ASHLAND — It started as a video way of sharing with his friends in the Ohio Garrison of the 501st Legion during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
Almost one year, and 59 episodes later, John Moser is still shaking and stirring “Cocktails Out of Quarantine.”
In the pre-pandemic days, the Ashland resident and members of the Star Wars enthusiasts in the garrison often assembled in full costume for charity events, primarily in northeast Ohio.
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Ohio in March 2020, those kinds of events and gatherings largely ended due to quarantine and lockdown orders.
“My commanding officer in the garrison wondered what we could do to keep members engaged and suggested videos we could share with one another,” said Moser, a long-time Ashland University history professor.
Moser, a veteran of local community theater performances, chose to marry two of his favorite activities into a video — performing and creating craft cocktails.
Using his iPhone and working in his kitchen, Moser recorded and edited a video of how to prepare one of his favorite cocktails, an Old Fashioned.
The initial video, available with all the others on his YouTube channel, was aimed at his fellow garrison members. But Moser noticed it gained a little internet traction with viewers — and he really enjoyed making it.
“When I made the first one, it was intended to be a one-off,” Moser said. “(But) like a lot of people, I developed a COVID hobby. A lot of people got their hobbies because they didn’t have enough to do. My workload is as heavy as its ever been, but these episodes only take me about an hour an hour, including post-production editing.
“I don’t have millions of people watching. The biggest have more than 100 views. But I kept hearing from people they enjoyed it, that they had tried making the cocktail. So I kept going.”
Initially launched as Cocktails In Quarantine, the series was renamed when some of the government restrictions were lifted in late spring/early summer.
Regardless of the name, the roughly five-minute videos have provided a fun outlet for Moser, who has fine-tuned an ability to make craft cocktails he has found are simply not available in many area bars.
Moser said he had tried his own at homemade beer, but found he could not make the quality of the beers available at the Uniontown Brewing Co. in Ashland and The Phoenix Brewing Co. in Mansfield.
“But I had been to some really nice cocktail bars in Cleveland and Chicago and elsewhere and I found I couldn’t get those same kinds of cocktails in Ashland. I can get some decent ones, but not the variety I found elsewhere,” he said.
He started making cocktails at home, slowly expanding his bar and adding “more exotic” liquors from what he could purchase at Buhler’s in Ashland and those his friends brought back from trips elsewhere.
Moser, who describes himself on the videos as “a historian and amateur mixologist,” said he wanted to show people how to make drinks he enjoys and also display drinks easy enough to make at home with readily available ingredients.
“The determining factor is — does it look like a drink I would enjoy? I have not done a martini (video), because frankly, I don’t like martinis,” he said with a laugh
“If the drink has a history to it, so much the better. A lot of these drinks are really quite old and have very rich histories,” he said.
One such cocktail is the “Suffering Bastard,” a bourbon and dry gin-based drink developed at the Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, Egypt in 1942 during World War II, an era Moser knows well.
The hotel was a favorite watering hole for British officers and the press corps. It was initially created as a hangover cure for soldiers who had celebrated too much the night before and were about to head back out to the fighting against the Germans, Moser said.
Moser began the video series by showing drinks he knew well. As it’s progressed, he’s expanded his repertoire by internet research and subscriptions to websites like Liquor.com. Along the way, he has found a taste for gin as an ingredient.
“Before I started doing these videos, I never really liked gin. When you think about it, no one just drinks gin. Now, I think it’s the perfect cocktail liquor. Bourbon tastes great on its own, but there are times it will overwhelm the other flavors in a cocktail. Gin tends to complement other ingredients and make everything taste better,” Moser said.
Episode No. 59 was posted online this week, featuring a drink called The 20th Century, a cocktail invented in 1937 and named for a famous train that ran between New York and Chicago. It’s a gin-based drink with the sweet and sour of citrus, and the rich flavor of chocolate, according to Moser.
So how long will the series last?
“I will do it until I get tired of it or until people stop watching,” Moser said. “Sometimes I get viewers in the teens and I think people have lost interest. Then I hear from people that they really like the videos and from people who have tried to make them and enjoyed them.
“Comments like those inspire me to keep going.”
