How the World’s Best Bar Turns Food Into Cocktails

Double Chicken Please is a cocktail bar

that has two rooms, two different concepts.

We were lucky enough to be included

as one of the Best 50 bars.

On the busy night, we serve about 600 to 700 cocktails.

A lot of our cocktails start off as a food item.

There’s like two to three days of preparation behind that.

So our entire team is part of the prep team.

So everyone needs to learn how to do everything

to make this place run every day.

[mellow music]

Hi, I am Faye, I’m the bartender

and co-founder of Double Chicken Please.

So right now is the most important time of the day,

which is our prep time.

So let me show you what’s up.

The front bar, we name it Free Range,

is inspired by the classic cartoon.

And the back room, we call it The Coop.

All the cocktails inspired by a famous dish.

Having a two different bar, it’s really challenge,

especially like a two different concept on the one level,

it’s probably the most challenging concept

I ever did in my life.

Let’s go to the kitchen,

and then we need to start prepping our Thai Curry.

[soft upbeat music]

Here’s our kitchen.

As you can see, our chef is prepping

one of our most popular items, Popcorn Chicken.

And here are the prep wall of all the food items

that we have to prep today.

As we are currently cooking,

the drink for The Coop is called Thai Curry.

The inspiration for the drink menu

that based on the food item is

that I think nothing more nostalgic than the food, right?

Like your mom cooked for you,

your grandparents cook for you,

something that you grew up with.

And then New York’s such a diverse city.

We have a very diverse team, so we thought

that we put a little bit of everybody’s culture behind it.

That would be a lot of fun.

So we have our first part already boiled.

We have some light chickpea puree inside,

some coconut water.

This is the green non-alcoholic Thai Curry base.

I have been a bartender for the past 18 years.

My biggest regret is not to work

in the kitchen a lot earlier

because some of the semi roasted shallot in,

I learned this technique kind of from

our consultant Chef Mark.

I always learned some sort of technique

that he use in kitchen,

and I thought, oh, maybe I can try to use on a drink.

How I turn this beef, this pork, this something

into a liquid form.

We wanted to keep that layering of the flavor

and the aroma in the drink,

but we wanted to skip some of the texture part.

A lot of time we’ll use clarification.

You know, this one I’m gonna use egg white.

Next step I’m going to put some Galangal.

You can find Galangal in a lot of Thai cuisine.

The easiest description is ginger.

Lemon grass.

The most fascinating part I learned about cooking

is all the little details actually count so much.

How you cut the fruits,

how do you like avoid the part

that might potentially give you bitterness.

You have to make it with your heart, you know,

you have to like always taste every time

even if you use the exactly same amount of the ingredients.

It could still come out completely different.

So we have our pot boiling a little bit.

There’s bay leaves, cumin and the coriander seeds as well.

The final drink is going to be a little bit savory,

light sweetness for sure, but there will be a hint of spicy

’cause we’re gonna add some Thai chili.

As you guys know, that Thai chili is very spicy.

I think the hardest part for making a drink based on food

is that it won’t taste exactly like the food,

otherwise it really will be very strange.

You’re not gonna drink a bottle of Thai Curry like that.

And we put like a lot of gin inside.

That’s honestly disgusting.

So you have to find the right balance of,

make you think about that drink, think about that dish.

But we have to make it into a cocktail form.

Now this is the micro lime leaf,

which I really, really love.

It’s citrus-y, of course, but it smells like a vacation.

That’s how it smells like.

Yeah, and we’re gonna put some Thai basil in it as well.

I’m going to let this pass set for a little bit.

We’re gonna come back to do the

clarification a little later.

And right now it’s known I have to charge the PET bottle.

[soft upbeat music]

We are back at the Free Range Bar.

So the drinks we’re gonna charge with CO2 right now

is called Anyone Can Cook,

inspired by the movie Ratatouille.

So there’s zucchini, there’s bell pepper in it,

and then some sparkling wine.

And then we fat wash the vodka with olive oil.

And then the olive oil was salted with the garlic

before we do the fat wash process.

And then mix them together, batch them together,

and then live in the fridge and charge them,

and live in the fridge again.

So the entire process might take like two days

in order to make this liquid here.

When we wanted to create a fiesty drink,

there’s a couple different way.

One is you can put all the liquids in the PET bottle

and then you charge with CO2.

Or we can also go through the tap system.

First of all, I’m getting all the air out.

The reason why we need to get the air out so

that there’s space for the CO2 goes in.

Otherwise if you don’t get the air out,

you keep like recharging and it just gonna explode.

As the bubble in the drink,

so when we pour it out during service,

you know, the first sip is gonna be like

super fizzy and refreshing.

So now that the PET bottles are charged,

the Thai Curry is probably ready,

and we have to go back to the kitchen

and start our clarification process.

Okay, so while we, oh, while we were upstairs,

I think my prep team has already helped me strained it out,

and we have this egg white set up right here.

The next step is that we’re going to pull

all this egg whites into the pot

and we’re gonna give it a good stir, good mix,

slowly cooking this egg white so that the egg white

will capture all the particles inside.

This is the technique that I learned from a chef.

So when they have to make the clear amber color,

that kind of consummate,

or maybe it’s on a different colors like a vegetable soup.

So they will do this technique

and then so that the liquid comes out super clear,

but it still maintain all the, you know,

vegetable flavors in it.

Scoop out the egg whites so that there’s like one more layer

of the filter before we strain out the entire pot.

And here’s where I find help.

So I have my chef Diego help me.

So we kind of all help out each other

’cause we have a cross training system.

The bartender tomorrow can be a host,

a day after tomorrow can be a server on the floor.

So that’s kind of the team effort

to make this place running every day.

While the Thai Curry is straining,

now we’re just moving to make the fondant,

for the Forbidden D’ohnut.

[mellow music]

All right, so I need to start preparing

the strawberry fondant right now.

It’s a very cute garnish.

The first thing that touches your lip that determine,

you know, how do you feel about this drink?

So we have some strawberry water that I already mixed

with corn syrup, and these are just very simple,

just powdered sugar.

Basically just mxing these two together,

kind of like how we work a dough.

So basically it’s turning into a fondant.

It’s like kind of like the glaze on the donut.

There is also strawberry water in the donut drink.

It’s a very strawberry forward cocktail.

It’s one of the drink that inspired by the classic cartoon.

I’m not telling you too much about all the cartoons.

Part of drinking at the Free Range is that you have to,

you know, guess what cartoon that is.

So we work with everyone,

the bartenders barback and everybody.

So they will go home, they will find this one cartoon,

and then we’ll try to turn that into a drink.

I think this is the most fun part.

[Reporter] What’s the boring part for you?

Running payroll. [laughs]

On the long run, of course I will hope

that I can reduce a little bit of boring parts.

This is the fun part, the sprinkle, sprinkle.

It does take a lot of time to make this.

I think every day we make approximately about maybe 35, 40.

Sometimes if we run out during service,

we’ll have like the barback run real quick to the prep room

and maybe just get it done.

This one’s quite popular.

I think the flavor and also

’cause it looks really, really cute.

It’s not just sugar sweet,

a little bit of savory, little bit of acid.

The purpose is to create a fine balance.

[Person] Earthquake.

Should we what?

It’s not earthquake.

[Reporter] I think it’s… Just New York.

A train.

All right, I’m gonna make maybe four or five more tray

of this for today’s service,

and I’m gonna move on to my last task

for today is the milk washing for The Pooh.

[mellow music]

Checking in on Chen’s prep.

This is the Japanese cold noodle.

This one is alcoholic and this is non-alcoholic.

Yeah, it’s good.

Yeah, I think having a consistency for all

of our cocktail on a menu, it’s very, very crucial

and very important.

However, because a lot of stuff

that we make was fresh product.

You know, it could be fresh like cucumber, lime, lemon.

Every day is gonna be a little different.

They will have to learn to train their palette,

as long as this drink is up to that standard of balance,

and then we should be good to go.

My task right now measuring now the cereal milk

for one of our cocktail for the Free Range

is called The Pooh.

This is one of our top two popular drinks.

Just pouring this batch of The Pooh into the cereal milk.

You know, to capture the cereal flavor

so that we can do a milk wash.

We have already mixed gin

and some of the buckwheat honey, pine liquor.

So there’s also lemon in this batch,

lemon juice in this batch.

So the reaction between citrus

and the milk makes it coagulate.

So you can already see it’s curdle a little bit on the top.

So a milk washing process would probably be the most

efficient clarification technique that you can use.

If you strain it out immediately,

it will come out clarified.

I think that the milk wash, or any kind of clarification,

it definitely changes the texture.

It will be a little more rounded.

All the layers are still there.

After we clarify, you know, we will put into the cake,

and we’ll charge with CO2.

So for utilizing the cake system,

it definitely helps us speed a lot.

‘Cause we have, you know, a lot of drink on the menu,

but we only have one bartender

that’s processing the drink for the entire day.

For example, for The Coop, for a regular night,

we could have 250 to 280 covers plus the Free Range.

I think overall we can get maybe up to 450 or 500.

Yeah, so that’s why the efficiency

is a very important part for us.

Okay, so it’s 3:30 right now,

and my opening team is coming in right now.

So they’re gonna set out the front

and the back, the entire house.

Make sure this space is ready for service.

In the meantime, this milk wash is straining.

I’m just gonna go check out with my team,

make sure everything’s ready.

Good evening.

[Team] Good evening.

For the Free Range reservation,

we have seven tables, 16 covers on the book for The Coop.

We have 16 tables, 56 covers on the book.

No large party tonight.

Position charts for this week.

If you see a little star, that means you are training

for a new position for this week.

Okay, we ready?

Have a good service.

[Team] Have a good service.

[soft upbeat music]

It is almost five and we are about to open the door.

I’m not on the floor today, so I’m gonna go to the office

to do so admin work.

So I’m gonna say goodbye,

and then I hope you get a good idea of the bar.

So come visit us sometimes, goodbye.

[soft upbeat music]