thirtyoneknots

I think of both orgeat and grenadine as complex syrups with other stuff in them. How do you make pineapple syrup? Is this where you make a thick simple syrup, pour it over pineapple and let the syrup extract the pineapple flavor? That's quite different than the raspberry syrup which is actually make raspberry juice and puree. ← Yeah, that seems to be the most common recommended way to make pineapple syrup, though the flavor will fade over time, or did when I made it like that. I think the distinction that makes grenadine not a fruit syrup may be a bit technical, it's used in more or less the same way, and contributes a fruity character to drinks. Definitions of what is and is not classic are of course a matter of opinion but Don the Beachcomber liked Passion Fruit Syrup quite a bit it seems, and green mint syrup pops up here and again, as well as anisette syrups, mostly in Frenchy Things. Strawberry syrup not exactly a common thing to call for but not unheard-of, either. Apricot and lemon come up in the Savoy. Any particular syrup you might be looking for a recipe for? Or just determining which ones you want to have?

I've always understood that TBA and Eiswein are sort of semi-overlapping categories...you don't always even get them in the same year, but TBA is an unfrozen grape that has a certain potential alcohol from the sugar content, and has begun to raisinate on the vine...the word trockenbeerenauslese literally means "select harvest of dried berries". No ice involved though, but botrytis often is.

As I've noted before, I like that one too, though I've never tried it with Genevere. Or maybe it just hit me the right way at the right time.

Recession cocktails, aka trying to use up stuff I don't normally drink: About 3 years ago or more I infused a bottle of vodka with apples and it was tasty but I never really went in to exploring it. In the interest of having a drink and not using anything I might miss later (as well as making progress towards clearing the fridge) I mixed up the following as a nightcap this evening: (Savoy style) 2/3 Apple infused Smirnoff 1/6 Apricot brandy (Barack Palinka) 1/6 Swedish Punsch dash Abbott's Stirred and strained ito cocktail glass. Lemon peel would have worked but I didn't bother, wanted to see if I could smell the drink. Kent's experiments with apple-infused Famous Grouse would probably work quite well in this context.

A while back while perusing the Gumbo Pages cocktail list, I came across this drink, which contrasts ginger-infused spirits against banana liqueur, and the idea sounded intriguing enough to try. Soooooo, I dropped a half-pound of peeled and julienned ginger into a bottle of Paul Masson VSOP and let it sit for a week, then strained and rested another week. Figuring my Bols creme de banana would be sweeter than the 99 Bananas called for, and also wanting the help of citrus to hide the cheap brandy's coarseness, I mixed up the following: 3/4 oz lemon 3/4 oz Bols Creme de Banana 2 oz Ginger-infused brandy Shaken with crushed ice and poured into a short glass with short straws. Really a fun and interesting flavor contrast though I may try to do this again with less citrus, it sort of hides the nuance. The ginger flavor is dancing in and out of the background...there's potential here to be explored. I'm thinking to maybe add some amber rum into the mix.

Sorry If I'm confusing. You already gave me an anser: you use it with soda & rub some in your hands. For the nose, it's not always blackout, but it depends a lot of which catergory of bitters. The Aromatic Bitters for example (opposed to the fruit bitters) doesn't have that much nose (room temperature), not much taste (if you want it diluted with water), but they still do miracles in cocktails. So I was just curious to know how you taste your bitters when you are making them? cheers ← I did several different ways, includingthe aforementioned soda mix (sometimes slightly sweetened), rub, and straight...Simple cocktails like a Champagne Cocktail or Old Fashioned with a whiskey you are familiar with can be a good way to investigate as well. As far as lack of nose or taste...we must have different recipes of Angostura bitters.

Or a dash of [orange] bitters?

No mint or strawberries but the Pimm's Rangoon is kissing cousin to the Pimm's Cup we've been doing with house made ginger ale...we do it as a syrup and add soda to do it old-school. I was susprised that the ginger heat actually stays intact for weeks, but it's not meant to be actually "hot" like a ginger beer would be...I would say though that if it were any spicier it wouldn't quite qualify as a ginger ale anymore though. We use it in a Suffering Bastard as well, the Sous Chef can't get enough of it.

i have always wondered this, now i can apply this in more than one place, so here is my next question...if i use 1:1 simple, in a premixed drink that wont then be shaken with ice, the extra 33% water should effectively take care of the dilution issue?? yes/no? ← No, it's still an insignificant amount of water (technically also equal to 2/3 of the volume of the syrup)...1/2 oz of simple is contributing only 2 tsp of water. If your drink is, for example, 3 oz--being 2 oz of spirits, 1/2 of syrup, and 1/2 of citrus--you still have nowhere neat an appropriate amount of water in the drink. You want to shoot for 20-25% of the finished volume as water, generally speaking. This is for cocktails, the rules for punches are different.

In contrast to the normal practice in French wine, Aligote will in fact be labelled by the varietal. It will either (if I am recalling correctly) be labelled simply "Aligote" or "Aligote de Bourgogne". It is a fairly inexpensive wine and should be available from your favorite wine merchant...certainly they would be able to special order it at worst. If it helps, the grape is pronounced "ah-LEE-go-tay" or so I am told. Nice picnic or back porch wine, too. We used to have a pretty good one at work, for a French grad student at the university who requested it...can't recall the name of it to save my life. If I can find out I'll report back.

← this begats one quick Off-topic "conversion" question....how much sugar(brix(?correct word use here?)-wise) is an equivalent amount of sugar (in this case a 1/2 ladle) vs simple syrup (assuming a 1:1 mix) ?? scott ← 1:1 simple syrup is roughly equivalent to 2/3 the same volume of granulated sugar. In other words to convert an amount of granulate sugar to 1:1 simple, add 50%. For 2:1 syrup, it is close enough to equivalent to be a direct sub for granulated sugars by volume. Edit: clarity.

Nothing Earth-shattering, but we've been having some good successes with the Greater Antilles, a Mojito made with a spice syrup based off of "Donn's Spices" from Sippin Safari, paired with the 7 yr Flor de Cana. Hope this doesn't violate the pedestrian drinks ban. If so, I've always been intrigued by the 'Jewish Absinthe' from Killer Cocktails but have never actually gotten around to trying it. Caveat Imbibor.

Any reason behind not wanting to go with the standard French 75? I think it's got a great story behind it, especially when you consider the name is a semi-elaborate pun. Not really French origin except in ingredients and inspiration but Robert Hess' Black Feather is pretty nice, if perhaps a bit much for Summer. Sidecars never fail and are a perennial crowd pleaser. The Rose is pretty nice, elegant drink as well, particularly with good raspberry syrup, and perhaps easier to pre-mix than something with citrus. If all else fails there's always the Champagne Cocktail. Scads of great drinks were created in Paris back in The Day, but the French aren't really cocktail drinkers as we think of it, so these are typically going to be invented by Americans or Brits living there. How French does it have to be?

I have heard that some producers (generally perhaps not the more highly regarded ones) actually freeze grapes in a freezer after harvest but before pressing to create ice wine...any truth to this?

I've long harbored a suspicion that all the "6 people" recipes in the Savoy come from a common source, some pamphlet or booklet that has escaped our notice. There are 55 of them (56 if you count the Pineapple Julep), only a tiny handful of which have turned up elsewhere: the Martinez is, well, the Martinez, and the Ping-Pong Special and the Diabola are adapted from Robert Vermiere. None of them were associated with Harry Craddock in the media of the day, and they all have a certain country-house, Jeeves-bring-in-the-drinks-tray quality to them. The ingredients are certainly more continental and British than American, but that could be Craddock's editing. ← The measure of "dessert spoon" does not appear in any single serving recipe either does it? Sounds more like something a home hobbyist would use than a professional bartender.

What makes me curious is if doing this has any effect on the drink different than just shaking and straining or whatever. Odd instructions indeed.

Test-driving the Abbott's replica over the course of the afternoon/evening. First was an Old-Fashioned with the Old Grand-dad detailed in the bitters thread, for comparison's sake. Then, a Martinez, based on recommendations from others who have made them: 1 oz Junipero 1 oz Martini & Rossi red scant tsp Luxardo Maraschino 2 dashes bitters stirred and strained up with a lemon twist. Fabulous, utterly transformed by the Abbott's. If I'm not mistaken this recipe originally called for Boker's, which snippets here and there have led me to believe may be closer wrt spice profile to Abbott's than Angostura. In any case they work incredibly well here. Later watching tv, I tried a plain Applejack cock-tail: 2 oz Laird's Bonded generous tsp demerara syrup 3 dashes "Abbott's" stirred and strained up with a lemon twist. Another really great use of the bitters, the play with the AJ was really terriffic. As I recall, Chuck Taggart's Reveillon Cocktail was originally formulated with (old) Abbott's in mind and I can't wait to try it at Christmas time. So between these three drinks I probably consumed about a tsp of the bitters today which is probably the most I would do in a 24 hr period and then only rarely. I know a few people at the university's Chemistry Dept. who could perhaps do an analysis for me but til then I think limiting myself a bit is the prudent course of action. That said, I remember on the old Drinkboy forums folks talking about putting a whole tablespoon of Abbott's into a drink (rare occurrence of course) and seemingly feeling no ill effects. Not advised though, at least until more is learned. Edit: late-night typing issues.

Yes, some caramelized sugar was added as well. I should add that the 'batches' are actually the same liquid, tested at different periods during the process. Upthread, Avery Glasser cautions against infusing in proofs over about 150 to prevent overextraction. Similarly, he suggests that proofs under 100 will give insufficient extraction. This was my basis for boosting the proof of the Wild Turkey Rye base with 190 proof grain spirits, basically making a high proof (~120) blended whiskey. What I'm actually quite curious about is how much the rye base is contributing to the finished flavor. It seems like it should be but there is so much going on...next time I am likely to go with neutral spirits and see how it comes out. Would be cheaper that way at any rate. Your point about fresh herbs into the mix is an interesting one, especially as most of the recipes circulating call for dried herbs and spices. Apart from maybe citrus peel or of course ginger has anyone tried making any bitters with fresh ingredients? Where would one even get something like fresh cloves?

Ok I still can't explain why but I will now categorically state that the lower proof "finished" bitters perform worlds better in a cocktail, or at least in an Old Fashioned made with Old Grand-dad BIB. I had to hunt yesterday for the character of the bitters, only getting some clove and ginger spice once the ice had melted quite a bit. Today it is right up front providing the beautiful base accents and balances that one expects from an aromatic bitters. If anyone ever come up with an explanation as to why this happens I'm all ears but personally I need no further proof that it is a necessary part of the process. Really stoked about how these came out.

You're definitely onto something there. When I tasted Dolin Blanc my first thought was of pairing it with strawberries, and, indeed, munching on ripe strawberries while sipping on a chilled glass of the Blanc is a sublime combination. I also made some strawberry sorbet with the Blanc which was fantastic. It's a little early in the day to start experimenting, but for a start I'm thinking maybe 50/50 TPMA/Dolin Blanc, with a dash of lime? ← My tpma is a few days away from straining still so I'm going to be a bit late in joining the party but I eagerly await your findings.

I agree. The more I fiddle around with these at home, the more I am convinced I'll never touch the level of the Angostura bitters. ← Yeah I wonder if it has to do with more than one bittering agent or something...they are so layered and multidimensional.

If one could somehow get a flavorful base at high enough proof that even with some dilution and moderate sweetening it would still be over 100...well I'd like to try it but I'm not sure I'd go about making it myself that way. Angostura is the greatest bitters out there, in my opinion, and these Abbott's that I made have similar concentration if not quite as much depth. Before the finishing stages this was not the case: the intensity was good but had to compete with the heat and the depth was nonexistent. I wouldn't be surprised if the cooking of solids to get more water soluble compounds out isn't partly responsible for that. This afternoon I'll do a slightly more scientific test by making another OF identical to the one yesterday with the finished product.

At 120 proof the heat overpowered the nuance...they were not a constructive addition to cocktails the 2-3 times I tried them in tests along the way. The water from the cooking process added another dimension and helped round out the flavors. It also had a different character and "shape" if you will than the spirits infused with the exact same material. Adding the water helped smooth out the flavors in an immidiate and extreme way. The burnt sugars added to the bitters also helped make those flavors "pop" more without adding any perceptable sweetness to the bitters themselves. And all this verbage boils down to the same thing that Toby said...so yeah. Those are the actual effects dilution had, but as far as my rationale behind it...for one I've never seen a bitters recipe that did not call for dilution (at least not one I can recall offhand). Also no commercial cocktail bitters of which I am aware clocked in any higher than 100 proof. When the hobbyist or craft bartender makes his own bitters one can write off the dilution as an economic expedient, to stretch the return on investment by adding a free ingredient to an expensive one. When a commercial operation who is buying untaxed industrial alcohol by the tank car full is shipping out their bitters, which are legally a food additive (no tax), with a proof that moderate I figure their must be a reason. If higher proof in cocktail bitters (or baking extracts, etc) yielded a superior result one would think that someone out there would be doing it. Not a foolproof reasoning but it was good enough for me, which the aforementioned results confirmed as a sound decision. The fact that the amounts worked out so perfectly was a nice bonus as well. I refrained from any further test runs today but tomorrow some sort of Martinez or Manhattan type thing is in order. Stay tuned. As a comparison I'll probably try out another Old Fashioned identical to the one I made this afternoon as well.

Any ideas yet on what else you want to try? So far, I really haven't done much with the sloe gin beyond Charlie Chaplins. ← A tweak to the Millionaire perhaps? Somewhere a while back I did a bit on a drink called the Montana (I think) from Barflies and Cocktails...seems like it could be adapted. Many sloe gin drinks that also call for gin may need to be rejiggered to use tequila...also I would think (based on no empirical evidence) that bianco vermouth may fare better than dry in appropriate scenarios. Lots of speculation, little real substance. Hopefully by the end of summer we'll know more!

Ok one more update on the finished product. The jar yielded 5 cups of (presumably) 120 proof infused rye/everclear mix. Once this was straiend off the solids I put the spices in a huge 5 qt skillet with 5 cups water and did a relatively brisk simmer for 35 minutes. This yielded about 11 1/3 oz of water once strained again. I then melted 1 cup of white sugar (Imperial Sugar, from my hometown of course) and once it was nice and brown I added the water to the still-hot melted liquid (unfortunately pressed for time by this stage but it doesn't seem to have hurt anything). Once this had cooled sufficently I measured it again and found 1 2/3 cups of liquid, remarkably the exact amount of nonalcoholic liquid to add to 40 oz of 120 proof to result in a 90 proof finished product. I then added this to the infused booze and then to come up to a nice round 55 oz I put in 3/4 oz each of WT 101 rye and Old Overholt. If the math is right and nothing changed drastically along the way then I now have 55 oz of a mighty tasty Abbott's replica at 90 proof with about 1/2" of deposit in the bottom. At some point I'll try to filter this out and add some oak chips to simulate the barrel aging but I'm actually pleased as punch at what I've got going on right now. I tasted it several times along the way, even stopping to draw some of the undiluted liquor for an old fashioned (with Old Grand-dad BIB for the courious) and the addition of water and burnt sugar did wonders for the complexity and overall balance of the bitters. Really quite remarkable; the old-fashioned was nice but the bitters seemed awfully subtle in it*...they are now clearly much more balanced and complex-tasting, and this even without the benefit of oak chips or even time in the jar to integrate. I have to say I'm pleased with my investment! *In fairness, I've rarely seen Abbott's recommended for Old-Fashioneds, mostly for Manhattans, Champagne Cocktails, Martinezes, etc. Interestingly these all have a wine component...coincidence?