Timo is a bartender at Door 74, Amsterdam. He shows us 2 cocktails, one gin based and Punt e Mes the other one is gin based
Timo introduce yourself
I’m Timo and I am a bartender at Door 74, Amsterdam. I am 33 years old and have been a bartender for 12 years now, as far as I can remember I’ve always wanted to do that, and improve myself. When you work behind the bar for a long time, you want to own your craft and the best way to do that is by making cocktails. It’s the place where you learn all the time.
The classic you want to show us
Be kind unwind (Martinez)
45ml of bathtub gin
45ml of Punt e Mes
5ml of Topschi Nocello
10ml of Luxardo Maraschino
2 dashes of orange bitters
1 dash of Dale Degroff’s pimento bitters
The bar of your dreams
The bar of my dreams would be a very laid back bar, where people can have any kind of drinks combined with loud music so people can have a good time. Basically, a party place with the best drinks possible.
The spirit you like the most
I love to work with genever because it has a lot of heritage. It’s the right balance between a stronger whisky spirit and a gin. It has everything… it’s diverse, it’s part of my heritage (as I’m Dutch) and it has a lot of history in cocktail making.
What makes a good cocktail and which product do you want to highlight at this moment
Every cocktail should have a nice balance, but for me a drink is really good when you can taste the base spirit. I also appreciate a drink if there is flavour that excites me. A drink that on paper doesn’t seem to work, but in reality it perfect. For me they’re the best drinks ever created.
I would like to go very far with Pisco in the future. There is a potential and diversity, with so many producers and different grapes varieties. Most people haven’t heard of it, even if there are Pisco sours or Pisco punches and it deserves to be recognised more. It could become very popular here in Holland.
The signature cocktail you want to show us
Meet me in the struggle buggy
45ml of gin
3 slices of red Chilli pepper
15ml of passionfruit syrup
25ml of fresh lime juice
Top with ginger ale
Where do you think we need to go to interview another bartender?
One bar I really like is Amor y Amargo in New York. Here in Amsterdam, it would be a place called De Dokter. No cocktails, it’s a classic bar but it shows the heritage and history of Amsterdam. A place to have genever and chat with people, it’s an amazing place.
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