Spirit, Mixer, Glass & Garnish

Hi guys! I’ve got something a little different for you today. I wanted to let you know about a really cool Kickstarter campaign that just launched. Cocktail enthusiast Ben Putano has created a beautiful cocktail recipe journal called Spirit, Mixer, Glass & Garnish, and has started taking orders and donations for it here.

I came across Ben’s project on Twitter, and I was immediately enchanted by the idea. I have always been a huge sucker for journals, notebooks, sketchpads, recipe books - you name it. I still keep all my appointments and to-do items in a paper planner (a fact for which I am relentlessly teased by my more tech-savvy husband). Before this blog, I was using a moleskin to keep track of my favorite cocktail recipes. The idea of a beautiful blank book specially designed specifically for this purpose really appealed to me. But I was also interested in this project because I was intrigued by the process of taking an idea like this and making it a reality. To kick off the Kickstarter campaign today, Ben told me a bit about the process of designing the book and how he got the idea in the first place.

Ben’s gateway to the world of cocktails was actually coffee. He’s a former barista who now works doing customer education for a coffee equipment company. He got sucked into the world of cocktails when he wrote an article about coffee cocktails for the Daily Coffee News. Soon he had started coffeecocktails.co and a very successful Instagram account. Ben says that the worlds of coffee and cocktails aren’t really all that different. “It’s all about passion for for creating a really high-quality product,” he says. “I love that.”

Ben got the idea for Spirit, Mixer, Glass & Garnish when he wrote down some cocktail recipes in a book for his friends to flip through when they came over. They enjoyed selecting their cocktails and even making them themselves following the instructions in the recipe. Ben and his friend Brett Vance started talking about creating a dedicated cocktail recipe journal.

Ben turned to the followers of his Coffee Cocktails Instagram account for input on what they’d want a journal like this to look like. He asked people about their experiences making cocktails, and what kind of information they liked to record when they developed a recipe. He also asked if they would be interested in buying the kind of journal he was thinking of developing. The response was a resounding “yes,” so Ben and Brett decided to move forward with their idea. They continued to get input from the cocktail community throughout the process, from hosting a cover design competition to sending out surveys about the best size and layout for the journal.

All of their hard work has culminated in today’s big launch. Spirit, Mixer, Glass & Garnish is a gorgeous, 150-page hardbound journal that is divided into six sections by base spirit. At the top of each page is a space for the cocktail’s name, creator, and the date. Sections for ingredients, methods, and notes follow, along with a space to circle the appropriate glassware. A mixers section in the back of the journal provides space to record recipes for syrups, infusions, shrubs, and other ingredients. It’s basically the perfect place to record your favorite cocktail recipes.

I really wanted to support Ben in this endeavor, both because I think it's a great idea and because I think it's incredible how he took this idea and ran with it, creating this journal from scratch. "More people should take the risk of following their passion," Ben says. "There is no better way to spend your life."

So if you’re interested in Spirit, Mixer, Glass & Garnish, head over to Kickstarter and order a copy! They’ll ship in time for Christmas, so it’s a great gift idea as well.