thirtyoneknots

The Star also seems to have the problem of meaning different things to different people. Embury says it is a DRY Applejack Manhattan. Though I much prefer the two alternate names for that cocktail he lists: the Klondike, and the Farmer's Wife. He also lists an alternate name for the sweet Applejack Manhattan: the B.V.D. Needless to say, not an alternative I would choose. Anyone for a Hanes? How about a Fruit of the Loom? ← According to Imbibe!, it first appears in George Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks as 2 dashes gum, 3 dashes Peychaud's or Angostura, 1/2 apple brandy and 1/2 italian vermouth. Interestingly enough, 1895 is also the year Marconi made his first transmission of 1 mile, although the company to produce the sets commercially was not founded until 2 years later. At any rate it would seem that applejack and vermouth cocktails and radio both became popular around the same time. Anybody have a citation on earliest use of the name 'Marconi Wireless' for a drink?

That's a Marconi Wireless. ← Since we're being sticklers, could it not also be a Star Cocktail? The preportions and bitters are not specified.

Just wanted to report in that scotch whisky is not the only spirit than one can make blue blazers with; As of this evening I can vouch for the palatability of one made with Barack Palinka. Yum.

Practicing with water is of course the prudent first step, but once things are actually on fire it's a different game, especially if you're using metal containers. My advice would be that before you make the real thing but after practice with water, is to experiment with rubbing alcohol, which is easier to light and way cheaper. Just make sure you don't drink it.

My understanding of the science is also rudimentary, but I think that the high evaporation rate means that while the flame itself is not technically cool, it is further away from your skin than, say, oil, and thus you don't feel the heat as fast. I don't know the temperatures and all that, but I've never been injured by slapping out an alcohol flame with my hand. Of course if someone reads then and tries it and gets hurt, it's not my fault.

As someone who, for various reasons, has poured burning alcohol on myself more than once, I can testify that it is a cool-ish flame that is consuming not your flesh but the fuel itself, at least in the immidiate sense. If you have confidence in this fact and have practiced enough that the amount of fuel is minimal then you have little to fear in the way of bodily harm. On the other hand, the heat, while cool by open flame standards, is more than enough to cause damage to your tissues, and one should not have a cavalier attitude concerning it's presence. A dash of it here and there on your skin will render it hairless, but should not cause permanent injury. Splash the flaming whisky around willy-nilly, and you will, as eje indicated, wind up in the emergency room (or worse). As JT himself advises, practice with water.

Update: Genevere Julep is a beautiful and elegant beverage. Do not resist it. No drink I have tried with the Anchor Genevieve so far has tamed its prodigious funk in such a constructive way as this. Truly a keeper.

Got off work at a nearly-reasonable time tonight and so now I'm sipping on a Sazerac-ish cocktail, made not with Rye or Cognac but with Hollands, as per Imbibe! (using Anchor Genevieve). Pretty dang tasty, maybe my favorite Hollands drink yet. I think the Genevere Julep that has been mentioned elsewhere has some big potential.

Of course, although there was a time when Veritas was not equipped with such fancy accoutremon as an atomizer I suspect other places still suffer the same deficiency.

With the relatively cheap substitutes that were available before the reintroduction of absinthe, filling the serving glass with crushed ice and a splash of pastis to chill it while preparing the drink was a good time-saving tip, and left plenty of the relevant flavor behind once the ice was dumped. With the availability of the far more expensive Absinthe, this is no longer cost-effective and since inexpensive absinthe is 3x the cost of most high-quality pastis, it's very wasteful of ingredients. Behind a bar, the time savings add up way faster than the loss of 1/2 oz of pastis, but at home I'm not sure why you would ever want to do this.

I had done the W&N version before and wanted to try the double demerara version this time around. I may end up cutting it with some of the W&N later, but because that's 126 proof and not 151 I went with the extracting power of the LH 151 demerara for steeping. ← Having made it both ways, I found no appreciable difference in the allspice flavor's intensity, although to be safe I increased the steeping time on the WNOP by about 1/3. Also, having tasted it side-by-side with the Wray & Nephew Berry Hill, I'd say that when made with 50/50 WNOP/Meyers, the homemade stuff is close enough to merely pass for a different brand of commercial Pimento Liqueur of comparable quality. Haven't tried the St. Elizabeth though, and if it's really going for $30/375 ml, I'm unlikely to do so anytime soon; I could make half a gallon of it myself for that price. ETA: Wouldn't it be nice if Wray & Nephew would release an aged overpoof? That stuff they bottle now would so heavenly with 8 years on it I bet.

This weekend saw the temperature dip into the low 40s and high 30s, about as cold as it regularly gets in this part of Texas, so I figured a Whisky Skin was in order to assist in maintaining homeostasis (from Imbibe!): generous tsp rich syrup (or same amt of demerara sugar) piece of lemon peel 2 oz peaty Scotch (Balmore Legend) top with boiling water build in a warmed mug. The aroma and flavor of hot peaty scotch is absolutely enchanting, and that, coupled with the almost absurd ease or preparation, means that I think I have a new cold-weather favorite. I can only imagine that it would be even better with a more intense and higher proof scotch, like the Laphroaig Cask Strength, or an Islay whisky with some citrusy notes, like Ardbeg. Not to be missed, at any rate, and with the very serviceable Balmore legend ringing in at about $22/btl, you have no excuse.

Just thought I'd toss out there for those in the DFW area that I saw Plymouth for $16.99 this weekend at the Goody Goody in Little Elm, TX. It was on special, but still, I haven't seen it that reasonably priced in well over a year.

I know it goes against the received wisdom, but I recommend against using Demerara rums in any liqueur project, pimento dram included. It's distinctive character, lovely though it may be, can create compatibility issues, flavor-wise, with other ingredients. I recommend mixing WNOP and dark Jamaican rum of your choice in equal measure to create a robust 100 proof dark rum that will give the end product much more versatility when matching with other ingredients.

I can now personally vouch for the Regent's Punch (listed here) and have been trying a few others scaled down to a practical size for home experimentation. On the Fish House Punch angle, I would not recommend Apry as a substitute for peach, and as the Brizzard Peach is, in my experience, quite difficult to obtain, I might recommend the variation of replacing the original quantity of peach brandy with Laird's Bonded, resulting in a recipe similar to this: 1 lb (~2 cups) sugar pint lemon juice 24 oz Cognac 12 oz dark Rum 12 oz Laird's Bonded 3 qts water Big ice, etc. Apple House Punch? I donno but damn if it isn't delicious, and the Bonded Applejack, while apparently tricky to locate in some places, is, in my experience, waaaay easier to find than quality peach brandy (and you definitely need quality there).

The recipe in Imbibe I think most significantly doubles the vanilla, which actually will increase the amount of alcohol in the batter...could this be contributing? It's somewhat ambiguous to me, especially after reading these other versions (I researched several before proceeding) wether there is supposed to also be Cognac in the batter or if, when listed in the recipe, it is intended to go into the finished drink (I omitted it from my batter). For the rum I used Appleton Extra, and I subbed an ounce or so of homemade pimento dram for the allspice, since there was none ground in the kitchen when I was making this. So far as I can tell, I followed the recipe instructions fairly precisely, with some minor help from the sous chef. Thoughout the course of the evening I was messing with the batter every few hours and it always had to be re-folded with a spatula before using; the foamy whites were floating on top of a thick, rich brown paste on bottom. Once it was stirred, no problem. As far as the kettle goes, my backbar is taken up with wine dispensers, and the rest is pretty crowded...not sure if I could find room for one although it does seem like a good solution. Having tried it both with milk heated on the range and with the premixed batter and milk warmed with the espresso machine, I think I actually prefer the more consistent texture of the latter. In the end, it'll be determined by what works for service efficiency.

It averages out, in my experience, to a generous ounce. It does vary, but measurements like that are how I actually make the drinks, and the variation doesn't have a tremendous impact on the flavor or balance. Cutting a grapefruit into 1/8 sections by halving a quarter cross-wise (the peel ends up roughly triangular) is the easiest way for me to keep the grapfruit fresh and useful. This being Texas, the grapefruit should of course be a Rio Grande Ruby Red.

If snow or the threat of it were the criteria for serving them, then we'd sell Tom & Jerry 2-3 times a decade, so that won't do . I did make a batch of batter last night, working off the Audrey Saunders version in Imbibe!, which is of course pretty close to the JT version as well, altering mine just a tad in the spice category. Having never had the thing itself before, I must admit it's one of the most delicious hot drinks I've ever encountered. The one problem I kept coming up against as I made them to experiment and for interested parties at the bar, was how quickly the batter would separate. Is this normal? It didn't affect the flavor of the finished drink, so long as you stirred and folded everything back together with a spatula, but having to stop and do this would be more than a minor hassle on even a moderately busy night. The JT recipe recommends cream of tartar to stabilize the batter...does this work? At any rate, the batter is in the walk-in now, I'm going to be making a T&J once a day to see if it will hold up at all, I mean it seems concievable with the rum, sugar, and refrigeration that it could last a week, but I'll be sure to be the guinea pig myself just in case. Any tips on how to keep hot milk on hand? I was measuring and mixing the batter and milk, then heating with the steam from the espresso machine, which worked pretty good, and allowed some control over the temperature, but I was wondering if there was a better way.

We do it as an up drink, but that formula is broadly similar to one that's been relatively popular for us lately: Dos Hermanos 1 oz Blanco tequila (we're using Herradura) .5 oz Reposado (I like the Corralejo) .5-.75 St. Germain juice of 1/2 lime juice of 1/8 grapefruit dash grenadine Shake, strain, up I kind of feel like a tad of aperol might be the ticket here, but we don't stock it at work. -Andy

As noted, there's clearly a lot of room for personal taste to play a part here, but I'll just note that unless you enjoy Starbuck's coffee, with it's extremely roasted, almost-but-not-quite-burnt flavor, you may or may not care for the Starbuck's liqueur, which has the exact same quality. In a way, it tastes more like coffee tastes (broadly), while the more traditionaly ones taste more like coffee smells, which is of course the best part of coffee . It's certainly different, but at any rate I think one can safely give their cream liqueur a pass.

So how stable is the 'batter' here? I've been reading up on Tom and Jerry, trying to figure out how practical it would be fr our drink program, and there are items stating or implying everything from use the same day to a week or more. Of course the relatively involved procedure of batter creation would be less than ideal if it has to be made more than once a week. I'm going to start expeimenting with this later in the week, but I was wondering if I could get any firsthand account of the longevity of the batter. We do respectable but not brisk business in cocktails (primary focus is on wine) although that could change soon. The recipes seem like they'd be easy enough to scale down if necessary, but again for various reasons the daily manufacture of batter isn't going to be terribly practical. Failing that, anything similar that anyone can recommend? I see that Imbibe! has an individual eggnog recipe as well, and one with cider. Anyone try the cider one and/or have any recommendations on cider brands? -Andy

Truly your dedication is an example for us all! For me, it's more or less about one fo the following, both of wich should be manageable under hotel conditions: Highballs (Old Overholt and Canada Dry is an excellent choice) for during the day. Old Fashioneds in the evenings. If you do it right, you only even have to buy one bottle of liquor. There's no grocery store, at least in Texas, that you can't get Angostura bitters. The sugar packets with the coffee acoutremon are 1 tsp each. In a pinch, the drink is perfectly acceptable without a twist, although as you point out, scrounging is always an option. Bam! Even old reliable, delicious, WT 101 works here, in fact it's one of my favorite bourbons for an OF. As for highballs, I prefer rye and ginger, brandy and soda, or scotch and soda (in roughly that order) in this type of situations primarily because they all taste good even without the addition of any citrus, particularly the rye one. If you can get limes then it's scotch and ginger ale, gin and tonic, or rum and coke. And if you can get lemons, then what's keeping you from a Tom Collins? No excuse there pal. There's really no end to what can be accomplished. Might be worth having in your carry-on a citrus reamer, bottle of angostura, and maybe a muddler, though I've used reamers for that in a pinch. Knife would of course be good but I guess you can't take them on planes. Armed with that you can be drinking Old Fashioneds on the plane even! I think the historical record will show that the Cock-Tail formula can and has been applied to nearly any distilled product you come across and make it better, enjoyable even. Anyways, just some ideas. Good luck. -Andy

Tonight I had some punch, working from Imbibe! First up was the gin punch, using my newly-got bottle of Genevieve. It was decent, but nothing to write home about although I could see how it would appeal to some folks more. I've been pondering the formula for Fish House Punch for a few weeks now, and triangulating off the JT Punch-by-the-Glass method, I've scaled it down to this to try previously: 2 oz Cognac (scant) 1 oz Jamaican Rum (generous) scant tsp Peach Brandy (Brizard) juice of 1 lemon 1 oz rich syrup 1-2 oz water Fill with crushed ice, shake, and pour back into glass. Delicious, of course, I can't want to have it in a bowl, but the whole business about the peach brandy really bothered me. The more I thought about it the more I wondered about applejack, and if it wasn't the next closest thing, in character if not flavor. So tonight I tried the following: Apple House Punch 1.5 oz Cognac (Hardy VS) 3/4 oz Laird's Bonded 3/4 oz Jamaican Rum (Appleton V/X) juice of 1 lemon 3/4 oz rich syrup 2 oz water Crushed ice, shake, blah blah. Much more subtle of an apple flavor than the other is with 1/4 the amount of peach flavoring. It may not really be all that close but it's pretty dang tasty on it's own. Of course for all I know this may be a pre-existing variation or recipe, I guess Dr. Wondrich would be the one to ask about that. It really seems to work here regardless but I am still curious if the character of applejack is in any way similar to that of the old-school peach brandy. Anyone have any idea? Doc, you out there? Edit: quantities

i wanted to get a kold draft for the restaurant. it seems like we can afford it and our current budget machine breaks down constantly. but the kitchen who probably uses the majority of the ice doesn't want large cubes. is kold draft only for cocktails or can it also make my kitchen happy? anyone have experience using it in the BOH? ← That is sort of my biggest roadblock to selling the chef on Kold-Draft as well, which is why I've been trying to find some endorsements for commercial ice crushers. Alternately, about how big are the small end of KD machines? Are they intended to replace a standard ice well in size? And if that is the case, what is the approx price for those machines?

The Monte Carlo Imperiale sounds like it has a truly delicious, and not just drinkable, formula waiting to be coaxed out of that ingredient combo. I just know there's got to be something delicious that can be made with Creme de Menthe besides Stingers.