Maker Faire Detroit 2014 by Kristina Sikora / KMS Photography

This weekend was one of my favorite weekends in Detroit. It was Maker Faire. Being the fifth year, I wanted to do something cool. I opted-out of last year and felt a bit left out. So I build one project and did a presentation on Geeky Booze.

The presentation can be found here.

Maker Faire Detroit 2014 by Kristina Sikora / KMS Photography

I covered a number of subjects from what to how to up your cocktail game, ingredients/equipment/techniques you can do at home and where to find ingredients and what to read. It was a lot of info. About 70 people attended the chat and it seemed to get a lot of positive reviews. I was lucky enough to have Joe Hakim from Hungry Dudes in the audience as well. He took a great photo of me and can be found at the end of the post.

Maker Faire Detroit 2014 by Kristina Sikora / KMS Photography

Instead of rehashing the whole presentation, I’ll post the two things that got the most interest. My required reading list and ways to elevate your cocktail game.

Elevate your Cocktail Game

1) Use fresh fruit juice whenever possible. It adds more flavor and eliminates canned tastes from your cocktail.

2) Use quality spirits. My example was tequila. A lot of people in the audience didn’t like tequila probably because they were drinking the cheap brands. Spend some money and taste the great flavors that are out there.

3) Handled your Vermouth Properly. This is mainly getting rid of it after 6 months and keeping it in the refrigerator. This will again remove bad tastes from cocktails.

4) Use Fresh Citrus Oil from Peels. That spritz of oil on top of a finished cocktail is the first thing people smell when they bring it to their mouth.

5) Experiment with different booze and explore your surroundings. I’ve learned so much from trying weird booze (fermented Camel Milk…) and checking out unique locations.

6) Use Local Ingredients. It might be hard to by Michigan citrus but the local booze is great and always gets better.

Required Reading List (in this order): 

1) Boozehound – Jason Wilson

2) Imbibe! – David Wondrich

3) Drunken Botanist – Amy Stewart

4) Fix the Pumps – Darcy O’Neil

5) Cocktail Techniques – Kazuo Uyeda

6) Beta Cocktails – Kirk Estopinal & MaksymPazunaik

7) The Cocktail Lab – Tony Conigliaro

Maker Faire Detroit 2014 by Joe Hakim / TheHungryDudes.com

Thanks so much to the Maker Faire team for allowing me to give my talk. It was a great time and I would love to refine it and give it again some time.

Budmo!