Lightning in a Bottle

By Kayleigh McNamara

There are moments we return to, both in literature and in life. Sometimes pivotal, sometimes mundane, but for whatever reason they stick with us. I can crack open a new novel and smell my third-grade bookfair, or hear Prince’s “Purple Rain” and feel the humid night air of a Halsted street festival from June of 2024. 

It is the goal of every writer, I’d imagine, to capture this phenomenon with their words. Who among us doesn’t have that novel that makes our heart ache just to think about? What we wouldn’t give to go back and experience reading it for the first time all over again? I had the honor of speaking with renowned Chicago Mixologist, and friend of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, Ryan Prindle, who aims to capture this phenomenon in a glass. “A sense of nostalgia is, I suppose, the story I’m trying to leave people with,” he said in our interview. 

Ryan’s career began in 2008 as a fresh faced teenager working at a chain restaurant. He rose in the industry doing back to back shifts at two different restaurants; sixty hour work weeks of brunch cocktails at Jam and nights at 90 Miles. He spent seven years working for Stephanie Izard, owner of Girl & the Goat, Duck Duck Goat, and Cabra. He worked for Mordecai which won Bar of the Year in 2018, and was even a part of the team at Band of Bohemia which was, at the time, the world’s first and only Michelin starred brewpub. Though he’s had a storied career, when I asked where he developed a love for his profession, he brought me back to that first job. 

Ryan Prindle: I started bartending at an Applebees. I remember wanting to learn more, not realizing I was trying to learn more. One of the other bartenders, Gina, who was like thirty years older than me. The first question I asked her was how to make an Old fashioned. I heard it was one of the first cocktails ever invented. I liked whiskey. I wanted to learn how to make an Old fashioned. So, she taught me how to make– well, she taught me how to make what she thought was an Old fashioned. It probably wouldn’t be by today’s standards. But, that became my thing. That became my shifty. You’re not supposed to do this, but at the end of every shift, I’d ask Gina to make me an Old fashioned and it got to the point she said “make it your fucking self, you’re a bartender.” So I started making them for myself but I’d think “this is too sweet, we’re gonna dial this down” or “I don’t really like chewing on the meat of an orange in my whiskey cocktail so we’re gonna do orange bitters instead.” 

Kayleigh McNamara: You have to work with what you know! I’ve heard you talk about this idea of building a cocktail. What does that mean? Over the years, what have you found are the key components to building a great cocktail? 

RP: You’re looking for balance in a drink. When it comes to flavor profile, I look at it two different ways. If I’m behind the bar and somebody says “surprise me,” well that’s just a loaded question. I’m not gonna do that. You have to figure out what that person is into. I ask them if they have a spirit preference. There’s a lot of spirits out there, so what are you into? And that’s kind of me also gauging, how much do you know? If you know a lot, okay now we can talk. But if you have a limited knowledge of spirits, I’m going to try to keep it a little bit more straightforward. And that doesn’t mean a bad drink. Not at all. One of the best drinks ever invented is the daiquiri, and it’s three ingredients.  

So, when I’m building a cocktail, a long winded way of answering your question is that I’m looking for balance. For what’s seasonally appropriate. Right now, we’re in citrus season. Now the rule of thumb that I typically live by is the daiquiri build when it comes to citrus. Which for me is two ounce spirit, three quarters of an ounce citrus, three quarters of an ounce sugar. And that would be your simple syrup, demerara, oleo saccharum, whatever you’re using. Those are the building blocks to make a cocktail. You have a base spirit, you have an acidic component, and then you have a sweetening component. And that’s translatable to everything. You can go and use small batch honey, or molasses, or a basic simple syrup infused with tea. Right now it’s cold outside, so let’s say I do something like Asian pear and chai tea in a syrup. 

KM: That sounds really good. 

RP: Right. And how do I accentuate those two ingredients? Well if I put a couple dashes of aromatic bitters over the top, that has notes of chai in it as well. So now it’s going to smell like an aromatic, taste like an aromatic, but the profile of that cocktail stays balanced. It’s the right amount of sweet, it’s the right amount of acid, and it’s the right amount of booziness, because the second layer of that cocktail is proper water dilution. When you see bartenders shaking a cocktail, we’re not doing that to show off. We’re actually adding water to the drink so it’s more palatable. 

KM: Huh, I never thought of it that way. I always thought it was about chilling it. 

RP: Sure, yeah, you’re chilling it. But if it wasn’t a thing, we’d just shake it with cold stones, you know what I mean? Like whenever a bartender does a batched keg cocktail, we add water. It depends on the cocktail but I like to do five to ten percent of whatever the spirit volume is. 

KM: So then if a cocktail is stirred instead of shaken, would you add water? In essence, is that person just asking for a stronger cocktail? 

RP: It depends on the kind of ice you’re using, that changes how you make a drink, but to answer your question, all cocktails need dilution. All of them. 

KM: It’s almost like adding salt to sweeten something? You need to add that little something to bring out the flavors. 

RP: That’s a great fucking take, man. One hundred percent. I actually add salt to a lot of cocktails. Whether that’s adding salt to a shaker or making a five to one saline solution and using a dropper. Salt is a great addition. 

KM: As we’re talking about this, and this is a bit cheesy so forgive me, but, I feel like crafting a cocktail has some similarities to crafting a story, and we are the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. What is the story that you want your cocktails to tell? 

RP: I guess I want my cocktails to be tied to a memory. This really dawned on me a couple of years ago. I went to get my hair cut. I go to a privately owned studio downtown on Chestnut, and when I was done, my wife and I had paid for way too much time on the parking meter so I asked if we should get a cocktail. We stumbled into this bar called Sparrow. I had never even heard of it. I remember I sat down and had a blended-rum Old fashioned by a bartender who had fucking great bartending chops. This dude was really good. Shirt buttoned all the way up. Wearing a bowtie. Wearing a vest. He had perfect technique; did a long pour into his jigger using a blend of three different rums. I remember having that cocktail and remembering everything about the room. This was a couple years ago, this was many cocktails ago for me. I remember having that cocktail and being like, dude, that was not only a great drink, but it’s a memory for me now, a core memory. So my intention when I’m making a cocktail, when I’m really taking my time and someone’s excited to be there, I’m hoping that I can leave them with a memory, not only of the drink, but of the time that they had. You know? Hopefully showing them that there is a lot of love in that glass.

KM: It is such a sensory thing. You were talking about the different ingredients you use, the different intensity of their scents. They say the olfactory system has the strongest tie to memory so there’s something to be said about an awareness of the full body experience.

RP: One hundred percent. It’s the same reason why you can be out and about and you smell something that reminds you of your childhood. It’s about giving that to somebody. When they look back at that moment, they have nostalgia. That’s what I try to provide to people. As long as I have the time; December for my business is insane. At the beginning of the month I did the largest job to date for my company [Mobile Barkeep], which was 400 people. It’s bananas. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be writing a menu for 400 people and a whole team of people that work for me.

KM: Oh wow. Speaking of, I’ve heard you have a very impressive roster of clientele, including a former Bears player. That must have been surreal. Is there a specific experience that you look back at and think, “whoa, I’ve made it.”

RP: Yeah. There are a few of them. When I was on a plane to Baltimore going to bartend for the Baltimore Ravens at one of their houses. Being flown out with my knife roll to go bartend for people that you see on TV every Sunday. Guys that are going to be in the [Pro] Football Hall of Fame, yeah. It’s certainly a moment in time, I’m thinking, I can’t believe I get paid to do this. This is wild. Another moment for me was when I bought my house. Obviously I don’t do this alone, but to own a house in Chicago as a bartender is not something a lot of people can say. I’ve found this weird niche in my industry, realizing people will pay to have something good but also convenient. 

KM: You provide a unique experience. I mean, you’ve become a staple of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame annual cocktail party fundraiser. Your service leaves an impression.

RP: Mike and Robert Charles were my ‘in’ with the group. They were regulars of mine at Band of Bohemia. You know, we were talking about that experience that I try to purvey. I feel like I was able to do that with Mike and Robert. I adore them. They’re the reason I am even a part of this. It all started with a cocktail class via Zoom during lockdown. 

KM: You’ve since bartended at three in-person CLHOF cocktail parties, one at Rita Dragonette’s condo and two at Colvin House, where the next one will again take place. The themes were The House on Margarita Street, The Man with the Golden Amaretto, The Great Gimlet, and, now, Song of the Lush. How do you approach the theme, from your end?

RP: I try to use ingredients or cocktails that were popular during the time the writer we are celebrating was active or cocktails mentioned in their books. [Stay tuned for this year’s custom menu…]

KM: What impression did these events leave you with? 

RP: This event is one of my favorites that I get the pleasure of doing all year! I think a cocktail and a book go hand-in-hand. I think it’s really special to celebrate something analog such as literature, especially in this era where people are stuck on screens.

KM: Would you ever consider writing a book about your experience and your expertise? 

RP: I’ve thought about it for sure. I already have a name. It would be ‘The Dinner Party Revival’. 

KM: Am I allowed to write about that or are we gatekeeping that? 

RP: Yeah of course! I’m not a gatekeeper.

Laughter

RP: I have thought about it. Whether it’s a pipedream or something that actually comes to fruition. I feel like bartenders have the best stories because of our interactions with people. We catch people at their highest highs and lowest lows. You develop these relationships with total strangers. Like, Robert Charles and Mike were total strangers and now I’ll get a random postcard from New Orleans during their travels because New Orleans is like, the capitol of cocktail culture. It’s cool to have experiences like that. Like dude, I’m from Carol Stream. I grew up in the construction field and now I operate a high level bartending company in Chicago. Who could have seen that coming? Not me. Not this guy. I had no idea what I was doing when I asked Gina how to make an Old fashioned.

Kayleigh McNamara is a graduate student of Publishing at DePaul University. She has a B.A. in English & Creative Writing from the University of Iowa where she was nominated for the Iowa Review David Hamilton Prize. Kayleigh is currently working as an intern with the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.