BTR

There are several rum drinks without juices or sodas in Dave Wondrich's Killer Cocktails: Bull's Milk (cognac, rum, simple syrup, milk, nutmeg); Sano Grog (bourbon, rum, grand marnier, sugar---garnished with lemon, though); Picador (rum, crème de menthe, bitters); 19-B (rye, rum, grand marnier, mint). None of them is particularly Manhattan- or Martini-like, though.

I'm gonna bump this thread because I was just at a bevmo looking to get some pálinka or slivovitz and was disappointed by the fact that I could find very little information on the various Eastern European slivovitzes available (no Hungarian pálinka at all that I saw): there were representatives from Manastir, R. Jelinek, Badel, Navip (which I've had before and liked), Maraska, and Bistra (as well as Clear Creek's blue plum brandy), all of various ages. So I thought I'd ask about those or other EE brands when I got home ... and discovered I'd already done that years ago. Anyway, I *could* just go with Clear Creek (I *actually* just got some kirsch from Etter), or Massenez, but if anyone has any recommendations regarding the Eastern European guys (including others not mentioned; I know Zwack has some pálinkas etc., for instance), that would be swell.

Yeah, $22 as of yesterday.

No, not bars in santa barbara---I've looked through the forum archives and been convinced that there's not much to be seen here. But some guidance on liquor stores would be nice; there's a bevmo that doesn't really do it for me and the two best options I thought I had (Bottle Shop and Montecito Vino) seemed both to be firmly targeted at people with more money than sense. (Though the former did have the bonded Rittenhouse.) Is there are particularly well-stocked spot I should be aware of? At the moment I'm looking specifically for the Laird's bonded apple brandy, which I could ask some place to special order, but it would be nice not to have to do that whenever I was after something a little out of the mainstream.

I've got this same question about their grapefruit bitters, if anyone can offer enlightenment there.

The things one must endure.

I just got some green walnuts at the civic center farmer's market in SF---hopefully not too late. They mostly had rather more developed shells under the green that I've seen in others' pictures. We'll see...

But where might one do that?

Elixir, in the Mission, looks promising, though I haven't been yet. They seem to have a well-put-together cocktail list. Is the Orbit Room no longer a must-visit?

If I'm not mistaken, Mirabellenbrand is made from yellow plums and Slivovitz from blue. Having only had kind of nasty slivovitzes I'm not really in a position to say what sort of flavor difference that makes, if any, but I'd imagine it's rather subtle.

A friend of mine is having a French Revolution-themed cocktail party in honor of Bastille Day & asked about suitable drinks (she's come up with some of her own that sound quite nice, too bad it's going to be halfway across the country from me), and, having just bought some Lillet, I thought I'd try to come up with something using that. For some reason having it be the predominant ingredient, by volume, anyway, appealed to me, sort of like a reverse cocktail, except it's not the reverse of anything. After not enough experimentation I came up with this: 1.5 oz Lillet .75 oz cognac .5 oz orange juice 1 tsp Pernod (I have Herbsaint, but one would want to use something properly French, of course) 2 dashes orange bitters (ROB) Which I found perfectly tasty, though I intend to tinker a bit. (Actual absinthe instead of the sweeter Herbsaint would probably be nice, but isn't really a realistic option.)

From DC art writer Kriston Capps, the only cocktail that would be endorsed by a Futurist: He never did report back.

But this should be unsurprising, right? It *is* a curacao. Brizard's triple sec is a different product.

JAZ--care to share the basil cocktails?

There's the Corpse Reviver II: 3/4oz each Lillet, lemon, triple sec, gin, with a drop or two absinthe or substitute. This one is good too, if you take eje's request about the amount of pastis.

Of course, how it's meant to be made and how it ought to be made can come apart... Once you've found the original version of something, the very first recipe called by that name, then what? Maybe it's awful, but a later (or contemporary) version is excellent. Why assign pride of place to whatever happened first to bear the name, simply because it was first?

I take it, then, that you left the pits in your apricots, to no ill effect?

Last summer I made some apricot liqueur with some spices---peppercorn and anise among them (I cleverly lost my list of what and how much). A few months ago it had a very strong anise smell, a mysterious sour-sweet tang, and an anise-apricot flavor; now there's a much more pronounced pepper heat with the same anise nose and an apricot aftertaste. Wonder what it'll be like by mid-spring...

I think you mean "especially Pisco". Don't you know how to talk properly?

I've put spirits, and wine, in both checked and carried-on baggage (the latter before the liquid ban in the US), with no problems. Just make sure it's packaged in such a way that it won't break in transit.

Hell, even the octagon he gets at the beginning is pretty impressive. Do any of the chemists here know if ice has any special cleavage properties he's exploiting?

Except that, as Erik said, neither of the bombs was named that.

I'm inclined to take an etymological approach with "brandy" and just declare it to be any distillate, though (of course) colloquially used to refer to wine distillates. Wine brandy is gebrannter Wein, after all--burnt. German liquor stores distinguish between Weinbrand and Obstbrand; most of what we're calling eaux de vie are Obstbrände. (Though there are also Geists, infusions that are then distilled.)

Even if the first brandy is from a tree fruit, the second one is a distilled infusion---a Geist, not a Brand, auf Deutsch---so even calling it a "Two Tree Brandy" would be kind of misleading.

Something like it on Luxardo maraschino bottles, though they needn't be upended completely to get the liquid out.