mkayahara

Way back in about 2004, I picked up my very first bottle of Campari, mostly because I liked the design of the label and the colour of the contents. Having no idea how to drink it, I turned to the Internet, and happened upon a neat little site called eGullet, wherein it was suggested that the best way to drink Campari was in a Negroni... which led to me picking up my very first bottle of sweet vermouth. Thus began a lifelong love affair with Campari, sweet vermouth, Negronis, and cocktail culture in general. This bittersweet libation seems to me like the perfect thing to drink in Steven's honour and memory.

I never had the opportunity to meet Steven in person, but he still touched my life in many ways. As others have said, and no doubt many more will say, I felt like I knew him even though our only interactions were online. My thoughts go out to his family and friends at this terrible time. This is such a tremendous loss.

So, I asked my chef about this yesterday as he was baking celery roots in a similar salt dough. He replied that many things, if baked in salt alone, simply become too salty; the salt-and-flour crust lets you control the amount of salt you use, while still fully encasing the vegetable in it.

Thanks for pointing that one out. I'm always on the lookout for recipes using Suze!

One of only two what? I can think of at least two other Canadian distilleries already putting out single malt whiskies: Glenora and Still Waters.

Not so much "bored" as "I really don't have room to buy a bottle of Oloroso." I prefer the Art of the Bar version of this drink, which they call the Choke Artist, and which calls for anejo tequila and fino sherry, and uses the orange bitters as a rinse for the glass. I think the key to making this combo work is to have a super dry sherry; if you let the sweetness get out of hand between the Cynar and the sherry, it goes off the rails.

Just do it quick, before the new owners of Forty Creek start changing things! No Canadian whisky (and yeah, it's "whisky" here, not "whiskey") is going to taste like an American straight rye; if you want to get to know the category, you have to take them on their own merits. I tend to say that Canadian whisky is to American whiskey as Cuban rum is to Jamaican rum. They both have their uses, but one is much more restrained than the other. From the Wiser's line, if you can't afford the Red Letter (I know I can't), the next best thing is the Small Batch. Also worth picking up is the Alberta Premium Dark Horse: it's bottled at 45% abv, and even though it's not pure whisky (there's some sherry added as flavouring, which is legal in Canada), it's damn tasty. I've been coveting a bottle of Lot 40 for a while, but like Ashen, I'm probably going to buy a Forty Creek Copper Pot as my next Canadian whisky purchase.

And now it looks like they've bought my favourite Canadian whisky distiller, and one of only a handful of independent distillers in Canada. This saddens me; I guess I'll have to stock up now before they get their hands on the product.

Nothing wrong with that! I love sherry in cocktails, but I don't drink it very often because it takes me forever to get through a bottle, so I'm always looking for new recipes. Well I would hope so: don't cook and don't mix cocktails with wine you wouldn't drink a glass of on its own, right? Have you ever tried Joaquin Simo's Flor de Jerez? Decidedly one of my favourite sherry cocktails.

How do people feel about Peterson's Glorious French Food?

I've seen a similar approach used with beets. My suspicion (though this is really just a guess) is that it's intended as a form of salt-roasting, but uses less salt than actually burying the vegetables in it, because the dough allows you to make the salt "stick" to the vegetables. I keep meaning to give it a try sometime...

I'm curious, David: what made you reconsider? There's a lot of charcuterie that can be explored with relatively minimal equipment. (Though, of course, I have access to a fair amount of equipment at work...) As far as pasta goes, you could do a lot worse than read the relevant chapter of Paul Bertolli's Cooking By Hand.

I'm far from an expert on single malts, but I would think any Islay would work in this. Personally, I find Ardbeg to feel a bit "leaner" than Laphroaig or, say, Lagavulin, but I doubt that a little extra richness would hurt this drink.

After returning from the cold and snowy slopes last night, I needed a hot toddy of some form. Fortunately, I had recently been perusing the PDT book, and noticed Le Père Bis, with chamomile tea, Ardbeg 10-year-old Scotch, elderflower liqueur and honey. Seemed like it would do the trick! It's a pretty impressive balance of flavours, even with the off-brand of elderflower liqueur I'm using at the moment.

I would definitely be more inclined to pressure-cooking than sous vide for tongue. I've never tried it sous vide, but I don't see what benefit it would offer. I have done tongue (specifically, lamb's tongues) in the pressure cooker before, and liked the results.

But surely you want crystal-clear falernum if you're already going to the trouble of clarifying your lime juice!

Finer spirits make for finer cocktails. Finer mixing glasses have no noticeable effect, at least not in double-blind studies.

How is it for sweetness? It seems like there's an awful lot of sugar in that glass, though a lot of other intense flavours, too.

Oh thank goodness. For a second there, I thought it was a Dalek. (Wait; wrong fandom?)

Yessir.

I would be overjoyed if I could get it for $50. Around here, it's priced at $84.95.

Can't go wrong with Highland Park. Next up on my list would be one of the Balvenie bottlings, I think. Though single malt Scotch is rapidly getting out of my price range.

There's a couple of threads around here on batching and/or bottling cocktails: this one would be a good place to start.

Some Highland Park 18 tonight. A very satisfying dram. In that horrifying parallel dimension where I have to choose only one bottle, this might be it.

I am familiar with that technique, but your comment, and HungryC's, does not answer my question. Then I'm afraid I don't understand the question. I was assuming you were thinking that taking them out of the shell would allow them to warm faster and, on the basis of your comment "I often bake on the spur of the moment", that speed was the issue here. If that's not the case, why would it matter whether they're in the shell or out?