2024-10-19 06:21:00
Ms. Gorbachova, “Mixology” magazine named you “Bartender of the Year” this week. How did you get into this profession?
I’ve actually always worked in the restaurant industry, even while I was finishing school or studying. At a certain point I discovered that I had excellent sensory abilities. Now I use it professionally. I like to work with taste.
Do you have a favorite recipe?
It’s hard to say because I actually develop new recipes every week. But I really enjoy working with tea. I also collect tea privately and have already co-opened a tea house in Seoul. Everything about tea is a passion of mine. I’m not a coffee drinker at all.
You studied product design at the Berlin University of the Arts and wrote your thesis on cocktail glasses. What does a good cocktail glass look like?
Definitely functional. There are cocktail glasses that do not meet this requirement, such as the classic martini glass. It has a nice shape, but it is not functional. When you drink from it, something often flows into your mouth because the glasses are so wide. They are also difficult to put on. If you carry a tray with five cocktail glasses with you, there is a high probability that the drinks will spill. You can only move incredibly slowly with it.
You have won twice at the “Mixology” magazine awards ceremony. The Green Door Bar, founded in 1995, won the Bar of the Year category. You have been managing the bar since 2018 and have put a lot of work into it. What did you change and why?
Basically we always change something because otherwise it becomes boring. I can’t work in a bar that has the same menu for five years. If you keep making the same drinks, the job quickly becomes robotic.
What makes your bar unique?
Our bar is a very warm space thanks to its interior, its shape and its colors. It seems a little out of time. People find it difficult to assign the bar to a specific era. This is one of the strong points of the bar, it does not have a timestamp. If you walk into a bar in Neukölln and see a cobbled interior, you know for a fact that the bar dates back to the mid-2000s. A lot of people who come here think it could be a bar from the 50s or 80s.
Your bar’s motto is “The Power of Positive Drinking.” This could also be understood as glorifying alcohol.
The motto comes from the late founder Fritz Müller-Scherz. That was his motto, not mine. We adopted it because we find it quite funny. Responsible use of alcohol is very important to me personally. That’s why we also offer many non-alcoholic drinks. We take the topic seriously and make sure that mocktails don’t taste like a soda, but like a drink. We put as much work into it as we would into an alcoholic cocktail. Overall, we focus on drinks that contain less alcohol. Of course, you can also order drinks with a high alcohol content, but they are not our focus. For us it’s all about aroma, being together and creating a beautiful place.
So it’s a feel-good atmosphere. Is this what people are looking for in a bar these days?
The way I see bars, they are social places. It’s not about the drinking itself. Many people come to us because they simply want to meet their friends somewhere, have a date or party.
What do you pay particular attention to when mixing?
We always use original and fresh ingredients. We buy many things directly from the manufacturer. We have the Winterfeldtmarkt, a weekly market in Berlin, right on our doorstep. One of our employees also loves to collect wild objects, for example in spring he goes to pick cherry blossoms. At this time he brought some quinces with him. It is also important that the drinks are neither too sweet nor too acidic. Tiki drinks, for example, are often mixed with 50 ml of lemon juice and 40 ml of syrup. It’s not good for the body at all. Of course, alcohol doesn’t do the same either, but lots of sugar and acid make the situation even worse.
You are the first woman to be named Bartender of the Year after 17 awards by Mixology magazine. Are there too few women behind the counter?
When I started it was definitely a man’s job. As a woman, I was viewed critically. And then it happened that the guests specifically requested that my colleague serve them the drink. But this has changed. The Green Door Bar is owned by a woman. I run the bar and most of our staff are women. It’s the same in many other bars. There are now an incredible number of women in the industry. The bartending profession has become inclusive.
#Maria #Gorbachova #alcohol #means #taste
