FrogPrincesse

The art of the pousse-café is still very much alive in Japan. And it's not just Japan. During the World Cup, I remember seeing a series of flag-inspired pousse-cafés by Hawksmoor + Satan's Whiskers in London. It was all in good fun. The real question is not who makes pousse-cafés, it's who orders them!

Your recollection is correct. But for cooking it should be fine, I hope!

Thanks. My local BevMo does not have it (only the Lustau East India cream), but I will keep looking around.

You are welcome! It's pretty hot in San Diego still, about 27C during the day, so I wanted something refreshing tonight. I made myself a Gin Fix with Dorothy Parker gin. I am sure the pool will get plenty of use this weekend. Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

OK - I will make an exception for French pink things; rosé and rosé champagne are fine....

Yes. They are available practically year-round.

Pineapple syrup might work, but please keep the grenadine and raspberry syrup away (shudder).I have no problem at all finding white grapefruits right now. Even Trader Joe's has them in stock. I personally stay away from the pink stuff. Anything pink is evil.

Has everybody seen the documentary Hey Bartender? It came out last year and is now available on Netflix in the US. I thought it was pretty good, with a nice overview of the cocktail community and appearances by Dale DeGroff, Dushan Zaric, Sasha Petraske, Julie Reiner, Jim Meehan, David Wondrich, etc. Of course it's not perfect and I wished they had spent a little less time focusing on just one bartender (Employees Only Steve Schneider), and maybe done a better job at representing the West Coast. The parts with Steve Carpentieri and his neighborhood bar seemed a little forced, especially his visit at TOTC which was clearly arranged for the documentary. But overall, it's completely worth watching.

Martin Doudoroff just released a new cocktail app, Martin's Index of Cocktails and Mixed Drinks. It's a curated list of cocktail recipes from the 1850s until Prohibition. I own a handful of books that he is drawing from, but obviously have not amassed the library he has access to. This seems like an amazing resource for $10.

The Old Flame (Cervantes Ramirez) with Plymouth gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, green chartreuse (I used regular green but VEP is specified). It is a variation on Toby Maloney's Neptune's Wrath, sans absinthe. I set the chartreuse on fire before pouring it, although it's pretty hard to see on the photo. Of course it extinguishes as soon as it hits the foam. It's something to do in the dark for best effect.

My first foray into sherry cocktails was not a good experience. First of all I had no idea it was so hard to find dry sherry. After hitting a few stores, I finally bought this Dry Sack sherry which I thought was a dry amontillado. Perhaps it is sweetened because it certainly tastes very sweet. I tried a Bamboo with it (specs from The Art of Shim) which was busy and sweet, not good at all. I was going to serve it to a bartender friend at a dinner party, but quickly decided to go with plan B. This sherry will get recycled into a cooking liquid for clams most likely, while I look for something else.

This one was totally awesome. Designed to highlight all the things we love about S&C: the pungent funk, the mustiness, the weird esters, rotten banana, etc, with clever additions of batavia arrack, passion fruit syrup and maraschino liqueur. Thank You Rafa!!! Snoop Lion (Rafa García Febles): Smith & Cross Jamaican rum, white grapefruit and lime juice, passion fruit syrup (B.G. Reynolds), batavia arrack, maraschino liqueur.

Casino Soul (Mike Treffehn): demerara rum (El Dorado 12), cynar, white vermouth (Dolin). At first it was too sweet, but it grew on me. The name is a bit confusing because the cocktail bears no resemblance to a Casino Cocktail. It seems related to the Right Hand, the Negroni twist with aged rum.

Another scotch-based aperitif cocktail from a few days ago, this one fine but probably not worth repeating. Fair Isle (Kathy Casey) with barolo chinato (Cocchi), scotch (Highland Park 12), grapefruit juice (white), grapefruit bitters (BDW). I am not sold on the combination of barolo chinato with grapefruit juice, or maybe the ratios should be tweaked a little to my taste (less chinato, more scotch!).

I went all agricole for the MxMo coconut challenge. I made a Piña Colada with La Favorite white rhum agricole, fresh pineapple and coconut water from a freshly cracked coconut, based on a recipe by Jason Wilson in Boozehound. Then I went with Le Chien Chaud (Wondrich/Meehan), which to me is like a Ti Punch as a long drink, with Neisson white, coconut water, yellow Chartreuse, and Angostura bitters.

The Graduate (Daniel Shoemaker). It's an aperitif cocktail with sweet vermouth (Dolin) as the base and scotch (Highland Park 12), curaçao (Pierre Ferrand dry), and tonic water (Fever Tree). Quite nice with bitter and smoky notes.

All this talk about Fernet just makes me crave it more. This cocktail only has a touch of it but you can definitely taste it in the finish. I doubled the amount that was called for, because I wanted to make sure to feel it. None More Black: bourbon (Buffalo trace), Cynar, Aperol, Fernet-Branca, chocolate bitters (Bitter Truth xocolatl mole), coffee. It tastes like very strong coffee in booze form. I need to try this on my friends who still drink espresso martinis, although the bitterness may surprise them. It's pretty Fernet-light to my taste buds though; I think I am practically ready for Fernet shots at this point.

I think it refers to angostura bark, not the brand.

Eric Johnson of Sycamore Den and Christian Siglin of Bankers' Hill have been profiled in a new series on local bartenders.

Excuses, excuses. Here is Rafa's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot with rye and little touches of Fernet and Benedictine, just enough to echo the mint and spices in the rye, and Angostura bitters to tie everything together. I used Willet 5-year rye. I just realized I had tried another tango-themed cocktail by Rafa not so long ago. What's the story I wonder?

I have tried it too. Cardamom and lavender notes. Although it's very nice, I did not feel compelled to buy a bottle. Instead, I got the coffee liqueur and the aquavit made by the same company, House Spirits. There is some discussion of this gin in the thread about New Generation Gins.

Fun video, although I kept hoping that you would end up dumping the drink on each other’s heads, instead of (valiantly) drinking it.

That one is crazy off the charts, in a good way. Last week at TikiO, I had a chance to meet Bryan Davis, the distiller of Lost Spirits, and try a few of his creations. Really good stuff. Indeed. Like a lot of things in life I suppose. Probably best to run with them and not ask too many questions? My latest purchases. The Dolin white & red vermouths are restocks. The Willet rye is the new 2-year. I bought it without realizing exactly what it was, too excited to have found a stash of Willet at a local BevMo. It's the 4-year I was on the hunt for at the time. The 2-year, recognizable by its foil seal (no wax), is a new release and the first Willet-distilled rye in years (they restarted their distillery in 2012). It's really good on its own - I like it better than the 5-yr but not as much as the 4-yr. I was going to experiment with sherry-based aperitif-style cocktails and dry sherry proved surprisingly hard to find. I am not sure what this one is supposed to be (dry sack sherry - $20 on sale for $16 at BevMo). It's not very good, too sweet. I made a cocktail with it but did not dare serve it to my friends. I need to find something else; this one will be used to cook clams or something like that. Stone Bastard in the Rye is their Arrogant Bastard American strong ale aged in Templeton rye barrels. Unapologetic IPA is double IPA made by Stone in collaboration with Beachwood and Heretic that uses a bunch of experimental hops. More info on the Stone blog. Habitus is a rye IPA made by Hess in San Diego.

Oh dear, the Mixology Challenge is due in 3 days. Coconuts. Any brilliant ideas? Also I've been tasked with coming up with a tiki punch (or two) for a party. It's going to be a busy weekend for sure!

Here is a pretty well researched article/infographic on San Diego microbreweries. For those who were not paying attention, it's official - San Diego is considered the craft beer capital in the US. It's pretty amazing to see how the scene changed in the last 15 years. At the time Karl Strauss was the major playor, with Stone, AleSmith and Pizza Port starting to make themselves known. Today there are 88 microbreweries in San Diego County according to the article.