Delicious Musings has published an article featuring Brian ‘Cat’ Catapang, the beverage director and co-owner of Magnus on Water in Biddeford. The article looks at the intersection of science, exploration, and creativity that are part of Catapang’s process.
Cat explains that he often pushes against the grain, testing the edge between expertise and discovery. For him, mistakes are essential—you have to make all the bad cocktails before you can make the good ones. Mastery of technique and flavor frees him to try combinations that make little sense on paper but reveal themselves in the glass. Balance, a word he finds as hollow as “smooth,” is not the goal. Drinks should evoke emotion: a nightcap can lean sweet or sharp and acidic, and both still achieve their own kind of equilibrium.
Read the full article here: A Maine Bartender Inspired by the Ocean