Boom Goes the Bar: Toby Maloney on Flavor, Function, and the Future of Cocktails 

Some of the best cocktail ideas aren’t born in labs—they come out of long shifts and dive-bar conversations.

Toby Maloney, bartender, bar owner, and creator of BOOM flavor bases, has built a career on that belief. With roots in the kitchen and years behind some of the country’s most influential bars, Maloney champions speed without sacrifice and innovation that actually works. From The Elbow Room to BOOM, his approach keeps tradition intact while quietly pushing it forward.

Below, Maloney reflects on his path into bartending, his philosophy on reimagining classics, and where he sees the industry headed.

What first drew you to bartending? How did your early experiences shape your approach to cocktails?

I started cooking when I needed a step stool to reach the counter, and adult supervision to turn on the oven. Thanks MOM! My parents also traveled widely and so I got to eat all kinds of food starting when my hands and a bib were the epitome of etiquette. Hands and bib combo is still my preferred method of tucking into a feast. I went to culinary school for a bit and spent many years cooking in all kinds of restaurants. So, I would say that I have a culinary slant to my theories on cocktails. I don’t think this necessarily means bizarre flavor combinations. I think of it as focusing on balance, texture, temperature, and aroma with an inquisitiveness about technique. I’m still jazzed to hear about different ways of creating cocktails, and everything that goes into them.  

I would call myself a traditionalist. I love that “molecular mixology” is out there in the world. I love sitting down and having my mind blown by things that I could never imagine in a million years, let alone create. I am giddy when I sit with a bunch of barkeeps and argue over the specs for a Mai Tai or a Sazerac. I adore seeing the magic of functional flair, the little ergonomic intricacies of a killer service bartender, and the quiet skill of a dive bartender ushering 50 boisterous drunks out of a bar at 4am with grace and aplomb. I think that the hospitality industry is endlessly interesting and inspiring. The bad days and the aches and pains of what we do are luckily outweighed by the good days, the staff that goes into battle with you and the feeling of being in the zone.         

What led you to open The Elbow Room in Vancouver, WA?

My business partners, Monique King and Paul Rosenbluh. found the space through Monique’s brother, who lives in Camas. They asked me to come up and see the space, possibly consult a bit on the menu, and do some staff training. I fell in love with the frozen in time vibe of The Elbow Room. I immediately wanted in —  headfirst — into the deep end. I love Monique’s sense of style and thought we could bring it into the 21st century but keep its old school soul at the same time — NOT making at a 70’s theme bar, but a bar that had the feeling of the 1970s. Our biggest goal was to see what the space needed. Nothing too obvious on the walls. Nothing tie-dye or “groovy.” 

The cocktail program needed to also feel organic. I didn’t want to shove a mixology program into The Elbow Room. I wanted there to be bartenders free pouring, and chatting, I envisioned it to be just shy of them having a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the back bar.  

How did the idea for your BOOM flavor bases come about?

I know that the idea of batching isn’t new. I have batched so many cocktails in my life, for music festivals, and cocktail conferences, slushy machines and kegs. So I don’t want this to sound like it’s a totally new invention. Ok, so why booms are different is that they are conceived not as a cocktail. Most batching is where you build a drink, and then scale it. This is an art, and a science.  

Making a BOOM is creating something that is flavor, sugar and bitterness. It is built to go alongside 2 ounces of Distillate and three-quarter ounce of acid, either lemon or lime. I think of BOOMS as like building a soup, stew, sauce or curry. The Boom can have a number of things, such as purees, juices, herbs, spices, aperitifs, digestifs, amari, fortified wine, fruit, liqueur, preserves, and various other flora, fauna, flotsam and jetsam. The idea is to build complexity through echoing and complementing flavors; to stop just shy of it becoming busy. 

These would be cocktails that would be impossible to build a la minute due to the number of touches and the often very small amounts of certain components. The BOOMs are made to be used in equal parts with the spirit. So, both the booze and the boom are poured in two-ounce amounts. It is of utmost importance that the BOOMs have the same viscosity as the Spirit and the Citrus juice. So, every specialty drink is a three-bottle pickup of two ounces, two ounces, three quarter ounces, or 8 count, 8 count, 3 count.

This allows us to make nuanced craft cocktails in seconds instead of minutes. In a dive bar atmosphere time is lackadaisical, marked in Four-Four time, shots of well whiskey, and frequent trips to the can, so watching fussy little cocktails being made is especially excruciating.

What’s your approach to reimagining classics like the freezer-door martini?

So I was sitting at the counter at Paul’s watching a server make an ice cream float, scooping a frozen “liquid.” In a quick flash, I thought of making a “sorbet” of vermouth. With a tiny bit of research, I realized I wanted to make a granita. A granita has a gravely texture. I know this sounds like blasphemy in this era of silky smooth, clarified, crystal-clear everything, and that’s the point. 

We have all had those overshaken martinis “up.” They are opaque with bubbles and have a layer of crunchy ice floating on top. I’ve heard these referred to as skating rink martinis, because the ice floats on top. They are not my favorite. 

I feel that there is a giant divide between taking ice that is frozen by itself and breaking that down during shaking, and freezing sherry, vermouth, and bitters together with water and a bit of spirit. The architecture of the ice is different: it freezes in sheets instead of cubes; it isn’t stable in the same way as ice-machine ice, and it doesn’t float — it’s suspended throughout the cocktail. 

As an added benefit, texture-wise, it slips across your tongue. It feels frictionless, like a hockey puck sliding across the blue line. The other thing it does is freeze the garnish into a snowball. It’s not rock-hard like if you froze it with liquid nitrogen, but it has the satisfying gush of biting into a snow cone. The onion is the best version of this, as it’s less dense than the olive, so you should try the Gibson. 

In the reimagining of these cocktails — embracing the things I could not change and leaning into the “problems” — I stopped seeing the crystal-clear, “silky” martini as the platonic ideal and embraced the new version for its unique aspects. 

How do you create “story-driven” cocktails?

There are a few things I start with when creating a cocktail. First is Intention & Inspiration, where is it being served and to whom? A daytime pool party for a college graduation and an award ceremony for a group of retiring English professors are going to be very different drinks. Comfort & Curiosity is the next thing I tackle. Do I want fun and whimsical flavors or more esoteric components? What glassware is appropriate? What kind of ice will work best in the venue? Is the cocktail built a la minute or batched in large Igloo coolers with a spigot?  

Once the big questions are asked then it’s down to figuring out what flavors are going to work best, what level of bitterness should be present. What style of drink? Spritzes? Old fashioned? Martini/Manhattan or Negroni? Tropical? Once the ingredients come together, it’s time to name it. This is either super fun and easy or a huge pain in the ass. A good name really makes a drink fly. If the Cosmopolitan had been named “Dirty Harry’s Remorse” it would never have been a phenomenon.         

What excites you most about the future of cocktail culture?

I think we are due for another turn of the cycle. We had the cocktail renaissance of the early 2000s, the backlash to that was White Claw. Now, with a rise in science-centric bars and dive bars with craft cocktails across the globe, I see that there is space for something new. Maybe it is THC cocktail bars with killer stoner food? In the future when NA “distillates” quality goes up and price comes down,w e will be able to create better zero-proof cocktails. 

I personally would like to see bars without cell phones…but that is my curmudgeonly “get off my lawn” take.