Sam ross

In 2012, internationally renowned bartender Sam Ross of Milk & Honey NYC (now Attaboy) presented a training session on cocktail families to a group of bartenders at The Loft in Sydney. He approached the cocktail education event as if the audience were a new member of staff at the esteemed New York bar. This article is part of the “looking back” series.
Before Death & Co authors released The Cocktail Codex in 2018, Sam Ross was educating bartenders on the concept of cocktail families. He explained how any cocktail can be traced back to five or six cocktail families, such as the Sour, the Collins and the Gimlet. Speaking in ounces instead of mls (1 oz = 25 ml; 2 oz = 50 ml; ¾ oz = 20 ml), he also presented the simple formulas of balance between the spirit and the lemon/sugar components.