<aside> đź’ˇ Tip: Click any section in the Wiki Headers underneath this notice, it will take you right to the corresponding section!
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Note: these are not done yet, and are still being written up by me, I just desperately need to reorganize them into a coherent stream of thoughts for a complete blog writeup section. Thank you for bearing with me on this little adventure of mine.
To be honest, I had heavily procrastinated making ground on this section up until now. What else really needs to be said in this long-time form of artistry that is mixology? It has been a well-explored enough field that found its first major surge of popularity a bit before the American Prohibition Era, and had even found its massive rise through that Era from the operations of underground speakeasies. Admittedly, the history of bartending and mixology was riddled with socio-economic inequality, and the rise of mixology within the 2020s has sought to reform and reinvent the industry, following the footsteps of revolutionary figureheads such as Ada Coleman of a bygone global reform wave of the industry and occupation. As of the time of this writing, this new wave of mixology and bartending is still going strong, and partly thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic disabling a great majority of human social aspects, people sought to venture into creative fields like these in search for creative fulfillment and self-production of goods that were previously mostly produced by establishment bartenders and barbacks.
Today, a large and ever-growing subsection of home bartending is practiced in pursuit of creative experimentation and artistic expression. And I’m proud (or shameful, depending on how you look at it) to say, I am part of that new mixology wave. For better or for worse, there has always existed the interconnection between mixology, or general drink mixing, and coffee. And that was exactly how I found my way to the art and exploration of home mixing - through a coffee grapefruit amaro I was inspired by the notorious third-wave figurehead James Hoffmann to make. And ever since, it has been kindling my love for crafting stories and narratives from the bottom up, lending way to as much creative freedom and expression as I would ever think to bargain for in a form of a drink. As much as I adore coffee and proclaim about that fact whenever I would have the chance to, as a preferential coffee purist, there is not much flexibility to be found in the brewing process to craft a completely customized experience except for… well, the brewing metrics themselves. But again, there is only so much you can alter after the bean has already been grown, harvested, and roasted, and all of the flavors have been imparted onto the bean itself. The art of coffee brewing is, to me, observing a story being told, and doing your best in the way of the final step in the processing chain to represent that cumulative story being told. That is to say, I’ve obviously learned a lot from the pursuit of my young love for coffee, about myself, about communities and societies around me, and about the boundless sea of approaches to storytelling. And I’m resting in assurance that almost all of that knowledge being discovered is being utilized to the most of their abilities, wherever most appropriate to accomplish my storytelling goals in mixology.
The more I observe and practice art, I realized that art is so much a tango, between the artist and the audience. There is a delicate dance between the two parties that gives acknowledgement towards each other that we all are partaking in sharing a vision of a combined world together. When music lovers go to a concert, in some parts the urge to dance and sway along is irresistible, but in some other cases even if the concert wasn’t up to your expectations, it is still encouraged to show your support by responding to subtle inquires of, say for example “Is everyone ready?”, or “Sing along if you can, or clap along if you don’t” or something along those lines. Performing artists thrive on, and in some cases are even entirely fueled by, audience synergy and engagement. When you’re reading a book, the waiver you metaphorically sign is for you to subvert your expectations to a variable extent to immerse yourself in a world or an adventure crafted by the artist. And you allow space for yourself to be taken across distances, tread through adventures, and embark emotional roller coasters. And that to me, is when art is the most beautiful - the synergy between the creator and the createe, between the artist and the individuals for whom the art was borne.
I’ve been recently catching myself practicing this tango more and more from the observer end of the aisle whenever I’m observing or appreciating something beautiful. Believe it or not, I’m getting better at looking and seeing and observing, even though for the longest time that was the only thing I thought I was already extremely good at. Paired with my self-portrait project a few years back that gave me deep insight into what it means to be on the other side of the lens, I’ve been getting better at putting myself in the audience perspective, while before I felt I was already quite proficient at putting myself in the perspectives of the artists themselves, which is arguably a much harder process.
Putting myself on the receiving end of my own art, I realized that while in the photography department I have been succeeding at withholding or obstructing stories that I don’t wish for viewers to have direct access to and showing subtle hints to figuratively portray said story (making me a successful artist for my own satisfaction), in the drink-making department I seem to have not had as much success as I would have wished to see when I serve fresh coffee or cocktails to friends and acquaintances. While people did enjoy the drinks I serve for them, their expressions and eyes say that there is quite some headroom left to be desired. As a hungry artist, I see that as an obvious artistic gap that I would love to be able to fill.
Naturally, from that artistic hunger as well as the culinary experiences gathered through treading with haste in the world of coffee to catch up to my forebears, I started developing a more conscious sensory experience of what it means to be on the receiving end of specially-crafted drinks like these. It was a more all-encompassing experience than I had ever thought - each one of the five senses gets activated and engaged in the sensory experience altogether, and they synergize with one another to tell a harmonious story. Once that concept had clicked in my mind, the natural storyteller in me immediately received a surge, and I was back at that drawing board crafting up ideas and stories within the boundaries of techniques I keep attempting to learn. Never had I thought a drink would be able to accomplish that depth of storytelling and presentation.