thirtyoneknots

Good call; the next one (Prayer) was much more like expected.

Cointreau at least makes available neck extensions to remedy the problem, although getting my hands on one has proven difficult.

I'd like to throw out a side gripe for bottles like this (and others) that are so bartender-unfriendly. Hendrick's, new Plymouth, St. Germain, etc...there seems to be an obnoxious trend towards neckless and otherwise awkward bottles that are difficult to be pulled out of a rail with wet hands. It's so dumb, it's incredible. I'd be curious to know what % of liquor sales are to (and thus through) bars. Seems like the kind of thing they could be keeping in mind when designing the bottle. This is especially irritating on Plymough Gin since they went to a difficult bottle from a terriffic one.

These are quite a bit more potent (or at least the potency is more apparent) than the typical type of thing whose name indicates that it is for the ladies. Is there some kind of joke at work here that is lost on modern readers or what? They both look enjoyable on some level but hardly the kind of thing one thinks of Maidens drinking (the Savoy is full of those, and thats not a bad thing).

As per Stanley Clisbey Arthur, a heavier hand (3-4 dashes each) with the bitters and Absinthe should go a long way towards mitigating the sweetness of this drink, and I find that a heavy twist of lemon peel on the surface helps a lot too. However, even with all that this still belongs after dinner in my mind, but it's one of the finest ways of closing a meal that I know of, especially as the weather turns cooler. -Andy

I figured the last day of summer vacation required a commemorative drink (also to offset the stress of all the stuff I've put off til now) so I figured on tackling an old Jerry Thomas drink that has always intimidated me to some degree, the Mississippi Punch: (from Imbibe!) 2 oz brandy (Hardy VS) 1 oz Jamaican Rum (Appleton Extra) 1 oz Bourbon (Old Grand-Dad BIB) 1 TBS sugar (1/2 oz rich syrup) juice of half a lemon shaken all with a glass of crushed ice and poured back in, decorated with pieces (1/4 wheels) of orange and frozen berries. This is an honest drink, to be sure; theres no doubt about the presence of brown spirits here. However the accenting and stretching of the liquors, and probably their combination, enhances their fruity qualities, especially the brandy. This is pretty close to dangerously drinkable, to say nothing of delicious. Worth the experiment but clear your schedule. Me? I feel better already. Lets go do some chores.

We have such a nice Bourbon and Rye selection (especially for it's size) to say nothing of the scotches, we were trying to get away from blended whiskey entirely (aside from Scotches). Hard to convince people in Texas that Crown Royal is not the ne plus ultra of whiskey.

As much as I wish it were true, it doesn't work everywhere; we literally almost had a riot break out in the restaraunt one night during a two-week experiment in not carrying Crown Royal. That was nearly a year and a half ago and some of those people still haven't been back.

I agree with TVC, if a program like that is going to work it's going to have to start with the bartenders; they have to at least want to learn The Way, no matter how far they might be from it. In our case at Veritas, set in a town full of efficient and cocky drink-slingers from the college bars, we've more or less settled on the idea that we'd rather train high-quality people with an acute interest in spirits and good experience at waiting tables to be our kind of bartender, rather than take the guy who already has all the bad habits of the high-volume scene and has never gotten a complaint on his vodka cranberry (and hence no reason to change what he's doing) and try to do the Eliza Doolittle number on them. To get to this point was a long, painful journey filled with questions about why we don't use sour mix. I agree that doing a few "flashy" things as a matter of course, like flaming orange peels, is a great way to get people to notice what you're doing and take an interest. Even if they don't order one of your special drinks, it's at least got them thinking about it, and they might do it the next time they come in. If you don't have bartenders who at least want to do things the right way, they're going to start taking bad shortcuts, and at that point things start going downhill and you might as well not have invested in an interesting cocktail program. Quality spirits, fresh juices, good ice, nice glassware is all good and necessary to greater or lesser degrees, but what really matters is people.

I think these questions, which I would be very interested to have answers to, bring into sharp relief the schism between cocktail nerds and wine nerds and how Vermouth is sort of a stepchild of both groups; all but the most devoted cocktail folks, such as on forums like this, consider it something to be omitted from your glass of Gin (or Vodka; sigh) and the wine camp for the most part doesn't even seem to realise that it is in fact a wine. Even when they do they think it's some inferior type to be relegated to the spirits people. Sad state of affairs I tell you.

Personally, I'd like to nominate this for Metaphor of the Year.

Garnished with a piece of the original Magna Carta, origami-folded into a flower.

How is it dryer? The rum quantity is essentially the same but you've backed off on 1/6th of the sweetener while coming off 1/2 on the acid. Or maybe we're used to different versions; I make them more or less like the $100 Mai Tai on the Beachbum Berry website, except I normally do all Orgeat vs half and half with simple, and at all costs I avoid the Trader Vic's syrup line.

When I was working for a plumber in the summers of my early college years the third rule (omitting the payday one since we were on a biweekly schedule) was "Don't bite your fingernails". Wise words all (and the payday one too). Congrats on the Raveneau, sounds amazing.

Texas has never developed much of a native cocktail culture, at least not outside of the former gangster-run casino culture in Galveston, but I thought I'd toss this out. The National Cocktail of Texas seems to be Crown and Coke or insert your own favorite brand here. Supposedly Texas is the biggest market for Crown Royal in the world and I have little trouble believing it. It's not a whiskey that I find terribly interesting, but it is one of the very few products that causes a riot when we are out of it. So recently late in the shift as things were winding down one of the managers pours himself a Makers Mark on the rocks to soothe after an especially stressful night. I offer to touch it up a bit, and inspired by the recent whiskey and coke discussion, I add 3 dashes of Angostura bitters, a splash of coke, and a lemon twist. Bastard of the Old Fashioned and the Whiskey and Coke it actually combined the good qualities of both and ended up being the hit of the next few days. It's still not something I'd be ashamed to make someone, or drink myself for that matter.

Could be that Astor was a 'company town' connected to The Famous Astors that just sort of faded from the map completely. I think the whole Lone Tree story is highly suspect. Did you try the Savoy version with bitters? Which one did you prefer?

I'm not trying to go so far as to suggest that the cocktail should have such a narrow definition today, but in the context of the time the story is set in it seems slightly absurd. I guess what I'm wondering is if, at the time the story is set, all cocktails must have bitters, and then a guy goes and creates a 'cocktail' without bitters to prove a point, what then makes said drink a cocktail?

I've always thought the Legend of the Lone Tree to be slightly silly; if a thing is defined by a feature, and you remove that feature, how can you still call it the same thing? If bitters are the defining feature of a cocktail, and then you remove them, then at least on a semantic level, you no longer have a cocktail. I'm not saying that the Lone Tree isn't a cocktail, or even that it isn't delicious, I'm just saying that the story doesn't make much sense to me. Unless, I guess, they are saying the vermouth is combining the bitter in it? Anybody have any info on the veracity of the story? Dr. Wondrich?

If I ever attempted this myself it was quite some time ago and I didn't get very far. The soft drink syrups from a restaraunt type of soda fountain are more likely to make a mess all over your work space than they are to get syrup out in a manageable fashion, or so I've been lead to believe, and even then you're left with a HFCS syrup that will potentially lend an off-putting texture to your cocktail. All this naysaying aside, I'm willing to give it a try. Might have to make a Sam's run once the hurricane blows over. I do know there are sources for Cane Sugar sweetened Dr. Pepper syrup online, maybe I'll try to dig one up tomorrow. They sell it to put on pancakes and such, but presumably it's the same thing as goes in to the famous Dublin Dr. Pepper.

As others have pointed out, these are iconoclastic highballs he's making there. A typical highball would be something like 1.5 ounces of spirit in a 9 ounce glass with ice and a fill-up of lengthener to the tune of 4 ounces or so. And I should point out that these wouldn't necessarily be crap drinks, either. This is a fairly classic ratio. In contrast, db_campbell's version would be around 3 ounces of spirit with 2 ounces of lengthener. It's no surprise that the quality and qualities of the spirit would be much more important in this kind of drink. ← Wouldn't that then make these more cocktail-like drinks than highballs or long drinks? I'm saying that even though the second ingredient is in fact soda, the proportion in which it is used in more like what would be used in a cocktail. And thinking of the sweetness of the soda, it's being used more like a liqueur than a lengthener. I wonder what it would be like to use flat cola. It sounds strange, but it could be interesting. The drink would have an entirely different texture. ← Couple of dashes of bitters and I think that would pass as a cocktail in anyone's book, recognizeable even to the Ancients of Mixology. ← Another possibility might be to reduce the cola into a syrup. Build 2 oz bourbon/rye, 1/2 oz cola syrup, bitters, lemon twist could be an interesting Old Fashioned variation (the "Cola Fashioned"?). ← I seem to recall that cooking Coke or other soft drinks will alter their flavor in a negative way, thus making reductions difficult. I really wanted to try this same idea some time back except with aged rums. Finding Coke syrup not in a bag proved difficult, and the next closest thing, Rose's Cola Tonic, didn't yield the hoped-for results (I think the Rose's is lacking in vanilla flavor).

As others have pointed out, these are iconoclastic highballs he's making there. A typical highball would be something like 1.5 ounces of spirit in a 9 ounce glass with ice and a fill-up of lengthener to the tune of 4 ounces or so. And I should point out that these wouldn't necessarily be crap drinks, either. This is a fairly classic ratio. In contrast, db_campbell's version would be around 3 ounces of spirit with 2 ounces of lengthener. It's no surprise that the quality and qualities of the spirit would be much more important in this kind of drink. ← Wouldn't that then make these more cocktail-like drinks than highballs or long drinks? I'm saying that even though the second ingredient is in fact soda, the proportion in which it is used in more like what would be used in a cocktail. And thinking of the sweetness of the soda, it's being used more like a liqueur than a lengthener. I wonder what it would be like to use flat cola. It sounds strange, but it could be interesting. The drink would have an entirely different texture. ← Couple of dashes of bitters and I think that would pass as a cocktail in anyone's book, recognizeable even to the Ancients of Mixology.

Agreed on the Vermouth. Good-quality vermouth can be had for around $4 for a 375 ml bottle, Martini & Rossi for the red and Noilly Prat for the white are pretty much standard. Carpano Antica is supposed to be very nice if you can find it, but its more than 3x the price. WRT Vya, you'll find as many critics as proponents of it; personally I give it a major pass. While many folks will say that vermouth should be pitched relatively often, I think if you keep it vacu-vined (vacuum stoppered, like for normal table wines) and in the fridge you should be able to expect a few months of decent cocktails out of a bottle of vermouth. Vermouth, being a wine, does oxidize, so the drinks won't be quite as good at the end of the bottle as with a fresh one, but they certainly won't be offensive either. If you want to turn over your vermouth faster, drink it on the rocks with a twist, which is a nice aperitif all it's own.

They do? I've never heard of this and it sounds really nasty. Has anyone tasted this? Is it good? I'm skeptical at best. ← I've heard of a splash of Coke in a White Russian going by the moniker of a Colorado Bulldog. I can't imagine this is any worse. Edit: Grammar

Boy that is a tasty drink. Made one last night for a regular, subbing Ardbeg for the Laphroaig, very well recieved. Unfortunately it was towards the end of the longest busiest night in recent memory and I forgot the orange bitters. It was still killer though.

A bottle of orange bitters is a good idea, Angostura (original) you should be able to find at the grocery store. If they've got Violet liqueur that one can be fun to use, and the bottle will last a long time. Another one not to be missed is of course St. Germain, which does very pretty things indeed with gin.