Food Safety in Cocktails

General Food Safety

This page is under construction. 

This website is dedicated to safer cocktails specifically, but many general food handling principles apply to work preparing, storing, and serving cocktail ingredients. For proper certification and more detailed information, please see the "Further Reading" links. Though listing every safety code is beyond the scope of CocktailSafe.org, some hopefully-relevant food handling/safety tips are below. 

[Note: Needs significant additions.]

Some general food safety tips: 

• Refrigerators should be set to 40F or colder; freezers at 0F or colder.
• Note that even freezing doesn’t kill bacteria; only slows/stops reproduction. Heating to an appropriate temperature does.
• The bacteria “danger zone” where they reproduce the fastest is between 40F and 140F, so it’s important to keep anything that can spoil outside this zone most of the time.
• Don’t wash produce before storing, as this encourages spoilage; wash just before using.
• Rinse/wash with cold water anything like citrus or melon that you cut/squeeze, as cutting can bring dirt/bacteria on the outside of the fruit to the inside
• Use separate cutting boards for meat
• Use clean, dry bar towels often, rather than risk cross-contamination

Further Reading/Resources: 

• Servsafe.com from the National Restaurant Association offers online and classroom courses and certifications in food safety and now allergen safety (for a fee).
• Toxnet (from National Institutes of Health) https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov
• http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/food-safety
• ATSDR Toxic Substances Portal by the CDC http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/index.asp
• FoodSafety.gov https://www.foodsafety.gov