bostonapothecary

i'm not making a soda that has to keep something thick and emulsified for four years on a shelf... i'm just trying to make an old fashioned that has the viscosity i want without being too sweet...

Hi bostonapothecary, nice entry. I'm curious about the rums you suggest. For the east side of Africa Rum, are you suggesting Starr? I keep seeing bottles of it on the liquor store, I'm curious now if it's worth a try. And Santa Catalina Islands... drawing a blank there. Research suggests some Dominican Rums (Santa Catalina Island), Brugal, Bermudez, neither of which have I taken the opportunity to try. Congratulations, you've piqued my curiosity. ← Aguardente de Santo Antão from Cabo Verde hmm. i mixed up my islands on the brazilian rum... Armazem Viera Esmerelda from Santa Catarina

what benefits doesn't it offer? how would you differentiate its performance?

Does maltodextrin give the same viscosity effect as gum arabic? How much do you use? No, but I'm about to start playing with saba in the near future, so I'll give it a try! ← maltodextrin was designed as a replacement for gum arabic because it was getting too scarce and too expensive for the prepared foods markets to use... this all happened before the turn of the century... J.T. days... i think it performs the same and might even work better because you typically received a cleaner purer product that you dont' have to clarify...

vineger is kind of cool but i always paired aged balsamic in my drinks with verjus... and if the idea of either excites you saba from modena is quite impressive...(unfermented grape reduction) you can even make great and complex liqueurs from the vin cotto like the marasca cherry tasting gambrinus from the veneto... supposedly the appalachian people were the kings of the vineger drinks and avante garde sugars and acids... they made their own saba from cooking down fresh pressed apple juice 40+ to 1... you concentrate all of the sugars and acids and retain quite alot of concentrated aroma... i think i just lined up a source for grapes to make enough saba for the restaurant for next year.

i never like the idea of using lots of random rums in one tiki drink... it always seemed like just a technique to pour a drink faster in a busy bar... but last night i couldn't decide what run i wanted to use so i compromised... "shift drink" .5 oz. rum from the east side of africa (grapey, heavy and minerally) .5 oz. rum from the santa catalina islands (smokey) .5 oz. frum from somewhere on barbados (amber) .75 oz. granadilla juice (tart) .75 oz. grenadine (sweet) spoonful of lime juice 2 dashes of peychaud's bitters shake... pretty cool. you can parse each of the rums and the sour component of the drink is a good time...

So that's...what? A tablespoon? You sure you don't mean a dime bag? Joking aside, that's a nice little trick. Pectic enzyme shows up pretty regularly among home distillers working with fruit as a way to get greater yield. Ian Smiley sells some here and Brewhaus America here. ← i just tried to drink the aged rum punch in 2:1 with punt y mes... the mango fruit quality was cool but there is a strange taste like citric acid that is a total flaw... i really think its because the pulp was preserved with citric acid. so if i ever make another batch i'm going to use real ripened mangos... i think they are a fruit without any citric acid. if so then they are only malic and tartaric which is good because those acids can be manipulated the easiest with potassium bicarbonate if you don't like what you get. hmm. the PH is 3.42... that is higher than orange juice... maybe i have no idea why it tastes that way...

i think it was in the middle of last summer i was working on mango rum punch... but i gave up... something appeared to be curdling... my flavors in theory were good but the mediums became quite tricky... i scrapped the project and left the frightening looking stuff in canning jars until today... apparently what was happening was just the precipitation of pectins forming jello like particles but not a solid mass... and from wine makers i've learned you just need to add pectic enzyme... and nearly instantaneously it started breaking up and the pulp solids could be effortlessly strained... equal parts lemonheart 151 (briefly infused with black tea) and mango pulp (for sorbet makers) then a cocaine spoonful of wine makers pectic enzyme... the well strained (yet super dark like lemonheard) booze is over the top aromatic... it must be slightly more than 80 proof yet doesn't really feel like it. i can't really seem to differentiate the alcoholic heat from the acidity... there is a strange out of place citric acid taste that i think is a flaw... the power of this simple pectic enzyme may renew my interest in the modern rum punch...

the last pack of gum arabic i got from "angel brand" had seeds in it, a thorn, and some other random junk... it also didn't small that good. i'm a bigger fan of maltodextrin... clean, granular, easy to dissolve... has anyone ever used something like saba in a cocktail?

funny, the former president of harvard was in the restaurant tonight. i can see him drinking something like that back in his day but i don't think they would add syrup and i'm sure they would be anal about a french made vermouth...

so i gave the cinzano dry reserva another test drive with some food... i know some people are into the spirited pairings... i drank it simply refrigerated... the vermouth on its own is very challenging to describe. its dry but not as dry as any conventional dry vermouth. i think it underwent maloactic fermenation like alot of softer acid style white wines... it is very hard to determine where the botanicals stop and the wine begins. and overall there is some kind of a funk like a really terroir driven white wine... like a vermentino from provance i have on the list or livio felluga's tocai friulano from the colli orientali... a shade of earthiness... the food was from my regular take out joint.... chris schlessinger's allstar sandwitch bar... Papa al Pomodoro: Tomato, Fried Garlic, and Bread Soup... so this is a really good soup and i think i've eaten it four days in a row. it has some amalfi herbs in it. rosemary and parsley... its hard to describe its acidity or if its ameliorated with sugar like some tomato sauces... this makes the vermouth tastes like a very ancient tawny port or a good example of a white port. but the analogy isn't so straight forward. its like seeing a mirage of a tawny. its the first thing that comes to mind but you don't get the right mouthfeel... its there for a moment and then its gone... i bet its the effect of really similar acidities making the wine seem fuller in the mouth. the botanicals in the vermouth seem to be subtracted and your brain only recognizes the expression of fruit... you can get similarly structured comparisions out of barolo chinato and chocolate where the bitter of the chocolate matches the bitter of the chinato and your brain is left with only the fruit... Ham, Swiss, Mango Preserves & Watercress Pressed on Whole Wheat this sandwitch was one i've never had and is a great variation of their mango chutney, cheese, and watercress theme... if i had a wine i think i'd want a viognier but the vermouth proved really interesting for something "dry"... the influence of the chutney, making the sandwitch slightly sweeter than the vermouth i think, brought into focus the most vivid flavor of banana that was realer than any i can remember eating... banana is an inherent flavor of many chardonnays and its cousin grapes... i would have never predicted the food could make the vermouth taste so drastically different but intensely recognizable... it wasn't the most elegant trasnformation but it was definitely interesting... i think i just drank 10 oz. of dry vermouth...

i like your focus on the balance and quality of the non-alc quotient but i would say a good aesthetic goal for the drink is trying to create a matching comparison of the top half of the drink to the bottom. it could be made with any dry gin and you may just have to shift your ratio from 2:.75:.75 to a 2:1:1 to capture the goal... i've been reading alot about the sensory evalutation of wines and the analytical techniques of doing it. i don't really understand how bartenders can really evaluate the soundness of their lime juice on the fly from a spoonful on a drink in a busy room. its hard enough to evaluate a wine when too much of your other senses are tied up. if you taste drink after drink of different styles you may face the same problems of transitioning out of proper progression between different wines. like tasting a big cab then immediately having to evaluate a delicate white...

i'm interested in attending tales... but i'm not really into partying... when i travel i want t soak up a city at every hour of the day... most seriously 4 in the morning onwards... do people know any good breadfast spots? and how early in the day can i get a drink at a cafe?

hmm... you mean, just add it in? any idea how much? would those perservatives affect flavor? EDIT: answered part of my own question... from http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/necfe/pubs/p...2_chemical.html: at first glance this seems like a last resort, as in my experience the sugar levels ward off most icky critters. however, i'm having a problem with some refrigerated 5-month old pineapple syrup -- the syrup itself still tastes good (flavor is dulling a little), but i'm getting mold in the bottle above the liquid line (in the residue left behind after pouring). would potassium sorbate fix that? ← five months is asking alot for a syrup. are you sure your cleanliness is perfect? pineapple's contain alot of yeasts and random stuff that can grow. you can easily ferment the skins without adding any other yeast. you may want to change you technique up. get the smallest size of canning jars. (8 oz.)... bring the syrup up to a sterylizing temp. can put it in the jars and seal. you will get a vacuum and it will probably be enough to protect it... you might get some flavor differences... the high temperature and the acid of the pineapple might easily invert your sugars splitting the fructose... (making it more stable but sort of different...) so what kind of canning technique are you using? potassium sorbate is mainly used to prevect refermentation of dessert wines. if you use too much you can get a geranium like off aroma... ive used it to stabilize sodas that i've made with yeasts but the shelf life of my sodas hasn't been long enough to really test the ins and outs of the technology...

adding tiny amounts of alcohol to your syrups is more or less a placebo... you inhibit growth of certain organisms but so many others have a tolerence for alchol far past 14%... you mainly want to bring stuff up to temperature and use good canning technique... there all sorts of canning guides online... i've seen stuff start to grown on 70+ plus proof infusions... i think flavor oils or whatever from the fruit infused floated to the top creating a protective layer for stuff to grow above it... weird... i don't even know of any experiments that explain that kind of thing... if you really wanted to make something stable you could use sulphur or potassium sorbate

the "hanky panky" floated around boston bar menu's for a while (for a charity i think) so i drank quite a few. i think everyone served it in a 2:1 gin to sweet vermouth with a spoonful of fernet... its a great drink. i think its beautiful for when you are on a date... there is even a sexual tension in the flavors... the mentholated intensely freshening character of the fernet is the perfect aperatief for a kiss... its intensity fades slightly as the drink warms... and then the over the top body of the drink (at any ratio) has the physique for the S&M, will fight back experience that adult and sporting drinkers look for... good stuff. if Henry Lyman wrote the recipe he'd say "for any number of drinks you intend to make add a spoonful of fernet to each required number of Lone Trees"

i wish i could try it out but i don't have any ginger liqueur... but on paper it looks very tart... a 1:1 liqueur to lemon/lime acid is a good starting point for most products but you are .25 over the limit plus more acid in the form of very tart sparkling wine (brut cristalino??)... a little more sugar could be a flavor enhancer... or subbing out a fraction of your lime juice... dry vermouth could add some of the complexity you desire and is carribean approved IMO... dry vermouth is an acid but far less tart than lime juice... ginger, angostura and any of the plantation rums sounds like my kind of drink... you just need an acid / sugar balance within the average of most people's tastes... cheers.

2/3 cinzano reserva dry vermouth 1/3 seagrams reserve cask aged gin lemon twist pre lemon twist it wasn't a drink to seek out... i started the drink 1:1... the weight of the piney character against the vermouth was much better in the final ratio... this vermouth has some kind of madeirized character. its oddness might be in its personal age rather than its chardonnay varietals and vinification... there is some kind of strange character that i've tasted before in bad chilean chardonnay's. I don't know if its a bad balance of lactic character. I bet these wines underwent malo-lactic fermentation before they were embellished with herbs (the botanicals are super hard to detect)... it might take some ingenuity to enjoy the rest of the bottle of vermouth...

has anyone ever seen "cinzano reserva dry vermouth"? "a select blend of chardonnay and other fine wines" the color is very interesting. it is a golden straw color and isn't fined very well... how old could this stuff be? i just picked up a few bottles of it along with and old version of campari...

mirto is like a sour bitter blueberry... it has a brambly sort of fruit character but it is obscured by its pininess... supposedly it is the king of aphrodesiac berries and was taken with adam out of the garden of eden... venus rose from the sea wearing a garland of myrtle... good stuff but not for the faint of heart in flavor...

interesting. i would have thought it was far higher in alcohol... so it seems like it is an artisinal product and its proportions are for the sake of taste and not qualifying for any class of spirits... would myrtle berry liquor be a substitute? i'm conspiring with my pastry chef to use them (flavor from a liqueur) in a dessert... mirto's have more of less the same alcohol as the plymouth sloe gin, an intense piney taste and an amusing adult bitter.

in the U.S. treasury departments classification of distilled spirits. "class 9: flavored brandy, flavored gin, flavored rum, flavored vodka, and flavored whiskey"... to which have been added natural flavoring materials, with or without the addition of sugar, and bottled at not less than 70 proof..." basically under the law you get the most economy out of your product at 70 proof. and your probably going to cut with sugar to get there... so they are probably making some kind of sloe concentrate syrup and cutting to the max.

I just found A. K. Quady in the bibliography of my wine making book in the section about distillation. He wrote papers for the American Journal of Enology about making brandies from thompson seedless and french columbard. I have a feeling it is the Vya Quady's father because they were published in the early 70's. I wonder if Vya does their own distillation for their fortifying spirits. Most of the literature on producing vermouth claims it should be made from "grapey" white varieties like moscat and columbard which to me has an elder flower quality and the writers really look for one homogenous ideal of what vermouth should be. So i bet the Vya crew would have access to every published formula out there. The direction they took the product is interesting. They might have wanted a dry vermouth stand alone aperatif. Somewhere in the last century there was a split where dry vermouth aperatif died and the extra light cocktail style began.

is it "economically" sugared? like a 70 proof flavored vodka... isn't alot of it about tax law and cordial licenses?

that sounds pretty cool... where did you buy the aquavit in cambridge? i think i should pick up a bottle...