy dinners in our house are often start with pre-cubed butternut squash (I hate hacking open the whole ones). I’ll roast the squash with cauliflower, sausages, or brussels sprouts, or all of the above. Or I’ll order chorizo, salsa, avocados, cabbage, and peppers for my favorite taco salad.
The multi-compartment lunch box my daughter takes to school always feels like it’s judging my ability to properly diversify my child’s diet, but I get something to fill all the little dividers: carrots, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, endless bags of shredded Tillamook cheddar, and a loaf of Tartine sesame bread. (Truth is, this kid has it prettttty good, even if she freaks out if we attempt to put hummus on her plate.) As soon as snap pea season starts, we go through at least a pound every week, and I’m pretty committed to eating as much asparagus as I can as long as the good stuff’s available.
I like to bake, but it just doesn’t happen often these days. If we’re having friends over for dinner, I make sure dessert is truly zero-effort: good chocolate (I’m into Recchiuti) and good cheese (funky Harbison, please.) And I tell guests to help themselves from the massive liquor cabinet that takes up an entire wall in our living room. They’re usually not disappointed.
Shop our one-bottle cocktail kits from Maggie’s new book, here.
