Chris Amirault

BarSmarts now has an online only version called BarSmarts Wired, and I'm really enjoying it. The historical material is really well written (I detect Wondrich's hand in there) and so far the information has been interesting, if not always entirely new to me. Having said that, as a home (over)enthusiast, I'm not exactly the target audience. However, since this online version doesn't require an invite (unlike, I believe, the main BarSmarts program), I think it's a good deal for someone like me: $45 for some swag, the course, and a bit of pride post hoc. Back to studying gin. (20 years of formal education and I've never been able to write those words.) ET fix link -- CA

Oh, I see: the old wine and artichoke thing! It's a good question.

A lot of cocktails work well with certain tastes and not with others. They're usually not intended to be "during dinner" drinks, but rather as aperitifs, etc. You certainly can combine Cynar cocktails with food; I think that salty, umami-rich foods would make for a particularly nice combination. However, if you don't like the aftertaste, I'm not sure a good pairing can be found!

I don't understand your question.

I have no idea, but I love it. Think of the garnish possibilities....

Was snooping around yesterday for a vodka-based Pimm's riff (don't ask) and found this Cucumber Cooler recipe on Saveur. Seemed a bit off to me so I fiddled with it a little bit. Final version went over very well. 1 2" piece cucumber sprig or two of thyme 2 oz vodka 1/2 oz simple syrup 1/4 oz lemon juice 1/4 oz Cynar Muddle cucumber and thyme thoroughly with liquids. Shake hard with plenty of ice, and double (regular and fine) strain over a rocks glass with 2-3 large cubes. Top with soda and garnish with cucumber if you'd like. ETA soda -- ca

After a few delays thanks to the mails and a bit of overwork, I'm able to weigh in here. I've been a fan of hojicha for a while now. I have a friend who brought some in (the Big Green Hojicha Chop Wood Carry Water Tea from RoT) and thought it was great. So I wasn't surprised to find that I liked it a lot. I followed my usual routine: 5g of tea, 400g of water using an ingenuiTEA steeper. The water was probably ~200F, as I wanted to get out some of the body and malt Adam mentioned. I got it, all right: big roasty nose, full body, big and round. I detected not only the malt but the hazelnuts that Mitch described above. I also wrote "faint spice notes?" on a slip of paper. Steeped the same leaves twice and the second version was very good as well. Really wonderful.

Interesting Grub Street piece on starting up a food truck/cart in NYC. Some snippets:

Though I wasn't trying to equate cooking and being food-focused, that all makes a lot of sense to me.

He makes valid points, but to me, he's still making a mountain out of a molehill. Well, George Faison runs the organization that supplies beef to many of the best restaurants in the northeast, so instead of calling him chicken little I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows more than I do about it. There must have been more to the conversation, because just from what has been reported, I don't get "she doesn't know heat applied to food is cooking" from "Why does it get hot?" Maybe she was asking how you lit the fire, or wanted to know how coals get hot and stay hot. Guess you'll have to trust me on this one. She didn't know why I was using heat to make food. No one is arguing that they indicate the downfall of civilization. Harry Balzer would argue that it's precisely the opposite: the advance of civilization. He uses market research about what people actually eat and spend their food money on, and -- like many other, far more progressive foodies -- comes to the conclusion that industrial food won a long time ago. His definition of "civilization" may be different from yours, of course. Given what I see and read, food-focused people like myself are increasingly the exception, and not the rule, just as Balzer's (and Pollan's, and...) research indicates.

We need a chart.

Well, I do, for one. Even if you don't much care about the loss of foodways and cuisines across the country, you might want to care about the related loss of foodstuffs. Markets drive the availability of products, particularly below top price points; if fewer people are cooking, then fewer products for cooking will be available. You won't see that if you shop primarily in Whole Foods or Dean & Deluca -- though I think the fastest segment of even those shops are home replacement meals. ETA: Don't take my word for it. Here's George Faison of DeBragga & Spitler weighing in on quality ingredients.

Thanks, everyone. I've posted over at Felicia's Speakeasy and will add the roundup link here.

I thought that the color was really perfect: a slightly creamy green tint that didn't scream "I'M MINT" but gave a hint of the flavor to come.

Balzer loves him the hyperbole, but his point is soild, I think: a century ago people in the US performed certain practices for sustenance that very few people now perform, and when they do, it's for recreation. Is the person you mentioned hunting fowl because they need to eat them to survive?

Jon's got it right. Muddling is just a term for bruising or crushing an ingredient to use in a cocktail. Some items you want to muddle pretty firmly, but mint you want to muddle gently. You can read about it here; note Katie's post after mine. Like Jon said, slightly bruised mint is going to bring out the flavors you want; crush it hard and you're going to get sticks and vegetables. Hot. Like Jon, I followed the Leibovitz recipe and did a hot steep for an hour. Before that, however, I took the leaves and lightly bruised small handfuls as I dropped them into the milk/cream mixture. The ice cream turned out great, btw. I added a T of Benedictine for both flavor and texture, and frankly I couldn't be happier.

You are right, sir. I sit corrected.

Not sure that'll work. In my reading of the critical shaking researching done at the FCI "Cooking Issues" blog lately (click here for info) and such, after about 10 seconds or so, your drink starts to drop below 0C, which means that you'll not get additional dilution while shaking. Letting it sit or "cook," post-shake will allow the ice along the container's edge to melt a bit; give it a stir after 30 or 60 seconds and you may find some happy dilution level.

I've been tinkering with some classic non-vodka drinks in the hopes of finding an interesting variation. The Vodka Sazerac: don't go there. The Vodka Old Fashioned: ditto. However, the one drink that I most associate as working with only a single spirit (gin) actually seems to work well with vodka -- if you give it a tweak. Pink Vodka 2 oz vodka (Tito's) 7 dashes Angostura 1/2 t yellow Chartreuse Stir with cracked ice; strain; lemon twist. Of course, it's just a playground for the Angostura and yellow Chartreuse. But it works, golly moses, it works.

I've never taken courses, but we regularly travel to places where we can find apartments for rent with kitchens. I study up a bit prior to arrival and then devote some time to preparing meals using available ingredients to make local dishes. I've done this in both Paris and Barcelona (the latter of which you can read about here) and had a blast.

Will do. In re crushing the mint, the cocktail crowd has pretty well established that only slight muddling is required, as the minty compounds you want are near the surface of each leaf. The vegetal, rooty compounts are deeper, and are released if you muddle too hard. So I'll probably do a very light muddle prior to steeping.

Anyone have any experience with the fresh mint chocolate chip recipe?

I live in South Providence and I'm surrounded by small Latino stores. Can't find it. Trust me on this one. Really!

Wow. Do you have Lipspin ratios handy?

Deadline tonight, 12m. Surely some summer slings and such with vodka this past weekend, yes?