|
Hendrick's is also heavy on rose. It's definitely gin but with a very different balance to the botanicalw and some delifious oddballs thrown in. I love the stuff. And I mix with Bombay or Beefeater for the most part. Though I'm finding that genever needs to feature more heavily in my life while speaking of different gins. Oh, and Cold River makes a potato liquor based gin heavy on the cardamom and fiery with alcohol that I'm really digging.
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 05:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 08:53 |
|
|
poop dood posted:Many, many craft-y bars use Bittermens, my bar included. Their poo poo is quality. I have minimal experience with the other two. But I will say that outside of Ango/Peychauds/orange there are few occasions that you'll want for something more. My bar has a mysterious vial of black walnut bitters that makes a loving crazy Manhattan, but it's a nondescript hand-labeled glass bottle. Fee Brothers Black Walnut and Rhubarb bitters, at least, are really good and versatile IMO.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 16:39
|
|
|
I did Spike Mendelsohn's not-quite-popup bar The Sheppard the other night. Their house cocktails were pretty universally weak (the best one was just a dark rum daiquiri), but as soon we we gave the bartender's control everything got really good. We did a number of classics, each was executed pretty much perfectly. I had a Laird's bottled-in-bond jack rose that was just really really good, and a corpse reviver 2 with the Lillet subbed out for Dolin Blanc is really something special. I realize the faux-speakeasy thing is played out these days but I think this particular place does it just right. There's no sillyness getting in, just an unmarked elevator that leads directly into the bar. If you live in the DMV it's definitely worth making a trip to before they shut down at the end of September.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 14:29
|
|
|
poop dood posted:Many, many craft-y bars use Bittermens, my bar included. Their poo poo is quality. I have minimal experience with the other two. But I will say that outside of Ango/Peychauds/orange there are few occasions that you'll want for something more. My bar has a mysterious vial of black walnut bitters that makes a loving crazy Manhattan, but it's a nondescript hand-labeled glass bottle. I much prefer Scrappy's to Bittermans's for alcohol based bitters, other than their Cardamom. It's too astringent. I also really enjoy Fee Bros in specific drinks that need added viscosity - they use glycerin rather than alcohol as a base so it's NA but I can detect the difference. Sometimes it adds greatly to the drink, other times it's greasy. The Maestro posted:I'm also curious if anybody knows of any other specific similar situations to the flor de Cana one. I'm definitely going to start doing more research about the products I carry but a head start is always appreciated. Rum and agave spirits on the mass market in general tend to have really abhorrent labor and environmental practices. Only buy from those with transparent and open production practices. Re; Hendricks - it's mediocre, overly sweet (pretty sure there is glycerin used as a sweetner and viscosity-booster) and silly expensive for the quality.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 06:48
|
|
|
MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Re; Hendricks - it's mediocre, overly sweet (pretty sure there is glycerin used as a sweetner and viscosity-booster) and silly expensive for the quality. What's your preferred brand?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 18:37
|
|
|
I run a few large bar programs in San Francisco so my current favorites are probably not available in most places. If I'm in an old school bar, I usually order "Bombay Dry," Brokers or Beefeater in some fashion of a martini. I also enjoy the Boudier London Dry Gin which I've had some luck finding in the wild at non-boutiquey spirit bars. Ford's Gin is a great bottle - engineered by bartenders for a great well gin, uses super pure water in their production and has good ethical production. In my bar, I drink Ventura Spirits Wilder Gin (also really love their vodka, they're in Ventura, so bottom of the Central Valley. They buy all the ugly strawberries, ferment them into a strawberry wine and distill that into their vodka. Great texture and nose.) which uses really unique botanicals (sagebrush, purple sage, bay, yerba santa, pixie mandarin peel and chuchupate) and has a lovely savory quality. It reminds me of Joshua Tree. I also enjoy DG Benham's Graton Gin - great floral botanicals and is made near my mom's house. Venus Gin #2 from Santa Cruz is like the St. George Terroir of Santa Cruz. Makes a killer gimlet - notes of sage and something that resonates in a very pleasing way for me. Smooth Ambler Greenbrier Gin from West Virginia is also a favorite. Cleaner than my other favorites above. My Wine Director LOVES Martin Millers, but I don't get the hype. It's good but I like the heavier botanical gins for my own drinking. New gins to avoid - Spiritworks, Aviation. They're too hot, stripped of everything lovely and leaving a thin texture.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 19:32
|
|
|
Any recommendations for inexpensive bubbly for a French 75? Bonus points if it'll also work well in a Kir Royale. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep an eye out!
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2016 00:15
|
|
|
Toast Museum posted:Any recommendations for inexpensive bubbly for a French 75? Bonus points if it'll also work well in a Kir Royale. I'll be making some with prosecco this weekend, so I'll let you know how that works out. Also doing a punch (Limmers) for the first time. Hoping it's as amazing as this thread has led me to believe it will be!
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2016 08:25
|
|
|
Prosecco can be fun but consider dialing the sugar back a bit.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2016 15:53
|
|
|
I ended up going with this brut sparkling wine because it's apparently a top seller at the store I went to, didn't cost much, and I don't know poo poo about wine. The French 75 turned out pretty well! It struck me as sort of a dressed up John Collins. The Kir Royale didn't do much for me. It wasn't bad, but the creme de cassis seemed to serve more as just a sweetener than as an additional flavor, and if that's what I were after I could just grab some Moscato or something. Ditto when I tried subbing in St. Germain. Anyway, I had the idea today to try making a Christmas-y spin on a Ramos Gin Fizz. My first attempt was: 1.5 oz gin 1.0 oz fresh orange juice, strained 1.0 oz cardamom and clove-infused simple syrup 2.0 oz cream egg white splash of orange flower water dash of vanilla extract dash of Fee Brothers cranberry bitters club soda to top Same prep as a standard Ramos Gin Fizz. It was certainly a pleasant drink, but the orange blossom water kind of stole the show, almost completely overpowering the cardamom and clove. I'm not sure if it needs to go entirely or just be limited to literally a couple drops. Next time I think I'm going to leave it out and add more of the cranberry bitters, which don't seem super assertive. Any suggestions?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 02:40
|
|
|
Orange blossom water and rose water are both extremely powerful. The most of either one that I've ever used was a bar spoonful, which is about 0.2oz. A "splash" is probably waaay too much.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 07:17
|
|
|
poop dood posted:Orange blossom water and rose water are both extremely powerful. The most of either one that I've ever used was a bar spoonful, which is about 0.2oz. A "splash" is probably waaay too much. This is why I hate measurements like that. I doubt it was more than a bar spoonful, but I used "splash" rather than "dash" to differentiate from the even smaller amount of liquid from a shake or two of a bitters bottle.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 14:29
|
|
|
Hydrosols in general are extremely concentrated. We're talking drops, not dashes. I once spilled OBW on myself behind the bar and my girlfriend at the time half-jokingly accused me of going to a brother on my way home from work.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 16:21
|
|
|
So the two nights of cocktails and punch were a hit - cheers thread! I was really pleased with how the Limmers turned out. I was expecting something like a longer Tom Collins, but the orange flower water and lemon peel shrub really gave it something special - 10/10 would punch again. The prosecco French 75 worked a treat. Used the Wondrich recipe with a little less sugar (syrup) as per suggestion and it was very well received. Pretty potent though. A couple of last words, New Orleans fizzes and whisky sours were mixed too and after all that I think I managed to convert a few friends into enthusiastic cocktail drinkers. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 18:42
|
|
|
Anyone have a good recipe for walnut bitters? Working on a batch of orange right now and have some grain alcohol set aside for round two. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 23:24
|
|
|
Okay, those of you who are Dave Arnold/Liquid Intelligence/clarification fans I have discovered that you don't need a centrifuge to clarify your juices.  On the right is fresh squeezed orange juice that I treated with pectinex. I let it sit for a couple hours, and then ran them through a hario v60 filter. The end product is crystal clear, even more clear than I could get with my centrifuge. However, the coffee filters get clogged pretty fast, about 1 filter per pint of product. Lemon, lime and grapefruit and similarly acidic juices will need kieselsol and chitosan, but after about an hour or two when you start to see stratification, you can run them through a coffee filter and get crystal clear juice on the other end. Now, a centrifuge might still make sense if you need liters of product for a commercial bar, but for you home lushes who are making drinks for parties of 20-30 people, you can get enough clarified lime juice for several dozen carbonated gin and tonics without having to babysit a centrifuge and swapping out the test tubes every 10 minutes. Holy poo poo, this is going to save so much work for me. (make sure you use a tight filter, like the Hario v60. I tried melitta #4 filters on my clever coffee dripper and it just lets everything through) Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Sep 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 00:12
|
|
|
Had our fall cocktail meeting tonight. My precious baby made the cut. I call it the Smoke Signal. 1.5 Pedro Ximenez Colosia sherry 1 Byrrh 1 Amaro Nonino 0.25 lemon juice bar spoon Laphroaig 2 dashes orange bitters Stir, strain over big rock, orange twist. Crazy complex, smoky and sweet. Really rich and full-flavored, but only one ingredient is full-proof. Changes as the ice melts. I'm really proud of this one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 06:53
|
|
|
How much is a bar spoon? Cause I have several bar spoons and they're all different capacities
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 08:04
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure bar spoon is meant to be the same as 'teaspoon' so 5ml as a measurement is what I've always gone with
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 09:46
|
|
|
I am working on the fall menu changes for my bar. So far I have: Pear & Ginger Fizz (HH cocktail) 1.5oz Pear Ginger Shrub 1.5oz Vodka 0.5oz Honey Syrup Soda Water Unnamed Calvados Cocktail 2oz Calvados 0.5 Falernum 0.5 Averna Amaro Dash Suze bitters (gentian & cardamom) Stirred, Coupe, Lemon peel garnish Biscoff & Coffee 1.5oz Anejo Rum 1oz Coffee Liquer 1oz Speculoos Syrup Dash Orleans bitters The PG Fizz & Calvados are pretty much finalized. I'm worried about sweetness in the Biscoff & Coffee, but I can always make the syrup less sweet to compensate. I'm also working on a smokey old fashioned via making some smoked sugar but am not having much luck getting the smoke to stick to the sugar so, I may resort to a lapsong suochong tincture. to get it in there. I guess if anyone has experience smoking sugar I'd love to hear it. My initial attempt was spreading turbinado sugar on a baking sheet and sticking it in our 'smoker' for a hour at work. Our 'smoker' being cold oven filled with smoke from hickory chips. Fart Car '97 fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Sep 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 15:20
|
|
|
MC Eating Disorder posted:I'm pretty sure bar spoon is meant to be the same as 'teaspoon' so 5ml as a measurement is what I've always gone with I usually assume about half a teaspoon. Well, I usually use my barspoon, but use a half teaspoon when not at home. E: Many bar spoons do equal a teaspoon, but I start with a half teaspoon of more assertive ingredients to start and go from there. Butch Cassidy fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Sep 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 15:35
|
|
|
Even though you can usually get what someone's getting at, "barspoon" as a unit of measurement always reminds me of old cocktail recipes that invariably say poo poo like "add the Juice of halfe a Lemon"
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 15:43
|
|
|
Our bar has only identical bar spoons, so it makes sense for us to use as a unit of measure. I painstakingly figured out what the volume of a bar spoon was during a slow lunch shift and it comes out to 0.2oz.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 16:44
|
|
|
A teaspoon is 0.167 oz by comparison
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 17:31
|
|
|
Probably easier and faster to refill an empty bitters bottle and use a dash.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2016 18:49
|
|
|
I'm at Heathrow duty free and just picked up Shortcross gin blind. Anyone tried it?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 10:01
|
|
|
After trying a couple more versions of the Christmas-inspired Ramos Fizz variant, here's what I've got so far: 1.5 oz gin 1.0 oz fresh orange juice, strained 1.0 oz cardamom and clove-infused simple syrup 2.0 oz cream egg white dash of vanilla extract Several dashes of Fee Brothers cranberry bitters 3 dashes Angostura orange bitters club soda to top (I really hate "dash" as a unit of measure.) I added the orange bitters because the drink seemed a little flat without it; the orange juice wasn't cutting through the cream like the lemon and lime do in a standard Ramos Fizz. The cardamom and clove are present, but I wonder if they should be more pronounced. I might have to try infusing my own syrup to get a stronger spice flavor. Alternatively, a friend suggested ditching the orange in favor of apple juice or cider. I'm not set up to juice my own apples, but I found some burly cold-pressed juice that seems like it might have enough tartness not to get lost in the mix. I haven't tried this version yet, but I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 10:55
|
|
|
Do an orange syrup and get your cardamom and clove from bitters
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 13:36
|
|
|
Fart Car '97 posted:Do an orange syrup and get your cardamom and clove from bitters That's a really good idea. It'd decouple the spice level and sweetness level, which would give me a lot more control over the flavor balance. Thanks! Are Master of Malt/Bitter Bastards bitters any good? They've got both cardamom and clove bitters (plus a bunch of others that sound interesting), but reviews are thin on the ground. Toast Museum fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Sep 18, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 14:42
|
|
|
For a gimmick drink, this was actually pretty good. Something like a cross between an old fashioned and a sazerac
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 20:51
|
|
|
Favorite rhum drinks, and go! Air Mails yo Steve Yun posted:For a gimmick drink, this was actually pretty good. Something like a cross between an old fashioned and a sazerac Lokee fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 03:43
|
|
|
So I was at the ballgame last night and one of the people with us is a manager of the drinks program at a restaurant here in town. I mentioned that there were no Big Red based cocktails, and she's going to try and figure something out, but I wanted to put it up to you people as well. If you were making a cocktail with Big Red, what would you do? First one: Big Red, blanco tequila, Amaro Montenegro and Angostura. There's some interest added from the booze, but it maintains some essential Big Red-ness. Ben Nevis fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Sep 22, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
Ben Nevis posted:So I was at the ballgame last night and one of the people with us is a manager of the drinks program at a restaurant here in town. I mentioned that there were no Big Red based cocktails, and she's going to try and figure something out, but I wanted to put it up to you people as well. If you were making a cocktail with Big Red, what would you do? Big Red in general is pretty awesome.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2016 03:20
|
|
|
Bringing this back for a few questions wise goons can hopefully answer. My first love in liquor is Gin. I've got nothing in my bar (I was avoiding alcohol for caloric reasons the past two/three months) except an almost full bottle of Marischino, lots of Creme de Menthe (Seriously, 1.5 bottles. I have no idea where it came from) and some Rose Liqueur (I'm taking it easy on that as it's pricey and I am head over heels for rose flavoured things). I have been, for a while, wanting a really nice Martini, or a Vesper. So easy done, right? Grab some Gin, Lillet or Vermouth and some Vodka. However, I've been perusing this though and two cocktails I've never had but caught my eye was the Tuxedo and the Casino. They look like old school variants of the Martini, kind of. First question: What's the opinion on them? If I love Martinis and Vespers will I love these? I'd have to pick up some Orange Bitters on top of the Vermouth, Gin, Lillet and Vodka, would it be worth buying Absinthe for the 1/4 tsp for the Tuxedo? I take it that is an integral part, correct? Lastly, what else can I make in the same vein as a Martini that will give me some variation? That dry but palatable, heavy-on-the-Gin flavour. I'm all open for suggestions.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 08:28
|
|
|
It sounds like a bottle of Old Tom would be a worthy investment for you. You which you can use to make yourself a Martinez and a white Martinez. You'll need a bottle of Dolin Blanc for the white martinez but Dolin blanc is cheap and worth having around in your fridge Absinte is worth having around, there are just so many really good classics that call for it. If you want to save yourself some money you can get a bottle of Pernod to use as a sub for absinthe, it is high quality but easier to find and without the added 'absinthe' name tax. Also at some point please try a 1:1 Plymouth Gin/Vermouth Martini with Orange bitters and an expressed/discarded lemon peel. We've converted a lot of the "I'll have a Martini and by Martini I mean 'Gin Up' crowd" using this recipe because it is really good and it's actually a Martini. Fart Car '97 fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Oct 4, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 15:16
|
|
|
Even if you buy nothing else, get orange bitters. You'll never have a better martini than one with a dash of two of that poo poo
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 15:38
|
|
|
Okay, I'll definitely grab the Orange Bitters. With Old Tom the only one I could reasonably grab (As in, not have to travel hours to get to a place that stocks it) is Hayman's. Is that any good? With the Dolin I was originally going to grab Noilly Prat Dry for Vermouth. Would Dolin Blanc be a good substitute (I can only get Blanc, not Dry) or should I add that on top? I do want to try Plymouth but it is quite pricey (AU$70). I typically have my Martini as 3:1, or 2:1 if I'm feeling Vermouthy. I've had a Martinez before, loved it, so that's on the list now, which adds Sweet Vermouth. So as a run down I have Maraschino. What I want to get: Orange Bitters Lillet Blanc Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth / Dolin Blanc? Martini Rosso Vermouth (Or an easy to get substitute?) Beefeater Gin Russian Standard Vodka Pernod (I know I love Pernod, so it's not a stretch to grab a bottle of it) And possibly: Old Tom Gin Plymouth Gin This is to make: Martini, Tuxedo, Casino, Vesper, Martinez. Anything else I'm sorely missing? What else could I do with this lot? I know basics, like get some Whisky and make a Manhattan, etc. It's climbing up a bit in terms of price and how much to grab at once, but I figure it can be my Christmas present to myself!
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 02:15
|
|
|
Blanc is not dry. Quite the opposite, it is arguably sweeter than sweet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 02:30
|
|
|
Right, so I think I might skip it in that case. Where I live sucks for anything that's not cheap booze, so Dolin has to be ordered in. So I might pick it up after I grab everything needed for the rest of the drinks. You guys are super helpful, thanks.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 05:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 08:53 |
|
|
Fart Car '97 posted:It sounds like a bottle of Old Tom would be a worthy investment for you. You which you can use to make yourself a Martinez and a white Martinez. You'll need a bottle of Dolin Blanc for the white martinez but Dolin blanc is cheap and worth having around in your fridge Good lord, 1:1 on a Martini? I drink mine 2:1 and that's rich for most people's taste.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 08:12
|
|