johnder

No. 9 park comes to mind right off the bat.

You can make a La Rosita 1 3/4 Reposado 3/4 campari 1/2 sweet vermouth 1/2 dry vermouth angostura edit: oops, Jaz pointed out the correct topic that has all these already in it.

Interesting... From an articleon chow... The Art of the Shock-tail. I wonder if they read this thread.

Creme de Violette tastes like candied violets. Depending on which one you get, the alcohol content will be anywhere from 10 to 25%. It is extremely hard to find, almost non-existant here in the US. There is a pretty big discussion on it here. I have resorted to buying the Monin Violet Syrup (which you can find at any place that sells coffee syrups) and cutting it down with vodka as a passable substitute for the real thing. (Thanks donbert for the tip) John

Here are the results of this mornings experiments. 25 mg Cincona bark dissolved in 50mg of grain alcohol, let sit overnight. Add 50mg of hot water to bark mixture. To a pot add: 3 limes, cut in half 1/2 lemon 8 slices of dried orange peel 2 cups of cane sugar 4 cups of water 10 juniper berries 5 cardomom pods Bring to boil, turn off heat, add cincona mixture I let this cool in the pot for about an hour, did a strain, then a filter through coffee paper then a strain through the buchner filter. I then split this base up into 1/2 cup portions for flavor adjusting. After quite a few batches, I found something that was pretty good, which is where I pretty much stopped for the day. To 1/2 cup qunine syrup add: 4 tbs 2-1 lime simple syrup 2 tbs 2-1 cane simple syrup 1/2 cup water --- I tasted all the syrups by taking 1 tsp of the syrup and adding 3.5 oz of club soda. I then did an additional test by adding 1/2 tsp of plymouth to the glass and tasting again. I am pretty happy with the results so far. I am out of citric acid, so tomorrow test will be taking all the syrups I made today (I have 6 different batches) and adding some citric acid to them to see what happens. John

Eje posted out an article about a new bar in San Francisco, in the same article they referred to another piece entitled Elements of a Craft Cocktail. Some interesting tips and opinions on cocktails. Some I agree with, others I don't. I found this passage amusing: I wouldn't say the ingredients they mentioned are rare. I would have been more impressed it they put Creme Yvette, Creme de Violette, Apricot Brandy or Suze on the list. Otherwise it is an interesting read.

The sidebar article to that story is interesting as well: Elements of Craft Cocktails

I used to work in Rock Center and one of my favorite places to go for lunch was Sapporo. It is a hole in the wall raman/katsu type place, not big on decor, but the food is awesome. Their Katsu Curry is amazing. I heard from some friends that still work in that area and go there frequently they recently remodeled as well. It is really cheap too. Sapporo Restaurant 152 W 49th St New York, NY 10019 (212) 869-8972

My vote is on The Modern. I am actually going to the Modern on Saturday night.

So I was talking with Donbert last night about normal cocktail geek type stuff when we came up on the subject of Orange Curacao and how it is pretty hard (if not impossible) in NYC to find the Marie Brizzard Orange Curacao that is used at Pegu. What is everyone else using? I did manage to get a taste of the Senior & Company Curacao and it was amazing -- blew the doors off the Brizzard. We found out from Chad that the "original" curacao is imported and can be found if one looks hard enough I managed to find a place that sells it in Washington, DC and just ordered a few bottles. Now I need to find space to add these bottles to my collection.

I actually just got a back of the Quinine (cinchona) powder from Raintree too. I am trying a few experiments over the weekend as well. I will report back. I have been scouring the library for recipes and came up with some interesting things to try. John

Here is a better photo of Sam shaking the bejesus out of 2 junperitivos with a double metal on metal boston setup.

I guess you mean the "Jones Complete Bar Guide" by Stan Jones. Is that a book you recommend having around? I see it is a "DrinkBoy Choice" for "Wad-O-Drinks" type books. DrinkBoy Wad-O-Drinks Recommendations Eek! 4000 drink recipes. Sure glad I'm not trying to drink my way through that one. ← Yes, the that is the book. I love it. The thing I like about it is it has a crazy index, broken down by liquor. So if I am in the mood for a Applejack based drink, I can find 200 of them to choose from. It is super packed with recipes. The first part of the book gives a pretty good history of the various liquors too. It is the one cocktail book I use most.

Well after some digging I found at the US Customs website: So it seems that a) it is legal, you may just need to pick it up in person. b) be prepared to pay customs/duty/tariffs at time of pickup c) pay irs excise taxes

I am drooling. It took me a while to type this as I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. If I read the shipping rates correctly I am guessing 2-3 bottles would be in the 3kg range, so I would be looking at $45 in shipping fees, plus untold fees in customs. I would definately be up getting some, given that Donbert and myself both live in NYC, it would be cheaper to combine the orders, but the question is would combining the bottles increase the chance of customs destroying them. I need to make some calls to the customs department. Thanks for your legwork and kind offer! John

Tonight, post blog celebration cocktail: Linstead variation 1 oz Rittenhouse Rye 1 oz pineapple 1/2 oz lemon 1/4 oz Pernod 2 dashes Hermes aromatic bitters Very cool cocktail. The pineapple and the rye play off nicely together. Plus I got to use my newly accquired Hermes bitters! The pernod really enhances the pineapple flavor. I think it is a keeper.

No, that is just the standard 6" riser on the back of the stove. I have a broan hood above the stove with the external blower. Cranks out about 1100 cfm. Given we live in an old house that is pretty drafty, it pretty much suck all the heat out of the first floor in the winter if we run it full blast. But then again, I can blacken a steak with no smoke leaving the stove. Roasting coffee though, that is another story.

← I found out what "3ss" most likely refers to - the recipe is directing you to use the 3 subspecies of chamomile: Roman (Anthemis nubilis), German (Matricaria recutita), and Moroccan (Ormenis multicalis). ← Wow, thats pretty amazing you figured that out! Now if we could just figure out what Oij is. Thanks tejon!

Jim does use cinchona bark. Sounds like you need a buchner filter.

Thanks everyone! That list of liquors makes me drool. If they are half as good as their bitters (which I have accquired through a painful process) they must be amazing. John

I am posting this directly to the Japanese forum (instead of the cocktail one) in hopes of increasing my chance of getting an answer by increasing the audience. I was wondering what the availability of the Hermes (Suntory) liquors were in Japan as a whole. It seems that there is a whole line of liquors under the Hermes name that seem impossible to find outside Japan. Mainly the violet, green tea, apricot, etc. Is this something that you can walk into any store that sells liquor and pick up, or is it something that you need to search for, even in Japan? Thanks, John

Not the most glamorous setup, but functional. I actually have 2 immersion cicrulators, this was one most quiet, so I went with that one since it was going to be going for 2 days. I just used a rubbermaid "roughneck" tub, covered the top with cling film and then silver foil to prevent evaporation.

No problemo! I have become quite good at snapping photos without being obvious. I think I just need to invest in a camera with a bigger lens to get some more light in the photos. Something to keep in mind when I do the next blog. John

← Sorry you got me with those notations. I believe that they are somewhat anachronistic. Congratulations, John, on a superb blog. I had a lot of fun reminiscing about my hometown and getting a better sense of what it is like today. Had it been like that then, I might never have left. Then again, it wasn't so bad even then. It was just a wee bit different. ← I figured they might be some form of that weird scribble that I always see on prescriptions. It was worth a try. Next time you are in New York City, let me know! Cheers, John

I am hoping between thw group of us we can come up with some usable recipe.