welcome to karriere

First and foremost, this is my blog. I will use it to write about the things that I make for and at karriere bar. As such it is in no way affiliated with Karriere in any meaningful way - I just write about cocktails and drinks. If you want to praise, complaint, make reservations etc this is not the forum. With that said:

Welcome to the karriere universe of drinks and cocktails. This blog is inteded to give you a glimpse of what I am doing behind the bar at karriere bar.
For those of you who do not know about karriere, it's a bar (also serving food and coffees) situated in the meat packing district in Copenhagen, Denmark.

::ART

In my perception Karriere is an extremely exciting and vibrant venue both to visit and to inhabit ( I kinda live here now ;) ): the list of world class artists that have participated in the overall visual and functional design of the place is enough to take your breath away - they and their individual contributions and their functionality and meaning have constructed this quite unique social space where art both surround you and participates in everything you do - sometimes the art even takes over and controls you through the night. Best part - you don't even really know it's there, untill you find yourself going "...hmmmmm?!". Fun stuff.

::FOOD

The other big thing is - well, was! - the kitchen, up until recently run by two very brilliant young chefs, Lena and Astrid. Their big idea was very closely related to Denmark and the produce that we have here. Ofcourse it was organic! And it was all about seasonal ingredients - they even whent out to a farm somewhere and picked their own vegetables. It made for some fantastic food, I can tell you. Unfortunately we had to close down the kitchen - at that time I had already conformed the bar concept to these two influences: the art and the danish ingredients.

::DANISH

A quick word on the whole 'danish ingredients'-thing: The kitchen at Karriere went all the way - everything Danish! In the bar I do not! First of all, I understand perfectly well that the whole 'locally produced ingredients' mantra is a very weird construction seeing that everybody, everywhere in the world can more or less get anything all year around by now. Even speaking of a such division in regards to cocktails and Denmark is kind of stupid as modern cocktails are more or less depending on citrus fruit, not remotely close to ever having been grown in Denmark. I have not even touched on the vast amount of quality products -spirits - I would have to exclude on account of not being from Denmark; I would only have akvavit and Heering left?!

Still, there is something fundamentally wrong in making ( and even more so: drinking!) a strawberry daiquiri in the middle of winter. Don't know what rubs me worse; the fact that we instead of waiting for the good stuff use both synthetic flavours and watery strawberries flown in from southern parts of europe as substitute for the supreme taste of ripe, scandinavian berries; or the fact that after you have that last sip of your if-summer-was-a-cocktail drink you put on snowboots and thirty layers of clothes to keep you from freezing to death on your way home. In either case I'd rather just wait for the right time and ingredients, and find something else to play with in the meantime. Trust me, once I got a look inside the local pantry I realized there is plenty of stuff to throw in that shaker even during winter. As an extra bonus to following the seasons : they more or less provide me with what taste great in that particular season.

::THE PARTY

A third factor in play at Karriere that has a huge say in what I do and can ( read: must!) do in regards to the drinks and cocktails is the sheer number of guests: Today, a year-and-a-half after opening, we still get between 1100 and 1500 guests coming through on both a friday and saturday. And most of these people come to jump like spastic-gymnastics on speed. As a result the guests are thirsty, they crave easily drunk, refreshing drinks - the mojito, in particular! And the sheer number puts a massive presure on the bar to produce ( produce!).

::SO...

All drinks have to be easily made for the bartender and be able to substitute, let's say, a mojito for that refreshing feel, still without straying from that golden rule of thumb: nordic twists and inspiration. And at all times the menu must include a drink that, for this reason or another, can make the guest go "..hmmmmm?!"...

So there you have it, that's the mission and this is where you can read all about it...

cheers,