johnder

Shake and burger at shake shack. Bo Ssam at momofuku ssam. Corn on the cob from the red hook ballfield vendors Spicy Beef tendon from Grand Sichuan Di Faro pizza Blue Ribbon bone marrow with oxtail ragu

Don't forget the hemmingway daiquiri 2 oz barbancourt rum .75 oz lime .5 oz grapefruit .5 oz maraschino

I have been working on a version of a cocktail for the bar and putting this one out for comment. 1.5 oz Grouse 12 year .5 oz Bonded Applejack .5 oz Vya Sweet .6 oz Yellow Chartreuse 1 dash peychauds The jury is out on this one, I kind of like it personally.

Brooklyn's are a good start. The liberal cocktail from Zig Zag is another good one: Rye, Picon, Sweet vermouth and orange bitters, as well as the Bushwick from Phil Ward of Death and Company: Rye, Carpano, Picon and Maraschino.

uh no fair

This drink is very similar to the bushwick cocktail which is Rye, Picon, Maraschino and Antica. Both sound very tasty.

The way most of the bars here that do block ice for service is pretty much the same. They all use 4" deep plastic hotel pans probably 6 x 12 in size. Fill each pan with hot water and place in the freezer overnight. After they freeze completely, take the pans out and let them sweat for 15 minutes on a counter. Tip over and use a mongolian fork to score and break the ice into whatever size you want.

We use the peach bitters in the Trident -- 1 oz Aquavit 1 oz Manzanilla 1/2 oz Cynar 2 dash peach. It's pretty tasty -- although the drink isn't for everyone.

Just because you bought the bottle recently doesn't mean it is a fresh bottle. Granted a closed bottle will keep, but depending on where it was in the liquor store (exposed to sunlight, under a A/C duct, etc) it could have taken its toll on it. At the vermouth tasting at tales of the cocktail we opened a brand new bottle of M&R sweet and all had a taste. They purposely left the bottle open during the talk and after an hour gave us all another taste of the same vermouth that has been exposed to air. There was a remarkable difference in taste between the two just with one hour of oxidation. Vermouth is an extremely finicky spirit and sweet vermouth especially can turn dramatically. It sounds like you got a bottle that has been put through the ringer before you got it, so I would ditch it. The best bet with vermouth is get the smallest bottle you can, ditch the screw top and get a set of the vacuum seals used for wine with the hand pump to evacuate the air and store them in the fridge. john

Here are some pictures from some various seminars and talks at TOC 2007: Dave Wondrich and Sal Impastato of the Napolean House Tub o Sazeracs at the Napolean House talk Ted Haigh a.k.a Dr. Cocktail at the Vermouth Seminar Vermouth Seminar Sasha at the Ice seminar Sasha showing how the block ice is too big and needs to be cut down Sasha demontrating the proper shaking technique for block ice Charlotte Voisey, Hendricks Brand Manager at her Seminar

I have been muddling a lot recently -- a lot. PDT has a drink, the Pimms Rangoon which is the bane of my existence at the moment. It involves Pimms, Lemon, Simple as well as muddled strawberries, cucumbers and mint. Given I have probably made about 200 of these in the past few weeks I have been playing around with different methods. I started out with just the solid ingredients and the lemon + simple and muddled that, I tried muddling with the pimms in the tin, as well as every other permutation. I haven't noticed any difference between muddling with 3.5 oz of ingredients vs. muddling with only 1.5 oz of ingredients. I have noticed a difference between a) not muddling and just shaking and b) muddling with no liquid in the tin. Given we have pretty hefty kold draft cubes I tried once or twice making a drink, skipping the muddling and just doing an extra vigorous shake, and also tried muddling in the dry tin. Both gave sub par results, both in texture and flavor, specifically around the mint and cucumber, the were both bland and missing the brightness muddling gave it. So end result -- muddling makes a difference, amount of liquid in the tin, not so much. At least in my experience.

The deal for reservations is pretty simple. The bar, (14 seats) is first come, first serve, no reservations. The tables, 32 seats are reservation only for which reservations are taken starting 3pm that day. If you don't have a reservation and want to come, you can call ahead and ask about the space at the bar and if there are any seats.

One of the samples was the Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette (the more violet/blue colored one), and the other was a sample of the Crème Yvette (the more purple colored one) which was the precursor to Crème de Violette.

I just got back from TOC myself, and have several hundred photos to go through and sort, as well as a lot of notes from the seminars I went to. The highlight for me was the lost ingredient one -- specifically the Creme Yvette part. Robert Cooper who developed and is marketing Saint Germain talked about 2 long lost products, Creme Yvette and Forbidden fruit. During the talk he produced one of 2 known bottles of Jacquin's Creme Yvette from 1944 that he was going to display to everyone, unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, the cork broke and he was stuck with an open bottle. As a result, anyone that wanted could go up and taste an original 1944 Creme Yvette. And to top that off, he gave us all a taste of a lab sample his company is working on that will hopefully result in a new production of Creme Yvette within a year or two. It was amazing tasting the difference between the two, and thanks to Eric from Haus Alpenz, we were able to compare the Yvette's to his current amazing Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette. I also got to taste the version of his forbidden fruit cordial as well... more on that later.

Do you remember which cocktail you had? I am pretty sure I mixed your drinks that night, so I am just curious.

I stopped by last night and had dinner there and got a chance to see the cocktail menu first hand. I am pretty impressed with what they have on their, although I am not sure they know what they are in for having a Ramos on the menu. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but the drinks I do remember from the menu are: Gin Gimlet with house made lime syrup Ramos Fizz Sazerac Sidecar Pimm's Cup Old Pal They will have 6 taps, and from the rails they have setup, are going to have a pretty hefty selection of booze. I was told the ETA for the license is 2-3 weeks (hopefully) As far as the food, we had a dozen oysters with the house mingonette, their brandade with toast points, the Bahn De pork sandwich, Steak frites, and the Sidecar turkey club. The food was really well prepared, great fries with the steak frites, and the brandade was a great starter. A big ramekin of piping hot brandade with warm toast points. I am really happy they are located a half block from my house, and especially happy about the news they will be serving food until 4am. My only gripe is the price of the steak frites, at $22 I was hoping for a sizable steak, the portion of the steak I got was about 12-14 slices. It was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and extemely tender, but for the portion size it was priced slightly high. Given they just opened, I am sure they are still working on the logistics. Looking forward to trying their Ramos.

Just out of curiosity which cocktail did you have? There are no cocktails currently on the menu that have more than 2 dashes of any bitters, with the exception of the pisco sour which has numerous drops of angostura on the foam for the nose.

So the long awaited Sidecar Bar and Grille has opened, sort of. They still are awaiting their liquor license, but have decided to open anyway with just their food menu. The space is pretty amazing, they did an awesome job converting into a great looking bar. Exposed brick walls, awesome bar. It is owned by two brothers, Bart and John DeCoursy and opened for service Tuesday night. I haven't had a chance to try the food menu yet, but it seems like a pretty decent list to start out with, very similar to Blue Ribbon, Oysters, Fried Chicken, Vietnamese pork sandwiches, burgers. I will report back once I have some food, and hopefully a good sidecar soon. Sidecar Bar and Grille 560 5th Ave between 15th and 16th Brooklyn, NY

The only place I know in NYC that has VEP for service is Gramercy Tavern. They keep it on the top shelf of the back bar. I would assume it would be fine to keep out, but if you want to play safe you could put a vacuum top on it and pump the air out if you don't use it that often.

I think he was suggesting adding a real brandy cherry as a garnish, but the recipe he posted still has maraschino liquor in it, as seen here. I personally never garnish an aviation, but if it did want/need a garnish, a true maraschino cherry (like the great luxardo brand) would be a good fit. john

Ah Leung -- you will be missed. I still use your recipes almost weekly, my stomach is sad to see you go! John

I have to say I was pretty surprised to see that article today. I didn't realize I was going to be quite such the focus of the article. There is a pretty lengthly thread here talking about my experiments with Abbotts here. It was a pretty long and tedious process and especially hard since I never tasted the original product. Kevin Verspoor's work was really amazing and gave me a great springboard to start working on it, so I owe a lot to him as well. Currently I only have 3 bitters I have been focusing on, a general aromatic bitters, the barrel aged Abbotts and a Grapefruit bitters. All of which are I think at a stable point and I can reliably reproduce. The only open variable right now is the amount of aging to do on the Abbotts. It looks like I will have the opportunity to taste the real thing soon, so that will give me a good baseline for the aging process. John

I too am a Stock detractor but I'm also not a fan of Maraska either. Sure I'll take it over Stock any day but to me Luxardo is THE Maraschino. There's nothing wrong with a cocktail being a Luxardo forward drink and if you find that more than 1/2 an oz is overpowering the obvious answer to me seems to be dial down the amount rather than reach for a different brand of maraschino. John, do you prefer Maraska over Luxardo in a Last Word or Final Ward? [edit for clarification]For those not familiar with the Last Word or Final Ward. This drink is equal parts Gin:Marashino:Chartreuse:Lime or Rye:Marashino:Chartreuse:Lemon respectively. Traditionally the recipe is 3/4oz each but since it's equal parts it can be scaled down to 1/2oz each or up to 1oz each. Therefore it really is a question of if Maraska or Luxardo balances better against the citrus/spirit/Chartreuse when all things are equal.[/clarification] ← Hmm that is an interesting question. I have had both the Last Word with Maraska and Luxardo, but unfortunately don't have enough memory to recall which I like better. This is an odd one because it is equal parts. I think some further research is required.

Personally I don't like Stock too much, but I know it does have it's place in a few cocktails. I know D&C has all 3 maraschinos and uses stock in one of their house cocktails on purpose. Personally for me if I have a drink that calls for more than 1/2 oz or greater of Maraschino I will use Maraska, otherwise I will use Luxardo. I find any more than 1/2 oz of Luxardo and the drink turns into a Luxardo drink. John

It looks like they have already started to setup, check it out here.