A great cocktail needs to be both properly chilled and properly diluted. For the majority of bartenders creating cocktails, one constant has always been true: dilution and chilling are inextricably linked. When cocktails are built, shaken, stirred or thrown (sigh), the ice absorbs energy from its surroundings, which chills the drink. With these traditional methods, chilling cannot be achieved without dilution and dilution cannot be achieved without chilling.
In 2016, I became fixated on the problem of how to sever that link. I was working as a travelling brand ambassador at the time and I averaged over one hundred bar visits per month for four years. This experience gave me a front-row seat to everything that was happening in the bar world. One of the main trends I noticed was that bartenders were still mostly creating cocktails with the ‘Mr. Potato Head method,’ a term credited to Phil Ward back in his Death & Co. days in the mid-aughts. This is the practice of swapping out an ingredient in a classic cocktail with a like substitute to create a new variation, like when Joaquín Simó swapped gin for Jamaican rum to create the Kingston Negroni.
The common thread in the thousands of cocktails I tasted that were created this way was that their dilution was always water. And, that water was no small portion of the cocktails’ finished volume. If the ingredients of the cocktail make up Potato Head’s eyes, ears and nose; the water would be the potato, itself. Painstakingly gathered subjective data – by Dave Arnold, not by me – shows that a properly stirred boulevardier contains about 30 percent water by volume. A properly shaken margarita has just over 34 percent water by volume. So, what happens if we can unlock the flavor potential of about a third of the volume of these cocktails by using something more interesting than water?
Answering this question became the foundation for the cocktail program at Thunderbolt, which would later underpin the programs at both Night on Earth and Semiprecious.
To do this, we had to remove ice from the equation. Rather than shake or stir cocktails, we would dilute our cocktails to a precise level and rely on custom refrigeration to chill them to just above their freezing point for service. Commercial refrigeration is typically limited to two temperature ranges: -5°F to 5°F for freezers and 34°F to 40°F for refrigerators. We needed our drinks to live in between those two ranges and after quite a bit of searching, we found refrigeration units that could be modified to live at our target temperature. We chose 19°F for our ‘cocktail coolers’ and about 70 percent of our current menu is served at this temperature. We chose 19°F based on the ideal service temperature of our house martini, the Liquid Picnic.
The Liquid Picnic was the first cocktail we developed that employs the technique of ‘dilution substitution,’ or, using a more flavorful ingredient than water for the cocktail’s dilution. We blend fresh Campari tomatoes into a puree, then spin that puree clear in a centrifuge. This clarified tomato water serves as the dilution in a martini featuring London dry gin, citron, dry vermouth, rosemary, black pepper and salt. The full cocktail, clocking in at 24.5 percent ABV, is batched and brought down to 19°F in our cocktail coolers. Service is as simple as pouring 4 ounces into a frozen martini glass and spritzing with lemon oil. It’s savory and umami, yet still drinks like a gin martini. And, it’s served a couple of degrees colder than you’d ever get a traditional martini with the same ABV by stirring with ice. Science.
Now that we had our temperature set, we built the rest of the program to operate at 19°F. Cocktails with a lower ABV than the Liquid Picnic would be modified to depress their freezing point so they didn’t crystallize at the low temperature. This was achieved using sugars, not always sucrose, but often non-fermentable or less-sweet sugars like lactose, glucose or polydextrose.
As a note, not all drinks want to be this cold. Certain flavors – woody whiskies, tannic wine products, some bitter flavors – can become acrid or astringent at these low temperatures. That’s why we look to other chilling methods for the other 30 percent of our menu – some resulting in warmer service temperatures and some colder. Regardless of method, the use of ice to chill our drinks has nearly been eliminated. Only 3 of our 16 alcoholic cocktails get their chill from ice and none of their production involves discarding ice into the sink.
Sustainability wasn’t the goal for developing this method of cocktail production. It was a byproduct of achieving more complexity of flavor. Once we realized that we could produce cocktails with no water waste, we leaned in and built the program around reducing waste as much as possible. We have strict procurement standards for sustainability from spirits producers. We do not use garnishes – we even have a hack for replacing citrus peels. We give fresh citrus juice a second life by turning it into a stable, clarified cordial rather than tossing it when it passes its prime. We also discovered a couple other game-changing side effects of operating with this level of temperature control. At 19°F our cocktails can be force-carbonated to commercial soda levels, far beyond what is achievable at refrigerator temperature.
Finally, and perhaps most crucially for the business, our cocktails are incredibly consistent and are served incredibly fast. The margin of error regarding dilution and temperature has been removed. We serve with the mantra of “we worked really hard on your cocktail…yesterday.” Service becomes nearly-instant, giving our teams more time to do what they do best: connect with guests and make our hospitality more personal, which was really the goal the whole time.
Mike Capoferri is the barman and co-owner and operator of Thunderbolt and Night on Earth in Los Angeles and Semiprecious in Denver. Since opening Thunderbolt in
Echo Park in 2019, Mike has built one of the most recognized independent bar programs in the world, consistently awarded coveted accolades including The World’s 50 Best Bars (2021-2025), and a James Beard Semifinalist nomination, among others.