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Artesian cocktails on tap

Mika Ammunét’s Bar Mate is Finland’s first bar serving handmade highball cocktails on tap. “I pour 4-5 drinks from the tap while the other bartender makes one drink to shake.” Multi-award-winning bartender Mika Ammunét found his passion more than 10 years ago in Australia. A small family-run bar charmed the young man and his career choice was clear. Ammunét completed a degree in English and moved to Australia for two and a half years to seek professional qualifications. “I was planning Bar Mate when I read an article in English that highlighted highball cocktails as the next bar trend. I decided then that I would focus on making perfect highballs at Bar Mate. At the same time, for once in Finland we would be on the breaking wave.” A highball is a drink served in a tall glass with alcohol, ice and an extender. In Ammunét’s highball cocktails, the extender is flavoured to give the drink more flavour and depth. The drink is then carbonated a dozen times and transferred to a steel tank, from where it is poured cold and fresh into the customer’s glass from the tap.

Consistency, speed and taste

The five-tap taptail system, supplied and designed by Barfix, has been designed for Bar Mate’s needs and space.
The cocktails are prepared in advance in an easy to open and close steel bar.
The drink is poured into the customer’s glass cold, as the tanks are stored in a refrigerator built under the tap system.
Each tank can hold 50-75 cocktails at a time.

What is the added value of a cocktail prepared in advance in a tank? Consistency, speed and flavour, Ammunét says. Pre-prepared cocktails have enough time to ferment to homogeneity and the customer gets a crisper cocktail that stays bubbly for longer. For the restaurateur, cocktails served on tap mean more drinks sold. Ammunét pours 4-5 drinks from the tap at the same time, while another bartender makes one drink to shake. While pouring a drink into a glass is quick, making a perfect cocktail takes time. Thanks to the taptail system, the work is done in advance, when the bar is closed. “It’s a craft. We mix and prep the ingredients for the extender early in the week and leave them to season. Some mixes take up to 24 hours for the flavours to infuse sufficiently.” Once the mixes and preps are carefully made and the drink mix is put into the tank, anyone working at the Bar Mate counter can pour the perfect drink into a glass. “From the tap, you pour the drink about halfway into an ice-cold glass, ice on the back and garnish. The garnishes are kept simple on purpose, because for us the drink is the crowning glory, not the garnishes.” Each 18-litre tank makes 11 litres of the finished cocktail. Space is left in the tank so that the carbonation mixes well with the drink. Thanks to the alcohol and sugar, the finished drink mix will keep for two weeks, but the rotation in Bar Mate’s taps is fast, and sometimes more mixes are made mid-week.

Raw materials by season

Bar Mate’s drinks list includes five highball cocktails on tap, five house signature drinks and five classic drinks. The list is seasonal and the ingredients for the highball extender in particular are changed according to the season. Ammunét tries to make the most of the ingredients so that there is no excess waste. For example, the low-alcohol Mating Season cocktail currently on the list uses mint stems and lemon peel. The tequila-based Pear With Me cocktail was tuned up after the summer by swapping rhubarb for pear. Currently, the most unusual of the five highballs is the rum-based Jamaican Me Crazy with carrot, lime and honeysuckle. The carrot and lime are clarified with heated milk and the mix takes 24 hours to make. “The development of the drink is sometimes about the ingredients and sometimes about the storytelling. I think about what ingredients are in season and how it’s used in different parts of the world. In Jamaica, for example, carrot is used with milk and the idea for the Jamaican Me Crazy cocktail started to bubble up.” The darkening evenings and candles of autumn call for darker, smokier flavours. Perhaps the cocktails on the next list will be built around these moments.