How do you turn 10,000 Ounces of Liquid into a VIP Experience at Tales?

How to produce great drinks at scale, far from your home bar.

Late July in Louisiana is hot, sticky, and wonderful. Assuming an unprecedented global tech outage didn’t totally derail your travel plans, you arrived in the Emerald City to celebrate the largest week in cocktails alongside nearly 30,000 thirsty bartenders.

Did you make it to Campari Academy’s Hospitality Suite? Campari Academy hosted a small private hospitality suite for visitors to NOLA. Guests were treated to a selection of curated swag and invited to enjoy incredible drinks, sensory challenges, live drawings, and more. Watch it all here!

But what does it take to create this oasis amid the chaos of the festival? We checked in with LA-based bartender Mike Capoferri to talk through how it all came together with his hospitality consultancy, Here in Spirit.

Mike and his team produced over 2,000 cocktails for events across the week. This is no small feat—the Academy suite alone called for nearly 75 gallons of liquid, all tracked by spreadsheet, and balanced and batched to the millilitre. To do this required organisation, strategy and technique.

Below we’ve shared the daily batch specs for three of our Hospitality Suite cocktails, as well as Mike’s expert tips on, well, lots of stuff. We’ll see you next year in New Orleans!

Second Line
Nitro Espresso Martini

(Makes 88 servings)

• 3,900 ml chicory-infused Wild Turkey 101 bourbon*
• 1,300 ml cold-brew liqueur
• 1,300 ml Amontillado sherry
• 2,600 ml cold-brew concentrate
• 1,950 ml oz Rich Demerara syrup
• 13 drops 20% saline solution
• 3,900 ml water

Instructions: This drink was fully batched, chilled, and then served to order using a Nitropress DS, which compresses nitrogen from the air to force-nitrogenate drinks without the need for charging cartridges. Don’t have one? Remove the water, and this batch spec still works for standard shaking.

Notes: A delicious Espresso Martini with a chicory infusion nodding to New Orleans’ iconic coffee. The cold brew concentrate was sourced from a local shop, says Mike, “to avoid shipping gallons of liquid across the country.” On the topic of what’s worth shipping for out-of-town activations, he stresses to only fly with ingredients which are difficult to make on site.

On the nitro system, he says it worked great for “creating the body and cascade effect we were after, and because it doesn’t run through draft lines, we were able to serve it at the exact temperature we wanted.” The device only holds about two cocktails per (refillable) canister, though, an important consideration if you wanted to utilise it in a busy bar.

*Chicory-Infused Bourbon: Chicory-Infused Bourbon: Add 1,000 ml of bourbon and 150 g of chicory to a Cambro and stir. Allow to infuse for 5 minutes, agitating every minute. Strain through a cold-brew filter.

Want a draft Nitro Espresso Martini at your bar?

WATCH NOW: HOW TO DO DRAFT COCKTAILS RIGHT

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The Outer Limits
Frozen Version

(Makes 68 servings)

• 3,000 ml Espolòn Blanco Tequila
• 1,000 ml Velvet falernum
• 1,500 ml Perfect Puree passion fruit concentrate
• 2,000 ml water
• 2,000 ml orange juice
• 1,000 ml lemon juice
• 2,000 ml simple syrup
• 2,500 ml almond milk
• 10 g Foam Magic
• 10 drops 20% saline solution

Instructions: Full batch and add to the frozen machine.

Notes: Mike explains that this recipe is a riff on the classic tiki drink, the Saturn, a format he says is fantastic for tweaking. Though traditionally made with gin, the Espolòn base was chosen because of tequila’s flavour affinity with passion fruit.

This drink was served two very different ways: as a batched frozen drink, and served over shaved ice, Kakigori-style. In the frozen drink, the modernist addition of Foam Magic serves two purposes: helping “fluff up” the cocktail with an airier texture and stabilising it to reduce melt speed.

The Outer Limits
Kakigori Version

(Makes 23 servings)

• 1,050 ml Espolon Blanco tequila
• 175 ml Velvet falernum
• 350 ml passion-fruit syrup (50 Brix)
• 175 ml orgeat
• 350 ml lemon juice
• 3.5 drops 20% saline solution

Instructions: Pour over shaved ice table-side.

Notes: “You’re almost making a cocktail concentrate,” Capoferri says of this version, “and you mound up the ice, so when you pour the concentrated cocktail over it, it melts everything out and the act of pouring gives you the correct dilution.”

The unusual serve (which the guests are able to perform themselves) is a “fun way to get to proper dilution and temperature without shaking” and also a moment of delight and theatre.

Due to the nature of the Academy Suite, Michael was clear that the bartending there should be limited to pouring or pre-serve texture modification, no actual drink production. This tactic satisfied several important considerations when executing remote events: it increased speed of service, reduced ice waste, eliminated the need for dumping, and allowed drinks to be served quietly.

Create your own amazing frozen drinks!

WATCH NOW: FROZEN DRINKS MASTERCLASS

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Grand Banane
Clarified Milk Punch

(Makes 57 servings)

• 1,700 ml Grand Marnier
• 1,700 ml Appleton Signature
• 1,700 ml Courvoisier VSOP
• 1,700 ml medium-dry Madeira
• 850 ml banana liqueur
• 850 ml simple syrup
• 850 ml Frangelico
• 850 ml lemon acid*
• 425 ml lactic acid*
• 3,400 ml black tea
• 3,825 banana coconut milk*

Instructions: Batch all the ingredients except the banana coconut milk. Pour the batch over the milk to break it, pouring slowly and around the edges to encourage bigger curds (easier for straining).

This will usually need about 5 minutes until it runs clear. Replace the receiving container with a fresh one, and pour your initial liquid atop the straining container.

Notes:
Mike explains that at his home bar, they create a great deal of clarified milk punch with coconut milk, and have found that straight citrus is much less effective here than with traditional milk. Instead, they use a dual approach with tannin, usually in the form of a strong tea.

One additional tip concerns the vessels. Instead of a conical shape, he recommends using rectangular lexans with a perforated hotel pan atop it as the straining container. He explains that straining through this large flat surface has not only given better results, but the ability to lid and stack them means you can produce a great deal simultaneously in a small space.

*Lemon acid (6% citric-acid solution)
Add 940 ml of water and 60 g citric-acid powder to a Cambro and stir until the crystals have fully dissolved.

*Lactic acid (6% lactic-acid solution)
Add 950 ml of water and 60 g lactic-acid powder to a Cambro and stir until the crystals have fully dissolved.

*Banana coconut milk
Blend 200 g bananas and 1 litre coconut milk until smooth. Do not strain.

Want to make better clarified milk punch?

WATCH OUR MASTERCLASS WITH JOSH SEABURG!