“I wanted to create a cocktail that Warhol might drink”

Absolut Vodka Global Brand Ambassador, Rico Dynan fell into making cocktails as an 18-year-old on holiday in Greece, a vocation he continued while at university before pursuing a full-time bartending career. Having worked in some of the UK’s most iconic bars, Rico joined Absolut in 2014 in an ambassador role and as our resident mixologist. We caught up with Rico at the launch of Warhol’s Absolut ‘blue’ limited edition bottle to discuss how he came up with the idea for Absolut Warhol’s Milk Punch, the signature cocktail that marks our reignited collaboration with the iconic American artist.

What made you pursue a career as a bartender and mixologist?

I fell into it when I got a bar job when I was 18 on holiday in Faliraki in Greece and ended up staying stayed three years! I didn’t take it too seriously to start with and continued working in bars such as Dr Wu’s and Northern Lights in Leeds while I was at university before dropping out to pursue bartending as a career in bars including Boutique and Jake’s (in Leeds) followed by The Portobello Star in London’s Notting Hill. I remember trying a Mojito for the first time and being like, “This is pretty delicious!”. If you love cooking and creating new flavours, as I do, you can fall into bartending quite easily because they are all intertwined. When I started researching and reading about sours, swizzles, martinis and old fashioneds, I quickly became aware of a cocktail culture that few knew about; it was like a secret club. The bartending industry has evolved in recent years and many bartenders are almost as well-known today, as chefs are in the culinary industry. Bartending is a genuine global community, of which I’m proud to be a part.

How do you approach creating new cocktails such as Warhol’s Milk Punch?

There are so many different ways to start. It can be an idea, a name, certain ingredients or a mixing technique. Absolut Warhol’s Milk Punch was a little different for me as I’m a huge fan of his. Warhol led me to Lichtenstein and together with my love of Marvel Comics [I used to write and draw my own] fuelled my passion for art as a kid. I remember picking up a copy of my stepdad’s Rolling Stone magazine when I was seven, seeing the original Warhol Absolut artwork and then recreating it myself, over and over. I wanted this cocktail celebrating the rediscovery of the Absolut ‘blue’ painting to resonate and have credibility and spent a couple of months researching, reading books and watching documentaries to find inspiration.

I’m a huge fan of Warhol. Warhol led me to Lichtenstein and together with my love of Marvel Comics fuelled my passion for art as a kid. 

Why did you decide on a milk punch?

During my research, I kept stumbling across articles about how Warhol had this weird diet. He didn’t like protein and it seemed he didn’t care for food, bar Campbell’s Soup, too much. But he did have a notorious sweet tooth – Warhol used to go to Serendipity 3 in New York that’s famous for its frozen hot chocolate desserts. He liked cornflakes but didn’t eat much fruit besides bananas and cherries. I had a big enough variety of flavours I could work with, it was a question of how to use them.

How many variations did you test before finalising the cocktail’s recipe? 

I didn’t do as many variations as I expected. I was instantly drawn to the idea of banana because of the iconic Velvet Underground album cover and while cereal doesn’t sound like an obvious ingredient I remember going to Hawksmoor, the steak restaurant, for the first time when I moved to London ten years ago and it had a cornflake milkshake on its menu. I clarified the cereal milk, which is curdling milk with acidic ingredients to create a silky smooth, clear drink. I then tried adding some fresh banana, but this didn’t quite work out how I had expected, so, I tried a little bit of banana liqueur instead and that worked a treat. It was then a question of how we could introduce a chocolate flavour without creating a creamy drink. The answer was fat-washing Absolut with cocoa butter. We had the building blocks to create a great cocktail inspired by Warhol: we had cereal milk, we had sugar, some lemon juice, banana liqueur and finally, we had the crystal-clear chocolate-flavoured Absolut.

What is fat washing?

It is a technique where you add fat to alcohol, let the fat solidify and take it away. I first stumbled on this technique 15 years ago, using bourbon and bacon fat. You simply, pour bacon fat into some bourbon, shake it up and leave it in the fridge overnight. All the bacon fat will rise to the top and when you remove it, you are left with bacon-flavoured bourbon. It is that simple. This is how we got the chocolate flavour in the cocktail. Instead of fat washing using bourbon and bacon, we used Absolut and cocoa butter!

Given Warhol’s iconic Campbell Soup Cans painting, did you consider using tomato soup as a core ingredient?

Yes, but only for about 30 seconds, but I was like “I’m not doing a savoury cocktail”, which would have been an easier drink to make. Andy Warhol wasn’t a real big drinker and legend has it that he used Absolut as cologne. I wanted to create a cocktail that he might have been tempted to try even if he was teetotal by tapping into his sweet tooth.

What’s the most unusual cocktail you have made?

There have been some weird ones down the line but the weirdest was the height of my laziness. Someone came into the bar and asked me to make a banoffee pie cocktail but we had no ingredients that would come close. I said, ‘Give me a minute’ and ran around to a nearby shop, bought a banoffee pie and then stuck it in a blender. He was like, “This is the best drink I have ever had in my life!”.

What is the easiest cocktail to make?

The easiest cocktail you can make at home, I would say, is a sour. If you’ve got any spirit, a lime or lemon and some sugar, you can make a cocktail. A whiskey sour is whiskey, lemon and sugar. A daiquiri is rum, lime and sugar. A margarita is tequila, triple sec, and lime. If you’ve got tea bags at home, whether English breakfast tea, Earl Grey tea, lavender tea, green tea, strawberry and cucumber tea, put some in cold water and leave them in the fridge overnight. Come back in the morning and you have an ice-cold brew. Add lemon, a sugary syrup and a spirit and you’ll love it. I like to add a little lemon and sugar to English Breakfast tea and some Absolute Peach Vodka – an easy-to-make peach-iced tea that is delicious.

Do you drink cocktails yourself?

I drink cocktails but only now and then. I love an espresso martini. At my age, I don’t want to be challenged by anything, especially when it comes to drinks and an espresso martini is simply delicious!