bostonapothecary

prelude to a kiss (like the duke ellington song) 2 oz. gin 3/4 oz. batavia arrack based ratafia* 1/4 oz. fernet stirr, use appropriate ice, etc. this drink is kind of like the "hanky panky" that is being widely drank around boston these days. i really liked the "hanky panky" but it uses sweet vermouth instead of the ratafia and sort of lacks some fruit depth which could push it over the top. unfortunately no products really exist on the market to give the drink what it needs so i just made something up. when the drink is at its most cold the fernet dominates but as it warms slightly and develops the intense fruit comes into focuse... that fresh breath is the prelude to a kiss... *the ratafia is based on pomegranite seeds and strives to be like cointreau in the way that it has the same alcohol content and sugar content. one difference is that it brings some degree of acidity (which could be toned down because i think it overall had an intensity beyond cointreau). the natural acidity lends the liqueur well to non sour drinks but also doesn't interfere too much with a 2:1:1 pegu kind of thing. the batavia arrack brings the right alcohol content, exoticism, and some sort of subliminal terrior kind of thing... a subliminal amount of cardamom seed is also added...

the golden delicious might just have the right acidity or something. harold mcgee claims that the best flavor of the apple is contained in its skin. that might be a big defining part in distillation. i more or less gave up on true calvados. i never thought it lived up to the money. i only drink laird's.

you might want a less intense vermouth as well...

IMO they become less and less interesting with age. Several years of age to mellow out the rough edges and add a little color, etc. is good. But beyond a certain point, the apple brandy tastes less and less of apples and more and more of "generic aged spirit." A 15 year old apple brandy doesn't really taste of apples at all, and might as well be a grape brandy. ← I have read before that extended aging does interesting things to Calvados in that 2 years old tastes like apples, 10 year old tastes like barrels, but as it approaches 20 years (or perhaps a little longer) the fruit character comes back out. This alleged phenomenon has fascinated me since I first heard of it. Can anyone confirm or debunk this? -Andy ← alot of wines supposedly have dorment periods in their aging. i'm not privelaged enough to have explored it... i wonder if it is true for spirits and if that is why the spread of years available on the market seem to jump over gaps...

these sweet drinks are making me curious. sugar is a serious flavor enhancer but can so easily hit the cloying point of no return. i think i will make a standard 2:1 manhattan, measure its sugar content and then compare it to a 2:1:1 widow's kiss. who wants to put a bet down on what % more sweet in brix it is? it could be 15 to 20% sweeter... creole shrub is 36 brix. that is madness to me... sweet vermouth is 25... who knows where benedictine and yellow chartreuse fall in between...

widow's kiss is a 2:1:1 + bitters... i had it last at green street's chartreuse event... one of the best drinks i've ever had... under the golden ratio all spirits still get equal footing... delicious. i think that apple brandy is a great foil for singlemalt scotches in a vieux carre

vermouth is just good to drink on the rocks... i drank two glasses of rosso antico on the rocks today while i worked lunch... i used to think it was pretty good stuff but now that i started making my own fresh its kinda boring... i make mine more bitter than average so i don't need to add additional bitters if i make a manhattan or a marconi... though for some batches reagan's added beautiful complexity. i have a couple recipes related to wines i really like and their inner mechanics. i really want to try some other artisinal kinds to see whats possible. i've still yet to have carpano antica or barolo chinatto...

As far as I have been taught, and I could certainly be wrong, but the main reason why wine pairs with food is that the acid in the wine cuts through the fat in the food. obviously there are other aspects at work from both sides of the relationship, but this is the general principle. Because of this, I always liked pairing cocktails with food, also partly because i prefer cocktails to wine. Because of the acid to fat I suggest starting with cocktails that have a straitforward citrus. Then think about what that citrus pairs well with. Try a whiskey sour with a dish heavy in tomato, like a marinara, or even a tomato soup. Or a satan's whiskers with a terriyake dish. Or try a daq or a marg with a piece of blackened fish. After you get a feel for these pairings, then start to get more adventuresome. ← contrasting something fatty or rich with something acidic is just one pairing strategy... a classic is caviar and zero dosage champagne... not all dishes are over the top rich and a comparison works really well... viognier or muller thurgau because they are low acid compare to a dish like gnochi with gorgonzola dolce, pistacio pesto, and roasted peaches... a low acid cocktail might be cool as well. but when you plan a pairing sometime you want something to happen... when you have acidic dishes you really want acidity in your wine to line up. if they don't one will taste flabby and thin or the other will taste overly acidic... i discribe matching acidities like your brain giving credit to the food the acidity in the wine so it kind of subtracts and you are able to pick up more nuances in the wine... some of those cocktails from the savoy that might seem too sweet for me... might be tamed by foie gras or cheeses like robiola... robiola has magical pairing properties with its texture and earthiness... much better than tellegio... alot of magic can happen. viognier, spatlese, amadar zin... replicate any of those acid / brix balances in a cocktail...

I had something similar to this at Flatiron last night. I think they did something different with the syrup (allspice maybe?).... ← the pastry chef i work with does a salted caramel mouse as a component of a dessert... volcanic sea salt makes it come alive. it would be fun to chaise all that sugared up mayhem with an applejack / martinelli's cider stone fence... the flavor components of the drink are redundent but oh well... break it in half and make it managable with a dash of angostura...

to pair cocktails and food i wonder if you can really get beyond rich cheeses with rich cocktails, something like goat cheese with a whiskey smash or mojito, and any sour with something salty and frivelous... about a month ago i had a peach cobbler with compass box peat monster and thought the food made the whiskey more fun. to me cocktails are like your pairing all lined up for you in one glass. i liked my elemental experience with the dessert and the whiskey so i could replicate the experience maybe even in a better format with a cocktail that plays with the whiskey peach interaction. in wine pairing, to me, things are mostly about defense. you don't want the food to negatively harm the wine and the reverse... some magical pairings exist but it is often over hyped. a tannic red with meat works to subdue the tannins but it doesn't give you the epiphany of all the other subtle beauty the wine holds, what usually happens is you simply guzzle it at medium pleasure and pony up the money for a second bottle. i splurged a couple days ago and drank a bottle of sfursato with a burger at the bar. i was in love with the wine and its massive depth and complexity akin to many a good vieux carre... the burger didn't harm the wine, but for some reason it disappeared too fast and my contemplative experience was gone... next time i won't let anything but cheese touch that stuff. cocktails and food are so much fun on a thematic level. my favorite drink lately to instigate a party is a mojito and my favorite party moments of the past year involved lots of north carolina pulled pork sandwitches to dilute the booze. the acidities line up. delish and always a happy memory.

i have yet to track down lazio's "cio ciaro" but i want ot go by cirace in the north end tomarrow and see if they have it... i've heard it described at "root beer" like in character maybe from sasparilla? that might not be like amer picon but that sounds pretty cool. some of the italian amaros may not be classic as immortalized in famous books, but they are available now, fit into classic ratios, and offer stunning surprises... i give my enthusiastic recommendation to the underdogs cynar and ramazotti

tonight i stopped into the green street... asked for a cocktail.... received: 3:2:1 rye, dry vermouth, yellow chartreuse or i might have mixed up the cencentration of the yellow and dry... a very sexy drink... its fun to see what people will make when you will drink anything and how they judge you. it was the perfect prescription for my evening. at the restaurant i work in huge amounts of people simply say "tell him to cook for me" and "bring me a wine, what ever you are into" (sfursato from the valtelina by the way is the answer to that) the green street in cambridge is a great place to trust the prescription of the bartender.

aviation 2 oz. bombay oldschool 3/4 oz. luxardo maraschino 1 oz. lemon juice couple barspoonfuls of alpenz creme de violette shake shake shake double strain i would never give an aviation the time of day without throwing creme de violette in the mix... the drink left many layers to contemplate...

couldn't you can the lime juice? "real" brand lemon juice. i don't remember seeing a real live lemon as a child. only the bottled juice. sometime to me the need for a cocktail is more about craving an acidity rather than an alcohol. when i get the itch it is usually for a sour drink... i enjoy sweet vermouthy, amaroesque drinks but would never give a mint julep the time of day when i could have a smash.

Absolutely. I find that by dint of constant repetition I've learned to eyeball it in the glass; since the lime goes in first, if it looks significantly over or under the half-ounce average for a half lime I can tweak the sugar to match. I think it's worth putting up with the variation since (for me, anyway) that rustic romance is an important part of the drink; its flair. For vast crowds, however, I'll juice in advance and use a standard half ounce of lime juice. It just doesn't look (or feel) the same, though. ← but that is just volume... i wonder how acidity fluctuates... i was gonna try to buy different limes all over the city and see how they fluctuated in both volume and PH. all those apple-tini drinking people are in danger of getting scurvy. i'm just fighting the good fight. i wonder if i could put a lime tree in a green house? when i was a kid growing up in the menenite area, the greenhouse up the road and down the dirt path on the other side of a corn field had a banana tree... it was completely magical to see. middle of nowhere, horse and buggies, fresh bananas...

related to the daiquiri isn't the most important variable the lime? i used to mix some drinks with the "juice of a lime" and i got what i got... my sugar content was measured out but the lime acid component was at the mercy of size, seasonal consistency, etc. the spread was so large that i stopped doing it... in theory it seemed like the rural, rustic and romantic way to make one...

the videos are really cool and the technique is fantastic. i was wondering if you could elaborate about the ice you use. beautiful stuff. but where did you get the machine and how are you getting and sorting the different sized cubes? i'm pretty sure everyone in boston uses pretty standard ice. i wish owners and the guys writing the checks felt beautiful ice enhanced their egos more than lame wine collections... vertical of screaming eagle magnums versus the 40% colder ice cube...

a jigger and fresh lime juice is the definition of a cocktail bar...

← i used to drink alot of yerba mate. a studio musician and former bartender i know got me into it... it was probably compared to absinthe on a homeopathic level... but it could easily have anise added to the mix. anise is added to so many things like mawby for example... tea made from a bark but the drink usually always has various anises added... liqueurs like eque-baugh, more anise... anise would be the only way to make the bland vegetal flavour attractive. acai berries never stand alone... you market its homeopathic properties but you docter the flavor... a story as old as time... adding sugar to 25 brix like most sweet vermouths would drastically reduce any associated bitter...

I think this touches on two crucial points (or maybe it's just two sides of the same point) -- when there are enough customers who care about the quality of cocktails that they seek out the one or two best places, after a while the bar managers and bartenders start noticing that. When that happens, they're more likely to try to improve their cocktails so they can become one of the places that customers seek out. They might not make it on the first try, but a steady improvement overall is going to introduce more customers to better cocktails, who then expect more from bars overall. ← boston is an interesting place. one thing it lacks is a labor market. the bartenders i work with refuse to follow simple rules of making a drink. they will not stir a manhattan and they refuse to measure anything. they don't like ice because the more you use the more time you have to refill your bin. i'm nice and charismatic and i can't inspire them to anything. they watch my small cult following come in and it inspires nothing... the culture of restaurant owners is also a challenge. my owners never taste anything i do. even after having people call on the phone to see if i'm there... no curiosity. (i mix alot of cocktails on request strangely even though i'm the head waiter) a non apathetic cocktail bartender can't really get a job in a non cocktail place with older bartenders because they don't want to work with you. you challenge their low apathetic standard. vodka soda is the money maker not the vieux carre. i find many places known for good drinks are so boring as well... Hunter S. Thompson or Hemingway would not hang out there... boston does have some incredible places for the young hemingway but not many... and transportation is not very fluid. very few restaurants here are busy from 5 to close. at that spread you can make your salary quota with quality. you try to fill your quota from 7 to 9:30 and you gotta turn tricks and pump out economical crap. liquor licenses also dont' support small artisinal establishments. 200 seats to have a liquor license and a service bar that buries you. you can only be as quality as your 7 to 9 rush worst case scenario. the odds look bleak but a couple people, in boston anyhow, have beat the odds. jackson at eastern standard does an incredible job... he runs a very large bar by the standards of any city with incredible quality. they follow the proper rules of mixing a drink even though not all their bartender seem very into it. and they deal with a polarized fenway park clientelle. e.s. is a great example of whats possible. i love inheriting their clientelle.

According to the Google book search, they have back issues of The Strand at the Pasadena at the Pasadena public library. I have to head out that way for an errand sometime this week. No reason that I can't make a little detour... ← i'm sure boston public library would have it. their archives are incredible and i love an excuse to go up to the room where its at. (must take my camera next time) does the bottle cocktail idea seem too far off? are their any famous ones besides pimms?

could it have been some sort of pimms-esque bottled cocktail which would explain the high proof and the connection to red wine quinquina and to absinthe? redwine vermouth spiced with yerba mate absinthe for good measure gin bottle it up...

can anyone translate the text on the poster eje links to? its kind of crazy how something like this could get lost in history... are we only talking about 70 years? i always thought it would be cool to start a forum of 20th century forgotten culture and then try to get elderly people to read it and answer questions.

i've had great results using dehydrated fruits. you can get great flavor out of things quickly which makes some homemade liqueurs really practical for modern bar applications. fresh prune plums are in season so i think i will play with some this week. they might be sexy over some gin with alpenz's creme de violette in a "garden of eden"-esque concept. i really need to whip up some jerry thomas quince liqueur as well. has anyone ever made the "rum shrub"? or could anyone estimate its perishability given the recipe? i have been curious about it for quite a while. would we not need to boil the the milk in our modern day because modern milk is already pasteurized? and boiling cooling and straining might remove milk solids so skim milk would be best modern choice? if enough people care to speculate i will try my hand at mixing it up...

i can't wait for the rothman and winter aprict eau de vie... i really hope to try out that cocktail via your proportions. i'm saving the rest of my flor de cana white for it!