Splificator
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Posts posted by Splificator
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I just made a Blood & Sand Cocktail (Heering, Famous Grouse, Punt e Mes, if you care about such things), and it got me to thinking about the practice of naming cocktails after movies and plays. There's a long list of 'em, and a wide range of quality. I'm interested in when this practice started, how it worked, when it all came to a halt, and why.
With the occasional exception, the practice didn't really come into play until the cocktail explosion of the 1890s. Before then, there were very few cocktail recipes in circulation. After that, thanks to gents like "The Only William," who invented a new drink every day, there were many. In general, it died out with Prohibition.
I totally agree with Toby about TV. It just doesn't feel right. While I'd have no problem ordering a "Corrections" or even a "Kite Runner," an "American Idol" would be rather less enticing--although I could probably be persuaded to nibble on a "Family Guy."
Oh, and a "Maddow"? Straight up, please. Twist.
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Just coming to this thread after a couple of weeks on the road.
A couple of things.
1) Troy and notahumanissue, If I could prevail on you to take a few minutes and email email me (through eG) the questions that don't track, if you've got a record of them, I would be greatly appreciative. BarSmarts is a pretty complicated program to assemble and coordinate, and occasionally things get misaligned; we've caught a couple of the wrong quiz questions, but it would be very helpful to know if there are more out there that we're overlooking.
2) Organicmatter sums the program up very well. It's neither meant as the ultimate master class nor as an entry-level orientation. It's for professional bartenders who want to be able to prove it; to get certified. The instruction materials are our way of making sure that everyone's on the same page.
3) Yes, every Live day we've got scheduled will feature all six BAR partners--Dale DeGroff, Doug Frost, Steve Olson, Paul Pacult, Andy Seymour and myself. Plus a number of top-flight bartenders from around the country to help with judge the practical exam.
4) No cocktails until AFTER the test. Except in Toby's case.
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Re-reading Embury's account, he purportedly knew the guy who invented the drink in Paris referring to the WWI captain story. But he doesn't mention the bartender or the captain by name. It seems he assumes the reader already knows the story. So I'm deducing the myth (if it's that) doesn't originate with his book.
Embury's account is in conflict with what Sam recalls from Vermiere's book (one I haven't read). I'll have to get my hands on a copy.
So I'm no closer to understanding the origins of the name.
See, the problem with Embury's account is that there's no evidence to back it up; so why should we credit any more than, say, Odd McIntyre's account from 1934:
New York Day-By-Day, by O. O. McIntyre 4/10/1934NEW, YORK, April 10. — Many boys about town are credited as inventors of that tasty and highly potent libation—the Side Car cocktail. Tippy Gray, Jay O’Brien, Ben Finney and Harry Craddock of London’s Savoy bar are among legendary sponsors. But not one had anything to do with it. Here is the true, unimpeachable story of its origin.
Basil Woon, Erskine Gwynne and Joe Thompson arrived in rue Danou [sic] one evening at proper time for tiffin. John, the bartender at Henri’s for years, was late. But finally half-staggered in with a bleeding forehead.
He explained his motor cycle with a sidecar was hors de combat, likewise his wife, but here he was and what would it be, gentlemen? Thompson ordered Cointreau. Woon a fine, and Erskine, on the wagon, desired orange bitters. Dazed from his mishap, John thought they were the ingredients the cocktail crazy Americans had conceived and shook them up together. Et voila. The Side Car!
The mixture proved delicious. Each had three and immediately started out to ring doorbells. John has long since retired to his “propriete,” for like all bartenders he has one down in Vaucluse. Now at the local bistro he often recalls to his townsmen how the Side Car was born.
Although this is pretty ridiculous, it at least checks out to the extent that Henri's existed (actually, it was "Henry's," and located in Rue Volney, around the corner from Rue Daonou, but close enough; in any case, it was one of the oldest American bars in Europe). The head bartender was indeed John. The orange bitters are a litte odd, but the Cointreau and "fine" (i.e., fine champagne cognac) are right. Woon and the others were well-known Paris barfiles.
I'm not saying I believe this account, just that when you have numerous stories (there are others I don't have time to toss in) and no new evidence, you'll never get to the bottom of it.
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I think it's interesting that Thomas subs Bourbon for Arrack, since the flavors (as we understand them) are not compatible the way, say, Arrack and Jamaica Rum might be. I know the version with Arrack is going to be good, but the imagination to sub Bourbon and make something so marvellous is remarkable indeed.
Just a thought, but it might be that Major Unett, who printed the arrack version, substituted that spirit for the American whiskey that he knew his readers (in Britain) wouldn't be able to get. (America exported a good deal of whiskey to Britain, but it was all to rectifiers, who redistilled it into gin.) If so, this says a good deal about the nature of American whiskey at the time.
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Here are a few interesting questions: When did Noilly Prat begin exporting a special formula for the US? Looking at historical cocktail formulae with dry French vermouth, at what point would these have been made with a style similar to the old US version of NP? Also, if we're looking at a cocktail recipe calling for dry French vermouth that originated in Europe, wouldn't this cocktail have been made with a vermouth like the NP we're getting now?
This should help. Here's the text of a 1964 ad from my archives:
VERY VERY PALESo pale that new Noilly Prat French Vermouth is virtually invisible in your gin or vodka. Extra pale and extra dry for today's correct Martini. DON'T STIR WITHOUT NOILLY PRAT."
So. Pre-1964 (note that "new"), what we're getting now, or at least something different from the "old" one we grew up with. I say that because for all I know there may have been an intermediate stage--or there may not have been.
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someone migght enlighten Cruzan: "If you are already acquainted with Navy rum - here's the news: Cruzan Blackstrap Rum is a cleaner, less heavy Navy Rum..." That's off their website.
I don't think they really want enlightening here--do you?
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In my opinion, Cruzan Blackstrap doesn't work as a "dark rum," in the conventional sense of things. I'm told it's more akin to the Navy rums of old.
Cruzan Blackstrap is in fact nothing like Navy rums, at least as they were understood by and served in the Royal Navy. Navy rums were a blend of pot-distilled Jamaican and Demerara rums, barrel-aged on the London docks (at least until the Luftwaffe blew those docks to bits in 1940). They were full-flavored, not to say funky, and very dry. I agree with haresfur about this one. A miss.
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If you're in a rush I've found the pectin (the 'mucilaginous' part of the berries) tends to float to the top when refrigerated, so I'll often just simmer and mash raspberries with sugar, strain, refrigerate and then draw off the top part. Not as elegant as Schultz's solution, but a lot quicker.
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I think the very fact that we can be quibbling about the grenadine, juice or precise variety of apple brandy in the Jack Rose a national figure is making in public is a sign that the old days of cocktail geeks being a small band of crusty traditionalists in a world of apple martinis are definitively over.
I know Rachel a little bit and if she's not a member of the cocktail fraternity than neither am I.
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And now for something completely different.
I was going through some old papers and I came across an invitation to one of the absinthe (okay, "steepsinthe," really) parties I used to throw back in the mid-90s. This one was from 1994, and for it I composed the following sonnet to absinthe, which I present not because I believe it has any poetic merit whatsoever, but because some might find its utter ridiculousness amusing.
AbsinthiaO lady bittersweet, o green and fair!
Thy sidelong clouded gaze, when chance it rest
Upon my beaded brow, o rapture rare!
A flower blooms ‘mid thoughts with care oppressed.
Away, ye cheap, commercial antidotes!
A troubled age will not be soothed by beer—
No whiskeys raw nor bottled creosotes
Are fit to exfoliate its grim veneer.
But thou, in emerald mists of lassitude,
Enfoldst the subjects of thy vernal throne,
Removest them far from clerk and shopgirl rude,
From antimacassar, curb and stone—
Absinthia! O meadowgreen, now come!
For, failing thou, we needs must turn to rum.
--Peter Allen Poe, Baltimore, 1872
I had a lot of time on my hands back then.
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In honor of the day:
The Nonbeliever
Shake well with ice:
1 oz Tanqueray
1/2 oz strained blood orange juice
1/4 oz Drambuie
Strain into champagne flute and top off with chilled champagne.
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Yea. I've always been given to understand that any distinctive "individual character" in a premium vodka came not from the primary ingredients or any careful distilling, since the primary effect of quadruple rectification and charcoal/quartz filtering would be to remove all of that stuff, but rather from small amounts of sweeteners, glycerine and other flavorings added at the end (and the water used to cut it down to bottle proof, of course).
Not everyone uses this stuff, though.
The same goes with rum and cachaca, where (as Erik points out) swetening is common. (One of the reasons I love Beleza Pura cachaca is that it attacks the market bareback.)
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Sweetening is another matter, particularly in some categories (not whiskey, thank God).
Which categories?
I mostly encounter it in "premium" vodkas, where there's nowhere to for it to hide so it's pretty easily perceptible. Also frequently in gin.
In both these categories, I should point out, it's also traditional, and not necessarily an example of the degeneracy of modern times.
The caramel one finds in blended Scotches is burnt sugar, which affects the color but adds no sweetness.
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None that I know of.Is there any reason anyone who was distilling carefully enough to make a spirit that you could at least choke down straight would want to do this?
I think he's asking if they are more than contending, but in any case I don't think it's happening at anything above well-brand levels.Part of what I gather is bostonapothecary's point is that he's contending that makers of quality spirits are adding acid. I can't see why someone selling at more than the rock-bottom level would want to do this (especially when, as you point out, acidity and sweetness can be tweaked with careful distilling and aging).Sweetening is another matter, particularly in some categories (not whiskey, thank God).
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What spirits have added citric acid? I assume that some vodkas have trace amounts added, depending on how they want to tweak their flavor profile.
See post #9.
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FWIW, a quick Google search turned up this article here on volatile acids found in some whiskey, cognac, and rum. According to the abstract, the majority is acetic acid with lesser amounts of higher volatile fatty acids, including propionic and butyric acids. Not sure what all that means in terms of organoleptic properties and they don't say anything about the source of these in the abstract.
Good find. I think the key word here is that old favorite, "organoleptic." In most well-made spirits, we're talking about what are basically trace amounts of acidity, but on the other hand trace amounts are still easily perceptible to a sensitive palate. After all, one can tell the difference between two vodkas.
I suspect in a well-made spirit the quantities involved are too small to materially affect the pH level. Don't know about the ones with added citric acid, though.
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It's not just the cheap products, no. Mostly, though, it's sugar added to the "premium" spirits, not citric acid, and often quite a lot, to cover up greedy distilliation. (I should emphasize that Beefeater is impeccably distilled.) I'm not going to name names, because it's my impression against their advertising budget.
I don't think anyone adds acid to a vodka or gin as a way of making people not want to add vermouth. I don;t think these people think of vermouth at all.
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for starters we need to talk about them. understanding the monetarily cheap things we ignore helps justify all the money i spend on certain products and tells us what artisinal is. i know the differences in wine at all sorts of levels but not in spirits.
people think spirits, cheap or not, are made by phantoms, corporate entities, or trolls under bridges. the highly regarded WSJ could not even interview anyone on the revisions to noilly dry production and now i'm going to inherit a superstitious clientele that is going to spout to me WSJ trivia they read on why noilly dry sucks and is no longer classic...
"cheap" spirits are not always bad spirits to drink... so much of the country still would call overholt "cheap" and shun it (we know otherwise!). the bulk of the bar community still doesn't understand gin quality... are gordon's and seagram's cheap? because you can't really find them in many bars around here and even fancy places could afford to serve a $7 gin and tonic with them...
lowering the price of a gin and tonic from $8 to $7 would do wonders for society... some guest recently confessed to me that i really changed his life financially when i taught him he could enjoy our $8 overholt manhattan over his usual $11 crown royal... he thought the stuff would taste awful or make him sick... (one down millions to go...)
one of the reasons i'm curious about this acidity issue is that i think its important to the drastic evolution of the most famous mixed drink out there... the drink is so subtle and so important to many people's lives that delicate unpublished changes could really tip the scales over the course of many years... (with huge amounts of money to be gained)
if sugar additives are regulated and can be found in print somewhere so probably are acid additives. and if they are not additives like allegedly the tales of distillates, their variance is probably explained somewhere in a distiller's reference that can be pointed out to me...
thanks to anyone that can help me understand this...!
Here's what I understand about this, in brief (and apologies for the simplistic language; I'm just trying to lay things out clearly, as much for myself as for anyone). All distillation involves making a cut; discarding or reserving for redistillation most of what comes through the still. The best distillers will make a very narrow cut. This is expensive--if you let more through, you get to bottle more booze. But the broader the cut, the more congeners you let through into your distillate. If these include some of the compounds that are more volatile than alcohol, your booze will smell nasty and taste harsh. You can cushion some of this harshness by adding sugar or glycerin. This will make your spirit taste sweet, though. If it's a vodka or a gin or a white rum you're making, that might mess with your marketing plan. So then you might want to throw in a little citric acid to cut the sweetness. The acidity will also mask some of the rank odors you get with a bad cut.
You can taste the sugar/glycerin, because it will pool in the bottom of your mouth.
You can test for the citric acid, because cream or milk will curdle if poured into a glass of alcohol dosed with the stuff and swirled around. Try it with a bottle of Georgi or Banker's Club. No need to taste.
I agree that there are many good, cheap boozes out ther (see my bit in this month's Esquire), and that they should be sought out and supported. Long live Evan Williams!
A Cheap Booze Project, wherein someone tasted all the $8-$12 bottles out there and noted the palatable ones, would be a wonderful thing.
ETFTGDT (Edited To Fix The Goddam Typos)
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Some small amounts of citric acid, sugar or glycerin are allowed (as in not explicitly forbidden), in some categories and countries; other categories are a lot more strict (straight bourbon and rye are among the strict ones). the spirits that add acid are usually cheap (and I mean really cheap) vodkas; but let's not talk about them.
Other spirits have a good deal of natural acidity that has nothing to do with additives. These are usually pot-stilled; the bit of "tails" that most distillers using alembics allow through thends to contain a lot of acidity--more with some fermentates than with others, though.
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i have a feeling that beefeater has not been noticeably sweetened because there are lots of origin control style laws that protect london dry style gin. they can add some sort of trace amount of sugar but my understanding is that its to protect their formula from being reverse engineered... (how i don't know).
from simple PH pen experiments i've done on spirits i've found acidity that i'm pretty sure doesn't come from the distilling process... (acid additives?) maybe i can track down an old generation beefeater and compare its PH to one in the new packaging...
About the Beefeater: it's just an impression several, ah, 'experienced organoleptic gin analysts' and I had at a recent blind tasting. I wouldn't bank on it, but we definitely thought it was different at the time. But the difference was in the realm of trace ingredients--we're not talking SoCo here.
The perception of sweetness in spirits can come from added sugar or glycerin, or from the way the cut is made in distillation. If it is indeed different--again, it was just an impression--it could be from any one of these.
As for acidity. Some definitely comes from the distilling process. Tequila and cognac, two choose two marked examples, have strong natural acidity, even when tasted right off the still and with no opportunity to be adulterated 9as does, for further example, single-malt Scotch).
Other spirits add acid to mask the sugar they've added to hide the crappy cut they're making in the interest of boosting volume. These are bad spirits, and usually-but alas not always--found on the bottom shelf in the plastic bottle.
I'd be very interested in the results of a test of old NP versus the "new." Please do post 'em, should you find the time to perform said analysis.
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Hey, flattered to have the Weeski included! Thanks!
Ironically, Guglielmo Marconi's mother was a Jameson of the Jameson Whiskey Jamesons. Small world.
As for the Marconi Wilreless-Star axis: according to the New York Herald, in 1897, when it was one of the Fifth-Avenue Hotel's new drinks for the season, the Star's "chief ingredient is apple jack, vermouth and orange bitters making up the rest."
Of course, Kappeler's 1-1 version that Mr. Clarke referenced is a couple of years earlier in print, but the Fifth-Avenue had a very well regarded bar and I'd have a hard time saying which of these was the definitive version. Jacques Straub's 1914 Drinks, an excellent indicator of what general practice was, splits the difference, going for 1 to 1 proportions (I'm assuming that "chief ingredient" in the Herald indicates something like 2:1 proportions) but with orange bitters and no gum.
Boy, is this geeky. I'd better stop.
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I wouldn't say that the "new" NP is sweeter than the "old." Perhaps the opposite.
I don't find it significantly sweeter, either, at least not in an actual cocktail. It's definitely fuller-bodied and more assertive. I've been using it for about a year now and find it makes a hell of a Fitty-Fitty and a great Clover Club, but a disappointing 1950s-style ultra-dry Gibson (it doesn't help that Beefeater, my go-to for that style, appears to have been sweetened a little since the recent retirement of Desmond Payne). All this is as one would expect.
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On the whole, I tend to assume the sherries called for in cocktails, unless otherwise specified, are supposed to be dry style sherries.
For me, it really depends on the cocktail. Sherries have such a range of sweetness and body that you can cover a whole lot of territory with them.
I tend to use them as vermouth analogues. For something where I,ight otherwise use a dry vermouth, I'll usually go with a fino or a manzanilla or (for a little more depth of flavor) an unsweetened amontillado.
For sweet vermouth analogues, on the other hand, I'll use a semi-sweet Amontillado like the Sandeman Character (a personal favorite, particularly with gin) or a semi-sweet Oloroso like the Lustau East India (good whith whiskey).
If I want to turn up the volume a few notches, I'll reach for the lovely Dry Sack 15, a sweeter, older oloroso with a lot of oomph.
And if I want to go nuts, it's the Pedro Ximenez. That, to me, works better as an accent, though, in the way one might use an Italian amaro (a similar level of concentration, lthough it lacks the bitterness).
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One of my favorite cocktails. Particularly when I'm a-fearin' the booze.
i run into this same feeling all the time most often at the end of the night... and no bartenders seem to understand this style of drink... socially i need one more. but i can't metabolize the usual so i look to low alcohol high flavor sherry and vermouth...
i think the last time i tried to order a bamboo i was charged $12. and it took a lot of explaining why i would want something like that in the first place... (at a cocktail spot)
with the ingredients in the bamboo (or even the half sinner, half saint) so affordable you should be able to get it near anywhere for less and $8.
some day.
Word.
Woodstock inpired cocktails
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
It must be pointed out, I'm afraid, that for the Woodstock generation drinking cocktails was perhaps the single most uncool thing a person could to, short only of having a dog called "Checkers," a wife with a cloth coat and the middle name of "Milhous."
E. g., "America Drinks and Goes Home," by the Mothers of Invention, which featues the immortal couplet, "Time to meet the Gurneys / And a dozen gray attorneys."