Abby Laub
The vivacious Jennifer Brian wiped condensation from the glasses of three beautifully crafted cocktails and rattled off the cocktail ingredients like a chef in a kitchen planning next week’s menu.
Fat-washed sesame, egg whites, cloves, apples, bergamot, persimmons, charred lime, star anise, some roots I’ve never heard of—on and on …
“Really, you’re a foodie at heart, aren’t you?” I asked.
Without hesitation, Brian—the owner of Louisville-based Make & Muddle and author of the newly published Classic Cocktail Revival—said, “Yes! I grew up in and around kitchens and gardens my entire life. Every single woman on both sides of my family are phenomenal cooks. Phenomenal.
“My earliest memories are being in the kitchen at the hip of my grandma, stirring gravy. It was the smell of tomato vines … all of the things that were so central to our family. I collect cookbooks, and that is a happy place for me. I absolutely am starstruck by chefs.”
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Abby Laub
The self-proclaimed “cocktail evangelist” combines extensive knowledge of ingredients with the knowledge of what people in 2025 are looking for in spirits. Thirty years of working in luxury catering proved educational.
“I was doing high-end events and multi-course dinners for clients who wanted to have 10 or 12 friends over for dinner,” Brian recalled. “Then I moved into more event planning instead of the catering. I really wanted to do the flowers and work with all of my favorite vendors and design pretty events.
“I did that for a while and then realized that there was this growing need for signature cocktails in the event world and also a growing need to simplify processes for bartenders.”
Brian also noticed that the good bartenders were gravitating toward city centers for better money, creating markets that needed three- or four-ingredient solutions that batch well, “so that folks can get the same cocktail, no matter who’s behind the bar,” she said.
She quickly realized the need for premier, natural, fresh syrups designed to simplify beverage making for restaurants or at-home cocktail connoisseurs. This need was exacerbated by COVID-19, when people decided to stay home.
“[People] want something customized that they can do at home, and we are totally seeing that still,” she said.
Make & Muddle was founded in 2018, and the line of mixers now includes 10 signature products, including the flagship “7 Syrup” to make “the best old fashioned you have ever had.” There’s also cucumber mint, strawberry basil, blueberry lavender shrub, and many more, including recipes that Brian said vary based on seasonal ingredients “so our two-pepper agave syrup is gonna be hotter some seasons than others because of those fresh serrano peppers.”
Brian stressed that people should know what is in their food and their drinks. “[From] ground to glass and farm to table is how I prefer to cook and make cocktails … and as local as we can get is what we always prefer. I think what we’ve really come up against over the years is the big production of getting a product out there.
“There were so many times our former co-packer would say, ‘Why don’t you just do blah blah blah,’ and I said, ‘That’s not why I got into this. I’m not here to put chemical flavors in anything.’ ”
Brian researches and develops all her Make & Muddle products in an industrial kitchen in Louisville.
“It started with the 7 Syrup,” she said. “I really wanted a good pumpkin spice liqueur for a client, who wanted a seasonal pumpkin cocktail for a huge Halloween party. So, I kept fussing with it … It didn’t want to be alcohol; it wanted to be a syrup. We started bottling it. Since then, it has been a joy to explore the curiosity of ‘I wonder what would happen if …’ It has served me very well.”
This fall, Brian will release four new Make & Muddle products, including a bloody Mary mix, a bloody Mary rim, a syrup for the Kentucky Herbal Society called Four Tea Tonic, and a Hoosier Black Forest old fashioned syrup in a collaborative project with the Old Homestead Distillery in French Lick, Indiana.
“It is a smoked persimmon syrup that has molasses and maple syrup,” she said. “It’s pretty unreal. My dad’s side of the family is from Indiana, and I grew up eating persimmon pudding. It’s a regional thing.”
Like Brian’s other mixers, these are designed to “work with every single spirit. It cannot be a one-trick pony,” she said.
Brian’s favorite cocktail? “A Manhattan, hands down. I love a G&T [gin and tonic], too, but as far as a mixed drink, a Manhattan is just understated elegance. It’s so beautiful. And you can swap out pretty much anything you want to,” she said, adding that the Make & Muddle version of a Manhattan features a spiced cherry vanilla syrup.
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Classic Cocktail Revival is chock-full of easy-to-follow recipes, tips and straightforward cocktail know-how to demystify the process for at-home mixologists in the increasingly popular home bar industry. Plus, it’s just fun.
“The book is written in a very tongue-in-cheek kind of religious speak,” Brian said.
Brian’s website, makeandmuddle.com, describes Classic Cocktail Revival as “drawing on the language of tent revivals to offer an entertaining and irreverent history of each drink … taking the reader on a journey from the ‘genesis’ of classic cocktails to the ‘revelation’ of mocktails, ending with a ‘benediction.’ ”
The book was one of many ventures Brian had pursued for years—including spirits events, education, cocktail events, and menu designs for bars and restaurants “before I realized I needed to pick a lane, so we picked products because it was a revenue source,” Brian said.
At the beginning of each chapter in Classic Cocktail Revival, Brian breaks down the recipes and their foundational ingredients.
“Then we can substitute anything in,” she said. “The spirit could be something else. We start swapping it out, and I teach people how to customize the cocktails, teach them what they like, and empower them to experiment on their own.”
It’s part of her bigger mission to create connection over cocktails and help people learn their preferences.
Abby Laub
“Ultimately, all of this is about what happens over a good pour,” Brian said. “And that is literally the foundation of the business, which is collaboration and craft and connection. And those three things are the heart of the business—to take a moment to sit down with people you love and share an idea, and slow down and enjoy the ritual of building the cocktail, and all of those things that happen that take you from one head space to another.”
If you’re working on building a home bar or crafting a menu for a dinner party, Brian said to start with deciding on a “brown or clear” spirit. And then figure out the “vibe … Is it family? A celebration? The girls? Is it bubbles or a bloody Mary bar?”
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As fall approaches, Brian said she’ll be doing a lot with apple cider reductions.
“It adds all of that complexity of the season, and then we throw in the baking spices and persimmon syrup, and it turns into some pretty magical stuff,” she said. “And we have a fall mimosa that we call ‘Sweater Weather.’ It’s fall in a glass; it’s really gorgeous.”
With a nod to an article from humor website McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Brian named her other fall cocktail on the menu “Decorative Gourd Season.”
Abby Laub
Grab a mixing glass and try these crafted cocktails, courtesy of Jennifer Brian.
Rosemary Grapefruit Spritz
1 ounce Ketel One Botanical Grapefruit & Rose vodka
1 ounce Make & Muddle 3 Herb Gracious Grapefruit mixer
3 ounces prosecco
Build in a large wine goblet with ice and stir gently. Garnish with fresh rosemary and a lime wheel.
Aperol Spritz
2 ounces Aperol
1 ounce soda water
3 ounces prosecco
Build in a large wine goblet with ice. Stir gently. Garnish with an orange slice.
Make & Muddle Old Fashioned
2 ounces bourbon
¾ ounce Make & Muddle 7 Syrup
Dash of orange bitters
Build cocktail in a mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with cherry pick and orange peel.
Visit makeandmuddle.com to check out Make & Muddle products.