FrogPrincesse

Great suggestion. Hit the spot. Thanks. Rafa - Glad you liked it. It's a good one for sure. Speaking about good stiff stirred rye drinks, I ended up with a Sazerac tonight. With Bulleit rye and St. George absinthe, it was nothing short of spectacular.

A Toronto.

You are confusing me. Are you saying I should shake with ice first, then whip with the stick blender (after straining the ice I imagine?). Sorry it's Monday and I am a little slow.

My favorite punch for these types of events is the Fish House Punch, which is also described in the Punch thread. The base is dark rum + cognac. It's delicious, can be made in advance, and leftovers keep very well.

I would also look at the balance between the sour (lime juice) and the sweet (curacao + orgeat + simple). Several of these recipes seem to be on the sweet side.

Aware of this strategy but it seems like way too much trouble and my cat would definitely be upset if I repurposed his toys. :-) I suspect that the age of the eggs is more critical than these little gadgets. With fresher eggs I get a much thicker foam with the same amount of effort.

Yep, and a prolonged/energetic one too. I really tried my best, but with older eggs I think this is bound to happen.My Koriko tins separate by themselves almost every single time; occasionally I have to wait a few seconds. In the rare case they don't, a gentle tap at the spot where they start to separate takes care of it.

White Lady last night with Beefeater gin, Cointreau, lemon juice + egg white in a 3:2:1 ratio. Really good, although I need to work on my egg foam technique. The texture was thick throughout but it was missing a nice thick layer of foam on top, despite my best efforts. Next time I will just go for the stick blender, especially with older eggs.

Really? Never had an issue with mine.

I had to find something worthy of my hosts who went out of their way to make my visit special.

You are more than welcome. I had a feeling you would appreciate it.

Too much orgeat overpowers the drink, especially with high quality/homemade orgeat. I tried all orgeat instead of half orgeat half simple in the past out of sheer laziness, and the Mai Tai was still decent but on the verge of becoming a creamy almond smoothie.

Excellent. More international cocktail adventures in my future!

Oops. Good thing I was not there; I could not have resisted saying something. Is he still in training perhaps? OMG. I love how you think.

Hmmm. Here they are: St. George gin sampler (dry rye, terroir, and botanivore), and a bottle of Willet 4-year single barrel rye. They ended up in London in excellent hands.

I almost never use Grand Marnier in cocktails, but it's essential for Crêpes Suzette and chocolate mousse, so I have a bottle. I really like the Pierre Ferrand dry curacao. Recently it was spectacular in a Sidecar. I mostly use Clement Creole Shrubb in rum drinks (Mai Tais), but it also works very well in other applications like here.

I would have enjoyed this post anyway, but you just had to throw in a gratuitous (and sanitized) Lebowski quote. I find that life is more fun when enjoyed through the prism of The Dude's sunglasses. You really should. I had a blast. And you live much closer than me so you have no excuse.

Very sad to read about Dave's passing. My thoughts go to his family and friends. I feel lucky that I got to read about his adventures in France, including recently with his blog.

Plantes Vertes already did a fantastic job of narrating an evening I had a chance to share with her and another illustrious eG member. I would just like to add my impressions to hers. After a long flight from San Diego to London, I dropped off my things at the Zetter Hotel and had just enough time to enjoy a quick and restorative meal at a neighboring restaurant (St John) before meeting my fellow eG cocktailians. I suggested starting our cocktail adventures at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel and they were kind enough to agree. Going to the Savoy felt surreal in many ways. I had read so much about it, and of course when you are there you cannot help but think about all of the history. Recently, I had followed with great interest the events around the 50th anniversary of Harry Craddock's death that were chronicled by Erik Ellestad on his blog. Being able to finally go there was a little overwhelming. The space has an interesting layout. The main room, which could have used a little more charm or character, has a piano in the middle. The bar itself is quite small and breathtakingly beautiful, but sadly it's not well visible from most of the space. When we got there, the piano was silent which I lamented about, but regretted as soon as the piano player started what was without a doubt a nod to my visit with a rendition of the Beach Boys' California Girls, and Hotel California (not the Eagles, man, anything but the Eagles...). I would have thought that jazz music from 20s or 30s would have been more appropriate, but what do I know... We got our drinks which were large. There was something not quite right with my White Lady. Interestingly it seemed to contain a touch of absinthe (hopefully this was intentional and not the result of a dirty shaker...) which was actually nice. The gin used was Sapphire, which would not have been my first choice. The egg white foam was a little bit thin, not a thick lucious foam. It looks like I am nitpicking but we all agreed that there was something wrong in the overall taste and balance, and the cocktail did not feel crisp and bright as it should have. The Ruby Bullet was an interesting and adventurous choice from Plantes Vertes. To me it tasted like Champagne with bitters in it. Not offensive but completely forgettable. The caraway from the aquavit was barely noticeable. It was diluted down with soda. The Norman Conquest with its Calvados & Bourbon combo was the best drink of the group, although it would have benefited from a more distinctive sweet vermouth than Martini Rosso, and also more of it. I would not mind having one again in the future; with minor tweaks it would have been great. It reminds me of a practically identical cocktail by Sam Ross called the Grandfather that I mentioned a while back in the Manhattan thread. After doing some reading about the Norman Conquest I found out that this was the drink that Erik Loricz had decided to seal into a flask and bury in a wall at the Savoy during a recent renovation, following a long tradition started by Harry Craddock. Apparently he does a version of that cocktail with Scotch, which sounds really nice too. Norman Conquest on the left, White Lady on the right, and Ruby Bullet on the back. Semi-stale nuts & things in the middle. Who eats those things anyway? Midway through my drink I worked up the courage to go to the bar and introduce myself to Erik Lorincz, whom we had seen making his entrance earlier, and dragged Plantes Vertes along with me in the process (I did not have to ask her twice). We saw him prepare a couple of drinks including one with a spray of violet liqueur (I think it was a Purple Bird), and got to observe his shaking technique first hand. He listening politely to my babbling; we realized in the process that we had not just one but several common friends named Erik, and at the end of our discussion he very nicely agreed to sign my copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book. Then we went back to our table and, after finishing our drinks, decided to cut our losses and move to a place with cocktails that would be more to our liking. (No offense, Erik. In his defense I should make it clear that he was not the one preparing our drinks.) Before leaving, we paid a visit to the museum and admired their collection of vintage bottles.

So the spillage had more to do with the shape than the size of the glasses then (as you suspected). Which glasses did you end up buying?

Maybe I should give this another try one of these days. I had one a while back was not in love with it despite the Campari and the French inspiration. I just noticed that you posted it in the Negroni thread. For me it does not have the feel of a Negroni.

I use mine regularly to shake 2 cocktails (6 oz total of ingredients). I really like the way they feel, they are really well made. I have cheapo imitations but they don't even come close. Even though they weight about the same, the weight is not distributed in the same manner (the korikos have a heavy base and thefore are more stable), and the seal is not as good. [As Erik just wrote] The Koriko tins are 28 & 18 oz. I don't find them small, but based on your previous questions about shaking issues we already established that you must have huge arms & hands!

And part 3...

That looks SO much better. Thanks Dan.

That sounds good. Unfortunately most of the Canadian whisky we get around here does not have much personality.