thirtyoneknots

Grapefruit bitters infusion yielded about 6.75 oz, to which I added 3/4 oz of burnt sugar syrup and 5 oz of water at which point the stuff louched to a dirty dishwater color, which is annoying. The flavor is terriffic though, layered and very subtle with nice bitterness. Haven't tried it in a drink yet but my initial reaction is that more peel might be in order next time if I'm going to dilute so much but it certainly doesn't lack for flavor so we'll hold off on further opinon til trials.

The water in my area has a high mineral content so I rinse well with distilled water before the wine dries and set it upside down to dry. If there is scum or dried/stained wine I fill it to the top with boiling water* and let it sit overnight, which will loosen the stain, then rinse well again with the distilled water to prevent spots. I don't think sanitation per se is really an issue with a decanter so long as you aren't actually drinking directly from the thing and it's being rinsed thoroughly. I work in a wine restaraunt with several different shapes and sizes of decanters and thorough rinsing with hot water is all we do there to good effect. *Do at your own risk, in theory you could crack it this way--if you need to do the boiling water maybe a good idea to add warm water, then dump that and put the boiling water.

This turned out to be 4.5 oz of liquid that smelled very strongly of mint and was overwhelmingly bitter. Added 3 scant tsp of burnt sugar syrup and about 1.5 oz of water. No cocktail usage yet but the flavor is now much rounder, with a nice bitter minty finish. I find it interesting the different dimension of bitterness the wormwood gives vs the gentian in the other things, more on the front of the palate and less sharp. This could have some interesting applications.

At some point it comes down to simple math on the internal-surface-area-to-volume ratio. A standard 60 gallon barrel is approximately 38 inches tall with a 27 inch base and top. That works out to an inner surface area of around 2,170 square inches (this is actually probably overstating it a bit). Do the math: This equals around 36 square inches of internal surface area per gallon, or around 0.28 square inches of internal surface area per ounce. Smalller barrels will, of course, have a larger amount of internal surface area per ounce due to geometry. But anyway, it seems unlikely to me that it would be more than one square inch per ounce. So, think about it: One wood chip soaking in booze may have a surface area of 4 square inches or more. That might be enough to "barrel age" as much as 8 or even 16 ounces of bitters. ← i think that the barrels used for bitters are intended to be neutral. its probably more about oxidation than the flavor of the oak. so if you are trying to mellow your bitters the chips may not do what you envision. ← I wouldn't have necessarily been surprised that this were true, but for David Santucci's empirical results. Even neutral oak has an effect on flavor though. There used to be a treasure trove of information on Abbott's on the old Drinkboy forums, including, if memory serves, some insights into their aging methods. Sadly, I didn't think to save all that before it was gone, and Google either failed to cache it or my search skills are not up to finding it. As I recall (and this is to be taken with salt unless Dr. Cocktail shows to to confirm) it was used/spent oak vats(?) that it was aged in, and the vats were reused many times, so the level of flavor imparted may have been relatively mild. I'm beginning to think the way to go might be to split the batch up into several smaller amounts and try different types of wood chips.

Strained the wormwood bitters today but I'll have to wait to finish them...the color is an extraordinarily dark green, and the nose is mainly...mint. Hmm. Lost about 1/3 of my liquid volume it looks like, which is more than I expected. The dried wormwood must be really dehydrated. Also whipped up a batch of Johnder's grapefruit bitters. Easy enough, should be lots of fun. These seem like they may require more dilution than called for...if my math is right (this thread has proven it may not be), these will still come out well over 100 proof...I presume Mr. Johnder was working with a 151 grain alcohol instead of the 190 I have here?

Worth it. ← Thanks for the notes, it's really quite remarkable the impact it has but I guess that's sort of the point. I'm going to research this a bit more and see what else I can find out. The bourbon barrel chips are very tempting. I'd read that oak chips impart flavor much faster than a barrel, at least in winemaking. I wonder what the approximate equivalents would be...seems like your two years with chips would equate to quite a long time in barrels, assuming the same principles hold, probably longer than the original ever saw in wood. Not that thats a bad thing of course.

Well whiskey is naught but highly concentrated beer, with a commensurate concentration of love feelings.

Well, it's not a lot of effort, so I'd say it's worth it. You don't even have to expend the effort of waiting -- I just used some out of the jar whenever I felt like it. Flavor definitely changed, but I don't know if that is because of the oak or just because of time. Didn't do the control experiment. However, I do have some that is still in the jar with the oak -- I will do a comparison tonight with the stuff I put in a dropper bottle after a few months. ← What kind of chips did you use? Anything special?

David I'd be very interested to know if/how this worked out for you. Barrel aging is beyond my means right now and this seems like a perfect shortcut. Whats more, yesterday at the store I saw oak chips for grilling made from sawn-up Jack Daniels barrels! Seems like a perfect shortcut to the 'used whiskey barrel' aging. I know that in winemaking oak chips are used to impart flavor much faster than an actual barrel...presumably the same is true here. Are we looking at 3-4 weeks, or longer? Or is it just a check-as-you-go thing? Or did you even think it was worth the effort?

I've always found the Old Pal a problematic recipe: I wanted so badly to like it but it never really seemed to work all that well. Last night though I finally was able to drive up to Houston and visit Anvil (which is fabulous beyond my wildest expectations, but more on that later perhaps) and Bobby made my friend an Old Pal, using new N-P and Rittenhouse BIB. It was terriffic, and I think part of what helped was the inspired garnish of a flamed orange zest that had been studded with a clove, lighting the clove and using that as the fire source. The subtle accent really took it to the next level.

When pressed, an olive will give oil, not juice, right? Is there such a thing as olive juice?

I think the 1 oz of curacao is a misprint, probably supposed to be 1 tsp upped from 1/2 tsp in the original. In the notes for the drink he recommends increasing the curacao to 2 tsp if a sweeter drink is desired, which is sort of a hint. Might help with the sweetness problem you noted.

Celebrating a personal victory tonight with the following: 1 oz George T. Stagg 2008 release 1/2 oz Punt e Mes 1/2 oz M&R Sweet 1/2 tsp maraschino dash Angostura, dash Bitter truth Aromatic Stirred with ice and strained into my most old fashioned coupe. lemon twist of course. Absolutely seamless.

Continuing what is apparently a theme of making bitters with toxic ingredients, I made an impromptu batch of "Wormwood bitters" with a nod to Mr. eje and his Savoy tribulations, as well as Mr. Darcy O'Neil's writeup of his take on the green swizzle. A friend for whatever reason pestered me to make some so I got some dried wormwood at the natural foods store the other day and threw together the following this afternoon with leftovers from the Abbott's project: 25g dried wormwood 2g cracked cardamom pods 1g dried spearmint 1g dried lavender 1g star anise 1 drop bay rum essential oil All infused into 6 oz of Beefeaters and 2.5 oz of everclear for a proof booster. Should yield 8-10 oz of complete product, enough to fill a dasher bottle for me and my pal, almost certain to be a lifetime supply. Should be interesting anyway, and hopefully not too poisonous.

Not a big fan of green olives so I never put them in my own drinks but I'm right there with you on mood dictating not just what to drink, but how to mix it. If I don't want to think about it very much, its usually 3:1 Beefeaters:NP with a dash of whatever orange bitters are handy (usually a 50/50 Regans/Fees mix). Twist of lemon of course though occasionally I do orange or grapefruit for fun. Welcome to the discussion!

Wow good catch, I guess my excitement got the better of me and I didn't reread more carefully. Info on the coumarin content of the beans has not been easy to come by but a range of 1-3% pops up semiregularly. How soluble that is in alcohol I guess would be the next question, specifically how much can get out of cracked dried beans in 2 weeks. Johnder said upthread he was going to have toxicology analysis done to his version...anything ever come of that? Since I weigh considerably more than 135 lbs I don't think I have much to fear from regular and enthusiastic use of the replica but it would be nice to know just what I'm dealing with. Damn metric system...

This morning, a friendly postman delivered the last vital ingredient--benzoin resin-- and so today I put away my first batch of the Abbott's replica as per the Perfumekev recipe from Drinkboy. Based on the research detailed in the previous post I went with the full measure of Tonka beans, though I did up the gentian about 50% based on eje's commentary here on the Hess Bitters that form the basis for the Abbott's recipe. I also used instead of 101 rye a 3:1 ratio of Wild Turkey Rye and 190 proof Everclear based on Mr. Glasser's advice here, which should result in something between 120 and 125 proof. Apart from that and the need to use Bay Rum essential oil instead of leaves (about 8-9 drops) I pretty much followed the recipe to a T and the results smells phenomenal already. I got a little benzoin resin on my hands in the process and I'm not really sure I really want to get it off. I figure I'll strain and dilute around the end of the month, bring it down to about 90 proof or so and then start thinking about a buchner funnel or something. Pretty stoked.

So I've been doing some research on coumarin toxicity as I prepare to begin my own Abbott's batch and I thought I'd share the good news. So my plan is to use a 3:1 mix of 101 rye to 190 everclear to boost proof and then do the solids cooking and add that water in to reduce proof to about 90. Taken from the original recipe, this would yield about 80 oz of bitters (in theory, a bit less in practice I'm sure). Wikipedia informs us that "the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has established a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg coumarin per kg body weight" which equated to about 6 g of coumarin per day for someone about 135 lbs. Information on the coumarin content of tonka beans that I could uncover is somewhat vague but to be safe, let's assume that tonka beans are made up of pure coumarin. If this is the case, the 225g of coumarin is going in to 80 oz of liquid. This equals about 2.8g of coumarin per oz, meaning a person that weighs 135 lbs could concievably consume at least two full ounces of the Abbott's replica (or presumably the original) every day without getting sick from it. This would be a most unusual amount of bitters for most people so I think the tsp you might ingest over the course of a few rounds of cocktails is certainly acceptable, especially when taking into account all of these figures operate on the assumption that tonka beans are comprised solely of pure coumarin. All that said, persons on blood thinners or who already have blood disorders would probably do well to avoid the stuff, or at the very least check with their physician.

"Judge, Jr." was the nom-de-plume for Norman Anthony, editor in chief of Judge magazine, the leading American humor magazine of the day (and where Harold Ross worked before founding the New Yorker). Since he--whether alone or, as is more likely, with the assistence of his editorial staff, interns, friends and readers--compiled the book here in America during Prohibition, he had to make do with what he could get, both in terms of ingredients and suggestions for mixing them. His first book is, however, the first place the French 75 appears in print, so it's not a total wash. ← Very interesting info, thanks. I guess it took a bit of gumption to publish something like this in the throes of Prohibition. It gets mentioned a fair bit nowadays considering the typical quality of the recipes but how popular was it in it's day? Was it sort of take what you can get atmosphere in the readership as in the authorship?

Was looking ahead in the Savoy and saw the Pegu Club coming up. When I first started getting into cocktails almost five years ago this was one of 'the' avante-garde drinks at the time, along with the Corpse Reviver No.2. I recall trying it then and even with my crappy DeKuyper Curacao I still enjoyed it. It would seem the original, or nearly original, recipe as printed in the Savoy (I believe it comes from MacElhone?) has fallen out of favor since then, with a tarter cocktail being favored. I myself have fallen into this same habit and along the way I stopped making Pegus for myself or recommending them to customers. Tonight I retried the drink as originally written, and it was a revelation all over again: 1.5 gin (Beefeaters) .75 curacao (Sr. Curacao working great here) tsp lime dash orange bitters dash Angostura The relative dryness of the Sr. Curacao was married wonderfully to the bitters with the gin stretching it oh so subtly. The masterpiece here I think is that there are really three shows happening: the curacao and bitter orange, the gin and Angostura, and the far more subtle gin and lime. The drink not terribly sweeter on the palate than a Manhattan or something, despite how it looks on the page. Trying this again to this recipe was like getting to visit with an old friend. What a great drink.

You're mistaken about that. The list price of the cocktails at Pegu, and indeed at every cocktail bar of which I am aware, is inclusive of tax. ... It's been a little while since I've been to PDT, but historically the cocktails there have been twelve dollars. And I believe you must be mistaken about the price not being inclusive of tax. This might be true for the food, but I doubt it. ← I don't know how it works in NY, but in Texas pricing alcohol at an on-premises place like that is the law. Alcoholic beverages are not subject to sales tax, but to a different alcohol tax that is 14% and is paid by the serving establishment. Again this only applies to a bar or restaraunt, not a retail establishment. Perhaps there is a similar arrangement in NY? Restaraunt and bar food is of course still subject to sales tax.

Agreed that Cafe Rabelais is fabulous, and their wine list nearly as remarkable as the place itself: the entire perimeter of the dining room is made of wine racks with open cases sitting on top. The list is sufficiently extensive that I didn't want to nerd out reading it while my companions went thirsty, so I just asked the Maitre'd/sommolier's opinion and she brought a terriffic Medoc AC that was mature and quite reasonable, though I've never heard of it before or since.

By all accounts, Beaver's has gone stale since Robert Heugel left, but on the upside, you can now find him and other talented folks behind the stick at Anvil, on Westheimer near Montrose. First place in TX with Kold-Draft (I'm so jealous).

Update: found this site, though the price seems kind of high ($34 for 2 oz of leaves). Going to have to think real hard about this, with essential oil going for 1/3 of that or less. Edit: close examination reveals that this may also be essential oil. Damn.

Ok got confused that there were two lists at stake here. The Esquire list I know has in the past been more holistic in it's scope.