Taste: Hennessy Cognac
Hennessy Global Ambassador of Mixology, Jordan Bushell educates us about making the perfect cognac cocktail
Travelling all around The globe To discover new flavours and Techniques, he brings his knowledge, experience and passion when crafting cocktails and educating for Hennessy Cognac. Pairing Hennessy’s unique history and product with modern mixology, Bushell’s cocktails offer a diverse array of flavours for all palettes. GQ caught up with him during his first visit to South Africa.
GQ: how long have you been in the mixology business? Jordan Bushell: I’ve been bartending for 19 years now. I was working at a nightclub in Toronto where I started doing three different drinks every weekend as a way to differentiate myself. I would come in and cut some strawberries up that we had for champagne service and get these sour candies from the dollar store and put them on skewers so I had these beautiful garnishes. I’d have different colour sugar
rims and all these things so that it was vibrant and stood out.
I cringe at the cocktails that I made back then now but they were something that no one else at the club was doing at the time. I developed my own clientele that way and then I really pursued that style of drink making.
Eventually I was competing in a lot of cocktail competitions and I was starting to get noticed, as the scene was building up in North America. People started tapping me
on the shoulder, saying I’m opening a restaurant and got this new chef, why don’t you come and make cocktails and design the cocktail programme.
GQ: how did you come to collaborate with hennessy?
JB: I was competing in a cocktail competition for Belvedere Vodka and was in the final eight, and they flew up from all over the world to New York. The Hennessy team saw me compete.
They were searching for a bartender to create some
cocktails for them and tour the US, training people on how flexible and mixable Hennessy was. They asked me to come in to interview and liked what I had to say. I always laugh because the final thing they said was, ‘OK so we’ve talked to you for an hour now, do you have any questions or anything to add? And I said, ‘yeah, my dog’s name is Hennessy’. My dog at the time was named Hennessy – sadly she passed away a few years ago – but she was the exact colour of Hennessy VS – she was
a German shepherd lab that was a beautiful amber, caramel colour.
GQ: do you have a mixology philosophy?
JB: I have two. One I got from a pastry chef and he said ‘only play with three flavours’. And it doesn’t mean to only use three ingredients. You can have a muddled blackberry in your drink and a blackberry liqueur. That’s still only one flavour but its two ingredients. So play with only three flavours – any
more and you could get lost and you could muddy them up.
My second philosophy is that when you’ve made a new cocktail, try to remove ingredients. If you can remove an ingredient and the cocktail is still great, why do you have it? Remove as many ingredients as possible and have the least amount of ingredients to have the perception, quality and flavour that you want.
GQ: what has been your weirdest source of inspiration for a cognac cocktail?
JB: I had a salad once that inspired me to make a drink. There were blackberries in the salad with reduced honey balsamic vinaigrette and I loved the combination. There was goat cheese in it as well, but I didn’t put that in the cocktail. I replaced the tartness of the goat cheese with lime juice and I used the balsamic honey reduction with some muddled blackberries, cognac, a splash of gin and some champagne, and it was a beautiful cocktail.
GQ: how have you found the sa Mixology space and culture?
JB: I think it’s amazing. To be honest, it reminds me a lot of Canada and America, because you’re a melting pot for a lot of cultures. You’re like the funnel for Africa and other countries. The culture is so vibrant. You go to a restaurant here and everything is so flavourful – you clearly have a community that is not afraid of flavour, which is the first step to great cocktails. You’re not afraid of experimentation. Hennessy makes bold cognac and fits perfectly. I’ve been amazed with your cocktail bars and your bartenders. They’re very passionate and hungry for knowledge and I think that the sky is the limit for mixology and bartending in South Africa.
GQ: what is your favourite way to drink hennessy?
JB: My most common way of drinking is the way I’m having it now, in a Sazerac. However, it depends on the moment. The Sazerac is to cognac what the old fashioned is to whiskey, and I love this cocktail because it has the complexity and depth. If you wanted to lighten it up a bit, you could put it on ice.
GQ: why is hennessy the perfect cognac for cocktails?
JB: Hennessy Very Special (VS) is a great ingredient for cocktails because of the intensity of its fruit flavour and the fact that it is aged in French Oak. Cocktails made from cognac are fuller and more complex than those made from other liquors. Using cognac in cocktails can be traced back to the 1800s, around the time of the invention of the cocktail. Some of the most iconic American cocktails, the Sidecar, mint julep and the Sazerac, were made using cognac as the primary ingredient. Now ‘modified’ classic cocktails are famed and favoured all over the world.
GQ: what makes hennessy so versatile?
JB: The versatility of the drink comes from the fact that it can be enjoyed in a variety of formats – be it straight, with ice, as long drinks or in cocktails; and by anyone.
GQ: Must-have items that make great cognac cocktails?
JB: To make your own cocktails it could be as simple as adding a mixer that you like. Apple and ginger are two flavour profiles that go very well with the cinnamon and spice components in Hennessy; fresh lime or lemon juice and citrus liqueur; any simple syrup. We have this great Hennessy kit that comes with a bottle of Hennessy VS and a shaker that has all the measurements for easy mixing.