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jmfangio

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Everything posted by jmfangio

  1. Ha! And now I find myself browsing through French online liquor stores, and I'm seeing lots of interesting stuff that I've never heard of. Creme de Verveine? New to me.
  2. I did a quick Google search in French, and found this store in Paris which lists it in their catalog. Looks like a fun place to shop!
  3. The Elixir Vegetal would be at the top of my list. Another one to consider is Suze, which is no longer imported here, and probably wont' be for the foreseeable future. I'm also quite intrigued by the Perique Liqueur de Tabac, and Royal Combier (click here) for info.
  4. I've only been able to find a couple of recipes, From "The Gentleman's Table Guide, Being Practical Recipes for Wine Cups, American Drinks, Punches, Cordials, Summer & Winter Beverages" by E. Ricket and C. Thomas, London, 1871: From "The Steward's Handbook" by Jessup Whitehead, Chicago, 1903 But plenty of references in 19th Century periodicals, most often from Englishmen abroad describing life in America, such as Charles Dickens, in "All The Year Round, A Weekly Journal" And, from the May 4, 1879 issue of Punch, this description of the opening of the French Exhibition It suddenly occurs to me that "The Corpse Reviver" would be a really, really cool name for a bar. ETA: If I remember correctly, William Grimes said a bit about the history of the Corpse Reviver in "Straight Up or on the Rocks", but I can't find my copy anywhere.
  5. Just tried one of these, and wow - what a delicious drink. This one's going on the short list.
  6. Chris, Have you tried pairing the lavender honey syrup with No. 209 gin? It has (to my palate, at least) a distinct lavender note, so I wonder if it would make for an interesting layering of flavors, or a bit of clash and overkill? BTW, I have to make some of that syrup - the recipes you're posting sound fantastic.
  7. And this is where I would say, full of faux sincerity, "Oh, sorry...I don't have any cranberry juice. But, hey, if you like Cosmos, let me make you a..." And this is where the Jasmine usually comes in, or I may go with an Aviation, with violet. I have yet to make that for someone where they haven't immediately declared it their new favorite cocktail.
  8. I can't disagree with any of the above, but for my own list I'd add the Corpse Reviver #2 and Jasmine which, for me, never fail to convert those people who tell me they hate gin. And with the Jasmine, there's the opportunity to convert people who say they hate gin and Campari. And if you're a Bond fan like me, you absolutely have to know how to make a decent Vesper. Unfortunately, though, I think the drink is significantly better with the no longer imported Cocchi Aperitivo than with Lillet. I'm down to my last unopened bottle, which I'm saving until Quantum of Solace opens in November.
  9. $16.99 is pretty standard here in Los Angeles for the Rittenhouse 101, but they rarely have it in stock at my local BevMo. Erik - you should also check out Beverage Warehouse (sorry for you out of state folks, but they only ship within California).
  10. And I work in the film industry. Oy, what do you think drove me to drink in the first place? Seriously, though, kudos for sticking to your standards. And to address the last part of your post, I love nothing more than turning around a friend who says, "Oh, I hate Gin/Vermouth/etc..." And every time I can turn someone who used to drink nothing other than Grey Goose martinis into a full fledged cocktail geek who scans the bottles the moment they walk into a bar, and then gives the bartender the recipe for a Last Word or Corpse Reviver #2, I feel like I'm doing a very good deed, indeed.
  11. On that point, I must disagree. To paraphrase the great Homer Simpson, "St. Germain, is there anything it can't do?" I've been playing around with my Nocino since I bottled it last week, and first order of business was to recreate the Boutonniere that I had at Alembic, and I think I'm pretty close with 2:1 scotch/nocino with a dash of Regan's, but then I thought about bringing some St. Germain to the party, and came up with something I'm calling: The Dickens 1 1/2 oz Scotch (I'm using Famous Grouse since that's what I have on hand) 3/4 oz Nocino 1/2 oz St. Germain dash or two orange bitters With the warmth of the scotch, the nut and spice notes of the Nocino, and the fruit/floral notes of the St. Germain, I'd swear that this tastes like English Christmas Pudding in a glass.
  12. Well, I have made a Last Word with fresh squeezed yuzu juice, and it was amazing. But, unless you have your own tree, that's an expensive cocktail. When you can find them, they start at about $3 each. Heading back up the thread a bit, I made a Shanghai Gin tonight, and it's a fantastic drink. In fact, I liked it so much that I made two; the first with gin, the second with Hitachino's 'Kiuchi no Shizuku', and I think I prefer the latter just a little bit.
  13. I got it online from Wine Specialist, but I'm going to ask the manager of a local wine and spirits shop if he can get it (he already thinks of me as 'the guy who asks for all the hard to find stuff') so I don't get hit for shipping. I haven't experimented with it yet, but I'll give your drink a whirl. Sounds fantastic. I was thinking about trying it in a Pegu Club, but now I'm not so sure since you said that you don't think it plays well with lime.
  14. I just strained and bottled my batch today. I know that it's supposed to sit for a few more months, but I think it already tastes amazing. I had a British friend over for dinner last night and gave her a taste, who after she regained the capacity for speech said, "Oh my God! This tastes like English Christmas pudding!" I don't think that I'd even heard of Nocino before I read about it in this thread. For this, and so many other things that I've learned on this board, I have to say thank you, and I'm grateful that I found this community of eager, eloquent, and erudite dipsomaniacs.
  15. You inspired me to look into it, and my bottle just arrived today. Thanks for bringing this up, it's really lovely stuff. I guess this is a big booze day for me, since as I write this I'm listening to the drip drip drip of my Nocino as it's being filtered (but, of course, that's a subject for another thread).
  16. My thought as well - I'm just repeating the recipe as I found it. Whenever I've made this drink I've started with a pre-chilled glass to eliminate that step. It's really a pretty nice drink. I've also made it with Lillet to nice effect, and I think it would be even better with Cocchi Aperitivo Americano, which I'll have to try when I can bring myself to open my last remaining bottle. Yup - half and half is a bit rich for me, too, but I suppose that the Rose's of Chandler's day was was an entirely different beast than the artificially flavored high fructose corn syrup dreck that we find today. Probably closer to the British import, if you can find it, which is made with real lime juice and cane sugar. Exactly. The Gimlet is, of course, a quintessentially British cocktail, but according to this story on NPR.com and a couple of other sources that I've seen, it wasn't until this novel that it became popular in America.
  17. Here are a couple of candidates for Los Angeles, for option number two. First, given the number of glamourous restaurants from Hollywood's golden age - Perinos, Romanoff's, Chasen's, The Brown Derby, The Cocoanut Grove, etc. - one would think that LA would have a more storied cocktail history, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case. It's also sad that all of these beautiful old buildings are now gone. I can still remember the old Brown Derby building from when I was a kid, and Perinos and The Cocoanut Grove were torn down only in the last couple of years. The only cocktail that I know to have originated in LA is the Flame of Love martini, created by Chasen's bartender Pepe Ruiz: 2 oz Vodka 2-3 drops La Ina Sherry 2 Orange peels As described by Pepe: "You swirl a few drops of La Ina Sherry in a chilled stem glass and pour it out. Than squeeze a strip of Orange peel into the glass and flambe it with a with match. Throw away the peel. Now fill the glass with Ice to chill again, then throw that out. Add vodka, then flambe another orange peel around the rim. Now throw out the second burnt peel. Then just stir it gently. And drink, drink." Dean Martin was reportedly the inspiration for this drink after he told Pepe that he was bored with the same old Martinis. Pepe spent three weeks experimenting until he came up with this drink, and it soon became Dino's favorite Martini. Frank Sinatra immortalized it in a 1962 recording entitled "Nothing But the Best (Is Good Enough for Me)". The lines "I like a martini, and burn on the glass" is a tribute to the drink. On a literary note, another true LA original is Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels. When he wasn't hitting the 'office bottle', usually rye if memory serves, Marlowe did enjoy a good cocktail. In "The Lady in The Lake" a "wizened waiter with evil eyes and a face like a gnawed bone" serves him a Bacardi Cocktail, and he was also quite fond of double Gibsons. But, if I were going to pick one cocktail for Marlowe, it would have to be the Gimlet, since Chandler's kind enough to provide a recipe in "The Long Goodbye." As Marlowe sits with Terry Lennox in Victor's on Vine Street: And I guess the Gimlets put Lennox in a somewhat philosophical mood:
  18. I think a little Domaine de Canton topped with champagne would be appropriate. I don't really know much about the drinking habits on the Mainland, but I do have a bit of experience with drinking in Hong Kong, where they're particularly fond of French reds, expensive cognac, and Johnnie Walker Blue, of which I drank waaaaaay too much at Stephen Chow's 40th birthday party. And yes, being Hong Kong, karaoke was involved. I don't know if this is still the trend, but when I was there it was all the rage to mix scotch with bottled oolong tea.
  19. Well, I'm ready to represent Los Angeles, home to the San Fernando Valley, undisputed porn capital of the world...but I think I'd better leave this idea alone.
  20. From one of last year's Difford's Guides (issue #5.4, with a guide to Gin):
  21. You're killing me! I'm in LA as well, but my scavenging hasn't turned up anything more than a bottle of the old label Plymouth.
  22. Are you referring to this knife? I have one, and absolutely love it.
  23. I guess it would come down to The Bitter Truth, which I haven't tried, and Hermes (I have the Orange, but not the Aromatic bitters). I'm thinking of making another batch of orange bitters, and tweaking it to try and bring some of that Cocchi magic to Lillet cocktails. So, up the cinchona, add a little cinnamon, eliminate and/or reduce the coriander and caraway.... I'm still working this one out in my head.
  24. For that matter, do we have any idea if was popular or available outside of the UK? Does it appear in any cocktail books other than The Savoy?
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