For many home bartenders, making a quality mixed drink entails close attention to mix ratios and the use of quality alcohol. Too often, though, the little things like mixers and garnishes that get ignored can make the difference between a killer concoction and a glass full of ho-hum! However, there are companies specializing in quality drink components just waiting for the conscientious mixologist to discover to help move your cocktails from the mundane to the magnificent.

Last December, I had the pleasure of connecting with one such company – Wildfare – which provided me with samples of its red-pepper-stuffed olives and shatta hot sauce just in time for National Bloody Mary Day, which falls annually on January 1st. If you believe there is little notable difference in the flavor imparted by olives or hot sauce, especially in a mixed drink, one sample of these will change your view forever.

The olives look like your typical green cocktail olives, but immediately upon opening, I could tell the difference. The secret, of course, is the brine. If you start with quality olives, and these do appear to be high-quality (uniform size, uniform pitting, and uniform red-pepper stuffing), it’s the brine that makes the difference. These were in a clean, fresh, almost wine-like brine with a good balance between salt and savory. The olives were crisp and firm, with nice permeation consistent throughout the olives I sampled.

The fruitiness of the olives was evident, with the brine well integrated and extending the flavor of the fruits themselves. Plus, unlike some mass-produced green olives, the red pepper stuffing maintained independence – there was no mushiness often associated with highly processed or overly cooked jarred olives. The uniquely fresh flavor, combined with the nice bite and consistency of the olives, made for a perfect martini garnish (my preferred olive-garnished beverage). In addition, the wine-like brine allowed me to make a picture-perfect dirty martini without adding any vermouth.

The red pepper shatta hot sauce was also a pleasant step up from typical store-shelf hot sauce. It was pleasantly hot while maintaining the pepper flavor. It was the perfect balance between heat and flavor, another boon for any hot sauce application, but especially useful for making a well-integrated top-shelf bloody mary. Years ago, I created my own modified version of a bloody mary – without any bloody mary mix. I dubbed it the Bloody Nail, borrowing from the old “rusty nail” drink. It’s essentially a “bloody martini,” consisting of vodka, hot sauce, and a pearl onion or olive garnish. The Wildfare shatta sauce was perfectly seasoned, providing an intense red pepper flavor that nicely balanced my freezer-chilled shot of Tito’s Vodka, offset by the firm texture of the Wildfare olives. It proved the adage that a drink is rated by its least quality component.

Making drinks at home will reflect the interests of the bartender and is as much influenced by availability as by design. If you want to ensure that your final product is consistent and consistently high, you’ll want to keep quality components on hand – and that goes for the garnish as much as the spirits and the mixers. Wilfare produces some impressively high-quality products that are as good on a plate as in a drink. And given that a drink will only be as good as the least quality component, it pays to keep quality components on hand. The biggest problem with Wildfare foods is that they’re so good they may not stay in the fridge long enough to be used in a drink. Fortunately, you can stock up because once you’ve experienced the Wildfare quality, you’ll definitely want them around in the future!