jmfangio

I've been meaning to join this thread for a while, and after the Brooklyn Cocktail comes the... Brunelle Cocktail 1/4 Absinthe (Vert de Fougerolles) 1/2 Tablespoonful Sugar 3/4 Lemon Juice Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. I didn't have very high hopes for this, so I made it on the small side. I have to report that in joining the 'Stomping Through the Savoy' team, I'm also taking one for the team. Absinthe and lemon juice are strong flavors on their own, and in this combination and proportions it's a tiger cage death match for supremacy (alright, I freely admit that I've probably watched way too many kung fu movies, but you get the idea). Down the sink, and into a dry martini to cleanse my palate.

I don't think that I've ever had the Seagram's, but I'll give it a try. A recent Difford's Guide gave the Extra Dry 4 stars, and the Distiller's Reserve 4 1/2, and at only $12.99 for a fifth at my local BevMo it won't be all that expensive mistake if I don't like it. It's hard for me to pick a favorite. For many years I was a devout Bombay Sapphire drinker, but as I've become more and more interested in cocktails and tried more gins, I've come to realize that a) it's not quite the bomb diggity that I used to think it was, and b) while Gin X might make a great martini, it fails in many gin based cocktails, and vice versa. If I had to choose just one gin to keep it would probably be Plymouth, which to me is the best all rounder.

The NY Times features a gin tasting this week. Pretty good article, though I disagree with their sentiments on No. 209 gin, which I think makes a fabulous martini.

There are a few recipes in the latest Difford's Guide. Last month Slashfood did a review, and write up of the recipes here. I can't wait to try it.

This may not be quite what you're looking for, but I'm quite fond of my Messermeister serrated peeler. It doesn't make the prettiest zest strips, but cleanly removes the peel without any pith. Also, if there are any Thai markets in your area, you can look there for an assortment of fruit carving tools. The Kom Kom Miracle Knife looks interesting.

I just use the pestle from my Suribachi. You can easily pick one up for $3-4 at a Japanese market.

Interesting question. I Googled around for vintage cocktail menus, and found lots of gorgeous Tiki bar menus from the 1960s. At $1.65, a Mai Tai from 1965 would cost $10.37 in 2006 dollars, if I'm using this inflation calculator correctly. I only found one other vintage cocktail menu*, from a Denver bar in the 1940s, and at 35 cents, a Martini or a Manhattan would cost $3.88 today. The most expensive drink on that menu is a Daiquiri, at 45 cents ($4.98). *Vintage Cocktail Menu Link edit - moderator removed image and replaced with link to image.

To break in my newly acquired bottle of Hermes Violet, I made an Atty. I used the recipe from Diffords guide, 2 1/4 oz gin 3/4 oz vermouth 1/4 oz absinthe 1/4 oz violet liqueur No twist - for the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm out of lemons. To cut to the chase: My God, this is lovely. This one's going into the standard rotation, until my supply of Hermes Violet and Verte de Fougerolles run out.

I'm a happy camper - they just returned, and brought me back the Hermes Orange Bitters and Violet Liqueur. First up, a Plymouth martini with a dash of the orange bitters, then, perhaps, a Blue Moon or an Aviation.

I made some cucumber infused vodka last week, and mixed up some cucumber gimlet's for a dinner party (lately it seems that whenever I'm invited over to someone's house for dinner, I'm expected to be on cocktail duty). 2 oz cucumber infused vodka 1/2 oz fresh lime juice 1/2 Rose's lime juice cordial Just delicious - crisp and refreshing. Tonight I'm going to experiment with adding a bit of elderflower cordial, and maybe a dash of orange bitters. A note about Rose's: do yourself a favor and find a British foods import shop and get some of the British Rose's, which is made with real lime juice and sugar, not corn syrup and concentrate. I can't stand the American version, but this stuff is fabulous.

Glad to see that this thread got bumped back to the first page, since I haven't seen it since I became a participating member. Here are a couple of Maraschino favorites that I haven't found anywhere else on the boards. The first is a Sidecar variation that I saw in an article in Wine Enthusiast magazine: 2 ounces Cognac 1 ounce Cointreau 1/4 ounce Maraschino liqueur 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice 1 dash Angostura bitters 1 lemon twist, for garnish This is now my favorite version of the Sidecar. The first time I made it for a mixology obsessed friend of mine, someone who prides herself on her Sidecars and one of the people who inspired my obsession, it nearly brought to her eyes in a 'the pupil has surpassed the master' kind of way. I'm also a big fan of the Seventh Heaven #2, essentially an Aviation with grapefruit juice instead of lemon. It's in the Savoy Cocktail Book, but this is the recipe from Difford's Guide. 2 1/4 ounces Gin 3/4 ounce Maraschino liqueur 1 1/2 ounces freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice 1 mint sprig, for garnish For those of you who live in Los Angeles, Jons Market on La Brea and Fountain has the Maraska maraschino liqueur for $15. Geographically, the market is right in between the Russian and Armenian communities in LA, and they have a lot of Eastern European liqueurs and Russian vodkas that I've never seen before.

Thanks, Eje - at first I thought it might be a more concentrated version (as, say, Elixir Vegetal is to Chartreuse), but I think you're right. What little information I could find on this emphasized the thujone content, which tends to be code for bogus absinthe marketing. Oh well...the bottle still looks cool.

Has anyone ever seen this stuff? I just ran across it today, and I can't find much information. I'm wondering how it would be in cocktails that call for a dash of absinthe, such as a Corpse Reviver #2 or a Monkey Gland.

Thanks - I just googled Tantakatan. I'm planning a trip down to the bit Mitsuwa Market in Torrance this weekend, and now that I know what the label looks like, I'll keep my eyes open for it.

Ooh! That sounds good - there's a great selection of sake and shochu at the Japanese markets here in LA, but I've never heard of the shiso flavored version. I recently found a cocktail blog written by a guy in Shizuoka, and I'm very curious to know more about the wasabi liqueur in this cocktail. Jason - I'll look into the matcha liqueur as well. Is it significantly different from the Zen Green Tea Liqueur that's sold over here?

And I've asked them to bring me back a bottle of the Hermes orange bitters and violet liqueur (full disclosure: I'm watering their plants while they're away, and treating them to dinner when they get back). Are there any other must have items that, luggage space permitting, I should ask them for?

This thread has really piqued my interest. I have a fresh bottle of Campari, so I'm going to give that a whirl. Now, if anyone can figure out how to infuse the solid with carbon dioxide, that would be really cool. Negroni pop rocks, anyone?

To celebrate the start of the new Formula 1 season, and commemorate Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen's debut for Ferrari, I put together something I'm calling the Forza Kimi: 1 1/2 oz Finlandia vodka 3/4 oz Campari 3/4 oz Blood Orange juice Finnish and Italian components, and the color is (not quite, but close enough) Ferrari red. Oh, and Kimi won the race!

Would freezing it slowly (though I have no idea how one would achieve this in a home freezer) make a difference in the clarity? About a year ago, one of the dishes in my favorite cooking show, Cooking Showdown , was a shaved ice dessert, and the secret ingredient was...the ice! But, not just any ice, mind you. As winter approaches, crystal clear water from an underground stream is diverted into a large, shallow pool, and allowed to freeze naturally in the open air. The surface of the pool is raked daily to clear away any debris that may have fallen into it, and when the pool is finally frozen solid, it's cut up into large squares about 3 feet around and about 1 foot thick. Placed next to a commercially produced block of ice, it's as clear as glass. Tasters on the show remarked that eating the shaved ice was like eating freshly fallen snow.

I don't know, but it reminds me of James Thurber's line, "One martini is alright, two is too many, three is not enough."

Any chance of finding this stateside? I've never seen any such thing at the local Korean mega-mart (Han Ah Reum) and it would make things even easier. OTOH, I really like the taste of homemade dashi with kombu and katsuo... ← Very easy to find in Los Angeles, but I've only seen it at the Japanese markets (Mitsuwa, Marukai, Nijiya), and haven't noticed if the Korean markets that I go to carry it. Here's an online source that I found.

Ugh - I did the same, and tossed the drink after one sip. It was like drinking Lemon Pledge. Maybe this was just the wrong drink to try them out one, but for now the rest of the bottle is gathering dust.

I'd like to try out RU-21. From Wikipedia: "RU-21 (also known as Antipokhmelin in Russia) was developed by Prof. Eugene Mayevski at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics (division of the Russian Academy of Sciences), where the product was also clinically tested. Further tests were conducted at the Russian Ministry of Public Health. The tests confirmed the effects of RU-21 on the body's ability to metabolize alcohol. The legend behind the product's history attributes the development of RU-21 to the KGB. An urban legend surrounding RU-21 is that KGB operatives sought a chemical compound that would allow them to drink heavily with suspected Western intelligence agents, in the Soviet Union or the West, and not get drunk. At the same time, according to the legend, the Western agent would become intoxicated and (hopefully) reveal secrets to the KGB agent, who would simply be pretending to be drunk and in fact be perfectly lucid. The legend states that while this did not work, KGB agents discovered that the tablet did have an unpredicted side-effect; the apparent ability to lessen a hangover. While there is some truth to this legend (the KGB did conduct some alcohol-related tests involving key ingredients in RU-21, most notably the Succinic Acid), KGB has no role in commercializing this product." Urban legend or not, I love the idea of KGB Cold War spy technology coming to the aid of drinkers everywhere!

I've seen a few articles on chef tattoos, such as this one in the New York Times, but I haven't seen any cocktail related tattoos. Has anyone here shown their love of mixology with a little ink? I don't have any tattoos, but I'm more than a little tempted by the cover of the Savoy Cocktail Book (my avatar).

Alright, now that we've established that the ban on absinthe is mostly based on bad 19th Century social science, who do we need to write to in order to get the ban overturned? The FDA? Our Congressman?