The accidental blends

Bartenders now pride themselves as being mixologists too. Although they may add a touch of the dramatic and a load of flair, they essentially serve you concoctions that may comprise several liquids in carefully measured proportions, so you consistently get the same amazing drink each time.

However, this was not always so! There are several bottles and drinks that you commonly swig down in your bar that were actually the result of happy accidents.
Back in the 1870s, a cocktail named Daisy was all the rage; it contained whiskey, orange cordial, a squeeze of lemon and a splash of soda.

One day, a bartender called Henry Madden grabbed a bottle of tequila, instead of the customary whiskey, and served the drink to a patron. The guest loved the drink and kept ordering for more.

The drink soon outsold the Daisy, and was christened the Tequila Daisy, which later turned into the name it’s referred to as even today — the Margarita, the Spanish word for the daisy flower.

In the 17th century, Dutch vintners wanted to transport wine, but the prohibitive shipping costs were eating into their profit margins. The solution they came up with was to boil the wine till it reduced and then transporting the concentrated mixture in wooden casks. Water would then be added to the mixture prior to being sold. They did not expect their fortified wine to turn into a wonderful drink called brandy, which would soon be a connoisseur’s delight.

Lord Marcus Sandy returned to his home in Worcester, England from India in 1835, but kept craving for a tart and spicy sauce he used to eat while he was posted in Bengal. He passed the recipe on to two local pharmacists, John Wheeley Lea and William Perrins.

The sauce was a disaster! The pair bottled their failure and banished the mix to their basement. A couple of years later they chanced upon the bottle, and the experimental duo had a go at the sauce. The ageing made the sauce awesome and its complex blend of spices and tartness has made it a staple for bartenders ever since.

Another story goes that serious climate changes in the 1490s had created a shorter grape growing season in Champagne, France. The temperatures were dropping and fermentation processes went haywire. The cooler temperatures caused the yeast, which made the alcoholic fermentation to lull into dormancy way too soon.

When the weather turned warmer, the resurgence in yeast activity caused carbon dioxide to form in bottles causing them to explode. Soon enough, the good people of Champagne managed to coax the bubbles to float harmlessly inside bottles and the results have been quite magical!

— Zubin is a Corporate Executive Chef with Mars Enterprises