thirtyoneknots

Re: locating Mexican Coke, the HEB's up here in B/CS all stock them, as well as the entire Jarritos line and some Boylan's products as well (though not the Cola, gotta go to World Market for that).

But Petrus makes the best Sangria!

This is absolutely the way to go about finding out what kind of Cognac (or wine or whiskey or or or) you like, especially if you are wanting to invest at the levels you're talking about here. I have been priveledged to taste, side-by-side, $125 and $380 bottlings from Hennessy, and I will say that you can tell a difference, though to say one is way better than the other is a bit of a stretch, it all comes down to a style preference. If I were going to spend $100 on a bottle of Cognac, I'd probably go for a bottle of Martell Cordon Bleu; Martel is the other big house you didn't name, and my personal favorite, style-wise. If you ask me, Covoursier wishes it tasted as good as Martell, at all levels. I've only tasted low and mid-grade items from Pierre Ferrand and Delamaine, but if those are any indicators, then the high end stuff is definitely worth investigating. I've tasted $40 bottles that I thought outstanding and $250 bottles I found a little pedestrian; as in most booze, price is not always a good indicator. Hope this rambling was useful in some way -Andy

Allegedly they do, and also do a distillation run in a pot still, though I would be thoroughly shocked if it had an alembic. That said, not a bad product, as Vodkas go, and a very fair price. It's our house pour at Veritas, we go through at least 2 liters/week, and that's a slow week.

That is both slightly depressing and unsurprising. Any well-known brands you can name offhand guilty of this?

Agreed. With the departures of some other favorites (Old Charter 12, most notably), this is now my pick for best value in bourbon. It is made by Beam, using the same recipe as Basil Hayden's from the Small Batch collection (Basil Hayden is the man pictured on the Grand-Dad 86-proof and bonded bottles). I find that recipe - which is loaded with rye - to be best when some young whiskey is included in the blend. The proof also keeps the stuff from being too light and wispy, which BH is IMO. National Distillers introduced the 114-proof version a few years before Beam bought them out, and I have had a truly magical bottle of their version. But to Beam's credit, they have kept the mashbill, yeast, etc. the same all these years. The other whiskeys they bought from ND were immediately converted over to the standard Beam recipe. The proof, high rye content, and low price make this bourbon perfect for sipping neat, drinking on the rocks, or mixing. There is always a bottle open at our house, and I pray there always will be. ← I agree in turn on all counts that I am qualified to agree on. I've actually always found the Basil Hayden to be a little boring, as I also feel about Baker's and Knob Creek (Bookers is another matter, but overpriced perhaps). I recently picked up this and a bottle of the Old Grand-Dad Bottled in Bond. This, both of them, in fact, are Real Whiskey, my friends. Why Jim Beam doesn't market this stuff the way they do the Small Batch Collection is a mystery to me, but if that's what is keeping the price down, then I guess I'm ok with it. This stuff is a revelation. May even take place from the Eagle Rare as my favorite value priced sipper.

Treated myself this afternoon to my first taste of Old Grand-Dad 114 proof. Holy crap this stuff is incredible! Only $20 or so for a bottle, and it's an instant favorite. Why does stuff like this never get any attention? In my opinion better and cheaper than any of the "Small Batch Collection" from Jim Beam (who I believe also makes the Old Grand-Dad line).

Imbibe! cites this from George Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks.

St. Germain is still 'trendy' at least around here, and it has a very exotic flavor. It also reminds me very much of Alsatian Gewurztraminer, probably my favorite wine to have with Asian food. Items like that aside, I typically look askance at drink fads. Our new cocktail menu, released just a couple of weeks ago, is fairly conservative, style-wise. Trends come and go. Great drinks are forever.

Only it's no more a Cocktail than it is a Martini, right? So shouldn't it be a Knockhill Sour? ← mkayahara raises an interesting question. When can you append "Cocktail" to the end of your... um... libation? Here's Dave Wondrich from Imbibe!: Where do ye stand, then? I confess to a lack of care here: I named the AAA Cocktail knowing that it wasn't a cocktail by classic standards, but "the AAA" seemed lacking for such a swell drink. ← With Apry being the sugar, and Averna and Aperol both being bitters, I think the AAA would have been recognizable enough to the Guilded Age tippler to warrant the name 'cocktail' even if it is a particularly "improved" variation. I guess if you want to split hairs you could say that it differs by not being primarily about the base spirit. I say, vive la difference.

That's pretty hardcore about what Alembic is doing. Just looking at it I can't help but feel there's some potential in that flavor combo. In fact before I realised that it was 2:1 absinthe:menthe and not the other way around, it sounded strangely good.

Amen.

For me it would be either to get tanked on French 75s (maybe even use the good stuff), a Sazerac with some of my precious Thomas Handy Rye (wasn't able to secure any of the 07 release, so I'm still nursing the previous supply), or, if the job was really great, such as one that required me to surf the internet in my pajamas while supermodels fed me foie gras, I might just go simple and have a glass of my even more precious AH Hirsch 16yr. So I guess what I really mean, is do something you wouldn't normally do (obviously), and if you've got anything unique, have a dram.

If I had to guess, I'd say that they have comparable sugar content, but the higher proof of the Cointrueau gives it a drier (and hotter) mouthfeel. Less apparent sweetness, in other words.

In the interest of Science, have you considered trying it with the same brand brought down to normal bottle proof (ie, around 80) to make sure that it's not just due to brand differences? Not that it really matters, but it's an excuse to have another Improved Brandy Cock-tail.

The 1883 Passion Fruit Syrup lists 10% passion fruit juice from concentrate among the ingredients, and sweetened only with real cane sugar, no HFCS. I find that I prefer it for intensity and mouthfeel reasons even to the revered old formula of Trader Vic's.

So last week I came across something called Schlichte Steinhaeger Gin which is from Germany, comes in the distinctive neckless cylindrical crock bottle that Genevere comes in, and to the taste is spot on for descriptions of Hollands Gin that I've read (only one I've actually had is Boomsma). Soft botanicals on a funky, malty base, though it's no sweeter than, say, Tanqueray. Only 40% abv, but also under $20/bottle. Does anyone know this product and/or know if it is an appropriate analogue for Hollands Gin? -Andy

I have tried about 3 or 4 brands and all found them wanting when put up against the 1883 Orgeat. You guys must be starting to think I'm some kind of shill for them or something. I swear I'm not

Even for someone who has never had Malacca, that was all very interesting. Might have to try Bluecoat now.

← So I tried it tonight, subbing the last 1/2 oz of Noillly Prat for the Dolin and Beefeaters for the Plymouth. Forgot the bitters, but dashed in a bit of a prebottled Fees/Regans mix in the glass with no ill effects. This is actually rather terriffic, and is, I think, within a very slight tweaking of being a potential top seller on a cocktail list. It's not realy so sweet in the glass as it looks on the page, and is probably right at about the average enjoyable sweetness level for most customers. For my taste, I think I might up the gin and vermouth next time and slightly tone down the liqueur, sort of like a cherry version of the 20th Century. This, I think, has huge potential.

Yes, of course. I should have noticed, as I know the difference. Still, an interesting breakdown. ← No, it's in there: "free acidity as citric acid, 3.5 g (per 100 ml)." For reference, over here it says "(l)emon juice and lime juice are rich sources of citric acid, containing 1.44 and 1.38 g/oz, respectively." Converting the JFS numbers to g/oz gives us 1.03 g/oz of citric acid for a Meyer. ← Maybe I missed it but how does that compare to an orange or grapefruit?

Ok so a followup to this. I had never actually made this in the full size amount so I decided to give it a go today on this glorious Thursday with nothing to do and all day to do it. Normally I would like it to be about 5 degrees warmer before I started diving into the tall fruity rum things but today I made the exception, all for you guys. So I actually sort of measured the grenadine this time, little by little, and I think you could probably get away with 3/4 oz, although this contributes some nice flavors it's also for color and so ymmv according to your grenadine recipe (or brand, hah). So I ended up with something like this: 4.5 oz lemon 2 oz Passion fruit syrup scant 1 oz grenadine 4 oz rums Now I'd only made this with Appleton Extra before but I'm currently low so I went with 1 oz FdC white, 1 oz Meyers' and 2 oz Goslings. In hindsight the Meyers' might have made the thing a little too rich but it wasn't a bad mixture. The real problem came with the size of my glass. I turned my ice crusher handle counter-clockwise to make a coarser crush but even then there was barely room for all the ingredients to go in my hurricane glasses (~23 oz). Crushed ice is clutch here because the drink is so rich, even at these preportions, that it absolutely needs the water that crushed ice adds in. In fact it ended up needing more, as I drank it down and topped off with crushed ice again to reach perfection. I attribute part of this to the choice in rums, the Appleton is strongly flavored while having a balanced richness that works really well there. If using the Goslings again I will use 2 oz Flor de Cana instead of any Meyers'. I'm just about ready to relegate that stuff to the kitchen uses, where it excels. Now I'm willing to entertain the notion that the coarser crush of ice hindered proper dilution, so maybe proceed that way. the official solution here though, I think, will be to fill the glass with ice, pour it into a shaker tin, add all the premixed ingredients, and either shake briefly or pour back and forth between two tins if there's too much to fit in the shaker assembly. then pour into the hurricane glass and top with more crushed ice. More experimentation is obviously needed though I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do it before Monday. In the meantime I can tell you that the way I know 100% this recipe works is to make it in a half amount with a finer crush of ice and an appropriately smaller glass (pint glass should work fine). Of course at this point it no longer fits the "limit one" category. What I really need are some absurdly large hurricane glasses, maybe like 30 oz...anyone know where they might be found?

Looks pretty tasty, not gonna lie. Seems like it might be a good showcase for the Cherry Heering. Most of mine gets used in McKinley's Delights.

Ah, but where's the Apricot Brandy come in?

Heh it was your complaining about the Bronx and its spawn in the Savoy thread that got me thinking that direction actually