bostonapothecary

I've just grabbed a bottle of Wasmund's from the bargain bin (half off at $19.99!) and am giving it a go. Perhaps it's my time spent smoking meats, but the applewood is the strongest note in a pretty cacophonous jam session, which makes this Ransom pairing seem smart. I've no Brandymel so I'll have to fiddle with subbing there.... Any other thoughts for this youngster? I'd sub any amaro you've got in there it will be a nice drink. I had a lot of fun with the Wasmund's. I can't believe it got closed out. Not enough people have learned to use the white dogs IMO.

.5 oz. perique aromatized whitened whiskey (mellowed for one year) .5 oz. old forester 100 1 oz. overproof overholt (55%) 1 oz. martini rossi gran lusso dash angostura impatiently I made this like a meritage where you cannot really attribute what to what, but it is quite delicious. I found the tobacco aromatized whiskey in a cabinet after not being happy with it and forgetting about it over a year ago. I guess you cannot really rule these things out until at least a year later. the aroma has really come into its own and it finally resembles the potent Louisiana tobacco from which it was abstracted. I suspect it should be redone with an acid catalyst and longer time under heat now that it shows a little promise. maybe I can come up with a drink I really like and name it after the St. James Parish.

Now that I'm remembering, there was even a hot drink based on MEM's hibiscus tea that was boozed up with blended scotch, linie aquavit, and an alpine spruce tree honey was black like molasses and piny. The hot "Yaffe".

Jarritos makes a hibiscus soda that is really great but it seems to be the hardest flavor to find. MEMs, the tea importer makes a hibiscus blend that is awesome to make syrups from. They used to bill it as something Asian and used to call it Wu-Wei but I think it is more of a Caribbean thing. So many years ago we used me a make a sloppy high ball called the Velouria that was hibiscus infused spirit plus aloe soda. The concept was cool but our execution was terrible and I always wanted to revisit it now that I'm so much better at making things.

I use trehalose for making ice cream. I can't wait to hear of your results! do you use it because it is less sweet than sucrose or for any of its super powers?

1 oz. lime juice 1 oz. cocchi aperitivo americano 1 oz. der lachs danzig goldwasser 1 oz. portuguese grappa swizzled with rock candy swizzle stick grown in rose water a delicious sour. these swizzle sticks have been sitting around for quite some time so I thought I'd give them a try. previously I had been growing them in alcoholic solutions like Campari or Chartreuse and found that the alcohol hung on to much if not all of the aroma. when crystals grow they essentially purify things but I thought there might be a chance a non alcoholic solution like rose water might give up some aroma. eh not so much. I guess you have to systematically work your way through these things and this one is another #fail. there is one experiment left and that is to do it with trehalose and not sucrose which has half the sweetening power of sucrose and weird fixative abilities to reduce volatility during evaporation/dehydration. trehalose is the sugar that allows the desert to bloom after 50 years of drought and its in scorpion's blood and prevents them from dehydrating to death in sun. crystal growth is not evaporation but who knows what will happen and it will be nice to experience rock candy that isn't so sweet.

.75 oz. tabasco aromatized gin .75 oz. agavales gold tequila 4.5 oz. fresh 100% grapefruit squirt soda (carbonated 7 g/L) this is really fun high ball stuff. the grapefruit soda is easy to make and wildly amusing. we always keep a handle of cheap 100% agave tequila in the house because we have to make so many drinks for people and somehow ended up with the scary gold version, but its totally enjoyable. you never really know until you are forced into it.

2 oz. old forester 100 proof 1 oz. martini rossi gran lusso sweet vermouth 1 oz. campari this is really tasty. I didn't think the gran lusso is any great masterpiece. it has an oregano/menthe thing going on and isn't exactly the most enigmatic thing I've ever come across, but in this drink it is wonderful. I suspect the problem, if it could be called a problem, is that the regular vermouths are already just so great that any special edition at 4x the price has a lot to live up to. I noticed that the vermouth contributed a more alluring color than normal with this drink. I would have loved to sip it by candle light. I am wondering that if they knew it would move through the supply chain at a different faster rate than the usual, they were able to color it differently than the norm, perhaps in a way that isn't the typical bomb shelter level of stability.

I would love to try a milk syrup old fashioned.

1.5 oz. medronhos barspoon absinthe (my own yerba-mate version) 100 ml grapefruit soda (whole foods grapefruit juice strained and carbonated to 7+ g/L dissolved CO2) I looked really hard for some tequila but couldn't find any so I picked up the decadently funky medronhos. then I thought of anise. I don't make a lot of highball style drinks but this is quite simply the tastiest thing I have had a long time.

1.5 oz. portugeuse grappa 100ml grapefruit soda (7+g/L CO2) this simple high ball was another test of my new bottling tool which transfers carbonated liquids to 100ml bottles. the soda is fun and a great compliment to this very unique portugeuse grappa. I haven't exactly idiot proofed the bottler yet. and I have another setup that bottles into 187's. all the physical machinery works so now it is just ironing out the kinks of operations like pressure and chilling, maximum possible carbonation levels and the like. I'll slowly have to drink my way through it.

Is this the same as Brandymel? Or would that be too pedestrian? Not that I am likely to find the die hochland imker mead just lying around! Is there a reasonably available substitutue mead for that? Hmm, wiki says Brandymel is the aguadente sweetened with honey. So perhaps it is not a good substitute unless it can sub for the mead? I highly regard brandymel but it is just a honey liqueur fortified with the medronhos I speak of. I only have a stash of a few bottles of real deal medronhos that are probably from the late 1990's. medronhos is a moonshine made by old men, untaxed at the point of production, but typically bartered for rent/etc. or so the stories go. it is easily the most extraordinary moonshining tradition of the world but is slowly dying out. these drinks are just templates so you can really substitute just about anything; spirit for spirit or mead for mead. mead presents little sensory riddles because of its typical lack of acidity so you just can't use it like dry vermouth or your drink will taste bland and "flabby". but strangely when you add acidity and sugar all its aromas get woken up and turbo charged.

.75 oz. gin (mix of aged citadelle and unaged citadelle from ancient sample bottles) .75 oz. die hochland imker, chestnut blossom & honey dew mead (flower & sap) .75 oz. cape verdean orange liqueur (20% alc. estimated 400 g/L sugar) .75 oz. lime juice bar spoonful yerba mate / sloe berry absinthe the chestnut mead could be sugared similarly to lillet or cocchi by adding 5 grams of sugar and topping up to an ounce, but I didn't even have any 40% alc. real deal triple-sec so I didn't bother. the cape verdean stuff is low alc. and has a very high sugar content so I figured it had enough to support the dry mead and maintain a good average. I used lime because it was all I had. this worked out particularly well. and the chestnut character is predominant and beautiful. I loved playing with sherry years ago and solving the riddles of using the various kinds in beautiful contexts, but now it is mead's turn.

.75 oz. aguarddente de Medronhos ("strawberry" tree brandy) .75 oz. cocchi americano .75 oz. danzig goldwasser .75 oz. die hochland imker, chestnut blossom & honey dew mead .75 oz. lime juice five equal parts to make something somewhat resembling a corpse reviver. the goldwasser brings both orange and inflections of anise. I was hoping that the chestnut mead would create an extraordinary tonal effect and it was right on. the drink is great but by no means a masterpiece. if anything, it just illustrates how wonderful mead can be when crammed into a cocktail. I think now I should re-sugar the mead to resemble cocchi (maybe 185 g/L of sugar or so) then try it in some four equal parts templates. it could be blasphemy, hackery, or whatever, but I am just looking for extraordinary sources of aroma.

2.5 oz. chestnut "shrub" .5 oz. campari .5 oz. laphroaig 10 year cask strength 1.5 oz. water carbonated to 7 g/L dissolved CO2 far more appropriate than I thought. I just acquired the scotch, which is some fierce stuff, and wanted to play with it. I suspect mezcal might also be appropriate. while I was carbonating the first I started assembling the second 2.5 oz. chestnut "shrub" .5 oz. campari .5 oz. 100 proof old forester 4 dashes peychaud's bitters 1.5 oz. water carbonated to 7 g/L dissolved CO2 this was an attempt at making a more elegant version without really know what either drink tasted like. I also thought of making it sort of like a seelbach to so dashed up some peychaud's but shunned the angostura. the second one is the winner. bourbon really brings the chestnut to life. such exotic dryness.

that is a great story I had never heard. Masataka came to Scotland with a book on whisky making and was seeking out the author, Joseph Nettleton who actually denied him help and said the Japanese would never make great whisky. When I learned about the book I came across his name but no real back ground so I loved the article. The six hundred page book is one of the rarest on spirits production but I was lucky to get one of a few hundred gorgeous reproduction whisky writer Ian Buxton had made. There are all sorts of newly digitized works from the early 20th century that paint fun pictures of scotch production and the names that really advanced it.

1.5 Portuguese grappa .5 oz. campari .5 oz. maracuja do ezekiel (azorian passion fruit liqueur) .5 oz. "free run" dry vermouth** ** "free run" dry vermouth has one round of freeze concentration performed on it. the bottle sits in the freezer until frozen solid and then the first 1/3 is collected which is higher in alcohol, sugars, acids, and aromas. I borrowed the term free run from wine making where the free run juice is the best and as the grapes get the squeeze of the press put on them the juice goes down in quality. this drink is an homage to both, bountiful but neglected Portugal and the Lucien Gaudin cocktail. really delicious and I remember making an LG years ago when I first came across maracuja. for some reason there is no gin in the house so I went grappa. it is hard to say how much the uniquely abused vermouth effects this drink. I need to dream up a drink to show it off better.

I use my excalibur food dehydrator or you can use an oven on its lowest heat. You just want to save the non-volatile fraction which is arguably the most significant product of barrel aging. The non-volatile fraction is the perfect soup of acids and tannins that will lead to the change in equilibrium, deep end of chemistry, blah blah blah, that is a significant portion of the magic of aging. Granted there is a lot more to it, but dehydrating a masterfully barreled spirit is better than messing with wood chips and you can experiment two ounces at a time.

There are some pretty accessible research papers that cover the effect of wood on spirits. I can dig some up if people are really interested. Besides tannin and all that, one of the most significant aspects of aging that I'd say is taken for granted is pH and total acidity. I think the big thing that defines sipping spirits that you can enjoy at room temp is their acidity. Many whiskeys considered mature have a pH of 4 while things like gin that we don't sip, typically have a pH much closer to 7. Don't forget my fake aging technique. Dehydrate a few ounces of bourbon, then reconstitute it with wray and nephews to give you a good educated guess of what the true barrel aged version would be like when it sucks up all that non-volatile stuff. The change in pH will eventually shift all sorts of strange equilibriums so it might even make sense to allow the W&N to sit around for a month or so.

I'm using stuff rated for soda which goes pretty high. the pressure I'm working at is 65 PSI but I think a lot of transfers can be done much lower. I'm about to order some more optimal hose. I think something with the smallest diameter of all the common high pressure beverage hose. It works really well but it still demands that the users completely understand all the operating principles which is a no go for a lot of bar programs unfortunately.

sparkler 333 ml water 55 ml lime juice 55 ml sour orange juice 111 ml tequila 111 ml special addition yerba mate campari 167 ml rainwater madeira 167 ml plymouth slow gin 7 g/L dissolved gas. I needed a liter of highly carbonated sparkling cocktail to test my new high pressure liquid transfer bottler adaptation of the champagne bottle manifold. this drink is in my usual template but some quotients are divided by two to use some odds and ends laying around. a really great drink. there are all sorts of beautiful overtones and some how it really elevates the yerba mate aroma to prominence. instead of my typical gas injection carbonator that measures the gas with a kitchen scale, this contraption just transfers liquid under pressure from an already carbonated location like a keg or a champagne magnum. in this instance, the liter of cocktail was carbonated in a magnum bottle and then transfer to a few 375's. the system saves a lot of square footage by using a collar system instead of a large stand that clamps so you can basically fit everything in a drawer behind the bar, but I am trying to design a cradle that allows it to use particular 187's.

grappa lime sour 2 oz. aldeia velha, aguardiente bagaceira envelhecida 1 oz. lime juice 8 g. non aromatic white sugar this is a really beautiful sour from a spirit that hasn't gotten its due. these Portuguese grape brandies can really be sublime. according to the back of the label they like to be thought of as "fruity, but robust". some how they are a Pernod Ricard product but imported by the exemplary fringe importer, Grape Moments. this stuff doesn't take itself too seriously because its produced in traditional "cooper" stills from the "distilation" of the best white grapes. I could run an entire bar program on these brilliant unsung Portuguese products. some day.

There's a bar in DC that does that. Quite good. I wouldn't say they beat rum mojitos hollow though - a mojito is supposed to be a clean, refreshing, effervescent drink for hot weather. Mezcal by its very nature doesn't have that effect. A Mezcal buck with mint would probably be superb though... I put something on a cocktail list maybe seven years ago called the tlaxcala verde which was basically a tequila mojito. it got its name from a pulque drink attributed to the region that was made with mint and limes. those simple variations can be so much fun.

.5 oz. tabasco aromatized gin 1 oz. blanco tequila .75 oz. lemon juice .75 oz. high concept grenadine #fail ** **the grenadine here isn't too amazing but was an attempt to make a concentrated grenadine that used the exotic sugar trehalose as a fixative to prevent aroma from evaporating as it was concentrated. the main problem of using trehalose in this application is that it is half as sweet as sucrose so it take a lot to make up for sweetness therefore diluting your reduction. I can see how it makes sense for dehydrated fruit slices and leathers and stuff like that because it can be added without over sweetening but here it is probably a failure. the drink is pretty good but more for the ridiculous tabasco aroma. at least we can cross this idea off the list.

I'm developing some recipes for a garden party I'm doing for a florist. This drink or something similar with be served from champagne magnums. 1.5 oz. cranberry syrup (sugared to approx 250/g/L so 83 grams is added to every 250ml of juice) .5 oz. New Amsterdam gin from a nip (the ending drink might have to be vodka so I picked the most vodka like gin in the house) .5 oz. lime juice .5 oz. Campari diluted to 4.5 oz. total volume and carbonated to 7 g/L Pretty good. I can enjoy it and my mom would enjoy it; #crushable. The color will photograph well and choosing cranberry will keep it on budget. [Moderator note: This topic continues in Drinks! (2013 Part 2)]