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Man that would taste so much better with even a VS cognac. Or, as I mentioned in another thread lately, Raynal if you can't bring yourself to spring for cognac. Also I can't imagine making a Sidecar without eggwhite.
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Dec 16, 2011 11:20
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Sobieksi is better than Stoli or Smirnoff, but in general any of the big S vodkas (also incl. Skyy and Svedka) are about as fancy as you want to go because what the gently caress it's vodka you're paying for the water they cut it with.Vegetable Melange posted:This is my recipe, but I smoke filters and don't mix XO cognac. St. Remy ain't cognac.
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Dec 17, 2011 04:51
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I haven't made a Ramos Fizz in months at least. It's a good season for it; maybe I'll have to give the old beast a go again and just have sore arms after my drink.
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Dec 19, 2011 14:16
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I've only ever seen aggressively smokey Islay malts in cocktails, and then it's vanishingly rare. I think there's a recipe earlier in this thread that uses Ardbeg 10, and the Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini uses Laphroaig 10. Other than those, cocktailery always calls for blends. I favor JW Black or Chivas Regal for my mixing, depending on how smokey I feel like it ought to be. Ted Haigh recommends using Famous Grouse for the Blood and Sand, actually, since it's a more subdued Scotch, and the Blood and Sand is the sort of cocktail you use to convince people who think they don't like Scotch that Scotch is pretty darn good.
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Dec 28, 2011 23:56
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That's what I did. Hit up a restaurant supply, a 28 oz. tin is a few bucks and a mixing glass is almost nothing. I think I got my mixing glass at the hardware store actually.
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Dec 29, 2011 00:55
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I really wanna get an 18 oz. cheater tin for a duel tin setup, but all the restaurant stores I've been to carry 28 oz. and 16 oz., and the 16 oz. is way too small to fit into the 28 well.
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Dec 29, 2011 08:02
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Yo Veggie Melange, I sprang for a half bottle of Dolin Rouge recently based on your praise and I gotta say this is some delicious loving vermouth.
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Jan 11, 2012 06:18
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It was all pretty "Heh" until he was doing the hard shake and then it was lol. Although he was using a pair of tins and the hard shake is supposed to be with a cobbler shaker 
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Jan 19, 2012 23:58
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Yo Veggie I've got a buddy whose dad has a show running on Broadway this year so I'll be out to see it. I wanna try that cocktail when I get to New York.
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Jan 20, 2012 02:20
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I thought most bourbons were chill-filtered as a matter of course.
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Jan 21, 2012 22:37
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I favor Wild Turkey as a go-to bourbon for most of my mixing. However, the best Old Fashioned I've ever had was made with Smith and Cross navy strength Jamaican rum.
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Jan 24, 2012 23:43
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Yeah I usually let it sit on the ice for a couple minutes to get it to ideal drinking proof. That stuff is like a flavor explosion.
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Jan 25, 2012 02:04
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Jahoodie posted:That's what a good shake/stir is for, the dilution, then strain it over fresh ice into a new glass. I don't have a freezer that automatically makes ice so decent drinks ice is something I try to conserve. Also I drink cocktails quickly enough that new ice isn't necessary – there's no way the ice will melt down before it's gone.
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Jan 25, 2012 05:38
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I somehow haven't heard of or thought of that one before, which is weird because yeah it's just a sour with some Angostura. Gonna try it out tonight though, I have high hopes. Also it's a great name.
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Jan 26, 2012 02:01
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Jahoodie posted:To each his own, but good ice and proper use of it is key to good cocktails. Any of the major "famous" cocktail bar books have a section or chapter discussing this (PDT, Employees Only, ect). Yeah I have the Tovolo king cubes, I love them. I should clarify: I'd only ever serve rocks drinks over fresh ice, but I only ever serve shaken/stirred drinks up, so it's neither here nor there.
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Jan 30, 2012 02:11
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I think the Manhattan is rapidly becoming my favorite cocktail. I'm drinking a 2:1 Rittenhouse Bonded with Dolin Rouge, Angostura, and a Seville orange twist right now. It's off the charts delicious. There's this rich vanilla woodiness that's pretty incredible. There's something about it that I can't place – it has a bit of burnt sugar and custard to it too. Now I want to have a Manhattan Party where you just get a few people together along with a bunch of different ryes and vermouths and try it all.
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Feb 1, 2012 13:31
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That sounds loving repulsive, sorry. Malibu is rum that was so unsellably bad when it came off the still they had to give it a lovely metallic coconut flavor and load it with sugar. Bailey's has its place as an after dinner drink, or with coffee, but is frankly not all the great, all told. And as to why you'd mix it with whiskey, when it's already made with whiskey, is beyond me. There has never been a good cocktail where the name comes first. There has never been a good acronym cocktail. These things are the drinks equivalents of the McRib – they're cooked up by marketing departments, or bartenders who think like marketing departments, and the only reason people drink them, beyond the gimmicky name, is for the truly heinous amount of sugar they typically contain. Listen, if you like sweet things there are cocktails that can appeal to that. A Trinidad Sour is very sweet, but balanced and compelling. Cocktail punches, Tiki and otherwise, are often sweet, but use fresh ingredients and interesting rums. Hell, even an old Sidecar is pretty drat sweet if you up the Cointreau a bit. I'm not trying to hate man, it's just a goddamn shame when people are drinking truly awful poo poo when there's so much deliciousness to be had in the world.
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Feb 2, 2012 11:18
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Admiral Russel's punch is in many respects the most perfect punch recipe I've ever come across or concocted. I would recommend it for any occasion. And yeah, I really, really like punch. After extensive experimentation in various methods of fueling parties, I can unequivocally say that punch parties are the most jolly good times.
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Feb 7, 2012 00:11
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All cognac is brandy, but not vice versa. Using real cognac is pretty important, but you can get away with Raynal (a French brandy that is not Cognac) if you must, but try not to must. poo poo like E&J is totally unacceptable. W/r/t the cognac it doesn't necessarily need to be Remy, and it should be VS, not VSOP. At my local BevMo Hennessy VS is like $24/fifth, and Gautier is like $22. With punch you really need to put the cost in perspective by calculating the number of standard drinks (i.e. 0.6 oz. ethanol) you will be producing and using that to determine the per-drink cost of your bowl. A full batch of Admiral Russel's costs around $80 total, and the yield is 40 standard drinks, so it lands perfectly in the $2/drink sweet spot that is home to almost every great punch I've made. Even my buddy's birthday punch that I made a couple Saturdays ago was like $2.25/drink, and that contained two bottles of VSOP Cognac, a full bottle of Gran Marnier, and a half case of champagne. If you want a really inexpensive punch that everyone will love, you can go with Limmer's Club Gin Punch. It's so cheap and so popular with my friends that I'm totally sick of it, but it'll definitely be a hit, and if you make it with handle of Beefeater or Bombay Original or especially New Amsterdam it's like $0.75/drink. It's also easy to scale and memorize. Limmer's Club Gin Punch Yield: 6.67 servings. 1 oz. white sugar 2 oz. thick orange blossom syrup 3 oz. fresh lemon juice, strained 10 oz. London Dry gin 1 liter soda water To prepare the orange blossom syrup make up a 2:1 simple syrup and when it's off the heat stir in somewhere around a teaspoon of orange blossom water, to taste. It'll keep in the fridge for some time, in my experience, especially if you dose it with a bit of vodka. For the punch, peel your lemons and muddle them with the sugar, then let sit for a half hour to an hour. Add your syrup, lemon juice, and gin, and stir to dissolve the sugar. It probably won't all dissolve easily, but that's okay, the soda water will dissolve whatever's left. Fish out the lemon peels, give it another couple stirs (to pick up any sugar that's settled) and then pour in the soda water. Finish with a block of ice (made in advance by freezing an appropriately-sized plastic or metal bowl of water overnight). If you want to make it in advance, combine everything but the soda water and then store in a jug in your fridge. This is also good to do so the punch will be cold as soon as you serve it and the ice won't melt too quickly. You might want to shake it up before you serve it if you do this, in case of settling. This is a small recipe, but multiply everything by 2.5 for a full fifth of gin, or by 6 for a full handle. A fifth's worth is about a gallon of punch, while a handle gets you a 2.25 gallons, so make sure you have bowls to serve it in. Kenning fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Feb 7, 2012 01:21
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Looking at the BevMo website prices St. Remy and Raynal are about the same price, so I reckon they're probably about in the same class of not-cognac-French-brandy. I'm more inclined to use Raynal since St. Remy is clearly trying to be mistaken for Remy-Martin, which I find annoying. I mean, you can use whatever you want in your drinks, and if that's what you want to drink it'll be fine. For my buddy's big birthday punch I could have used Christian Brother's brandy, Potter's Curacao, Cook's sparkling wine, and bottled lemon juice, but I suspect the party would not have been quite as successful. I give brand and price-point suggestions advisedly, since I've made and tasted the difference. Certainly if you made Admiral Russel's as written and used St. Remy instead of actual cognac it would be leaps and bounds better than most of what's served in bowls at parties. But if you can justify the extra $20 for the real stuff it could be revelatory. And why not? This is a forum for people who love excellent food – why not also excellent drinks?
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Feb 7, 2012 02:27
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Whoa how do you have Havana Club? Are you not in America? I was under the impression that poo poo was firmly embargo'd. Go for the Havana Club. In terms of creme de menthe, Marie Brizard or Get. Those are drat hard to find though, and if you can't get them you might as well just get DeKuyper or comparable. Dunno anything about peppermint stuff.
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Feb 8, 2012 01:02
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I'm really jealous you have Marie Brizard, even if it's not in stock. I live in the Bay Area and I haven't been able to find it even at fancy San Francisco specialty liquor stores.
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Feb 8, 2012 02:03
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Mister Macys posted:We can't get maraschino, though. See I would just die. Maraschino is my single favorite thing in the bar and it may just be the tastiest substance on this God's earth.
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Feb 8, 2012 05:05
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Also Laird's aged brandies are fine sipping spirits. They're hard as gently caress to find though, unless you live in New Jersey.
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Feb 27, 2012 18:30
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When a recipe calls for a "dash" it's really saying "add to taste". It's a built-in flexibility that should really be applied to every recipe so that you make it as good as possible according to your definition of good.
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Mar 11, 2012 11:51
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Make Jeffrey Morgenthaler's sangria. Mr. Morgenthaler is a boss. Also you should try one of the punches I've posted in this thread. Everything I've posted so far is great. And hell, I'll post another. This is an original punch that I put together this weekend that was really successful. I haven't properly named it yet, but I'm just gonna call it 1 750ml bottle Irish whiskey (I used Powers) 12 oz. barleywine style beer (I used Anchor's Old Foghorn) 8 oz. turbinado sugar 8 oz. lemon juice, strained 1-1.5 qt. water (to taste) peels of 3 or 4 lemons Muddle the lemon peels with the sugar and then let it sit to draw out the oils – at least a half hour to an hour, but really as long as possible. Longer really is better. Muddle it occasionally to combine. Once you're ready to assemble the punch pour about a cup to a cup and a half of boiling water onto the sugar/peels and stir it to dissolve. Fish out the peels with a strainer or something and discard. Pour the whiskey, beer, lemon juice, and water/sugar mixture into your bowl and stir. Add your quart of water, to taste, and finish with a 1 qt. ice block. I recommend keeping your whiskey in the freezer and your water and beer in the fridge so that this cools down as quickly as possible. I also chilled my bowl in advance, which is a good idea if you have room in your fridge/freezer. This is one of those punches that really hits its stride after about 20 minutes on the ice, so feel free to make it a little bit before you need it if you like. edit: Fixed sangria link. Kenning fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2012 06:59
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Hahah yeah I looked at my tabs and I realized that I'd messed up. Good luck on that sangria!
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Mar 13, 2012 09:30
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Use allspice berries and then sweeten it with a rich turbinado syrup.
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Mar 14, 2012 22:32
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Sure you can. Anyone can learn to have good taste. It'll just take a certain amount of sugar-driven hangovers from hell before someone makes that decision.
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Mar 20, 2012 22:01
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No one's faulting it for not having vodka. God bless any drink that could be made with vodka but isn't. It's just a sugar bomb.
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Mar 22, 2012 06:29
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I mean, Brizard is based on cognac, right? You could always use that. Preserving the peachiness while reducing the sugar is more difficult. You could use peach bitters to keep up the peach while using vodka to smooth out sweetness — that is of course vodka's one valid use in serious mixology. How's the mescal going?
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Mar 22, 2012 11:23
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I made a whiskey sour but shook it with an egg white before shaking with ice, and it was fantastic. The frothy-ness was just to die for. Does anyone have a favorite drink recipe that involves an egg white? I need to try more of these. In my opinion, any sour using a brown spirit should use egg white. I don't like it with clear spirits (white rum or gin) but whiskey, whisky, brandy, or applejack should take egg white. That said I made some New York cocktails for the first time and they are booooomb. Standard whiskey sour (2 oz. Wild Turkey 101, 1/2 oz. 2:1 turbinado syrup, 3/4 oz. lemon juice), then float a snap of red wine (I used some California cabernet, in the future I'll use zinfandel or pinot noir) on top, between a half ounce and an ounce. Pour it over the back of a spoon so it floats real pretty. The red wine adds a nice fruitiness and smooths out the first couple sips of the sour. It's great; highly recommended. No egg white in these since the wine float would ruin the foam. Kenning fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Apr 1, 2012 |
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Mar 31, 2012 11:32
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First of all that's definitely not what "acquired taste" means. An acquired taste is something that is not necessarily appealing in the basic way that fat, salt, and sugar are all appealing, but is ultimately a more satisfying experience because it pushes different and exciting buttons. Secondly, I dunno, you could try long drinks? Stuff like gin and tonic, Cuba Libre, dark and stormy – anything that pairs a spirit with a soft drink and a squeeze of lime. I do recommend you genuinely try to learn to like spirits though. It makes drinking a good deal more pleasurable. I know people can do it because over the course of a year I took a friend of mine from doing lovely vodka shots to sipping Scotch with me, just by starting him on sours, then Old Fashioneds, then drier old Fashioned, the Manhattans, etc. Finally, don't loving drink vodka, and don't drink cheap poo poo in general. It's not going to help you learn to like the taste of spirits if you're drinking firewater. Gin should run you $15-$20 for 750 ml, bourbon/rye/Scotch/Irish should be around $20-$25 for 750 ml. Rums can vary, but there's excellent stuff in the $15-$25 range. Cognac (actually cognac, not lovely brandy) will be $25-$30. Does this help? Would you like more guidance? Specific instructions? Part of what helped my buddy enjoy spirits was me literally teaching him how to take a drink. Like, he was physically doing it incorrectly.
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Apr 1, 2012 11:10
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What? You can't locate VSOP cognac? Where do you live?
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Apr 5, 2012 20:26
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Very Strange Things posted:Isn't Hennessy a VSOP? I tried looking at their web site but it was far too annoying. Most every cognac house has a variety of ages available.
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Apr 5, 2012 23:52
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Another high-end bartender checking in. I work a few places in the SF Bay Area, but my home base bar has about 500 spirits with a heavy focus on independent distilleries. At the moment we are hovering around 160 whiskies and a few liquors on tap. Im pretty sure we have the largest Japanese whiskey collection in the bay area, unless Nihon stepped up their game.Cocktail focus is very much classical but I occasionally do some molecular mixology silliness for competitions and events. Rotating barrel aged cocktail, at the moment it's a vesper with a white whiskey subbed for vodka. I'm skipping MCC this year but I'll be at Tales of the Cocktail for sure. I particpate in SF & Portland Cocktail Weeks, volunteer for Barbary Coast Conservancy of the American Cocktail and a lot of the St. George Spirits events. My bar has hosted a few cocktail events as well. I'm a member of LUPEC and the USBG, I'll have my Certified Spirit Specialist after I do the exam and I'm considering BAR cert next year. I live in the Bay bro! Where do you wield the stick? I'd love to stop by and be like, "Suuuuup," and have you whip me up something good.
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Apr 6, 2012 13:03
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The reason ice is cloudy is because it freezes from the outside in, and as it does so it concentrates both dissolved minerals and tiny air bubbles in the center, making it cloudy. Commercial ice is frozen in tiny layers, which prevents the concentration of these clouding elements. If you boil your water before freezing it you'll get clearer ice because you're purging it of those tiny air bubbles. If you use distilled water it'll be clearer because you won't have any dissolved minerals. If you boil your distilled water it will be twice clear. But at that point Jesus man how important is this issue, really.
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Apr 13, 2012 09:18
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That sounds like a trip, though the Trinidad Sour recipe I've seen is 1 oz. Angostura, 1 oz. orgeat, 3/4 oz. lemon and 1/2 oz. rye. I've been sort of vaguely wanting to pick up a bottle of Fernet for a while. Might give this a try then.
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Apr 16, 2012 09:22
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Booties posted:Anyone have their own homemade Manhattan cherries? I bought fresh cherries from whole foods and let them seep in Tupperware with the following proportions: Making your own maraschino or making your own maraschino cherries? The cherries are pretty easy: steep a bunch of dark, tart cherries in maraschino liqueur for a while. The liqueur is definitely gonna be a bit more complex to make. It's an infusion of Marasca cherries and their crushed pits which is redistilled after the infusion to make it clear and lighten the flavor somewhat. I would personally leave my maraschino liqueur needs to the professionals at Luxardo, since I'm pretty sure that Luxardo maraschino is the most delicious substance created by man. I might make the cherries this summer though.
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Apr 23, 2012 22:25
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I just found out I can get Marie Brizard creme de cacao locally. This is a Red Letter Day. Speaking of spirits, I picked up a bottle of St. George Absinthe. It's tasty and great in cocktails, but gently caress dude why did they use a wine-style cork closure? It's like they didn't understand how corks work. There was no wine sitting on it keeping it hydrated, so the dry-rear end cork broke in half when I was opening it. Then it would shed little pieces of cork when I put it in and out. I had to re-use an old top from a bottle of Plantation Barbados 5-Year rum, which is a cork that is appropriate to a bottle of spirits. Super frustrating. Although the fact that I can make Corpse Reviver #2s now somewhat mitigates my irritation.
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Apr 25, 2012 00:52
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