Before you compose a new recipe there are a couple of things to keep in consideration. The main rule is that the recipe has to be simple, which is what we call minimalism. It is also very important to know that if you use a base spirit (rum, vodka, or gin) there can only be one.

round

scharp

accent

non-accent

The easiest way to understand this is to use only round flavours which always will fit simply in the circle, but which will also produce a simple and flat flavour.  But perhaps as “bartender/artist”, we would want to build in an exciting detail, which will make the customer think:” What is that underlying flavour?!”

In this way the size of the geometrical figure corresponds to the quantity of the drink and the shape of the figure illustrates the taste.  We can talk of sharp            and round                   taste patterns.
In this way the following liqueurs will categories as non-accent flavours: peach, banana, melon, strawberry. However crème de menthe, coconut and amaretto are true accent flavours.  The same is applicable to spirits: rum and vodka are true non-accent flavours, whereas a character-full gin is a definite accent flavour.

With this information we can now influence the colour of our creation.  The fifth ingredient used in the animation is red curaçao, and the combination of red and yellow will produce an end result of orange. The depth of the orange is depends on the balance of red and yellow, a small amount of red will only produce a light orange. So we can now proceed to produce any colour we want. Yellow and blue, for instance, will produce a green colour. Please mind, that where red and blue will produce purple, which doesn't look very appetising.

On a classical cocktail we find little or no garnish. On the other hand, on tropical/fancy cocktails we find the opposite: extravagant garnishes by (too) enthusiastic bartenders.  Quite often I see the use of huge quantities and big pieces of fruit for decoration.  And especially with fancy cocktails the decoration is essential.  A well dressed but understated cocktail will sell itself.  It is good to spend a little more time on the garnish.

While decorating a cocktail the art of minimal sing should be applied.  Often a small piece of fruit placed in the right position on a glass will have a bigger impact than half a pineapple balanced on the rim of a glass.  I won't even talk about cost effectiveness.

How do you proceed?  I illustrate this with an animation: if you look at the front of your glass then you can build the garnish on the left hand side: It can be compared with the build-up of a painting where you start with the objects which are big and far away (clouds and horizon) to continue with smaller details working towards the front. When building a garnish you proceed in the same way. Big items at the back and smaller ones at the front.

To increase the visual aspect I always make use of green items, (like in nature and also in our panoramic painting) like a sprig of mint or a pineapple leaf.                                                           .  This will perfect the whole composition, in the same way as it is used in the kitchen, when they place a sprig of parsley on a steak, or like some dill on salmon, it is the same with cocktails.  When the composition is finished, the garnish will have a front and a back, and we can present the glass to the customer, while turning it the right way to him.

Everybody will have to use his/her creativity to develop a successful drink, so the subjects in this chapter should be used as guideline only.
Simply said, we speak about           "non-accent" flavours and            "accent" flavours.  The object is to create a balanced Round end result. To illustrate this in a simple way, I have chosen for a geometrical picture.
The ingredients used will have to fit in the circle, which illustrates the creation.

Let's analyse the following picture with this information:

The creation is composed with five liqueurs, with a main flavour of peach (in the geometrical figure this covers the biggest space and is round in flavour). The second flavour is banana with an underlying hint of apricot.

In this recipe I have chosen amaretto as the accent flavour, to illustrate that an accent flavour can be a sweet ingredient.  If you look at the animation you can see that if we would use the same amount of Amaretto as the other flavours, part of the Amaretto segment will fall outside the composition.                                                                 If we are aiming for a composition, which is balanced, we would only use a minimal amount of Amaretto. The remaining space or volume in the composition will be filled with ice or juice and it is possible to create any colour we want with the help of colourful liqueurs.