Contemporary Classic Cocktails
Words by Simon Difford
What has become known as the cocktail renaissance, the period when skilfully crafted and balanced cocktails were rediscovered by bartenders and embraced by Discerning Drinkers at large, properly took off in the 1990s. However, its real beginning dates back to the mid-1980s and the fathers of contemporary bartending, Dick Bradsell and Dale DeGroff.
Dick created the Vodka Espresso in 1983; it is the earliest cocktail from the modern bartending age that has proved enduring – particularly in its Espresso Martini form. Hence, the Espresso Martini is the oldest cocktail to appear in this collection of cocktails to emerge during this period.
Contemporary classics are cocktails:
- Modern – created after 1985.
- Enduring – perhaps even more popular now than when created.
- Travellers – appearing on bar menus &/or in publications beyond the city or country of origin.
- Good - Worthy of making and drinking.
- Replicatable - easily made in bars around the world and even by home cocktail enthusiasts.
This collection was originally inspired by and published soon after the release of Robert Simonson's Modern Classics of the Cocktail Renaissance app in 2016.
Page views of cocktails on this website help us track their popularity to review the new cocktails to be inducted into the collection. The most recent being:
Daisy Buchanan - inducted 08 November 25
TomatiniTomatini - inducted November 2024
Flannel Shirt - inducted November 2024
