Welcome to Cocktails With Suderman, Year Three

More recipes. More techniques. More Cynar.

This newsletter turns two years old today. I am as surprised as anyone by this development. Possibly even more so. 

When I started this newsletter in late 2020, during the depths of the pandemic, I had fairly limited expectations. Bars were mostly closed. I wasn’t going out after work. I wasn’t going anywhere for work. It was, to be quite honest, a pretty dark time. I was used to spending a lot of time out and about with other people. Suddenly, all that was gone.

But I had a newly built home bar and pages and pages of cocktail recipe notes going back many years. 

I had long daydreamed about writing a book aimed at home bartenders and amateur cocktail enthusiasts. But it wasn’t obvious how that would work. At that point I had written very little about cocktails. What publisher would take a risk on my under-stirred idea for a home cocktail guide?

But on Substack, the answer to the question how would this work? was actually quite clear. I would simply…start writing it, and see if anyone signed up. The risk was almost entirely my own, in the sense that I would spend my own time working on the newsletter. 

I say almost entirely my own, because, of course, subscribers also had to take a risk on me — especially at first.

And to my surprise and delight, quite a few of you did. Many more, to be honest, than I expected.

In the ensuing two years, readers have continued to take that risk. This newsletter has grown steadily since day one. This idiosyncratic, highly personal pandemic project is now a Substack Bestseller. 

So I just want to say: Thank you — to everyone who subscribed, who read, who skimmed, who bookmarked a recipe for their next trip to the liquor store, who argued with me in the comments, who sent me photos of the cocktail menus they made for their home bars and gatherings, who said nice things about my giant dogs, who alerted me to delicious drinks I’d never heard of before, who made and drank the cocktails in the newsletter, who suggested novel substitutions, who told me they liked the newsletter but just couldn’t understand why I was so obsessed with banana liqueur. (Because it’s delicious, is why.) 

Thanks to all of you. 

You made this newsletter a success over the last two years. I very much hope you will stick with me in the year to come. 

Over the next year, we’ll continue to drill down on classic cocktails and modern riffs. We’ll look at some fun techniques for making specialized ingredients at home. I’m hoping to spend more time on large-format cocktails and batched drinks. I’ve been meaning to write about glassware and garnishes for well over a year now. We’ll probably revisit the role of ice and dilution. In a couple of days, there will be a gimmicky Thanksgiving cocktail, again. 

There will be Cynar and banana liqueur and then, most likely, even more Cynar. So much Cynar.

There will be more photos of very large dogs.

But mostly we’re going to break down interesting cocktails and try to understand how they work.

I want to recommend drinks you might not have heard of before. I want to experiment with unusual original creations. I want to keep an eye on the classics, the durable drinks that never fail to satisfy. And I want to try to figure out small tweaks to make good cocktails even better.

I want to help you, the home bartender, make great drinks. I also want to help you tinker with drinks you might already know. I want to help you make things that you enjoy, and that you can share with others.

In some sense, I want what I couldn’t have in the dark days of 2020 when this newsletter started: I want to share drinks with other people, even if I can’t be with them in person.

I have a rough roadmap in mind for the coming year, but it’s far from set in stone.

So since we’re looking ahead, I also want to ask: What do you want to see more of? What features, topics, drink categories, and ingredients do you want to hear more about? Are you interested in Subscriber Chats or other Substack features? (The banana liqueur drinks will continue until morale improves.)

Some of you have made suggestions in the comments or in emails already. But I want to hear more. Part of the pleasure of making cocktails is understanding what other people like and figuring out the best way to make it for them. To some extent, that’s true for cocktail newsletters as well.

Thanks again to everyone who read, subscribed, drank, commented, emailed, or otherwise supported this newsletter. It’s been a fun and tasty two years. I’m looking forward to many more.