mbanu

Wouldn't you know it, I think I answered most of my own question, thanks to the wonderful folks at Vya: Sweet vermouth often has an unattractive aftertaste: usually tired and sometimes rubbery, mousy, flat or cooked. The unavoidable conclusion is that the base wines used are of questionable quality and stripped of vinous character before making the herb additions.

After a bit of thought, I've realized that the big tipping point in vermouth between a good one and an okay one is the aftertaste. There is a certain rather unpleasant aftertaste that seems to come hand in hand with cheap vermouth that probably did quite a bit towards bringing on its current unpopularity. But what's it called? I have the feeling that if I drank more wine, I'd be able to identify the flavor correctly. Anyone able to help me out here?

If you're familiar with wine, basically what you're doing here is seasoning the glassware. Just many recipes forget to add the rest in between adding the pastis and the rest of the ingredients. Have you ever smelled a glass that once held pastis? It's really a very pleasant aroma. By coating the inside of the glass with pastis and allowing it to dry, you can add an interesting aroma component to the drink, providing that you leave a healthy rim on the glass.

Although many people seem disappointed at not having to hunt down a good rye, one of the best I've had is also (at least around here) one of the most widely distributed; Wild Turkey Rye. Like all of Wild Turkey's whiskeys, the distillation proof is low, the barrelling and bottling proof are high. It also uses a good chunk of rye in the grain mash, unlike some of the "technically rye" mixes that hover around 51% rye, 45% corn and 4% barley. I had a bottle of Old Overholt once that had a Georgia Moon aftertaste. They've probably changed both Old Overholt and Georgia Moon since then, but I still don't think much of it.

Retrofitting long drinks is relatively easy. You just have to shake the drink before adding the mixer. Just add the egg white in with the normal ingredients, shake and strain, then top with slightly less mixer (since you've added extra nonalcoholic ingredients). Silver Gin Fizz 2 ounces gin 1/2 ounce simple syrup 1/2 ounce lemon juice 1 egg white Soda water Shake all ingredients except soda water with ice and strain into a glass. Top with soda water. Adjust simple syrup to lemon juice ratio to suit personal taste. With short drinks, it's a bit harder, simply because an egg white is quite large, while a cocktail is relatively small, and adding extra nonalcoholic ingredients screws with the end strength of the cocktail. (One of the reasons you should use medium eggs instead of large or jumbo whenever possible) One option is to use a stronger liquor. You can easily add an egg white to a Daiquiri by using overproof rum. Eggwhite Daquiri 1 ounce 151 proof rum 1 medium egg white 1/2 ounce simple syrup 1/2 ounce lime juice Shake and strain. Adjust simple syrup to lime juice ratio to suit personal taste.

The Pucker liqueurs are alcoholic sourers. Technically they've been sweetened a bit, so I guess technically they're sweet-and-sour, but they're an example. I'm not usually a fan of powdered acid blends. Too close to being cheap sour mix.

A Dunlop (Equal parts rum & sherry with a dash of bitters) and a Depth Charge (equal parts gin and Lillet with a dash of Pernod).

I'm a fan of making simple cocktails from high-quality ingredients. High-quality hard cider and champagne mixed together makes a wonderful drink.

Try older dives. They usually bought a bottle of bitters at one time or another, it just got wedged in a corner behind the unpopular liqueurs and nobody rememebers quite what happened to it.

The only trend that I hope happens in 2006 is fresh citrus continuing to work its way into bars throughout the United States. I'd be happy with that.

Admin: Split from the thread on hot drinks. Rock & Rye is the simplest drink in the world, if you start with good rye, and understand a few things. The goal of a good Rock & Rye is to turn a quality rye into a rye liqueur, while keeping it at an appropritate strength. Here's my recipe: 2 ounces Wild Turkey Rye (101 proof) 1/2 ounce simple syrup Combine and serve, either straight or on the rocks. 101 proof rye is used so that the end result will be sweet but still of a standard strength. Made as above, you end up with two and a half ounces of 80 proof rye liqueur. Because you're basically just sweetening a straight rye, the quality of the rye is directly proportional to the quality of the liqueur. That's why I chose Wild Turkey. Some people might prefer to go with Rittenhouse bonded.

I have a hard time taking any of these brands seriously, since my most common interaction with them is picking up empty airport, pocket size, or regular bottles out of the planters in front of my house. With the volume of "cognac" these brands produce to cater to urban consumption, can the lower end really be anything but industrial alcohol? ← Together, they probably have one of the largest stocks of aged brandy anywhere in the world, as well as the longest experience in effectively blending it. If they do indeed simply cut a small amount of quality brandy with gallons of raw stuff as is done in most blended scotch, i'd be terribly disappointed, especially considering the price.

A Hudson. Equal parts gin and peachtree schnapps shaken with ice and strained.

Well, it's kinda like having a properly-made Margarita compared to having cheap tequila and margarita mix; same name, but a big difference in taste. Going so far as to use fresh strained citrus and sugar syrup would probably be gilding the lily with this drink, but using Rose's instead of cheap sour mix and Bud Light or something of similar quality instead of Natural Light are steps in the right direction. If you use vodka instead of gin, it's the same recipe as above, but it's called a "Hop, Skip & Go Naked".

If it's acidic, use it as a lemon/lime juice substitute.

Bud Light isn't really the best that light beer can do, but it's a solid mid-range example of what a light American lager tastes like. A lot of the putdowns light beer get are because of misunderstandings. For one, if you view it from the context of traditional beer, it seems bland, kinda like vodka to a whiskey-lover. To appreciate light beer you have to look at it as its own category with its own goals. Another problem is that a lot of people mix up the drink with the sort of people who prefer to drink it. Don't knock it till you've tried one mixed properly. Mix up a good Skip & Go Naked, a Flaming Dr. Pepper, or one of those other declasse 80s drinks that everyone always stereotypes. You might be surprised. Here, I'll even get you started. "Skip & Go Naked" 2 ounces gin 1 ounce Rose's lime juice 12 ounces Bud Light Combine in a pint glass and serve.

Most beer-based drinks aren't brought up that often because they're either antique curiosities from the Colonial era (rum, brown sugar, cream, and hot beer, for instance) or 1980s drinks that have no respectability because of their names, the era they were invented in, and/or the fact that the people who usually order them aren't the classiest bunch. A couple favorites of mine are the Skip & Go Naked, basically a Gimlet turned into a long drink with light beer, and the Flaming Dr. Pepper, amaretto topped with Bacardi 151, ignited and dropped into a pint of light beer. A couple of exceptions that pop up every so often: Black Velvet - equal parts Stout and Champagne. It has pedigree. Irish Carbomb - Equal parts Irish cream and Irish whiskey dropped into a pint of stout. Would be a wonderful idea if it weren't for the fact that most Irish cream seems to curdle in stout. Popular on St. Patrick's Day. High-quality light American lagers, like Bud Light, are arguably just as versatile as mixers as champagne is. The same thing that makes beer snobs dislike them, their mild flavor, makes them easier to mix with. Other types of beer, having stronger flavors, tend to be harder to mix with.

Came across this quote in the Preface to an old edition of the Larousse Guide to Cocktails: "Louis Delluc said that a cocktail is not just the sum of its ingredients; it is the way in which they are put together. In fact, the art of creating cocktails lies not just in choosing ingredients but in combining them in the correct proportions. This sort of expertise can only be achieved by someone who has studied well-tried and proven cocktail recipes. It is important to have a thorough knowledge of the clasic cocktails, because improvization is not recommended to a beginner unfamiliar with the strengths and weaknesses of alcoholic drinks and mixes. [...] For, in fact, it is not immdiately obvious which alcohols and wines go well together. Harmony has its own rules and demands. For example, David Embury describes whisky as 'a gloomy old bachelor fiercely determined to guard his independence and rarely showing any disposition to marry'. And who would risk mixing whisky with other drinks unless they had first tried Rob Roy or Rusty Nail? The same could be said of vodka, gin, brandy etc." Does anyone have any mixing advice? I mentioned my experiences with gin in an earlier post, but was curious with people's experiences with other spirits. Here are mine: Vodka: The most friendly of mixers. Good for punches where one is serving the lowest common denominator, and with tricky ingredient combinations that don't seem to like other types of alcohol. Also useful as a stretcher and blender, for lightening the strength of heavier spirits, and as a strength enhancer, where you are trying to showcase the points of a liqueur or other mixer without disturbing the flavor profile. Rum: The 2nd most friendly of mixers. Useful in that it plays especially well with both fruit and nut flavors. Overproof rum is one of the most versatile and underused spirits in the world today. Gin: I've already written on, but in general, tends to do better with bittersweet and spicy flavors, like Lillet, creme de menthe, tonic water and ginger ale. However, the botanicals in gin seem to fight with the ones in Angostura when you combine them. Gin seems to be fussy when combining with nuttier flavors like sherry, cola, or whiskey, (careful brand selection can solve this sometimes, as can using mediator ingredients) although it seems to do fine with chocolate for some reason. Bourbon: Does especially well with nutty flavors. Plays well with some fruit juices (apple comes to mind) but dislikes carbonation. (Adding bitters can sometimes help with the carbonation problem, as can using blended bourbon.) Rye: The more mixable brother of bourbon. Seems to enjoy being most places bourbon enjoys, with the extra benefit of having no trouble with carbonation. Scotch: Depends on the region. Islay scotch seems to be the crankiest. No problem with carbonation, but needs some prodding from other ingredients to do well with most juices. Vodka is useful for cutting down on the assertiveness of single-malt in short drinks. Otherwise the best bets seem to be with using ingredients that showcase the scotch, or using ingredients equally as assertive. All spirits seem to appreciate the sweetened citrus combination. Anything to add/disagree on/comment on?

On a related note, I've found that genever is the secret to a good Pink Gin. Made with London Dry it just isn't the same.

I would disagree. I would say that the cocktail (as opposed to other types of mixed drink) was in fact originally invented to make shitty cheap booze drinkable. If you check the Jerry Thomas version of the Whiskey Cocktail, for instance, you're not being given a Rock & Rye with bitters like one would expect a proper Old Fashioned to be made like today - instead of a tablespoon of sugar syrup, you're given 3-4 dashes. This is because in the original cocktail, the sugar syrup wasn't there as a sweetener, it was there as a smoothing agent to make young and/or poorly distilled whiskey taste less rough. Using those ratios (and with the help of bitters), one can make a passable shot out of all but the saddest of whiskey. (Georgia Moon has a way of proving me wrong, but I haven't tried Jerry's "Improved Whiskey Cocktail" recipe on it yet, due to a lack of Maraschino and Absinthe... Next time I'm feeling up to it maybe I'll see if it will work with amaretto and Pernod. ) The original Kamikaze followed the same principles. A couple drops of Rose's lime juice in a shot of vodka isn't going to give you a Gimlet, but what it does do is smooth out the vodka. Citric acid and sugar are the two most common additives in vodkas for this very reason.

It's really hard to tell, actually. For one, it isn't entirely clear whether the early cocktails were Rock & Rye style sweetened concoctions, or doctored shots like the old Kamikaze back when it was just cheap vodka with a few dashes of Rose's to smooth it out. For another, they don't just refer to wine-glasses, but to small wine glasses, wine glasses and large wine glasses. A lot of people take the standard wine glass to be a sherry glass, (ie 2 ounces), but Thomas also specifies using a sherry glass in some recipes, implying, well, that a sherry glass was a sherry glass and a wine glass was a wine glass.

I've found the old method of filling the glass with ice and water works better, because then there is no condensation on the stem of the glass.

Very nice!

I'm trying to figure out what to use as a substitute in drinks that require Nassau Royale liqueur, but it's been a while and I'm having trouble remembering what it tastes like. Can anyone help me out?

A martini is a bad example. An extra dry martini does indeed take no skill to make. After all, it's merely a shot of cold gin or vodka. A proper martini is only slightly more complicated, as then the only thing to do is to determine how much vermouth the person is looking for. There are some drinks that are more complicated than a Martini, however. If someone were to order a Mai Tai or a B-52 it'd be a slightly different story.