Blast From the Past Series: Watershed Yearbook Menu
BY: JOSHUA GANDEE
Beverage Director, Watershed Kitchen & Bar
In the summer of 2017 we cleaned out our lockers that were filled with trapper keepers of the previous baseball cocktail menu, blasted some Alice Cooper, and peeled out in our 1978 El Camino...or something like that. Our third installment of themed Watershed cocktail menus was in the style of a yearbook. To write a blog looking back on this menu feels like going down some strange nostalgic rabbit hole, because the creation of the menu itself was a lesson in retrospect.
The John Wesley Powell School for the Shaken and Stirred was one part Dazed and Confused, one part mixological Harry Potter, and one part notes passed during class. We really dug deep into what it felt like on that last day of school when everyone signed yearbooks, flipped through to find pictures of yourself and friends, and laughed at all the goofy stuff that made its way in. The cocktails were named after senior superlatives and there was an autograph section in the back featuring staff photos as faculty. The Yearbook menu even included real senior photos of our restaurant and distillery employees.
The promo video we shot for the menu was inspired by A/V class and brought together all the lo-fi tropes you’d see in the early days of video production like catching the boom in the shot, awkward pauses before speaking, and that monotone delivery of lines, the product of writing and reading your first script. Wrapping the shoot gave us the same thrill as turning in a project we were sure would receive an ‘A.’
If you’ve been following along with this “Blast From the Past” menu series, you’re no stranger to the hard work that goes into the production of each and every menu. For those of you who just swooped in on this, I’ll make sure to walk you through a few of the steps. Ideation, first and foremost, is the most important. Oftentimes, we throw out five ideas and quickly realize four of them might be fun, but can’t be menus. Before Watershed Kitchen & Bar even opened, Chris (Marketing, Photographer, Video King) and I sat down with then Bar Manager Alex Chien to talk direction for the bar program. We discussed potential menu themes and the idea of a yearbook came up, but the theme ended up simmering while a few other menus came to fruition first.
Once we finally moved forward, there were a lot of moving pieces to the Yearbook Menu, and it asked a lot more of people who usually aren’t involved with the creation. For the senior photos section, we reached out to every employee and asked if they’d be comfortable with us using a photo from their teenage years (so, awkward, most likely) in our public cocktail menu. (Looking at you Grant, with your Rage Against The Machine shirt and double middle finger) They then had to be willing to track that photo down if it wasn’t already on their mom’s refrigerator. In the menu, there’s a debate team photo that relied heavily on photoshop, but also required taking headshots of at least 8 members of our team. If you can’t imagine the conversation, it went a little like this:
US: Hey, can we take a picture of just your face?
THEM: What’s it for?
US: A menu
THEM: I guess, let me just finish chopping these. What are you going to do with it?
US: Photoshop you on a debate team that didn’t exist, for a school that isn’t real.
THEM: Sounds about right.
This creativity, irreverence, togetherness -- it helps comprise the personality of Watershed Kitchen and Bar that so many of us have come to appreciate. It’s what makes conversations like the one above seem commonplace. Watershed is a place where you are allowed to see ideas through, even crazy ones, and where you’re in constant communication with one another, something like a creative hum. When people say, “If you like what you do, you never work a day in your life,” I think about creating menus at Watershed.
We’re fortunate to have a creative force like our graphic designer and photographer Greg Davis on our team, particularly when it comes to menus. You might recognize his work if you’ve ever seen our bottles, signage or advertising, anything from Columbus Brewing Company, or stepped foot in the restaurant. He’s able to take the ideas formed in conversation and visually bring them to life. We get to collect all these great ideas and work alongside Greg every step of the way as he designs, creates, and pieces the menus together into a functional art display.
The excitement level on the day our team brought in their senior photos for the menu was akin to apple cider delivery day in the distillery (that is, very exciting). Some of them were nice little walks down memory lane and others, well, they’ll certainly live in my mind forever. We really got a look into who our team was before they got on paths that led them to Watershed.
When it came time to take photos of our house cocktails for the menu, the photoshoot was an instant blast from the past. You remember those backdrops on school picture day in the 1980s and 90s? That blast of the flash when it was your turn to smile? We put our cocktails through the same ringer. If you didn’t already know the theme of the menu before, you did as soon as you saw the laser light display backdrop we propped each drink in front of. The only thing that could have made it better was if each cocktail came with a little comb in case you were sipping with a cowlick.
The Yearbook Menu was special because it ushered in a new bartender to our team: a talent who made his way to Columbus by way of Baltimore; a writer, a great palate, and lover of sherry, David Yee. David brought masterful cocktails to the program and was a wonderful addition to the team. You can now find him running the program at Oddfellow’s in the Short North. David contributed two cocktails to this menu, the Best Dressed, and the Most Likely To Succeed. Below, you’ll find the recipe for Most Likely to Succeed, a refreshing twist on the vodka martini.
The Best Dressed was a best seller that helped those who typically drink tequila get out of their comfort zone a bit, and turned them on to some great new flavors. David infused blanco tequila with red bell peppers, created a syrup from pink peppercorns, added a dash of ancho chili liquor, and fluffed the whole thing with egg white, making for a velvety, vegetal display of vibrance.
True, we don’t make tequila here at Watershed. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place in our bar. In the beginning of Watershed Kitchen & Bar, we decided that it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest if we lived, or made drinks in, a vacuum. Since Day 1, we’ve featured every Watershed spirit prominently (they are made here, after all), but we’ve also included styles and brands of additional spirits that we admire and don’t produce. That way, we have something to offer everyone and to round out our menu with different options.
David’s approach to cocktails was, and surely always will be, about balance. It’s something we as drink creators all think about but for David, it’s as if he had some invisible scale weighing out each and every ingredient until it could reach perfect equilibrium. The sign of a well-balanced cocktail is that it tastes like its namesake, and not of the individual parts. If you can sip from a coupe and say, “That’s a Manhattan,” without a bartender telling you what it is, then we’ve done our job.
The Best Dressed cocktail was later entered into competitions by David and we were even more proud to have put it on a menu. David’s second contribution to the menu was a little more minimalistic in structure, but thought-provoking in flavor. The Most Likely To Succeed was a blend of Watershed Vodka, Cocchi Americano Blanco, Cocchi Americano Rosa, and a sustainable citrus syrup (meaning we saved our citrus peels after juicing and turned them into a simple syrup.) For fans of the vodka martini, this was a spring/summer-driven creation that brought flavors of dried citrus, fresh picked berries together with a lovely herbaceous finish from fresh rosemary clipped to the glass as garnish.
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED (At-Home Edition)
1.25oz Watershed Distillery Vodka
.75oz Cocchi Americano Blanco
.75oz Cocchi Americano Rosa
.75oz Pineapple Syrup*
Pinch of Salt
Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass until well chilled. Strain out into a coupe or Nick & Nora glass, and garnish with fresh picked rosemary.
*To make Pineapple Syrup:
Combine 1c Pineapple Juice with 1c White Sugar. Bring to a boil, let simmer, then cool. Will keep for up to three weeks refrigerated.
If you think about the cocktails on the previous baseball menu as a ragtag group coming together for one common goal of making their place in history and winning the pennant, the collection of cocktails in this Yearbook Menu was a little more refined, requiring a touch more focus. This grouping was a masterclass in nuance and subtleties in flavor. Alex Chien’s Most Likely To Be Tardy was a touch above the rest. I’ll share a makeable gin recipe further along, but we will rest here for a moment to appreciate Alex’s creation.
The Tardy was a mix of Watershed Four Peel Gin, a matcha and celery cordial, grapefruit juice, lemon juice, and green Chartreuse. Each of those ingredients, individually, are enough to take over most cocktails, but this blend struck a chord. Leveled out in harmonious volumes, the Most Likely To Be Tardy brought together a brash grouping of flavors and mellowed them out as only time could do. Think of a hurried pencil sketch turned into a watercolor, and you have this cocktail. Enlivened with aquafaba (a vegan alternative to eggwhite in cocktails) to create a silky mouthfeel and adorned with a ribbon of celery, the only thing you were going to be late for was ordering another.
As far as gin cocktails are concerned, I’ve included the recipe for the Life Of The Party, a simple yet refined highball that drinks well into summer and creates a pool-side vibe wherever you may sip. As the creator of this cocktail, I can say the real secret ingredient is the coconut sparkling water. Feel free to substitute out the chamomile gin for vodka if you want a more direct coconut and pineapple sipper, but keep in mind, the chamomile brings a subtle florality to the mix, like the life of the party would bring dance moves.
LIFE OF THE PARTY
1.5oz Watershed Guild Gin
.75oz Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
.5oz Pineapple Syrup*
.5oz Coconut Syrup**
Shake ingredients together to combine, strain over new ice in a collins glass and top with sparkling coconut water (you know, the brand that people pronounce two different ways.)
*To make Pineapple Syrup:
Combine 1c Pineapple Juice with 1c White Sugar. Bring to a boil, let simmer, then cool. Will keep for up to three weeks refrigerated.
**To make Coconut Syrup:
Combine 1c Coconut Water with ½ c White Sugar. Bring to a boil, let simmer, then cool. Will keep for up to three weeks refrigerated.
I always look back fondly when I think about the 2017 graduating class of John Wesley Powell’s School for the Shaken and Stirred, because of the people, the flavors, and the creativity. It’s been a thrill to sit down and write about these menus because with each passing paragraph I can see the faces of my friends when we were creating, and I can smell the fresh ingredients in the air as we made syrups, infusions, and cordials to line the bar. I can hear the music we would play as we put on our aprons and set up for a night of service. I think about the excitement on our faces as Greg Davis would lay out the pages of the menu as it was coming along, and I hear the laughter when we presented the alien heads, the cool ‘S’, and the phrase “We’ll hang this summer for sure.”
Click through the rest of the John Wesley Powell’s School for the Shaken and Stirred Menu below, or check out the rest of our cocktail menus here
