bostonapothecary

i should point out that i do like saint germain. i've had a huge amount of fun with it. i just don't like the price. i like hendricks and think its a georgeous product. i just don't like the price... anyhow. i think there is a strong corellation between people's actions outside of what they drink and what they drink... cultural and generational analysts like robert bly of the mythopoetic men's movement faim claim that american men have lost all their intensity. i always thought it was a big part of being american. intensity and a certain love of individualism and self reliance... well at the same pace of all this cultural change is movement towards a blandness of drink... light beer and vodka... a paranoia of hangovers... must have skyy so i don't get a hang over... on other hand my uncle is one of those people (and i still come across others like him) who would ask for a collins with the "roughest" gin you got... i wish i came across more of those types of people... a simple drink, no brands, intense, affordable, and you see them every day after work for one or two... i should note that lots of women have gained lots of intensity at all levels, especially drink and its awsome...

Its a good product but it's definitely being overused. I think it's partially that it's very neophyte friendly. ← i don't like saint germian. it tastes like concord grape liqueur... and for $35... thanks for killing my liqueur costs with your populist demands, raising the price of drinks all over the city because people want all this dollar an ounce junk... then young poor people loose all their (our because i'm with them) meeting houses and a social outlets... all because people feel they can only like grey goose, saint germain, and hendricks... and they can't afford it so they just don't go out... now i live in city where near every restaurant is only half busy and never full... sounds kind of a fanatical but i think its what some people are trying to get at...

what did you have of that whiskey style to replace it? forty creek?

i agree. and in my experiences common drinkers are less shocked than you think that you don't have their brand... i work in a place that gets the most incredibly polarized tastes. by economic necessity and a dose of absentmindedness we stopped carrying stoli and their flavored products and absolute... and even with all the weddings i do no one really cares... and i don't have pinot grigio and everyone wants to write down what this albarino stuff is... restaurant people on the supply side are so conservative. probably more so than their guests... dare to specialize and please show off your passions. its far easier than you think... keep up the good work down in NYC.

quite a while ago i inherited six different bottlings of mirto. (i think all were rosso) i liked to pair it with lemoncello in various cocktails...

i can't wait to try that tonight!

so i keep hearing that vermouth is perishable... "its essentially wine", "keep it in the refrigerator", "you have a week to drink it before it start to go bad so buy half bottles", "you have four weeks before it loses its taste", etc... well lots of people offer lots of advice about how perishable it is. but what separates wine from lightly fortified wine, from vermouth, from things like cynar and campari, from gin... wine is usually low enough in alcohol that it can face acetification. where oxygen and vinegar producing bacteria produce acetic acid. i think this happens at alcohol levels of 15% and lower. lactic bacteria can also be active at these levels and produce off flavors. PH also plays a factor in controlling them. so does this means that super high powered zinfandels won't turn to vinegar but might oxidize to death with a cork issue?? lightly fortified wines like dry sherry try to hit a level that protects them from acetification but promotes the growth of flor yeast creating a film on the surface of the wine to induce some sort of controlled oxidation. its recommended that you drink dry sherries fast after opening because they "decline". in the same way vermouth does? is it related to alcohol levels or delicacy of flavor? its is also highly recommended to look at born on dates because dry sherries like manzanilla supposedly die very fast on the shelf and need to be very young. i wish they had bigger more regulated born on dates... and should we desire the same thing for vermouth? i have no idea when any of the ten vermouth bottles in my fridge were made. and its known that dessert wines age rapidly at first then start aging very slowly... (change in oxidation reduction potential? whatever that is...) certain sherries probably quickly age past their prime in this rapid stage. so what sets vermouth apart? is there enough intensity to protect it? port is a step towards vermouth in in alcohol level and sugar content. amerine claims that most port follows an "18 by 6" model. of 18% alcohol by 6 brix. i've seen people leave very expensive ports and madeiras open for quite a while without thinking that they have lost their flavor. amerine explains that fortified wines often hit 18 and 20% because bacteria are still active at those levels. lactic bacteria can still grow at 20% alcohol if PH is hospitable. counter intuitive or misunderstood by me, amerine also explains that yeasts become more sensitive to alcohol as sugar content is increased... (which may explain why sweet vermouths can have less alcohol). the goal is to hit the minimum so you keep esters and acids concentrated. well once you start beating spoilage, what starts to separate you from a distilled gin? a key difference is that all these things have some sort of sugar content which can caramelize, maderize and break down. and also maybe they have significantly more complex esters and molecular junk? are gins made primarily of resilient botanicals? and what protects them from oxidation and not the vermouths? is my gin withering in a half empty bottle and i'm too ignorant to know it? there is some sort of "oxidation reduction potential" or capacity to change over a period of aging, which maybe different for vermouths as opposed to gins. i wish i knew why. in between vermouth and gin is the camparis and cynars which in my understanding have no wine, contain distilled or macerated botanicals, and very low alcohol. (cynar rings in at 16.5% alcohol! couldn't it spoil without a stabilizer?). i've never found one that spoiled, but shouldn't they play by the same rules of oxidizing as a vermouth? conventional wisdom would say you should put them in your fridge and expect them to be really different if opened more than a month... does their intensity save them? some flavor erodes but there is so much still behind it... whats up with this? Herve This or ghost of Maynard Amerine please save us! anyone have any insights about the complex lives of our eccentric alcohol preserves?

Old Tom Gin is a botanically-intensive style of gin that was/is lightly sweetened to round out what would otherwise be bitter. The resulting richer mouthfeel in some ways mirrored the Hollands (oude) gin. In the historic progression to the London dry style, the botanics were dialed back and the sugar all but eliminated. ← this is finally what i'd like to hear about why old tom gin would be special in any way. did you find anything about the quantitative botanical intensity of the gin in grams of extract per liter? how does it compare to things like tanqueray and beafeater that are on the market now? maynard amerine compared the extract of vermouths and gave recommendations on how many grams of botanicals per liter. i'm sure the same techniques could easily shed some more light on gin.

You can always make a case for the Americano, Phil. And I'm probably one of the few who has ordered them at D & C ...whenever I'm not supposed to be drinking. ← if you like americano's look for vergano's bottled "americano" which is a rose of the grape grignolino from monferrato in piemonte aromatized in the style of campari/aperol... its affordable and pretty cool. i got a couple bottles of the trial importation and my campari drinkers raved about it. different shades of bitter sexiness.

kola expressed through coke is a pretty noble flavor... i was too distracted to participate in this MxMo but i trying to get around to making a ward eight since i used to work at Locke-Ober. when i was there, i made them their first batch of real grenadine in probably thirty or so years. when i left they went back to roses... so sad for easily one of the most gorgeous bars in the world.

i'm down to my last bottle and still looking for more. i'd love to hear of how you mixed it. the last drink i had was a simple lime sour with an egg white and some bitters. i really thought the lime flavor would contrast the hops well but it didn't at all... now i don't want to squander it until i find more... i posted about this drink on my blog but this was my favorite cocktail with the hitachino so far... 1.5 oz. hitachino’s “kiuchi no shizuku” distilled white ale .5 oz. plymouth sloe gin .5 oz. yellow chartreuse 1 oz. lemon juice dash angostura if any spirit producers made a readily available hopped gin as opposed to juniper, they would probably do quite well for themselves... but that means it will probably never happen. cheers!

it has adult flavors... bitters are just the easiest way to get them.

a friend of mine had a bottle of that. it was a vacation souvenir. the idea of it sounds awsome...

Nah. I'm not sure exactly what the classification "Americano" denotes but Carpano Antica is nowhere near as bitter as Cocchi Americano, Vergano Americano, or any of the chinatos (chinati?) I've tried. Even Punt e Mes is significantly more bitter. At least to me. It just a nice, flavorful Sweet Vermouth. ← in my own mind i demoted vya sweet to an americano. its not that "americanos" are exactly bitter but they more simplistic. they don't even play by the same rules of intensity either... in the "technology of winemaking" maynard amerine doesn't exactly define vermouth to have a maximum of botanical extract but he gives ranges from samples that were collected so i guess there are some sort of rules to play by. i keep hearing that carpano antica has alot of intensity. is it playing by different rules or could other vermouth producers just give us more cow bell and therefore be more comparable?

I like Carpano a lot, but find it has an amusing tutti frutti character which often shows up when combined with just orange bitters or Amer Picon in a drink. Some drinks like a Martinez or Creole Cocktail are almost amusing to me in their fruit candy character if you just use the orange bitters. Usually this can be managed by also including a dash of angostura in the drink. Sometimes I also get something like Marshmallow from the Carpano in drinks. Don't know what that is about. Anyway, I like Dolin Sweet vermouth a lot, from the little exposure I've had to it. It doesn't seem to be quite as heavy in the caramelized sugar as the Carpano. Plus, it isn't quite as expensive. Sadly, hardly anybody carries it, even where it is available. ← i am itching to try the dolins... i just landed the boissiere and really enjoy it. there are very few bad vermouths out there. just different house styles that no one has bothered to educate anyone on the differences of... its more apparent in the dry's but so many vermouths have completely different styles of wine base besides their own botanical formulas... i've never had carpano antica but i have a feeling its more like an "americano" than a "sweet vermouth"...

someone from noilly gave me a bottle of the new product when i was down for the TOTC... the strength increase is that of the bitter... and the aging is different as well... (longer i think) when comparing to my memory i'd say the difference is negligable but i bet you may notice a difference in a side by side. i asked if the reformulation was related to wormwood laws changing but didn't get a clear answer. according to the presentation, they only make one formula for the sweet and the amber isn't being imported any time soon... i wrote about it somewhat on my blog... i like noilly dry. its wine base is drastically different from any of the other options. its like rainwater madiera vermouth due to its radical weathering...

i think they still post the botanicals on the side of the bottle.

Interesting. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the shelf life for many of these natural liqueurs is not quite forever, especially after they've been opened. I know someone who recently talked about what they felt like was a pretty dramatic change in the flavor of the Rothman & Winter Violet liqueur over a pretty brief period of time after opening. I don't know if they were imagining it or not, but I can imagine heat exacerbates any change like that. ← oxidation can be cool. but its graces seem to be random. some things come out tasty and others become appalling... i'd love to hear some people's experiences. especially from the liquor store archaeologists... robert cooper was generous enough to let people sample a really old batch of forbidden fruit liqueur at tales of the cocktails. it was a pretty cool experience but did taste like an ancient dessert wine instead of a fresh pommello liqueur. age gave it something magical like exotic nut characters and shades of maple syrup but it did also leave the liqueur with a pretty horrible and pungent after aroma. i have no idea where it came from but it may have been something like the geranium smell of potassium sorbate which is used to keep dessert wines from further fermenting and being attacked by molds. i think some of those preservatives breakdown over time and give off aromas. when you start looking through oxidized, aromatized, and eccentric styles of wine like in the moscadello comparison. you start to find some awesome cocktail flavors for a fraction of the price of over promoted liqueurs these days... i sometimes finish off bottles of dessert wines in flips... chateau y'quem... no sacrilege.

so being from that young generation of sommeliers i'm a madiera freak... (port is for suckers) madeira is probably the sexiest application of induced oxidization out there but its not the only... (noilly prat is a close second) when you flirt with older white wines you often come across "maderization" which is when wines get over heated in storage and start to break down chemically similar to the natural aging process but faster. if its not the wine maker's intention many people call it a flaw and send it back... well sometimes you can't becaues its got no place to go... and your thirsty so you just drink it because there is nothing else... and you find that its not awful. its just not what you expected... well thats not entirely true sometimes its completely awful... well long story short, i just ended up with a maderized bottle of saint germain. it was slowly cooking in a friends intensely hot apartment... (i was there to install an air conditioner) its pretty cool. the freshness of the elderflower's muscat like flavor is gone and now its like an old dessert wine. the color has lost its youthful hues and has become really "honeyed" in color. it even almost looks like brizard apry... i'm at a loss of flavor descriptors but the simple liqueur really reminds me of the winery capanna's moscadello di montalcino... these wines are made of the elderflowerly piedmontese moscato bianco but get some serious terroir influence from the ligurian riviera. classically moscadellos are paired with baba' al rum (which i've never had... a dough soaked in rum syrup) and confections with almond which seems like good leads for a cocktail... 1.5 oz. 1992 plantation venezuela rum 1 oz. maderized st. germain 1 oz. noilly prat dry vermouth (from a wet year... rainwater madeira style!) .5 bar spoon luxardo almond liqueur 1 dash regan's bitters stir over ice... something new... a good way to use up some cooked liqueur. also gin may work better.

i want to drink that...

boston prices were about the same as new york... is the price due to a trial importation or something like that which will come down? i can't stand the prices of liqueurs these days. i don't like having to pay for full page magazine ads. i think we need to learn more about sourcing ingredients and making liqueurs are home. the only things i feel are worth the big money these days are chartreuse and benedictine... i don't like mono infused liqueur makers getting rich off me.

right now i'm drinking... 1 oz. macallan cask strength 1 oz. plymouth sloe gin 1 oz. euro formula noilly prat dry vermouth 1 dash raegan's bitters stirred... i wish i had a citrus peel but the drink is delicious. i'm starting to regard plymouth's sloe gin as one of the most important liqueurs out there... its has learning curves like st. germain does because of its high acidity and low sugar content relative to things like cointreau. its flavor contrast with a potent brown spirit is beautiful. lately i really need the decadence of cask strength spirits... i wonder how the same drink would be with the mocha like character of old potrero's 18th century rye?

i just entered boston's hendrick's cocktail contest... this what i settled on... 1.5 oz. hendrick's gin 1 oz. manzanilla sherry (la gitana, a very classic bottling...) .5 oz. sloe gin (plymouth) .5 oz. yellow chartreuse dash of peychaud's bitters stir... chartreuse and sloe gin are my favorite liqueur duo's at the moment... the yellow works especially well. the contest was looking for cocktails that highlight a botanical besides cucumber and rose petal within hendrick's botanical formula... manzanilla as a sherry style was named after the chamomile flower because its flavor has that earth apple character, but it also has badass cocktail craving acidity! a classic example of the sherry (unlike the la cigarrera manzanilla that i really like) gives "chamomile acid" to balance and contrast the liqueurs and support the gin... when i tried the drink with green chartreuse all it brought out in the wine was the intimidating oxidized wine character... yellow chartreuse really highlighted the "earth apple" character of the sherry... now i need a name...

Wow, you rate the Wray & Nephew overproof that highly? A certain part of my brain, which makes the rest of my brain grumpy the day after, really likes it. But not sure if I would rate it higher, mostly for health concerns, than the Flor de Cana Extra Dry. ← i just snagged two bottles of the C.J. Wray white rum that is discontinued... i left one behind... $13 for a 750... itching to make a daiquiri.

kitsch... but i want to see more of the avant-garde. hopefully some writers will get into it.