eje

What about the Mpemba Effect?

Well, I'll be the first to admit I was being overly pedantic. But, hey, I work in Academia. Comes with the territory. I do agree the idea of drink families needs to be revisited with much more of a global and historical perspective.

Yes, it is a dry white port. This is only the second white port I've tried. I think the other might have been Churchill's. It was some time ago; but, I believe this one is quite a bit drier than that one was. It's interesting, despite their ostensible similarities, I find white ports much more to my taste than Fino Sherries. Not sure exactly why, as my tasting of both classes of wine has been pretty limited so far.

Broken Spur Cocktail 1 Egg Yolk 2/3 White Port (2 oz Quinto do Infantado White Port) 1/6 Dry Gin (1 oz Tanqueray) 1/6 Gancia Vermouth (1 oz Cinzano Rosso Vermouth) 1 teaspoon Brisard (sic.) Anisette (1 teaspoon Anis del Mono Dulce) Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. (Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg. - eje) Once again, my poor grasp of fractions betrayed me. I thought the vermouth seemed a bit heavy in the flavor profile. The drink seemed a little flat to start out with. The nutmeg, (not pictured), punched it up greatly, and I highly recommend adding it as a garnish. The drink itself is one of the better eggey flip-ey things I've tried. Liked it much more than I expected.

Not sure what to make of that, either. A few factors occur to me. The first is probably the dismal quality of most of the common rail brands of liqueur in America. The cocktail I made is pretty good with good ingredients. With what likely passes for rail brands, (say Bacardi rum, LeRoux Cherry Brandy, Phillips Triple Sec, and dehydrated sour mix,) it will be Robitussin (an American cherry flavored cough syrup) in a glass. Another factor is just be the association of shooters with binge drinking. Probably a lot of people just have had bad experiences with them when they were younger. I think Darcy's entry is probably the most explicit on that. These sentence practically made me spit out my morning coffee, "...I hate it when guys say 'I don’t drink tequila because it made sick when I was in college'. Suck it up princess and stop drinking the cheap crap, tequila is great, but because you didn’t exercise choice or self control you blew it." The third is the attitude among some cocktailians that somehow getting buzzed isn't the point of drinking cocktails. I think Robert Hess is a great guy who has done a lot to move classic cocktail culture and drinks into the bar in America. But, when he writes things like "Drinking just to get drunk, is like having sex just to get pregnant," he shows a puritanical side which seems to be a little too common among some cocktailians. I understand that he is taking a stand here and that there are a lot of really bad drinking habits in America. 21 shots on your 21st birthday. Beer Bongs. Wapatuli made with grain alcohol. Purple Jesus. More than simply causing recipes to be misplaced and bartenders to find alternative careers, Prohibition destroyed drinking and bar culture in America, replacing it with one whose prime imperative was to go to a bar, get drunk as quickly as possible, and get out before the cops busted the place. To a certain extent, I think we're still recovering. On the other hand, you don't have to look very far to find pre-prohibition cocktails which can only be seen as something to get you as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. Take the "Bunny Hug." 1/3 Absinthe, 1/3 whiskey, 1/3 Gin. Yer not savoring that combination slowly to enjoy the complex intermingling of flavors. You're slamming it quickly between dances and heading back out on the floor to make a fool of yourself. PS. You should send the guy a note, and have him add your cocktail writeup to the list. The Snood Murdekin sounds pretty tasty.

Attempting to impose Phylogeny onto non-biological objects has always struck me as inherently wrong headed. While helpful as a mnemonic aid and a way of organizing recipes in books, one of the big problems is, if you define the families too widely, you end up with too many exceptions to be useful, and if you define them too narrowly, you end up with too many families to be useful. Another problem is, it may very well be that an alcoholic drink's "forbear" was not alcoholic at all. It might have been a soda fountain drink, medicinal elixir, some particularly tasty folk remedy, or even a preserve. The last problem I'll point out is that there is no real way to verify the phylogenetic trees you might create. At least when a horse and donkey mate, there is a verifiable physical connection and known outcome. If a bartender on one side of the planet reads an article about a drink that a bartender on the other side of the planet has created, there is no verifiable connection between the two bartenders and the drinks they create. Not to mention that the outcome is uncertain. Perhaps one bartender might write the recipe down incorrectly. Or perhaps the ingredients available to the bartenders won't be the same. Cocktails don't have DNA. On the other hand, tracking the "Evolution" of a cocktail recipe across history and culture is something that is inherently interesting to me. Though, it should probably be called something other than "Evolution". "Variation"? You'll have to buy me a drink (or three) to get me to give my opinions on the problems of Phylogeny and Evolution as they are commonly applied to biological organisms and systems.

I have another WMF one that seems to work well. It was from their "Manhattan" line, which seems to have been mostly discontinued. I've been intrigued by the Oxo ones, as I've heard they are well made. Haven't really had a reason to pick one up, though. At least, it doesn't appear have the annoying hollow handles that plague most of the Oxo "grips" line.

Aside from Pousse Cafe style cocktails in the Savoy, I'm not entirely certain I've ever really drunk a shooter. My college libations of choice were beer, more beer, the odd gin and tonic, and lots more beer. When I was doing the various Angel's Cocktails in the "Savoy Cocktail Book" Ms. Katie Loeb pointed out that Cherry and Rum were very good together. At that time I had an idea that it would be cool for the cherry to be on the bottom, have a clear liqueur in the middle, and dark rum on top. That would be a Pousse Cafe I could hang with. However, I couldn't pull off layering rum on top of Cointreau. Fortunately, with time, I've gotten more experience and a little steadier hand with the layering. Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch Cherry Bomb 1/4 Cherry Brandy (Massenez Creme de Griotte) 1/4 Cointreau 1/2 Aged Rum (Rhum Barbancourt 5 star) Use liqueur glass and pour carefully so that ingredients do not mix. Serve with 1/6 lime on top and squeeze into glass before imbibing. The cool and unexpected part here was that the lime juice went into the cocktail and settled between the rum and the Cointreau in a cloudy layer. I was trying to think up a 70-ish hot rod related name for it, and the Runaways song "Cherry Bomb" popped into my head. Well, there ya go. Unfortunately, there are about a million cocktails called "Cherry Bomb". So I shall use a portion of the chorus to said Runaways song to differentiate mine. Thanks Joan!

Chris, why do you call it the "Corktown" cocktail? Funny, I just read about the Toronto over on Jamie Boudreaux's blog. I'll have to give your variation a try as well. I posted this in the Drinks topic a million years ago; but, it probably deserves it's own mention in the Fernet topic. Gary Regan wrote a column which featured Murray Stenson's Porteño: Drink a Porteño and soon you'll be humming about Argentina Ingredients: 3/4 oz Bourbon 1/2 oz Fernet Branca 1/2 oz Cherry Brandy 1/2 oz Fresh Lime 1/2 oz Falernum (or simple syrup) At the time, it just seemed wrong that it had more liqueur than bourbon, so I made it (for 2) as follows. 3 oz W.L. Weller 12 year bourbon, 1 tsp. Fernet Branca, 1 oz Creme de Griotte, juice of one lime, 3/4 oz Velvet Falernum. Still think my variation is a pretty tasty cocktail! Some time I hope to visit Seattle and ask Murray if the Chronicle recipe was a misprint.

It will be quite delicious! I do this all the time with salmon, halibut, and cod. Salmon is my favorite. For herbs with the salmon, I like thyme and a little tarragon.

Great quote, George! Don't quite get the "glistening lamb shearings" thing, though. Which modern recipe do you mean? Do you mean the Affinity in the Savoy Cocktail book? Or are you talking about another more recent Affinity variation?

Broadway Smile Cocktail 1/3 Creme de Cassis (Brizard Cassis de Bourdeaux) 1/3 Swedish Punch (Facile Swedish Punch) 1/3 Cointreau Use liqueur glass and pour carefully so that ingredients do not mix. Of the layered liqueur cocktails I've tried so far, I have to say this is my favorite. Unfortunately, it involves a nearly impossible to find ingredient, Swedish Punch. The kindness of internet strangers has resulted in my possession of a tiny amount of real Swedish punch and I have used a good bit of it here. The only problem with now having tasted Swedish Punch is that I realize how far off my attempt to replicate it was. Well, that and the realization that Batavia Arrack has as much to do with Sri Lankan Arrack as Austrian Rum as to do with Jamaican Rum. That is to say, almost zilch. Perhaps someone with a wider range of drinking experience will have a suggestion for something to replace the Swedish punch here. I'm coming up blank.

Tartine puzzles me. The baked goods are very good (though, for my money, the baked goods, sandwiches, and breads at Pascal Rigo's various Boulangeries are better.) The service, though, is just awful. Every time I've been there, I get the feeling the the staff are just barely condescending to help me. Usually you have to clean the last party's dishes off of the table before you can sit down. The tables are filthy and you can't get a towel to clean them. You are required to bus your own table but there's no where to put the dishes. The staff would rather hang out and talk to their tattoo festooned boyfriends than serve customers. The simplest (over priced and tiny) sandwich takes forever to arrive. The last time I was there, a woman spilled some coffee, and literally had to beg one of the workers get a towel to clean it up. Then the worker stood there and watched while the woman cleaned up the spill herself. As soon as the woman had finished cleaning the spill, the worker snatched back the towel and headed back into the kitchen without a word. I felt like I was in a Saturday Night Live skit about a cafe run by snooty art school androids.

Digest: San Francisco Chronicle Wine Digest and 96 Hours section, Friday, March 09, 2007 A Tame Hall of Fame, W. Blake Gray APPRECIATION: Ernest Gallo, wine's master salesman, Jon Bonné Spirits: Chefs' favorite libations get a shot of sophistication, Amanda Berne Recipe: Marked Car Bar manager Tim Bowman of Redd in Yountville updates the classic sidecar. Letters To Wine Uncorked: Biodynamic dynamo, Jane Tunks APPRECIATION: Belle Rhodes -- Napa Valley's patron of the culinary arts, Janet Fletcher Pairings: What goes with a flock of Pinot? New Zealand lamb, of course, Joyce Goldstein Recipe: Greek-Inspired Lamb Kebab Chronicle Wine Selections: New Zealand Pinot Noir, W. Blake Gray The Cheese Course: Bliss out on this bloomy-rind find from Vermont, Janet Fletcher 96 Hours Bar Bites: Farallon Oyster Bar, Tara Duggan "For a dreamy, decadent escape from the hustle and bustle of Union Square, head to the new oyster bar at Farallon Restaurant, the acclaimed restaurant that's known for its seafood menu, fantastical underwater design and excellent desserts. Though it has had an oyster menu for some time, the restaurant recently added a French-style oyster bar with a wider selection, including rare oysters from Chesapeake Bay. Diners can sample the bivalves, signature cocktails and new bar menu, or the restaurant's full dinner menu, at either the oyster bar or the adjacent Jelly Bar." Bargain Bite: Brennan's, Karola Saekel "Forget about Berserkeley and jokes about political correctness. Brennan's, an institution since the late 1950s, is only a block from the super-trendy Fourth Street array of boutiques and restaurants that get written up as destinations, but it might as well be 100 miles away." Critics Picks: Financial District "Those who work there, as well as visitors and tourists, can find culinary excellence and variety, often in a historic setting"

Breakfast Cocktail 1/3 Grenadine (3/4 oz homemade) 2/3 Dry Gin (1 1/2 oz Plymouth Gin) The White of 1 Egg Shake well and strain into large wine glass. A slightly grenadinier "Pink Lady"? Nom de cocktail so men can order grenadine and gin without being embarrassed? I'm fond of grenadine and gin, so had no problems drinking this down.

If any of you read (or write) blogs which cover cocktails, you might know that Paul over at Cocktail Chronicles has been organizing a monthly online cocktail event he calls Mixology Mondays. This month's event is being hosted by Rick Dobbs over at Saving the World One Drink at a Time. The theme is "Shooters". To quote Mr. Clarke: Wow, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I had a shooter, unless you do count Pousse Cafe style drinks. I'm sure tasty ones are possible. I did ask for Rick to clarify what exactly counts as a shooter and he said, "A shot is really anything in a shot glass or a small glass that is pretty much one gulp. That's probably the easiest explanation. A Sex on the Beach is a large mixed drink, but an Oatmeal Cookie is a shot. As an example." If you would like to participate, please post in this topic before Monday, March 12th at midnight. I will compile a list of cocktails posted and mail them to the organizer. Let's see some tasty gulps!

A few uses I can recommend trying: ...Angel Face...Ante...Apple...Apple Jack...Apple Jack Rabbit...Block and Fall...

Been digging the Redwood Hill Farm goat milk yoghurt lately. The plain makes an excellent addition to my morning oatmeal (with a spoonful of honey). It seems to agree with my digestive tract a bit better than cows' milk. I've heard they also make the goat milk yoghurt for Trader Joes.

My wife and I have been meaning to try NOPA for a while. We were in the neighborhood for a concert last night, so we thought we'd give walking in a try. I've heard good things about the bar, so I was pretty excited. I have to say the cocktails and bartenders exceeded my expectations. We had a good vantage point to see most of the tables in the restaurant, and hardly a one didn't have a cocktail of some sort. They are selling the heck out of Old Cubans and Dark and Stormys. Not a single vodka drink on the menu. The featured spirit was Aviation Gin, so I had a "The Forbidden". Aviation Gin, Gewürztraminer juice, dash of Mezcal, garnished with a wedge of preserved lemon. Lightly sweet and refreshing, with the floral nature of the gin and grape juice combining nicely. If you're in the neighborhood, I'd definitely recommend stopping by for a drink. They're open late (1:00 AM), so no excuses.

I've used peanut oil to season my two cast iron pans and spun steel wok. Never had a problem like this. You have my sympathy! I did once use some sort of organic cold press oil, (Safflower? Canola? Sunflower? I forget.) on my skillet, which was a huge mistake. Ended up tacky as all get out. Had to scour it off, and start all over with the process. I have stuck with peanut, ever since. If you really want to use it, maybe take it to an autobody place and have them clean it. I think they have sandblasting (or similar) that might be more thorough than simply sanding. That's the only thing I can really think of to suggest. Good luck!

Brazil Cocktail 1 Dash Angostura Bitters 1 Dash Absinthe (1/4 barspoon Verte de Fougerolles Absinthe) 1/2 French Vermouth (2 oz Noilly Prat) 1/2 Sherry (2 oz Lustau Solera Reserva Dry Oloroso Sherry "Don Nuño") Stir well and strain into cocktail glass. Squeeze lemon peel on top. The Absinthe and Lemon add a nice flavor to the Sherry and Vermouth. The flavors were actually more interesting as it warmed in the glass than when I first poured it. Still, not something I would likely choose to sample again.

Episode 18 of Diary of a Foodie, Contraband Cuisine, had features on Absinthe, Coca leaf infused Pisco used in desserts, (how does Fresca Restaurant get the coca leaves it infuses it's Pisco with?) and Potcheen.

Is the white in ice cubes solely gas coming out of solution and being trapped inside the ice? Or are there other causes? I see some reference to precipitate flecks from minerals which fall out of solution, as well as bubbles. The wikipedia sez: It seems like, chilling water first in the fridge, and then freezing might help reduce bubbles.

Here in CA, local Cherimoya are most available in winter (Dec-Jan). There is a woman who comes to our farmer's market who specializes in tropical fruit. She grows them in Palmdale, and hers are the best I've had (not that I've had a lot of them). They are quite expensive, though. To get fruit, the pollen must be saved and female flowers pollinated by hand. Whatever pollinates them elsewhere must not live here.

Thanks for clarifying eas! I know that information is posted here somewhere. The term "geist" was escaping me this AM. Exactly what I was thinking of. Do any cultures make alcohol from fermented mangoes? Googling, I see some indication that it may be done in some regions of Mexico. One thing I was surprised by on this episode was that Alton didn't get to do his usual spiel about the ingredient. No information about the newly available (in the US) Indian mango varieties. Nor any information about stills or cocktails. Probably time constraints, I imagine.