Alchemist
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Posts posted by Alchemist
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I have been in the process of quitting smoking for the last two weeks. Chantix plus behavior modification, and maybe a little electro-shock soon. And I am shocked (ba-dum-pum) at the change in my palette. My taste buds feel autistic, my sense of smell is much better as well and I experience textures like I gobble pure MDMA before every meal.
I know I am prone to hyperbole, but I almost passed out the other night while eating Rouge River blue (OR) cheese and having a glass of Thomas Hardy 1998 ale. As there is nothing more obnoxious than the newly anointed zealot I will shut up now.
Anyone else quit and notice a change?
Toby
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Thank you so much for doing the legwork and coming up with empirical evidance of just how geeky we cocktail nerds are. I can just see peoples eyes glaze over when I bring up that little nugget.
"Wow" I say, "Did you see how the bartender pulled back on that dash of Chocolate bitters as garnish. That makes it, like, 1/44th of an ounce of orange bitters and 1/176th of an ounce of the Chocolate in that cocktail."
"ZZZZZZZ" replies my friend.
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We at The Violet hour are pleased to have an out of town luminary joining us behind the bar for a few days in mid February. Joaquin Simo of Death & Company, NYC, will take a post behind the mahogany Feb. 11th through the 13th. At the same time our own Kirk Estopinal will be in NYC at D&C shaking up TVH cocktails.
This is part of a nationwide bartender exchange program to spread good will, wicked cocktails, knowledge and techniques between cities. The idea is a simultaneous stage for bartends. We hope that it will be a win, win, win situation. The drinking public gets to try cocktails from an other city without the inconvenience of modern day air travel, the staff a both establishments get to hang out and talk shop and see someone else’s cocktails, and the industry is benefited by
This is the first of these exchanges, so I must entreat all our regulars to join us plus anyone who has been wanting to try the fantastic cocktails of D&C while watching a master at work. The success of this exchange will affect how the program runs.
Here is the eGullet link to the Death & Company thread.
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=97439
See you soon
Toby
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Quick round at D&Co tonight where I ran into an eG trifecta of johnder, donbert, and weinoo. Was sat quickly at a booth with only about a ten minute wait at just past 8 pm. Good luck for me on both counts.
Tried the Cinder, Illywacker, a very cinnamon-y drink (Pipera, or something), and a girly drink with Pimms and gin that I've sampled (from a lady friend) before. The thing that strikes about the majority of D&Co. cocktails is how much more assertive they are than the ones at PDT. I don't know enough at cocktails to judge if this is objectively a good or bad thing, but I prefer the subtleties of the drinks at the latter drinking establishment. Drinks at D&Co. are balanced but just seem so much more powerful to me. My favorite was the Cinder (my choice, naturally), but I ended up drinking most of the Illywacker that my friend had ordered as he wanted to trade.
Our server got us out of there in just over 30 minutes, so props to her. All in all, a nice start to the evening.
“The thing that strikes about the majority of D&Co. cocktails is how much more assertive they are than the ones at PDT. I don't know enough at cocktails to judge if this is objectively a good or bad thing, but I prefer the subtleties of the drinks at the latter drinking establishment. Drinks at D&Co. are balanced but just seem so much more powerful to me.” BryanZ
I think that this is a very valid statement but hugely oversimplified. Styles of cocktails are as individual as style of chefs. A drink at Tailor and a drink at Milk and Honey are as different than Norwegian and Thai cuisine. For the love of God don’t extrapolate from this that you can call us barchefs. It’s great to notice the differences, and then decide for yourself whose style of drinks you like the best, at that time. For your palette and Bartenders styles change over time.
You can look at the cocktail world like a big family tree. Knowledge and technique show up like blue eyes and left-handedness. You can tell where people have worked by what shakers they use. Every bartender is an amalgamation of who they have worked for plus their extracurricular activities. Nurture and nature.
D&C has four wonderful bartenders, (the newest an amazing, welcome addition) contributing drinks to the menu, so while the menu is going to be balanced and cohesive, each drink will carry the stamp of the bartender who created it. Now this can get muddy because some drinks are collaborative. But then it’s fun to try to figure out which two or three bartenders were in on it and what time and how many attitude adjustments later the drink was perfected.
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1.) Mushrooms sauteed in sweet butter with salt, and fresh cracked pepper.
2.) Sourdough bread toasted with butter or rubbed with a garlic clove.
3.) Celery with peanut butter.
4.) Warm corn tortilla, heated on flame, so there are little blackened parts.
5.) Fresh, cold whole milk. Preferably not from a carton but from glass.
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It’s not that hard to measure. Say you have your thermometer in your mixing glass. Sure it’s touching the bottom of the glass, and yes it is bumping against some ice. But the key is it is primed, it will not have to be brought down from room temp. When you pour your cocktail into the frozen glass watch the temp plummet.
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Ding, Ding, Ding, Somebody please give that man a Delux over-under washer dryer combo from Whirlpool!!
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Unless you pour it into a frozen glass. Sasha and I found that a frozen glass will drop the temp 3 or four degrees in a hot second, On the flip side, you can have a perfectly chilled cocktail and then ruin it by straining it into a room temp glass, or worse one right out of a hot sink or dishwasher. Thus is the importance of chilled glassware.
Toby
Edited to add something I forgot.
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With out a doubt, you would have to add 25% chilled, twice filtered water.
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I have never used a ginger liqueur, but if I was going to try to recreate a "ginger square" which puts me in the mind of a warm, moist, delicate christmas cake it would go something like this.
2 oz. Cognac
1/4 oz Licor 43 (or a couple of drops of Vanilla extract)
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz Ginger Syrup (take fresh ginger and put through juicer, or go to local health food store and buy some, then add equal parts sugar)
3 dashes orange bitters (Regans would be great with it's cardomom notes)
Shake, strain, and serve up, no garnish. Or add another 1/4 oz of Licor 43 and a 1/4 oz more ginger syrup, then top with hot water, and garnish with an orange twist.
Toby
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To be honest, I wish all drinks were served at this temperature, but it's highly impractical to demand in the bar-service context
Poppycock!!! It is your god given right to have cocktails be balanced and the proper temperature in bar-service context.
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If you go to Bloodbath & Beyond (or something like it) and get PLASTIC pichers that have a good seal to them you can shake a Liter (aprox. 10 cocktails) of cocktails at a time. You can even do eggwhite drinks -but you have to cut back on the eggwhite to 3-5 [p/Ltr] depending on the size-and get great texture. Best to cover lid with a towel just in case.
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I'm not sure I understand the question.
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What you are talking about is referred to as "batching" in the industry. It is easy as pie. You can do it with almost ant cocktail that strikes your fancy.
First take your intended recipe and make it big. The easy way to do this is turn cup into cups so…
Casino
2 oz Beefeater gin.
¾ cup Fresh squeezed lemon juice (strained)
½ oz Luxardo Marachino
¼ oz Simple syrup.
3 dashes Regans Orange bitters #6
Becomes…
2 cups Beefeater gin.
¾ cup Fresh squeezed lemon juice (strained)
½ cup Luxardo Marachino
¼ cup Simple syrup.
9-12 dashes Regans Orange bitters #6
Be careful of with the bitters. Like most powerful flavors -chili oil for example- the amount does not coincide with the other ingredients in volume. Start with 9 dashes (with the same “hand” as if you are making a drink. For some reason when building in a picture people tend to shake the bottle harder.) and taste after every shake. This is your base. Shake ½ a cocktail up and taste it, then adjust. Trust your palette. If it is too sweet add an oz. of lemon juice, if too tart drizzle in a bit of simple syrup.
If you have 5 1/2 oz classes donate 3 oz (to account for water content) to your shaker, shake, strain and you should have the proper wash line. You don’t need a garnish with a Casino.
I would double (or quadruple) above proportions if I was having a party of 16-18, but I hang out with NYC bartenders, and as everyone knows they are notoriously a bunch of lushes.
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For what it's worth I like all styles of pizza. The Cracker Crust style is probably my least favorite, but I've had a couple that were amazing. Good pizza rules, Bad pizza sucks. I have had pizza in Nepal, on a trek near Annapurna, that was fantastic. It could have been due to the view, the 8 hours of hiking I'd just finished, or the cold beer that went with it, or that Dal was not involved in any way, but in my memory it brought me the very short distance to heaven. .
My girl friend was just in NYC, she was born and bred in Chicago, and she found most of the pizza here uninspiring. The exception was the White Pie at Totono's in Coney.
So I hope we can agree to disagree, and we have sparked enough debate that Purple Pirate will try them all and report back.
I must also throw my lot in with the pro-Avec contingent. If there is just two of you ask if the "chef's table" is available. You get to see your food being made, and you are served by them.
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1.) A Wreck is a signature sandwhitch at Potbelly's. Lots of meat, hot peppers, ect. Yum. If you split one it will just take the edge off your hunger without getting in the way of ant serious gluttony planned later in the night.
I must take acception to your comment about Chicago thin crust. It is in no way shape and form a "waste of time." It is a different animal from NYC thin crust and very tasty in it's own right. It is almost more interesting for a New Yorker to compare NYC/Chi thin crusts than to compare our thin crust to Chicago's Deep dish. Comparing Chicago thin and stuffed/deep dish is like comparing apples and oranges. I think of Stuffed Pizza as a closer kin to Lasagne than pizza.
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If you can't make it to the south side, John's on the north side does the same style-thin crust cut into squares, and 4 small wedges. I am not sure where exactly it is since I usually have it delivered. (I'm sure some eGuletter knows off the top of their head) I second the Sausage, mushroom, onion, pepper combo. I prefer this style to the deep dish most of the time because it is suprisingly light. You can split a pie in the mid afternoon when you are peckish, and still do serious damage to a "tour" at night.
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The Violet Hour Hours (Brought to by the redundant department of repitition.) Are 6-2 every day of the week I would recccomend going early especially if you are planning to go on Fri the 18th. Sit at the Bar. If there is a wait tell the door person you will wait a little longer for the bar, give him your cell and tell him you flew all the way from the west coast to have a cocktail at TVH. Then head across the street-and 1 block north- to Forno for a glass of champagne. Actually I believe it is New Mexican sparkling wine, yum. If it is friday talk to Micheal. He will be very excited to have some people that don't want Grey Goose and Red Bulls.
The Alinia Party was one of the most fun and challenging parties I have ever worked. Luckily there was a line of taxis out side to wisk some of us Exit. Exit is a wonderfully grungy punk bar just down the street. It used to be on wells in the bad old days, and if you handcuffed yourself to the bar you drank for free. Good fun. It's decore runs towards matte black and chain link. The music is a very ecclictic mix of punk rock, old school punk, hardcore punk, srtaightedge punk, skater punk, thrash punk, and new school punk. Cheap beer and screamed conversation is just what you need after a 12 course cocktail epic journey (one can hardly call 12 cocktails a flight).
I would love to hear about your experiance. Have a wonderful time in the City of Broad Shoulders.
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There is always room for a hot dog, a couple of tacos, maybe a Potbelly, some pancakes, and a couple more tacos. For hot dogs Superdog. If all else fails there is one in Midway if that is where you are flying out of. For tacos al pastor I like Arturo's, Armitage and Western, For a Wreck, any potbellies will do but the one on Damen in Wicker Park is closest to me. Walker Brothers is so worth the trip. Have the buttermilk and potato pancakes along with some hashed browns (real ones not the home fries we have in NYC) and an Omlete. And may I suggest a cocktail at The Violet Hour after Alinia. Ask your server where it is, they know it well.
Oh I I like the Bocinos on Wacker for deep dish pizza.
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Cocktail Porn. Graphic content, to be consumed by cocktail geeks 21 years of age and older ONLY. There are no graphics, but it's graphic.
They sauntered in to my bar, short skirts, long legs, deep thirsts and shallow eyes. I stood behind the stick, oiling my swizzle stick polishing my rocks glasses. It was a slow Monday afternoon; my only company was Girls, Girls, Girls, the Motley Crew song playing over and over again on the broken jukebox. Hips rolling, like a pony kegs tumbling down a staircase, they made their way over to the barstools, and in unison each threw a leg over one, showing me their Amaretto Sharon Stone Sours. With more giggles than a 7th grade girl’s school Sex Ed class, they ask me “We hear you have a cocktail called LOVE, can you make it?"
“I have just the thing for both of you lovelies.” I reply smooth as 5 times rectified, 23 degree (F) Vodka with 25% dilution of triple filtered water that came from fist sized chunks of ice freshly pulled from a -3 degree (F) True freezer. “It will warm you all the way down, molten velvet dripping down to your diaphram…and send chills up your spine at the same time.”
I slide down the bar and grab a bottle of Mathusalem, it’s curvy neck feels good in my hand, like a sexy Smurfette. I construct Treacle, telling the Brunette on the left the story of the Treacle. How Treacle used to mean an antidote for poison, and that Treacle was what the Mock turtle ate in Alice in Wonderland. Her eyes gleamed as she lapped up the cocktail lore.
I flip a 30 oz metal shaker off the bar and it lands in my slightly moist hand with the sound of a naughty girl getting her just desserts. I usually give naughty girls a Dominicana (Rum, & Coffee Liqueur stirred then heavy cream floated on top) for dessert. The Blond on the right is aching for something creamy, but long, and stiff, something that will satisfy her cocktail lust. Into the shaker I contribute the luscious white of an organic, free range egg, three quarters of an ounce of fresh squeezed lemon juice-Led Zeppelin’s whole lot of love coursing through my mind “Squeeze My lemon, till the juice runs down my leg”-, an full, opulent ounce of simple syrup (one on one, vanilla the swingers would say), and two and a half ounces of Lairds Bondage Applejack, 100 proof (a cocktail doesn’t get much stiffer than that). I Mime shake the Apple Blow Fizz with my right while stirring the Treacle with my left; they titter at my dexterous multi-tasking, and the Blond Bombshell Raises an eyebrow and murmurs archly.
“That kind of skill would be very useful in our house, it’s a mansion called Manage a Trios”
I snap the shaker open with the sound of a pinball game matching. I carefully select 5 perfectly shaped Kold-Draft ice cubes, which I donate to the shaker. “Your French is Magnificent,” I say. “You are quite the cunning linguist.” I rock the shaker slowly, and then build speed quickly. It sounds like The 6 train barreling into Union Square, fast and hard, and over in the time of a quarter back on prom night.
I set the shaker on the bar, reach into the freezer and pull out a 6” shard of ice; it’s girth formidable, which I slide into her Collins glass. I give the Treacle a twirl, and set it in front of the Brunette. I grab protection, against the ice falling out of the shaker. With Hawthorn strainer in place I pour the Apple Blow Fizz into her glass. “Here is the stiff part,” I say. “And here comes the long…” I open a soda water and drizzle it down the side while turning the glass using only the cheat. I grab an apple, -a Honey Crisp- one so fragrant that Eve would have been kicked out of Eden much earlier if it had been on the tree, and slice a piece off for garnish. I put it on the rim of the glass and it cleaves the espuma looking like a dirty painting by Georgia O’Keefe.
For the Treacle I undress an orange all at once, the peel crumpling to the bar like a cheerleaders prom dress at the foot of a Motel 6 bed. I squeeze some essential oil on the lip of the glass then coil the skin around the chunk of ice in her Double Old Fashioned, Libby #435-624, a perfect serpentine garnish to match the apple in the other. I consider ordering them a plate of ribs to round out the original sin motif of this round.
In unison they lick their lips, and hoist their libations. As the liquid hits their tongues their eyes close, their toes curl, Goosebumps blossom on their golden arms, and a deep satisfied shudder rumbles through their bodies.
The Bombshell opens her eyes. Eyes that look like she just woke up somewhere wonderful. Baby blues full of epiphany. With the back of her hand and wrist she wipes the rich, mother of pearl foam from her top lip with the nonchalance of Tracy Lords, and says to me.
“Thank you sir may I have another.”
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The key to measuring temp in cocktails is the needfor said cocktail to be in the glass they will be served in and the tip of the digital therm. should not be touching ice or glass.
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The only time to get a cocktail below 22 degrees is in the service area, so when it hits the table it is the right temp.
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That was from the first (Summer) menu at The Violet Hour, and I went as classic as possible, without going to cognac. I think of that version as the "gateway" Sazarac. Once you got them hooked, and they are puttty in your hands, then you hit them with the Primo dope. I think that a Ritt/ab might be a bit hot and dry for the first time Saz drinker.
Last night I had a 1X1 Aperol and Campari with a slice of orange. It made me feel less gluttonous after a meal at Blackbird.
Edit: cause I forgot to add something
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This post is an answer to the "look what I found in my mouth" question.
THIS POST CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT SHOULD NOT BE CONSUMED BY THE DELICATE SENSIBILITIES OR THE WEAK OF STOMACH
I was down in Mexico visiting a friend a couple of years ago. My, father, Tom, and my business partner, Jason, and I arrived in town mid afternoon, and were engulfed in the chaos of a street festival. A Ferris wheel spun haphazardly, as did a good number of town drunks. Every vendor stand was cranking a static radio station, a tuba driven polka like nightmare, "Pato" rap, or a street version of karaoke. Barkers tried to get us to play rigged games of chance, or buy real silver rings guaranteed to turn your finger gangrenous in three days. To escape the melee, we retreated to a roof top restaurant to await our friend and her boyfriend.
Really, there is a point to this story, I promise.
So they finally showed up, just in time to jump in on the third round of ice cold Bohimias, and wee drams of Havana Club 7yr. We chatted during a spectacular sunset, and through the violet hour. We got to discuss the local delicacies. I started to get a hankering for some tongue tacos. So we wove our way to the stall only to find it closed. Luckily there was a bar right there that served beer and Cuban rum...
The next morning at 8:--for the love of god, I think I am going to die--o'clock we met again. I’m now sure it was a conspiracy because I soon found myself separated from my father and Jason, being led further and further into the bazaar by my friend’s boyfriend. We finally got to a stall where there is a towering pile of goat’s heads. My poor rum ravaged stomach completed a move that would leave the Romanian gymnastics team with mouths agape and green with jealousy.
We sit down and I hear him order me a taco of tongue, one of eye, and one of brain, and a soup for himself. Did I mention it was Eight in the F*&king morning? I knew I was going on and on the night before about how much I liked tongue tacos, but not at eight in the F#!king morning, when I was not sure if I could get through a bowl of oatmeal.
The toothless Grandma grabs a goathead from the pile and an apocalyptical swarm of flies rises from the devils mountain of carnage. My stomach does something that Greg Louganis wished he could do, my eyes roll into the back of my head, and I hear from far away…”Quieres cervesa?”
Can it hurt? I mean really, what could possibly be the down side? I’m guessing that club soda with Peychaud’s bitters is not an option. “Simone, Guay. Nessisito una chela bein meurta!” He orders me a really cold beer, and chuckles as I turn the color of military hospital walls.
The goat head is now on the chopping block right in front of me, mercifully free of flies. It’s tongue sticks out to the left and its lifeless eyes, one of which will soon be in my mouth, stare at the fluttering tarp that is keeping the pounding sun off our necks. The temperature is starting to rise, adding to my need to look around and see if the name of the stall was “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE”.
The beer came, ice cold with rivulets of joy clinging to it’s outside. I put it to my forehead, bliss, then opened it and took a long pull hoping to beat back the idea of what I was about to eat.
I am not a picky eater. I will try almost anything, and the things I don’t like I will keep trying until I can, if not love them, at least appreciate the manner in which they are prepared.
So I nursed my beer as Toothless Grandma cuts out the tongue, slices it nice and thin and then tosses it on a grill behind her. With a spoon she pops an eyeball out, I closed my eyes and imagined it skittered across the cutting board. I don’t open my eyes until I hear the hiss of the sliced eyeball hits the grill. In retrospect I should have just kept my baby blues closed and concentrated on the Modelo bubbles that were quickly making me feel reptilian. A vast improvement from when I sat down believe you me.
The point of this story is just now coming.
I open my eyes and Toothless Grandma has a cleaver in hand, over her head and is about to strike a John Henry blow to the skull. I hate to admit it but I think I winced a little thinking it was my skull she was about to crack asunder. The cleaver came down with a mighty, sickening thud and bone chips flew in all directions. She gave the cleaver a wiggle and the top of the head opened as beautifully as a morning glory. Little dew drops of blood nestled in the matted hair mere centimeters from what I was about to eat. With the eyeball spoon (bad cross contamination if you ask me) she scoops out some brains and flops them on the grill.
A pile of fragrant, hand made tortillas is warming on the side of the flattop. With miraculous asbestos fingers she builds my three tacos, adding cilantro and onion on top.
They look really good, and they smell wonderful. I order another beer, its like 8:10 by now, and start heaping Salsa Roja on the tacos. My dining companion’s soup arrives. It’s gorgeous, a huge bowl full of corn, carrots, succulent chunks of goat, onion, and a sprinkling of cilantro on top. I am very, very jealous. What he has is the perfect thing for a hangover, and he isn’t hungover. Yet another example of living in a hostilely indifferent world.
My plan of attack is that of an eight year old faced with a plate of Brussels sprouts. I’m going to take a big bite, chew as little as possible and wash the offending matter down with a monstrous gulp of beer. I figure I can get through a taco in three bites. That means I only have nine bites to go. I can’t decide what to start with. Do I start with the tongue, which will be the easiest, or go for the brains and eye first to get it over with. Round Robin seems best, one bite of each, order a beer every 3 bites.
The tongue is great. Rich and meaty with explosions of fresh cilantro and onion going off in counterpoint. This isn’t going to be so bad I convince myself. Then on to eye that wasn’t NEARLY as bad as I thought it was going to be. I am starting to feel macho, with two beers under my belt and a Mexican truck drivers breakfast before me. Then the brains. For the love of all things holy, I can’t believe how revolting this is. The texture is all-wrong, and by that I mean there is NOTHING good about it. My eyes bulge a bit as I reach a trembling hand towards my beer. Toothless Grandma is watching me, so I do my best to smile. I’m sure it was a horrible grimace with cilantro and grey matter in my teeth. The beer washes down the bite with only a tiny shudder.
Once again I turn to my dining companion. He is almost done with his soup. Jealousy once again rears its ugly head. I am about to ask him a question when he bites down on something that makes him wince. Into his upturned palm he spits a jagged goats tooth, brown around the edges, and worn unevenly from a lifetime of eating refuse, street jetsom, and garbage from big stinking piles in allys in the unsavory part of town. I gag, my insides roiling like an angry sea. I cannot get the crunching sound of my friend biting down on that tooth, and then him involuntarily swallowing plaque-riddled flecks of enamel. It takes all my will power to force down the rising gorge, and not projectile vomit unchewed chuncks of eye and brain under the table. I take a few deep breaths and thank god for my lovely plate of tacos.
Death and Company
in New York: Dining
Posted · Edited by Alchemist (log)
My sincerest appologies to the fourth bartender. I have editied the original post. I hope they know I think the world of them and am mortified by my mistake.