Chris Amirault

We arrived at Junior and Heidi's place for the 10a start. You drive to a street in the Bronx and then call Heidi up; someone on their team meets you at the street and walks you into a typical NYC full-block brick apartment complex. Alley here, door here, hallway (past a very busy kitchen), and then into the two lab rooms. In the far room, the walls are lined with Liquid Lab/Junior Merino paraphernalia, a variety of canned juices, sodas, and other drinks, snack items, powders, and who knows what else. This is the room in which all spirit tasting is done. (You also watch marketing DVDs from the sponsors, which range from fascinating -- I liked the pisco one -- to unintentionally humorous.) The long tables are set with ten small glasses at ten different stations, along with a small cup of coffee beans (to clear your nasal passages as you are overwhelmed by sensation). Each glass receives about 10-20 ml of a given spirit, and as a group, led by Junior, you taste them one at a time -- and then repeat the tasting a second time. It's a trick to leave a few ml in the glass, but it's worth it: as Junior explained (and I experienced), you develop a sense of the nuances of the spirits both times, and often different elements reveal themselves only the second time around, in the context of the other spirits. We tasted five rounds of ten spirits, or fifty total; because you repeat each tasting, in effect you taste one hundred spirits with great concentration. In addition, given the short amount of time that we have for the entire lab experience, the tastings are pretty speedy: we probably spent an average of only 1-2 minutes for each spirit taste and discussion, or about 30-40 minutes for each round (remember, tasted each one twice). The last two tastings were even faster than that. We were, that is to say, nowhere near Paul Pacult's 20 minutes per spirit, and I definitely felt rushed. Despite that, it was pretty thrilling to taste those fifty spirits: mezcals and scotches, piscos and rums, tequilas and bourbons. The vast majority I'd never tasted before, and I hadn't heard of nearly half even when I learned their name; most I'd never have the opportunity to taste if not for the LL. Certain aspects of spirit-making, particularly distilling and aging, became much clearer to me as we walked through the selections, and for the first time I felt I was using definitive benchmarks for what I tended to like (length, complexity, smoke, heat, "funk," oily mouthfeel) and didn't like (too much oak, vanilla, what I'd call simplicity and other people called "smoothness," sugar). Writing that sentence out, I remember my discomfort at the vocabulary we were using in our discussion. Junior would say, "So let's try number X. What do you smell? Taste?" One member of the group (most often Junior) would toss out an adjective or noun, and that would become one of the terms we'd then toss around. I found it distracting: crowd-sourcing such an intimate, personal experience from the outset was hard for me to manage, the social task of verbal negotiation competing with the sensory onslaught in my nose and mouth that made me close my eyes (and want to close my ears). In addition, the first words spoken often became the ersatz consensus; though there were many times that our tastes differed, collective descriptors tended to build from those foundations. Perhaps they were consistently accurate, but it was hard for me to tell after a while, honestly. So I started focusing in on two or three spirits per round, trying to peel away their layers while others plowed forward to the next glass. If I was fading, I'd grab the coffee beans and inhale, take a sip of water, and try again, but it got tough. Indeed, it's hard to explain the levels of concentration and sensory intensity this exercise required. I'm damned glad I was spitting throughout, or this would have been a futile exercise by round three. I'd share my tasting notes except I don't have them; they were on the sheets I filled out and turned into Heidi. When I get them faxed back I'll add those notes here. Next up: cocktail-o-rama.

I've used both chuck and brisket to good effect, but prefer brisket. It's definitely a beefier flavor, of course, but I think that's the appeal.

I thought I'd first put up the recipes I "developed" while there. "Developed" is in quotation marks; there's not enough time, sensory awareness, or sobriety to really work through a set of principles and arrive at a coherent drink. In addition, you are required to use one of the sponsoring base spirits, and if you have any liqueurs in the drink you have to include one of the sponsoring liqueurs. (Sunday it was the two Combiers -- finding plain Combier lousy, I just used Royal Combier -- Canton ginger, Castries, and a thin cherry liqueur I thought was lousy.) I was hesitant to dive into the "tropical sour" with both feet for a while (more on that later), and that's reflected in my drinks. Finally, a lot of my decisions were driven by wanting to use specific ingredients I have no access to here. Of the ten I created, here are the handful I wrote down in my own notes as at least remotely redeemable: Pisco Old Fashioned 2 oz Macchu Pisco 1/2 oz Royal Combier barspoon Del Maguey Minero mezcal barspoon Licor 43 2 dashes Bitter Truth Xocolatl bitters 2" orange peel Stir; strain; rim glass with peel. Ricardo Montalban, so named because it tasted like what I'd imagine "rich Corinthian leather" would taste like. 2 oz Siambra Azul anejo tequila 1 oz Old Monk rum 1/2 oz Junior's Dainzu gum syrup 2 dashes Amargo Chuncho bitters Stir; strain. After those OFs, moved into another pattern: Dessert for Clyde 2 oz Chairman's Reserve rum 1 oz Castries 1 1/2 oz Foco roasted coconut juice dash Junior's Dainzu pasilla/cinnamon salt dash Scrappy's chocolate bitters Shake; strain; garnish with nutmeg. I finally gave into the tyrrany of melon (more on that, too) with this one: 2 oz Ilegal reposada tequila 3/4 oz Royal Combier 3/4 oz lemon juice peel of 1/2 lemon (no pith) 2" cuke, diced BT grapefruit bitters Muddle the lemon peel with the liquids, then muddle the cuke with the mess. Shake; fine strain.

Decompressing still from an intense, overwhelming experience in the Bronx. Lots of notes to share, some that I still have with me and some that Heidi will be faxing back to me after sharing them with the sponsors (as proof that we actually attended). More very soon. At least my pores have stopped exuding mezcal.

It's still crazy hot here and I got to wondering about cold soups to go with grilled foods. Any new ideas this season?

Can you photograph it next to a ruler?

This was pretty tasty: 1/2 oz Suze 1/2 oz lemon 1/2 oz Luxardo Maraschino 1/2 t Kubler absinthe 1 1/2 oz Junipero gin Shake, strain, no garnish. Man, that Suze has a long, bitter tail.

Welcome to eG Forums, tarko! A question for you: does the texture of the white chocolate change after it's been caramelized?

That seems like a great option! I hadn't ever knowingly seen one of those before.

Cold, grilled chicken with charred skin awaits me tonight.

I'm a lefty and need the double-beveled edge of the nakiri.

I'm a big fan of Flo's in Portsmouth (4 Wave Ave, near Second Beach in Newport).

Thanks a bunch. I really appreciate it. Once I put it to the EdgePro in a few days and give it a test run, I'll report back.

I would really appreciate that, yes. Thanks! If by "that" you mean the tip of the bottom knife -- which is acute and not rounded like the knife above -- then, yes, I call that a pointed tip. (As did Hiroshi Saito.) It's not as pointed/acute as a deba or yanagi, of course, but it will enable me to prepare a shallot or garlic clove for mincing with greater ease than the rounded tip of the nakiri.

I think that the rule here is that anything you serve as part of breakfast-for-dinner should undeniably be part of your actual breakfasts. At our house, for example, tossed salads violate that rule, as we never have salad in the morning. Crepes, though, pass muster. ETA: We had blueberry cornmeal pancakes for dinner tonight.

After grilling for two nights straight in 90+F temps, it's finally cooled off. However, the family is still jet-lagged, and I'm thinking of a low-key dinner. Thus my thoughts turn to breakfast-for-dinner. That usually means eggs and something, perhaps pancakes. Tonight we also have English muffins, which opens up the possibility of toasted cheese, egg, and bacon. The rules at our house are pretty simple: nothing too fancy, no cold cereal, everyone gets to modify their own plate. Comfort food when you're wrung out. Anyone else partake of breakfast-for-dinner? When do you do it? What do you serve?

I often find that a vegetable stock is a better option for risottos, especially when you want to highlight lighter spring vegetables.

Thanks for trying. I had the same experience but I thought it was because I was a dumb gaijin.

I couldn't find any imagawayaki recipe that makes sense to me. I'll check my books when I get home, but does anyone have any recommendations for whatever google spits up?

A while back scubadoo97 posted this: Over time, I came to the same conclusion. In a perfect world, I'd find a nakiri with a pointed tip. Cut to Kappabashi Street in Tokyo, home of more kitchen and restaurant equipment than you'll ever find in any other one location. I spent hours in dozens of stores, with an emphasis on the many amazing knife shops (more on them later). While I was perusing the mindblowing selection at Tsubaya Hochoten, 3-7-2 Nishi-Asakusa, Taito-ku, Tokyo (Japanese website here; some photos -- not by me -- here; 1985 NY Times article here), I saw what looked like the object of my dreams. Pointing at it with my mouth agape, I said to Hiroshi Saito, the proprietor, "It looks like a nakiri with a pointed tip. What is it?" He said, dryly, "It's a nakiri with a pointed tip. It's the only one in the world. I make them myself. Good idea." So, 22000 yen later, I am the proud owner of a Tsubaya pointed-tip nakiri: The knife is a bit bigger than my Gekko nakiri, though the blade length is basically the same. I haven't used it at all yet but will report back when I do. If anyone can find out more information about the knife from the Tsubaya website, I'd be eager to know. I didn't get into a long discussion with Hiroshi about steel in particular: I was in too much of a consumer frenzy to think rationally.

While we were staying in Nakano-ku in Tokyo, we used the JR line everyday to get where we were going from our apartment just south of the station. One evening, we went out the north exit of the station to look around for food. Across the bus plaza from the station exit, just to the right of the entrance to the mall that connects the station to Nakano Broadway, we found a small stand making these: The outside was crisp and slightly browned; the dough was eggy and tender; inside was a warm, delicious vanilla custard. We four ate eight standing there on the sidewalk: dinner problem solved. We went back several times but never quite caught them at the perfect moment again, just as they come off the cast iron molds. Once they've sat a bit, they're still wonderful, but they lose that textural complexity as the exterior softens and the dough toughens slightly. We also had a few other styles, but the custard one was our favorite. (They stamp the finished bun with a hot iron, hence the black marking -- a tasty, slightly bitter counterpoint to the bun itself, I'll add.) So I'm interested to try to make them at home. First, I need to know what they are called. Here's the flyer for the stall: Can anyone lend a hand by identifying them? Even better, can you point to a recipe?

I'm not a big fan of the OXO strainer myself -- a bit small for my liking -- and I'm not sure what "worth the price" means to you, but I'm very glad I got it. I'll use it daily for another 30 or 40 years, so I'm not too worried about the one-time expense. But, hey, I bought a similarly pricey PUG! muddler and love it, too.

I tried out my new WMF Hawthorne strainer last night; it arrived from barsupplies.com while I was away. I absolutely love it -- by far the best one I've ever used.

No worries there: the entire premise is mindbogglingly fun! Did you bring your own kit, Katie?

I think "almost worthless" is far too strong. I think it's a great resource for a particular sort of novice, the sort who'd rather look a word up in the Oxford English Dictionary than read a wikipedia entry on it. In my workshops, I want people to consider their own ratios for, say, the Sidecar, and cocktaildb's variations -- Equal parts? 3:1:1? neither? -- are good starting points. I also think that a beginner with a bottle of something new to them would find the search function very useful, and the hyperlinks to ingredient descriptions and other drinks are instructive as well. As for the real bombs in there, well, you can learn a lot from the drinks that end up in the sink.