bostonapothecary

it probably doesn't have to be made in a glass jar and if you do that glass, because its porous, will forever hold the flavor so you probably won't want to use it for anything else. the walnuts are also likely to stain anything else horribly. the jar should be sealed because you want to prevent oxidation. so its good to use a jar that is not too large but don't stress about it. the walnut flavor is intensely dark so lemon and lime just add contrasting flavor depth. the botanicals are best enjoyed by people that like to drink their nocino solo. anise is a contrast with awesome affinity but it should be nearly subliminal. add a star anise pod one at a time to slowly get to a barely recognizable level. a random cocktail can often wake it up and make the faint botanicals explode in your drink. to see a clearer expression of your walnuts i'd only work with white sugar as a sweatener. many liqueurs use 260 to nearly 400 grams of sugar per liter. i'd start with 260 grams and add more if needed depending on how bitter the walnuts are. 260 grams takes up like 150 or so milli liters so add it to 850ml of your walnut infused spirit. (patiently stir it to dissolve it) a 40% alcohol spirit should probably be sufficient. i'd probably use clear rum like cruzan or matusalem because its affordable. what giorgio used may have been something grappa-esque which may be awesome but very expensive. in boston you can affordably buy stock's grappa julia for $25/l or portugeuse government grappa made for port wine production for $12/750ml. grappa would just add extra contrast that definitely isn't for everyone. in parts of italy they often use ever clear for rustic liqueurs but the super high proof is often overkill and extracts more of a botanicals than you may want. but with walnuts you probably want a complete infusion rather than partial infusion so you get all the bitter components. this means you can never infuse them too long. i would follow giorgio's lead and add all your sugar and spices after your walnuts are done steeping. one thing we are missing is how many grams of walnuts to infuse in every liter of spirit which will determine the intensity of flavor. i've seen recommendations for 500g/liter of walnuts which seems reasonable. good luck.

you hope the quality of the strawberries in the liqueur is better than common fresh organic strawberries. not all fruit is created equal. the local new england strawberries seem 10x flavored relative to a driscoll's and i've never seen the local stuff in whole foods. its cool when a liqueur or eau-de-vie actually captures a sense of place but not many do.

no stock or cinzano? they are my favorites for sweet. if the drink seemed flabby in the lack of acid sense i'd add dry sherry. if it seemed too thin and bland i'd go the red hook route and add a spoonful of liqueur. i'm sipping dolin dry right now and i really enjoy it. i think i prefer it to some of the white wines i've been keeping around.

.75 oz. kirschwasser .75 oz. st. james ambre .75 oz. allen's ginger brandy .75 oz. lime juice scant spoonful of sugar because the ginger brandy is slightly sweet dash angostura this was my attempt at a ginger drink but the kirschwasser and st. james really lacked affinity for the ginger brandy. i liked the brandy and don't want to use another medium like simple syrup. over all drinkable but nothing to suggest to a friend. maybe i need rye whiskey or tanqueray.

for some reason i haven't touched the orange bitters in a while. i usually reach for the peychaud's... 1.5 oz. cognac (gaston lagrange VS) .5 oz. del maguay chichicapa .5 oz. lemon juice .5 oz. lime juice spoonful of sugar 3 dashes regan's orange bitters orange twist i used a split citrus formula because half a lemon was available and i had tiny limes with less than 1 oz. juice. beautiful contrasts.

My understanding is that "over extracted" in wine means that the wine has been left on the skin and pulp for too long, thereby extracting too much flavor and other compounds from the skin and pulp. ← not necessarily. i think most people use the term to encompass yields that are too low and grapes that are too ripe. too much flavor in one wine. sometimes they gotta run the garden hose into the tanks to dilute it a little... its a problem in the wine industry. the wines are just too intense obscuring a lot of nuance. some cocktails have the same problem.

exactly. any clue on who could give us some insight? i feel like there is a citrus farmer out there that would know and could condense it to a simple explanation. i have a feeling that its just like extract in wine. of course there are ridiculous amounts of compounds but when people say its over extracted it just means there is too much of all of them to be elegant... not that limes are over extracted. they are probably just being themselves. but if there is a difference in their juice relative to lemons it may elude to a pattern for good affinities.

i'm pretty sure you can more or less rule out sugar and acidity for why they are so different. harold mcgee's "flavor notes in some citrus fruits" table from "on food an cooking" describes lemons and limes as both possessing limonene, pinene, and terpinen. the table shows that limes alone also possess "spicy (other terpenoids)" so they are sort of similar but limes have some extra complexity. all these compounds make up the flavor extract and i bet limes have more of it than lemons.

but do you think the big difference in their aromatic compounds is the amount present in the juice? limes probably have more but by how much?

"Way out in the water, See it swimmin' ?" Everything about taste is so subjective and relative, it's hard to believe there is any consensus at all about what type of balance constitutes a proper sour. Or, even jigger pouring the same recipe, how little over or under pour can completely change the character of a drink. It's really fun to sit in the lounge at Heaven's Dog and try to guess which bartender made your drink. ← there is also the objective... i think there is too much extract. i wish i could find some analysis. i feel the need to articulate why (to myself at least), lime has affinity for something or not. if subjectively i don't get very far i'd love to see how it compares to something objectively... a pattern may emerge.

so i really love a tart drink. and for some reason i prefer lemons to limes. my understanding is that lemons have a lower PH making them tarter but i don't really think that ends the differences. limes just seem to taste really aggressive in a drink. do limes have more extract (not sugar, not acid) dissolved into their juice than lemons? is this why despite their higher PH they are more aggressive? what is happening to my tongue?

i just put on some expirimental rock (gong's "angel's egg") so i decided to whip up a challenging elixir of initiation. guiding my inebriation with abstract contrasts... 1 oz. batavia arrack van oosten 1 oz. kirshwasser 1 oz. lime juice spoonful of sugar stirred in peychaud's bitters shaken

have you tried any sour oranges in savoy drinks? they have become one of my favorite things in life...

i like the language. elevate by contrast!

I'm pretty sure that quinine is odorless. ← what ever i bought as quinine definitely has an aroma and is massively bitter. i think the salt you can refine from the raw bark might be odorless, but what is used in beverage is raw and has an aroma.

i just wrote somewhat a summary of the bitter beverages chapter of "fenaroli's guide to flavor ingredients" on my blog. its pretty cool and he talks about "special effects" in bitter beverages where you put an infusion of a bitter principle in a distillate of the same botanical to increase the aroma but reduce the bitter. something like 2x aroma, 1x bitter. any guess as to a commercial product that might use "special effects"? i feel like i smell more quinine in cynar than i taste but who knows... i have some distilled quinine from an experiment that i could marry with the regular infusion. what kind of hollywood blockbuster bitters should i make?

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.

1 oz. sazerac rye 1 oz. kirshwasser (hiram walker) 1 oz. lemon juice spoonful of sugar dash peychauds bitters most excellant. epic low budget flavor contrast!

olive infused vermouth sounds awesome but i really think the drink is mainly about acid-salt sensations and not aroma.

i'm loving the linie but it would be great to taste an american take on aquavit. any aquavit cocktails in the savoy?

When pressed, an olive will give oil, not juice, right? Is there such a thing as olive juice? ← When olives are pressed you get a combination of liquids, crushed solids, and oil. Part of the process of olive oil production is separating the oil from the other stuff. No idea if the olive oil production process has anything to do with the product Dirty Sue markets as "Olive Juice". ← dirty sue probably just replicates the structure of the brine. sugar, salt, acid, dissolved flavor. back in the day (5 years ago) we made so many dirty martinis and we used two olives as garnish and an ounce of brine in a drink (2:1). well that brine/olive ratio doesn't exist in the jar so we had to buy dirty sue. we would really use all the brine in the jar and still be left with half a jar of olives. it was easy, it made people happy, its quite the acquired taste, and its the gateway for drink structures that aren't so full of sugar and extract.

there is nothing wrong with a 2:1 dirty martini. even with vodka.

i think the branca menta might be pretty sexy with the strawberry tequila... just like you would make a stinger maybe. so far is it work picking up a bottle over a regular branca?

i'm dieing to make some... i hear star anise is a great subliminal contrast.

nice addition of peppermint. i wonder how orange-y everything is gonna turn out. many rustic creole shrubb recipes use the peel of three sour oranges and then you have the tonal effect of the wine base. i've also found that cloves are more potent than i ever estimate. sugar really enlivens them. i've gotten to a point where i only add them one at a time. good luck!