Well, there is still some content coming from our trip, but we’d like to share it when the new products arrive at the shop, plus it’s nice to be home and talk about things that are happening to us at the moment.

We were just at the cottage enjoying the warm weather, and for us warm weather signifies cocktail season.

We’ve been working on a few collaborations this summer, and one we were especially excited for was our collaboration with NY based wood turner Chris Gallagher. Chris, hands down makes the world’s best cocktail muddlers, and we asked him to make us a collection of his famous PUG! muddlers in Teak, Wenge, and Rosewood for the shop.

The collection’s inspiration came from the bar ware Jens Quistgaard designed for Dansk in the 1950s, pieces like the ice bucket and citrus cutting board pictured below.

You can really see the connection in this shot, those lines are strong and tapered much like mid century Danish furniture.

One of the most famous muddler based drinks is the mojito, one of our summer favorites!

This gorgeous black lacquer sakura plate holding our mint garnish ($120) is a brand new piece available in the shop, it is hand tooled by Kyoto based artisan Tomii Takashi and then finished with traditional black lacquer-ware made from the sap of lacquer trees.

The beautiful bamboo coal chikutan stir sticks are $30 for pack of 3.

We also have a collection of Japanese black lacquer spoons by Takashi-san from tea spoons starting at $35 to this large hand tooled spoon for $60.

First step: Cut your lime into smaller wedges.

Pictured: vintage Dansk citrus cutting board.

Step 2: Add about 4 wedges to a sturdy glass.

Step 3: Add 2 spoonfuls of raw sugar to the lime. Japanese artisan spoon is optional, but it seems to make the drinks more pleasurable to make.

Step 4: Muddle together the lime and the sugar, you want to release all of those essential oils and flavours!

Step 5: add your mint leaves, I personally like using a big bunch.

Step 6: You’ll need to make some crushed ice now, take some standard ice from your freezer and put it in a strong container like a stainless steel cocktail shaker. Use your muddler to break the ice into pieces, woods like teak, wenge, and rosewood, are very dense hard woods and water resistant so don’t worry about damaging your muddler.

Pictured: Tools of the trade.

Step 7: Add ice then rum, and then a a splash of soda water. Give it a quick stir add your mint garnish and enjoy!

If you really want to get fancy you can rub mint around the rim of your glass so that you get a nice mint smell when you go in for your first sip.

We used these mason jars which made some ridiculously large drinks. Add sunshine and we were properly drowsy for the afternoon. So tasty though!

Muddlers are currently available in the shop ($85 each). They will be available online via our webstore next week. We will announce when the site goes live! We can’t wait to make ordering from afar a more efficient process. We will miss the one-to-one conversations we’ve been having though.