mbrowley

George Ade mentions the Jack Rose in passing in The Old-Time Saloon (1931) while discussing the encyclopedic repertoire of pre-Prohibition mixologists: ..."New cocktails were being invented and christened every week. If some genius in New Jersey thought out a combination of apple-jack, plain syrup, diced apples, and a dash of lemon juice and called it a "Jack Rose," the artist at the Palace in San Francisco would be all set, within two weeks, to take care of the smartie from the East who strolled in and casually asked for a Jack Rose." Hmmm...Ade was a particularly astute observer of the American vernacular, so it's noteworthy that his take on the cocktail has no grenadine, but only "plain syrup." I'm also intrigued by the "diced apples" comment. Just strewn in? Muddled? Maybe candied with a hard caramel shell and skewered to garnish just before serving? The first two are old school possibilities, but the third seems decidedly an approach the barback molecular gastronauts might take. Me? I like it just fine without the floaters.

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So I find myself headed to LA for a few days at the end of the month and will have time to spare while there. Can anyone recommend a retail (or open to the trade) supplier of bar goods and drinkers' gear? I'm set for stemwear, but am always curious about sources for fancy muddlers, more julep cups, Lewis bags, imported goods you might see at more well-equipped cookware shops like Fantes in Philadelphia or culinary antique dealers such as Lucullus in New Orleans. ~ Matthew

After having successfully managed to drink down the liquor cabinet(s) for the move to Southern California, I still find that after more than a year in the new digs, I'm occasionally missing particular spirits. The new liquor cabinet is filled with the usual suspects, but an increasing array of those hard-to-find things are filling jars and bottles — enhooched cherries (for Christmas bounce and surreptitious Manhattans), cherry gin, house-made bitters of various provenance, falerna experimentations ~ and orgeat. Here's another recipe that's worked well. It's certainly worth tweaking to your own tastes. The rose water, in particular, is worth doling out with a light touch. I've never met François-Xavier, but I do like his site. It's worth checking out the link not only for directions, but for the handsome photography as well... François-Xavier's Orgeat 300gr blanched whole almonds 100gr white almond powder 2 liters mineral water About 3kg white sugar Rose water to taste Orange flower water Bitter almond extract Cognac is a nice stabilizer to round out the flavor. Otherwise, a dose of less expensive vodka helps to extend the shelf life.

I'm reminded of the old WC Fields line that the cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart. Since there's a BevMo about a mile from the office and I've seen the Aperol there enough times to know that they have about seven bottles in stock, lunch once more is going to run about $22/750ml. Yeah, they know me there. Aperol at BevMo Aperol's website also lists recipes...

Russ, you're killing me. I spent a year weeding my cookery library to shift it from Philadelphia to San Diego and am down to a manageable 2,000 volumes. Now, as we plan a drive up the coast to San Francisco next week, I've got yet another place to drop too much money on books. The trick is getting them into the house without raising suspicion... For those in Amsterdam, there's de Kookboekhandel (http://www.kookboekhandel.com/) and the Friday boekmarkt on Spui which is not strictly cookbooks, but there are a lot of them to be had there.

It's been years since I read it, and don't have a copy here at the office to double-check, but Dianne Ackerman covered the fugitive aroma of violets pretty extensively in "A Natural History of the Senses." Violet smells don't change – we do. As I recall, humans are able to smell violets at first, but then are numbed to the aroma temporarily. Eventually our own internal chemical threshold allows us to perceive the smell again, so that the effect is of a fading smell that returns in sequential waves (even though the concentration of the violet may stay the same).

I'm with you on the 80-proof vodka, Erik. It's the most widely available product, for one, which makes recipes calibrated to 40 abv more easy to replicate for others who might not have access to 100 proof vodka or grain alcohol such as Everclear, Clear Springs, Diesel, or Graves (by the way, forget the sheer audacity of the name, I love the triple-x on the Graves-in-a-bottle). Ability for others to replicate recipes notwithstanding, I don't like the nose-crinkling taste of grain alcohol. It's too hot, too much like solvent, and carries the stink of it is something I associate with poorly-distilled rotgut moonshine. Odd, I know. You'd think something so nearly pure would have a neutral taste. Not so. Though it's been used to good effect (Gary Regan's limoncello, for instance, bravely calls for a liter of the stuff), for day to day beverage purposes, one can do better. And vodka seems to answer nicely. Some of the home distillers I know, though, prefer a higher-proof ETOH for their tinctures and bitters, claiming they get better extraction of secondary alkaloids, essential oils, and the like. I'm not a chemist, so I can't say. Anyone out there able to address this from a chemical standpoint? I tried filtering grain through the Gray Kangaroo; still didn't take the stink out of that particular drink. For 80-100 proof vodka, the thing is a category-killer. With other potables, not so much. [edited for typos]

Two recipes for ersatz maraschino popped on my radar this week as I compiled notes on how I was going to enhooch five pounds of sour cherries. Haven't tried either and they're nothing you'd confuse with Luxardo's product, but for fun here are Imitation Maraschino (1890's-1900's) Stone 12 lb. of Morella [sic] cherries, bruise the fruit and the kernels, and put them into a large jar with two gallons of pure rectified spirits of wine, and nine pounds of crushed sugar candy. Bruise five pounds of fresh clean peach leaves, 6 oz of white rose petals, and 2 oz each of orange flower and white jessamine flowers in a mortar and add them to the other ingredients. Cork the jar tightly and infuse for 6 weeks, stirring occasionally, then strain through filtering-paper and store in airtight bottles. M.E. Steedman (nd), Home-Made Beverages and American Drinks (The Food and Cookery Publishing Agency, London) Marasquin Avec 1 kg de cerises sèches, 1 litre d’eau de vie, 1 gousse de vanille, 300 grammes de miel, 1/2 litre d'eau et 200 grammes de sucre. On fair sécher les cerises en plein soleil pour les écraser avec leur noyau. On ajoute la vanille, le tout recouvert avec l'eau de vie pour une macération de 2 mois. Filtrer et ajouter le mélange miel et sirop de sucre. Bien mélanger, mettre en bouteilles et laisser viellier au frais. Gilbert Fabiani (2000) Élixirs & Boissons Retrouvés (Editions Équinoxe, Barbentane)

HA! I don't have requirements, so much as I was pleased that for about $8/liter, I could get a good base spirit by filtering vodka I would not otherwise serve a guest. From that I can make extracts, tinctures, cordials, etc. The largest amount of base I ever put to use at home was one year when I went just a hair overboard and made about five gallons of a cranberry cordial. In such quantity, the parity between $8/liter and $20 made a big difference. Not that I wouldn't and haven't experimented with pricier stock, but I just make much less of whatever I'm trying to do. Hmmm...maybe not such a bad idea. The cordial was very tasty, but lasted a while. Ended up giving the last of it (in a 1.8 liter sake bottle) to a friend with several boxes of mixed bottles. We had spent several months trying to drink down the liquor cabinet* and were left with an overabundance of alcohol. This was a take-all-or-nothing deal that included all my homebrew gear as well (Zeke, you still owe me a Spencer at the Southwark). * cabinet is a misnomer. It was a cabinet, a copper-topped dry sink, two more cabinets, a basement locker, a bar cart, the underside of a stainless work table, and the backsplash of two kitchen counters. Drinking down the cabinet before our cross-country move was a herculean task, but by the grace of a brace of old cocktail books and my food service friends, we managed to drink all but three cases.

Running around the office, skimmed the title of this post as I was searching for something else, misread it, and had my first double-take in a long time. What a shame it isn't really "Cocktail Hagiography" – I was all ready to review the case for the sainting of Jerry Thomas.

"To render this class of liquids profitable to the manufacturer, the ingredients made use of should be few and simple, and of an insignificant value." Pierre Lacour in regard to bitters "The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines, and Cordials without the Aid of Distillation" (1868) The infused vodka and bitters threads got me thinking about the infusions, concoctions, decoctions, and macerations that make my liquor closet sometimes look like the herpetology storeroom in a natural history museum. At the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, we actually used grain alcohol to boost the ethanol content of 19th-century specimens, so the analogy isn't that far off. I've had plenty of cordials, brandy-based "wines," and tonics that were based on various home-distilled spirits such as corn whiskey, rye, grappa, and white brandy. It's a hit-and-miss affair. Some approached the velvety sublime. Others were just dag-nasty. But a sizable group of those home distillers shoots for as pure a spirit as they can make. None is equipped to make 100% ethanol, but in a home setting with a reflux still, they can sometimes hit over 180 proof, stripping out a lot of congeners and "impurities" (the bane of the new home vodka set). There's a tendency for these guys to flavor the resulting spirit with oils and essences rather than raw ingredients, but I picked up a few of their tricks for making a near flavorless base that allows those raw ingredients to stand on their own. Among the most useful tricks is to filter the base spirit once cut back to 40-50% abv. There are plenty of ways to filter, polish or "scrub" spirits of impurities for the home- or bar-based experimenter, but they all include some form of activated carbon. Lots of jerry rigging going on with funnels and pipes, Britta filters (don't try it), but the idea is to make (or purchase) low-cost vodka, filter it, and then use that as a base spirit. One commercial product (Gray Kangaroo) that purports to "take the stink out of your drink" actually does a good job of scrubbing the nastiness from cheap-ish vodka to make a clean base spirit for cocktails or infusions. Nick and Coach, the Philadelphia branch office of Modern Drunkard Magazine, invented the thing and - full disclosure - I've got nothing to do with the product and no money ever changed hands between us. I just like it as a useful tool. The downside is that it's utterly no good for brandies, whiskeys, etc. where you actually WANT those impurities (e.g. "flavor" and "character") to stand out - had to dissuade my mom this weekend from running her bourbon through the one I gave her - but I picked up one of their filters a while back and am pretty impressed with its ability to polish well vodka into something smooth enough to use as a nearly flavorless base for all those cordials, bitters, etc. So, for a cheap base that wouldn't compete with the flavors you're trying to develop, some kind of carbon filter for vodka is a good move. Of course, I also use rye, bourbon, and occasionally gin , none of which should ever be anywhere near a Gray Kangaroo. What other spirits do you find works well for your flavored potables? ~ Matt

I'm heading to San Francisco for the first time the first week of August for some eating, drinking, and talks with a few distillers and need a few pointers. California watering holes are still largely terra incognito for me (I know New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Tijuana, in fact, better than my newly adopted state). Given only five days in and around the city, what are the bars/bartenders I shouldn't miss? Anyone, for instance, experimenting with ho-made bitters? Are there bars known for extensive selections of whiskey or gin? Is there a local favorite that just begs for sampling? How about fantastic liquor stores? The questions are a little scattershot, but I'm still in the early stages of planning and don't know nearly enough about getting enhooched in Northern California. Thanks, ~ Matt

When beer is out of the running (oh, what a sad day) and the mixers are of questionable age and provenance, I'll order whiskey, neat, with a bump of still filtered/bottled/spring water on the side. A splash of water (no sink water, please, or soda) in the glass, then inhale and imbibe. Works nearly every time.

A working kitchen is one of the worst places to keep cookbooks. The humidity, the heat, the aerosolized grease, the hydrophilic nature of paper itself allow books to suck up odors all conspire to shorten the lives of books. On top of that, there's potential to harm books in the process of cooking – spills and burns in particular. Yet there have always been a few cookery books that stay in my kitchen. Some – such as the River Cottage Meat Book, the Barbecue Bible, Moro, the Splendid Table, Tarantino's Marinades, Rubs, Brines, Cures & Glazes, the Cake Bible, etc – come in and out as I work on various projects, but a few live in the kitchen year-round. My "kitchen copies" form a core of what others would call "reading copies" – second copies and backups of books I already own in my library, but I don't mind if they get scuffed, burned, spilled on, etc. Keep in mind that mine is not a professional kitchen, but the titles that always have a place in it are; 1) Southern Food by John Egerton. Found a slightly worn copy in Chapel Hill, NC for fifty cents. Rarely actually cook out of it, but what a goldmine of inspiration. After a Colombian friend of mine disparaged American cookery, I made a whole meal of Southern foods, including cornbread. I was never allowed to make dinner for him after that without making "arepas americanas." 2) The Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook. Pay attention to what Matt and Ted have to say about Southern cookery (my blood orange variant of their pickled shrimp was a huge hit with my gym buddies, who asked if I could make it every day. Nix). 3) The Silver Palette Cookbook. Dated, yes, I know. And I'd be bummed if I went to a restaurant that served nothing but its yuppie cuisine. But some of that 80's cooking was great and thumbing through its pages has often given me ideas for a slightly different take on dinner. 4) Barbecue Bible Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades by Steven Raichlen. In Philly where outdoor space was tight, this was not a kitchen copy, but now that I live in southern California and our grill is big enough to do an actual pig pickin', I find myself picking through it for ideas once a week or so. So, what's in your kitchen? And why? ~ Matthew

I am by nature and training acquisitive; my cookbook collection has metastisized from a single case in my undergraduate years to a 2,000-volume library that sprawls across several rooms and into storage. And that's after pruning. As a former museum curator, I understand some of the considerations that go into making a good collections: utility, the ability to delight and educate, the cost of upkeep and, let's face it, the thrill of the chase for that one book you can't do without. Any well-maintained collection needs to grow – by which I don't mean that it necessarily gets bigger. But it gets better. First editions might be your thing. Or cookbooks signed by authors. Maybe you start with some books that have writing in them and you want to upgrade to pristine copies. Could be that the writing for you is evidence of actual use and those marginalia, rather than being an annoyance, are an historical record (check that bookplate, too, to see who might have been making the notes). You make room for better quality books by losing the filler that doesn't educate, delight, or prove useful. In 2006 I moved from Philadelphia to San Diego. You bet I pruned. Gone were most books that didn't relate to food in some way. The same with any books I hadn't cracked open since purchasing. It was a great chance to clear house and finally dispose of mediocre books, those that were simply modern collections of recipes with little or no social, historical, or ethnographic context. My collection veers toward hardbacks and, increasingly, antiquarian cookery books - in fact, I'll upgrade to a well-preserved hardback if I've already got a paperback edition and pass on the paperback to a friend or colleague. It also skews toward foods that are preserved in some way – fermented, pickled, cured, etc. So sections on charcuterie, cheese, pickles/preserves, beer and spirits (moonshine and distilling, naturally) tend to go into more depth than, say, Indonesian or Austrian cookery. It helps to prune by knowing what's NOT in your general interest. Though I have a lot on whiskeys, brandy, and cocktails, I have very few books dealing with wine - there are simply too many wine books to keep up. Same with community cookbooks. I just don't have the room to start that never-ending collection, outside a select few from the American South. The depth and expense of the collection I justify to myself by knowing that I've got one of the best culinary libraries in town and that answers to many of my food questions are on the shelves around me. But I also learned something from chef Fritz Blank in Philadelphia; open your collections to others. Serious book collectors are secretive, protective, and competitive. They rarely let outsiders use their collections (maybe more territorial than protective at times). Fritz let researchers as well as any guest to his restaurant Deux Cheminees come into his 10,000-volume cookery library. I tapped his shelves more than once for 17th and 18th century distilling receipts as I researched my recent book on home distilling. It's a model I adopted; users of my collection can't borrow books, but I do let writers, historians, cooks, chefs, journalists, restaurateurs, and culinary students use the collection here at my house. Scheduling can be a pain sometimes, but my visitors also bring me books, especially ones they have written. They call or email with questions and they incorporate materials from me on their menus, in their articles, and in their books. It's a nice trade off and makes me feel as if the real estate and expense of maintaining a robust cookery library is worth it. And pruning is one way to make sure that the collection really is a value to me and others who might need answers to their culinary questions. That's probably a vestigal curatorial vein. Or sheer ego. Not sure. Time to go buy some food books. ~ Matthew

A little matchmaking may be in order for friends with a taste for bitters. I was talking offline to a colleague this week when it hit me that the alcoholists I know – cocktailians on one hand and home distillers on the other – don't necessarily talk to each other. This is a bit like the gardeners not talking to the landscapers. Yahoo Distillers' group is a lively discussion of among skilled home distillers (there's a separate group for newbie distillers) with sometimes wide-ranging discussions of technical aspects of distilling and aging spirits (ingredients, process, gear, woods, etc), as well as historical and ethnographic accounts of distilling spirits - and, of course, the drinking thereof. Just as here, there's an ongoing discussion of bitters (see below for one recent post). The format's a little different and you'd have to search for bitters as a keyword, but given the overlap in interest, it might be worth peeking over the hedge to see what the distillers are unearthing. The recent post that follows is a good introduction into what they're talking about. Matt ------------------------------------------------- Re: 19th century Bitters (Gin Sling/Pimm's) In her 'One Shilling Cookery Book', Mrs. Isabella Mary Beeton (1835- 65) gives a recipe for a Gin Sling (sling comes from 'schlingen' - to swallow): 1 wineglassful of gin 2 slices of lemon 3 lumps sugar ice or iced-water Now if we add dashes of the English 1830 Bitters (below) we might get an original Pimm's? wal --- In Distillers@yahoogroups.com, "waljaco" <waljaco@...> wrote: > > I have converted the recipes to metric and scaled them down to 1 litre. > The botanicals should be macerated for 5-10 days. > > Spirituous Bitters (1830, England) > > 7.5 g-15 g gentian root > 7.5 g dried orange peel > 4 g dried lemon peel (optional) > 4 g cardamon seed > 4 g cloves (optional) > 1 litre alcohol (55%) > > ('Clarke's Complete Cellarman', Clarke W.,London,1830) > >

One of the hassles of moving cross country was pruning, packing, then unpacking the cookery library (I'm down to about 2,000 volumes). Among the liquor books is a clutch dealing primarily with liqueurs and cordials. Most can be picked up online, but here's a smattering of some books on the topic; Cocconi, Emilio (1975) Liqueurs for All Seasons. (translated from 1974 Italian). Lyceum Books. Fabiani, Gilvert (2000) Elixirs & Boissons Retrouves. Editions Equinox, Barbentane. Ferreyol, M. (1999) Manuel Pratique pour la Fabrication Rapide et Economique des Liqueurs et des Spiriteaux sans Distillation. L'Oie de Cravan, Montreal (facsimile of 1899 edition). Hertzog, Jeanne (1983) Boissons Menageres Vins-Aperatifs, Liqueurs, Sirops. Editions SAEP, Colmar. de Janze, Gilles (2001) Les Liqueurs: 200 Recettes de Familie. Editions Ouest-France, Rennes. Lamboley, Philippe (1998). Liqueurs, Sirops et Ratafias. Hachette Livre, Paris. Meilach, Dona and Mel (1986) Homemade Cream Liqueurs. Contemporary Books. Meilach, Dona and Mel (1979) Homemade Liqueurs. Contemporary Books. Simon, Andre L. (1946) English Wines and Cordials. Gramol Publications, London. Steedman, M.E. (nd) Home-made Beverges and American Drinks. The Food and Cookery Publication Agency, London. Vargas, Pattie and Rich Gulling (1997) Cordials from Your Kitchen. Storey Publishing. And I'd be remiss if I didn't throw in my own "Moonshine!" (2007) with recipes for cranberry cordial, sassafrass nip, figgadeen, ice caraway, cherry bounce, etc. As for online sources, there's a pretty robust ongoing discussion on one of the Yahoo distillers' group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Distillers It's worth digging into the archived messages for member recipes... ~ Matthew

A Georgia gentleman of my recent acquaintance told me that his father still makes some, as do various and sundry other individuals in the state. None for commerce, though, not as far as I know. Pity. Is Matthew Rowley still around here? He'd know more about the non-commercial aspects of this, as he's just published an excellent book on home distilling. ← I am still around, David ~ although between work and speaking these days, I'm a bit scarce online. Re: domestic peach brandy - there is a lot still made, though most of the examples I know of are from the southeast, northwest and southern California. Cooler mountain areas seem to have a deeper tradition of making them, but be aware that just because some of this handcranked liquor is called "peach brandy" doesn't mean that's it's what you or I would categorize as peach brandy. It's not uncommon for sugar spirits to be spiked with peach flavoring (your tongue can tell the difference) as well as macerations of peaches in some other liquor to parade about under the name of "peach brandy" especially in rural areas where there's more concern about the fineness and potency of the final product than quibblings about what to call it. If you find someone making the real McCoy, by all means do your best to get some - peach and apple brandies are some of the most venerable in American folk distilling traditions and you stand a good chance of finding some tasty versions. On the other hand, if you find peach brandy in the city, chances are strong that you've got the real deal because home distillers show a marked tendency to revive older recipes and pursue obscure authentic ingredients. Hmmmmm...wandering off-topic here, so let me bend the conversation back to juleps. Best juelp I ever had was in Kirksville, Missouri, and made by the same gentlemen who introduced me to his family's appplejack about 20 years back. There's actually a film lurking around the net of me making a mint julep using - heresy - a frying pan. I'd just moved into my house last June in San Diego and had the barest battery of kitchen and bar supplies - not even the bed had come yet. But the director insisted on shooting a segment of me doing something I did to unwind. Somehow books and alcohol came up. No ice crusher on hand, so the ice cubes went into a bag and got hammered with a frying pan to get the best crushed ice we could muster under the circumstances, while the mint came from a derelict garden at the side of the house. Not one of my finer moments, but as I sit here in an airport in Kansas City, I find myself hankering a breakfast julep as soon as I get back to clear skies, palm trees, and a garden that still needs tending. Peach or whiskey, though, is going to plague me until the ice hits that silver cup. Thanks, by the way, for the kind words on the book. Matthew MoonshineArchives at gmail.com

I may well go that route; a control group with vodka and a test with aged rum. As for a decent quality vodka - I've become a fan of the "personal liquor filter" sold by the boys at http://graykangaroo.com - They sell a pour-through filter that uses activated carbon to polish less-than-decent vodkas. In Philadelphia while researching my moonshine book, I interviewed the boys who invented it. It's absolutely no good for whiskeys, gin, or brandies, but for taking the second-cheapest vodka out there and filtering out a lot of the nastiness to make a smooth drink? A handy little device. It's especially useful for making vodka-based cordials, liqueurs, etc. a lot cheaper. Oh - I'm in San Diego, about twenty miles from the Mexican border. In addition to guavas, we have rosemary bushes the size of a VW bug, figs, rampant mint, roses (for rosewater and, later, rosehip jam), and then a farmer's market a few blocks away fill all the seasonal produce you'd want for stocking your bar with syrups and cordials. Matthew

Spent too much time with extralegal distillers not to have picked up a few tricks. ~ Matthew

If enchiladas are slathered in chiles and empanadas are fillings swaddled in bread, surely many of us have delighted in, or suffered through, occasional enhoochment, yeah?

Erik ~ I came across this tantalizing Cuban discussion: http://www.cuba-junky.com/pinar-del-rio/guayabita.htm Not quite the same fruit, but the aging in oak barrels suggests that some toasted oak chips might not be an unwelcome addition if using white rum. The piece reads likes it has been auto-translated from Spanish, so the "honey" mentioned is, I reckon, not actual honey, but a sugary "miel" (e.g. a thin, sugar-based syrup or wash that is then fermented and distilled). A maceration in rum, a temperate addition of water, then a second distillation might also yield some tasty results.

Since last week, the guava tree out back has gone from hundreds of little, hard green fruits to hundreds of highly perfumed, soft, pendulous and ripe yellow fruits. The branches threaten to snap under the weight, and I've already given away about fifteen pounds to buddies. That still leaves way too many to just leave to the possums, so I'm considering ways to enhooch the guavas with alcohol. My initial thought was to crush them lightly in a big glass le Parfait preserving jar and baptise the mass with rum for punches around the holidays. Anybody got other notions before I upend a bottle of Bacardi Anejo? I should add - the idea is not to preserve the guavas; it's to doctor alcohol for palatible mixings later on. ~ Matthew

I know I'm coming to this thread a little late in the game, but I was in Tijuana last weekend at the Mercado Hidalgo (a big municpal market). Among all the great produce, sweets, and more than a few tacos de cabeza, several of the herb stores sold small (<1") cinchona blocks in their tea sections. Of course, I thought immediately of making bitters, but then I've got almost a dozen bottles at home, so there really wasn't much excuse I could have for bringing it home. Fortunately, I'm about 20 minutes from TJ, so I can go nearly any time. I may just have to rethink that whole not-bringing-any-home thing. For those of you who don't live so close to the border, I'd check out local Mexican herb stores or health food stores where it might be in with herbs for tisanes, concoctions, infusions, etc. By the way, John, I'm liking the idea of a quinine syrup. I may just have to snag a bag of chinocha when I head back south, regardless of raised eyebrows back at the house... Matthew