I know that I can take nearly any alcoholic beverages; but I have this crazy love for whisky. I still love my lagers as well but I have to talk about my relationship with whisky and how it has changed my bartending life.

It happens that about 2 years ago, I had such a bad relationship with it. I once read John LeFevre’s Goldman Sachs guide to being a man. This is what he had to say about whisky; “You cannot have a love affair with whisky because whisky will never love you back” I took it literally and my relationship with whisky is more mutual and beneficial to us both.

This was not about whisky but about a friend that I will forever miss. I will forever be grateful to him, for he changed how I work and the type of cocktails I make or create. He told me I could make a good bartender if I truly wanted to be one. This came about after I had made him with his friend Margaritas. That was surely one of the worst Margaritas made on earth. I knew it, he knew it and so did his friend. My mistake was that I was standing behind the bar unprepared. Since I always try to give quick and efficient service, I got it wrong this time round. I did not want to take too long to do it, so just to impress him, I improvised on 1 of the ingredients and it terribly backfired.

We talked about it and I had to admit that I needed to change. To ensure that I did the right thing all the time, he told me he would unexpectedly be visiting my bar and each time he dropped by I would make him two vodka based cocktails and they were to be different everyday or each time he ordered. He allowed me to be experimental and creative.

The last time I saw him, I was so overwhelmed with work and my creativity levels were zero. This time I had to improvise and it was a bit different from what I deed the last time. During my abusive relationship with whisky, I had this simple whisky cocktail recipe that I would use to make my to-drink whisky cocktails. I had borrowed it from Dale DeGroff but I had changed it to suit my palate. So I took my refixed Dale DeGroff recipe and swapped it with Smirnoff vodka and the results were amazing.

These are the last words he told me; “write down the recipe to this one. It is like a smiling gangster. Keep it” I have kept it and if you want to try it, let me know so that I can send you the recipe. write: lawrenceamaya16@gmail.com. I don’t really know how great it is, but I would like you to try it because he loved it and I liked him