Chris Amirault

Are you using an original Amer Picon? Or something else?

David, what vermouth do you use?

I'm trying to figure out how to get my shakers, glasses, tools, books, bitters, and a fifth or three from home to work and back each week. I'm currently using a backpack, which kinda works but is flawed in that (a) some stuff doesn't fit and (b) I can never tell if everything's there. I've been looking at better options but, like Jim Meehan, I don't think that a repurposed Koobi kit along these lines will quite work. Unlike Jim Meehan, I cannot afford his dreamy, $660 Moore & Giles bag. I need something that can help me organize the stuff; label-friendly slots or something along those lines would help me remember not to forget. If it also fit work shoes and uni, that's a plus. And, yeah, less than $660. Any ideas?

What's the profile of Clontarf?

Good point. Gotta agree that you need a piston stuffer too.

Yeah, I think that having a dedicated meat grinder with a worm that works and a better cutting mechanism (sharper blade, too) is the solution to that definition problem....

Say more! What did you like about it, Brianemone?

I think that the key is a good, long simmer with lots of skin and bones to get out the collagen. I like my red beans and rice sticky on the lips.

What are the ingredient differences?

Got a guest coming for a working dinner tomorrow and so I made a batch of red beans and rice tonight using some hocks I smoked and froze and a bit of leftover homemade tasso. Anyone else getting this classic on their table lately?

I've been trying to figure out a few options at work for some orders we're getting from guests. One is for an "espresso martini," which I think means Kahlua, vodka, creme de cacao, and cold espresso. I'm going for something a bit different here using the espresso syrup I posted about a while back. The name refers to an Italian-American friend who lives near bourbon country: The Cavallo 2 oz bourbon 1/2 oz Fernet Branca 1/2 oz espresso syrup Stir; strain over fresh ice in an OF glass. Garnish with an orange peel. A little test marketing at the bar indicates that Maker's Mark works nicely for those who prefer a tamer drink, whereas I like it with Henry McKenna.

Thought I'd report on the books I've ordered for behind the bar at Cook & Brown Public House: Craft of the Cocktail, Dale DeGroff Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, Ted Haigh The Joy of Mixology, Gary Regan Imbibe! David Wondrich The Art of the Bar, Hollinger & Schwartz I'm also thinking of getting the new Beachbum Berry revision, and if I could find a Savoy for less than $40, I'd snap it up. The library already contains Regan's Bartender's Bible, Trader Vic's book, and a couple of generics. One of the bartenders may also donate the new DeGroff book. When we've got a bit more room to play (just placed a massive booze order and got a bunch of stuff from Adam at Boston Shaker), I think I'll get a few classics from Mud Puddle as well.

Kohai, I don't think that there are any schematics. The place was a bakery, then a restaurant, then another restaurant, then another.... Eventually we make it to 2010 and what we have here: skinny bar, awkward sink placement, service station at end of bar at kitchen door. Accident, not intention, is the designer here. Yeah, I think we'll be building upward and downward both. More racks below and shelves above, including a bunch of new shelves for glass racks as they are filled and come out of the dishwasher. We're also trying to do as many as possible by hand until the crush starts. We're now doing lemon and lime immediately before shift and freezing leftovers for lemonade each night. That's what's been happening here. We pushed the POS far enough down and prohibit all extra staff from coming back there, which is helping a lot. When we've had two folks on shift, that's what we've been doing -- though the outer bartender has also been handling basic rocks drinks. A few new items. We've now got a two-sink sanitation system with a mesh strainer over the first sink for ice, straws, etc. That's also the hand-washing sink now. Phew. Got the liquor license, and the first, massive order has arrived. I've now been struggling to figure out best placement for the booze: by type? grouped for menu cocktails?

Two quick notes. Irish whiskey makes a fine, subtle base for Improved Whiskey Cocktails. The bar where I work had its public opening on St. Paddy's, and we decided against green beer and for those. Speaking of Paddy, it is finally available stateside, and it makes the best Weeski Cocktail imaginable. The mouthfeel in particular is luscious.

That above is mainly lime oil with a touch of juice. Wanted a slight bright note.

2 oz Inner Circle Green rum, touch of Grand Marnier, dash of Fee's WBA 2009 Bitters, Ti Punch slice of lime. Fashioned, not quite old, not quite new.

Thanks, Steven. Those are on the wishlist. For now we're using a mishmash of containers that are doing the job pretty well. Boy, did I spend a lot of time last week thinking about these issues. The bar at Cook & Brown is very long and straight; you can get a sense of it on bar manager Michael Dietsch's blog. The week prompts the following thoughts; please feel free to make suggestions or just vent. Even if the majority of the entire pass is relatively wide, having one spot that is narrow enough to prevent two people from passing each other is a nightmare. The one at C&B is 12" wide, and it affects everything. There are two refrigerators at about the 1/3 and 2/3 points of the bar; one has sliding doors (good) and the other swinging doors (bad). Figuring out how to organize those two fridges with beer, white wine, juices, batched cocktails, and so on has been a challenge to say the least. In addition, beer glasses, coupes and champagne glasses are in the fridge taking up a ton of room. When the three sinks are set up for sanitation, there's only one other sink at the bar, and that has a water filtration system connected to it, so it's the go-to tap water sink and often has a pitcher in it. That is to say: there's no reliable sink for hand-washing, a quick water rinse, etc. In addition, we've had to set up a bin near the sanitation sinks for dumping dirty ice, as it cools the first sanitation basin too much -- and with Southsides on the menu, it also becomes a disgusting pool of old mint in a hurry. We finally got the POS system in a better place -- it had been at the narrow 12" pass at first -- but it has a huge footprint on the back bar and servers are constantly in and out to deal with various problems that can't be solved at the server station POS. I'm hoping that will be fixed soon, as it's a traffic jam far too often back there. There is no speed rail, nor is there any ability to put one in. That means that the spirits that form the base of the cocktail menu have to be arranged on the shelves within easy reach, a fairly simple design issue that should be resolved once the liquor supply issue is addressed. (I did mention that we still are lacking a liquor license, right?) There are two systems for cleaning bar glassware, neither of which has appropriate space. One involves using the sanitizing sink, which leaves the cleaned, cool, but unpolished glassware 2/3s of the way down the bar. The other involves the main dishwasher, which leaves the glassware hot and unpolished. I try to stay ahead of the glassware stock issue as best I can with the sanitizing sink, but eventually we have to stick warm wine and beer glasses into the back row and hope they cool off in time when we're in the weeds. The twelve seats at the bar have been consistently filled each night with diners, which adds still more stuff -- setups, bread bowls and plates, bins for dirty dishes -- to the mix. Oh, and the best part: the bar dumps out at the server station (coffee, server POS, butter fridge...) AND at the doorway to/from the kitchen. That's also the end of the bar that faces the dining room, so it's where servers pick up their table orders. That is to say, the bar ends at a 3'x3' area that is the highest traffic area on the floor. Right now there are still a few chunks of relatively empty space below the bar top and back bar. There is a lot of shelving at the far, closed end of the bar, and three spaces on either side as you move toward the open end of the bar. I can dream about appliances -- a freezer would be first on the list for glasses, rocks ice, etc. -- but I think that for now cheap short-term ideas would be welcomed.

Reading the tart profile of Paulo's drink reminded me of an order I got the other day from a customer who wanted 2 oz blanco tequila, the juice of half a lime, rocks. "No simple?" "Nope." "No triple sec?" "Nope." I convinced him to let me muddle the lime in pieces and double strain the result over fresh ice. Turned out to be a bracing but surprisingly tasty drink, not balanced in a classical sense but in the direction (to use bostonapothecary's concept) a palate-cleansing, uber-dry Caipirinha.

I agree with Sam. I've been batching it regularly using the one of those Frontier pound packages that I keep sealed in a ziplok bag, and it's basically one 2-minute step added to a rich simple.

Thanks, Andy. Anyone else gonna weigh in? I want to send this off later tonight.

Here's the basic procedure I use. Chop up 2-3 cloves of garlic and sauté them slowly in a T or two of chicken fat or peanut oil and a very big pinch of salt. Scoop out the garlic once it's started to brown, which should take a few minutes, and turn up your heat as high as it will go. When the fat is smoking, dump in your cleaned, dried greens and immediately start shaking, flipping, stirring -- keep it all moving. Toss in a T or 2 of fatty chicken stock, the garlic and (if you'd like) a pinch of sugar, mix it up well, and plate it well before everything is cooked to your liking, as it will continue to cook in the serving dish. With few exceptions, it should be the last thing you make before service. Never any sauces or soy to ruin the color and flavor. And never, ever blanch beforehand: if you have something thicker (small bok choy, say) you can cut them on the bias.

Just thought I'd share an interesting tidbit. Due to a supply problem at the new bar where I'm working, we've been using the 5 oz coupes in the middle of this photo: The shape, size, and step grip are outstanding. You can understand why, of all the vintage cocktail glasses I've gotten at thrift stores, I'd have dozens more of those than of any other kind. They rock.

Not sure yet. Soft opening was last night, and we're hoping that was the last we'll see of similarly soft ice. I've got about 50 pounds in a deep freeze hardening up in hopes that it will produce something less than the 50% dilution we were seeing last night (and I've got four Tavolo trays worth of cubes sitting in my day-job freezer for rocks drinks). There will be no barbacks, so the question is how one of us can get that ice from the far recesses of the basement, through the prep kitchen, up the stairs, through the kitchen and pass, and into the bar, how much of the wet ice we can expect to use for water, that sort of thing. I think winging it is going to be the only option for a while.

While we're on the service well question, if anyone has any good ideas for how to handle the transfer of ice from -10F freezers in the basement to 31.9F wells at the bar (who, how, when, in what) besides winging it, I'm all ears.

The inherent problem with that statement is that no one made the "if they just wanted to" argument you're proposing here -- at least, not that I can find.