by Quan Huynh, December 1, 2021

This Fall was my last term at Kendall College, as I was graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Food & Beverage Management. One of the last classes I took at Kendall was the Sprits and Mixology class by instructor John Laloganes. I have taken several classes with John during my years at Kendall, he was a very enthusiastic instructor with great knowledge in the F&B industry, especially as an expert in wines, beers, and spirits.

The class was 6 weeks long, I got to learn and taste different types of liquors, along with how to make the popular cocktails from each base liquor. The final project was an interesting challenge, which we had formed a team of two from the beginning of the term and worked our way on creating our own cocktail recipes that would relate to a theme of our choice. The other teams brought up the best creative cocktail recipes to share in front of class on the last days, including the themes of Fall, Halloween, and Oscars. Our team’s theme was called “The Ocean View”. My teammate made a Bourbon cocktail mixed with the ingredients of allspice liqueur, cinnamon, orange Juice that brought out the nice yellow color of the sunshine, that we named it the Sunrise. For my cocktail, I mixed Gin, lemon juice, simple syrup with the shaken method, then added grape juice afterwards in a lowball glass, garnished with grapes. It turned out with a beautiful light purple color that demonstrated the sunset on the beach, which was also the name of my cocktail, the Sunset.

The class was very fun and informative, I am glad to be a part of it to wrap up my time at Kendall, and for now, I am more than ready for my future in the hospitality industry.