Bartenders Are Rethinking Cocktail Garnishes and Helping Fight Food Waste

Aug 02, 2023

Does anyone even want garnishes anymore?

Evan Sung

After years of maximalist food and beverage trends, many bartenders are starting to embrace minimalism. And no, it’s not just the pointed rejection of the unnecessary for the sake of simplicity — it’s minimalism in pursuit of the perfect cocktail, one that can stand on its own without supporting fanfare. These cocktails come in all shapes and sizes: slender highballs of flavored liqueur and club soda with a long block of clear ice, a Martini served alongside a single olive and lemon peel, or a Margarita topped with a citrus salt in lieu of a hunk of lime balanced atop the rim. Bartenders are turning away from overly ornate cocktail garnishes for their own gastronomic peace of mind, but also because these accoutrements contribute more than their fair share to food waste.

“One kilo of waste from lemon garnishes amounts to about the same carbon emissions as a 20-minute journey in a car.”

When Calum Fraser, ambassador for zero-waste spirits brand Discarded Spirits Co., shared this statistic during a seminar at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail conference, I had to do some mental math: One kilo is about eight lemons’ worth of juice or makes for 32 lemon wedges that might go entirely ignored on top of a mixed drink. And it’s worth mentioning that for most of the world, that lemon traveled quite far from the tropical place in which it was grown to find its way to the top of your glass, meaning carbon emissions are certainly part of the equation. While I understand the visual appeal of a cocktail garnish, from a simple slice of citrus to a more ornamental combination of fruits, leaves, and spices, it’s worth asking: Is the resulting waste really worth it?

When it comes to rethinking cocktail garnishes, there are two camps. The first is set on abolishing them. That means no garnishes, no waste, and, more importantly, that whatever is in the glass needs to stand on its own. The second lean into a more revisionist approach by making closed loop cocktails, where waste is diverted and transformed into new ingredients. Think dehydrated lemon peels turned into salt for the rim of a glass, for example. Each effort speaks to how bartenders are looking inward at the ways in which their practices affect not only the environment through waste but also their bottom lines with regards to inventory cost.

“I have a strong stance on cocktail garnishes,” says Cody Pruitt, owner of Libertine, a buzzy new French bistro in New York City’s West Village. “In my personal cocktail work over the past decade or so, I've always been minimalist, with the occasional peel or zest finding their way into a drink, but nowadays, I'm vehemently anti-garnish of any kind.” While Pruitt’s take is perhaps extreme, his reasoning for it is sound, and I can attest that the garnish-free cocktails served at Libertine are entirely delicious. The mission at Libertine is to find the highest quality ingredient and present it in the most delicious way possible, be it a heap of butter from Normandy or the most succulent anchovies. His cocktails have to play by the same rules.

“I spend so much time sourcing the exact right products and ingredients, staying up late at night for weeks on end nerding out over glassware selections and investing an unhealthy amount of money on multiple ice options. Why would I then put something on top of it?” exclaims Pruitt. “The majority of the time, garnishes range from either simply extraneous (inedible pineapple fronds, anyone?) to outright incorrect (a lime or lemon or orange wedge encourages guests to squeeze them into the drink, which should be properly balanced by the time the drink is in front of the guest in the first place).”

But Matt Seigel, sustainability director at plant-based restaurant Little Saint in Healdsburg, California, sees the problem of citrus waste as an opportunity. His team buys fresh citrus in bulk and dehydrates it for edible garnishes; the kitchen uses the whole fruits once peels are taken off for the bar, and they pre-cut a small quantity of lemon wedges for each service so as not to waste any.

The bar program at Little Saint and their newly launched dining concept, The Second Story, features cocktails made with fresh pressed juices from a variety of fruits and vegetables. “We are fortunate to have access to such incredible produce, and we don’t want to see any of it go to the compost bin so when we are making fresh juice from, say, cucumbers, after we are done juicing, there is always tons of pulp leftover,” says Seigel. “We dehydrate that pulp, throw it into a spice grinder to use as a rim for the adjoining cocktail, or even turn it into a chip.” One humble strawberry will be used three ways: the fruit juice is made into syrup, the pulp is dehydrated into a chip for garnish, and the strawberry tops are infused into spirits.

Across the pond, Iain McPherson, bartender and owner of Panda & Sons in Edinburgh, Scotland, experiments with freeze drying as a way to help omit bar waste. Instead of shipping citrus from around the globe a few times a week, he makes a couple massive orders a year to blend and freeze dry citrus juice that gets reconstituted in a bit of water before each service.

While investing in dehydrators and juicers might be a bit of a stretch for reducing bar waste at home, there are low-waste lessons to be learned from these bartenders. Consider using the hulls from juiced lemons for Limoncello or just being okay with a less adorned cocktail at a bar. After all, if you want a snack with your drink, just order a snack.