bostonapothecary

everything that you infuse and want to extract flavor from works differently.... the higher the proof that you use the better your chances on denaturing things.... somethings are resilient and somethings cook.... jasmine is something very delicate and its oil can't be extracted with alcohol because it denatures..... (as do your own cells which is why medical rubbing alcohol is slightly cut to under the point to which it happens..) anyhow lots of particles are also fat soluble so you use a technique called "enfleurage" where you dissolve the matter in a neutral fat to extract it and then seperate it from the fat... chefs use enfleurage all the time when they make basil butter or something like that... the butter just sucks the flavor molecultes out of the basil. you can clean out the basil particles and you'll have an intense full flavored butter.... what infusion is all about is that in flavor, to get the hole picture of what your trying to isolate you need alcohol and water to dissolve as much as possible.... thats why a pot of tea is boring and cocktails are fun.... they only get half the flavor....

i used orris root today when i made sweet vermouth... i thought it smells of violets but when infused tastes really bitter.... supposedly violets have a chemical that lets you smells them once but then blocks your olfactory senses....

for the bobbie burns what are you ratios of choice? do you go pastis or benedictine? i have tomarrow off. i think i'm gonna spend some time smoking cigars and drinking....

i always thought gin was supposed to be massively integrated spirit... if you can parse any particular flavor then it was made wrong... you integrate many flavors to create something totally new... but i don't drink gin martini's... i usually only mix with beafeater and only in proper cocktails....

i escaped work early and set out for no 9. park to have a cocktail... ryan and ben were there and sorta busy but then still can give you what ever you want effortlessly.... vieux carre "blanc" 1 oz. fruit brandy... hoped for famboise or peach settled for a simple calvados. 1 oz. gin... hoped for something roughneck like old raj... got beafeater. 1 oz. dry vermouth 1 nice spoonful of coffee liqueur... hoped for tia but settled for kahlua... 2 different bitters... never paid attention to see what i got... i think he put a really nice lemon twist in there... the drink aspires to be dry and broadly rolling across the tongue... it totally achieved it while relying on no particular brands.... as cool as a vieux carre but "blanc"... hopefully someday i can try it with my ideal indredients... i also drank earlier in the night... 1 oz. lemon heart 151... (need to pick up another bottle) 1 oz. clayton's kola nut tonic (need another case) *only 25 brix i bet... 1 oz. juice of the granadilla 1 spoonful of simple syrup quite the intriquing sour.... it even went over well with the cocktail waitress who is not much of a roughneck.... the hostess thought it was "the chronic"....

that is like "cologne's geneva".... don't waste your time with vodka go cognac.... and eventually you will learn to just drink tangueray... infuse where you are sure you have an economic advantage or an intellectual advantage.... and always remember that "life is short and the art is long..."

i want some of that concentrated gin....that would be the chronic.

hop liqueur sounds pretty cool. my rum worked out ok. i gave the rest of the hops i had to the pastry chef and he made me a hop grapefruit sorbet that came out very well.... it was either loved or feared but such is life. = )

pretty cool. the first time i saw them made from scratch was when i worked at locke-ober.... they were a minor acompaniment to an asian themed kurobuta pork dish. i wonder if she thought they were japanese like suntory's midori?

what are your cost per liter requirements?

the dessert wine was called apianie i think.... i got quite a few bottles when we opened the restaurant a year ago.... it was italian. it might have been made from "vespiola" like the famouse "maculan torcolato" basically a noble rot wine from indigenous grapes.... i believe that under the benedictine and the egg the wine can fully express itself.... so using your favorite dessert wine would be worth while.... i thought charlie trotter was crazy for cooking with chateau y'quem but he was apparently confident that it would fully express itself in a granita or sorbet or whatever crazy application he used it in.... try the cocktail with a good dessert wine. it was probably among the longest tasting drinks i've ever had.... i passed over the sauternes flip in the bon vivants companion and though cloying mess.... apparently not.

that is interesting i never knew there was a brand called marasca.... i always associated it with particular type of cherry flavor.... a great liqueur made of grapes but with the flavor of marasca is elisir gambrinus.... it is the specialty of the gambrinus restaurant. which i think is one of the oldest in the world.... i think the consultant wine maker is sergio zenato (the amarone maker) they take this weed grape ribasso which is boring because it is watery and only has the one flavor note.... he reduces it and adds cane sugar.... then fortifies it with grappa and ages it in barriques.... one unlikely thing goes in but alot comes out.... i've used his technique before to make other liqueurs.... thinking about it is inspiring me to make some sweet vermouth.... red wine (rose?) & cherries, plums, apricots then reduced like zenato's.... gentian, worm wood, coffee.... 25 brix with cane sugar.... bring it up to 17% with grappa....

so i had some dessert wine around.... it was something i took off the list a month ago and had found a half empty bottle in the back of the fridge. the dessert wine seemed to be in between an icewine and a suaterne's in flavor.... and on the back of the bottle the wine maker suggested pairing it with a fine cigar.... i wanted to test his advice yet i had no cigars.... so the natural thing to do to test his advice was to prepare Jerry thomas "sauterne's flip" and add a large spoonful of benedictine.... 2 oz. esoteric dessert wine.... any will do.... 1/2 oz. benedictine.... 1 entire egg shake and double strain....do not garnish!....resist temptation to nutmeg....do not embellish what is naturally there.... so you can taste the entire dessert wine which is already very long.... then after tasting that you can taste the entire contribution of the benedictine (a.k.a. liquid cigar) the flavor simply goes forever.... i found it kind of creepy actually.... good advice by the wine maker.... i think i finally made a "vieux carre blanc" as long and complex as the brown spirit origional....it will be the next thing i drink.

i pair chocolate with bourbon.... to clear the mouth so you can go back for more.... chocolate kills so many ports and turns them into mere alcoholic sugar water.... charlie trotter recommended a very young vintage port if you really wanted one to stand up to chocolate....

seriously jealous of the carpano antica.... (but i may have nailed down a source for it...) tonight was the "alto cocina" or an attempt of... @ no. 9. park.... they didn't quite have the suggested brands of ingredients but made best efforts and came out very well.... 1 oz. bacard 8 (tonight barbencourt 8) 1 zo. dry vermouth 1 spoonful coffee liqueur (kahlua but i wanted tia maria...) well mixed and measured by john.... perfect side kick for my brooklyn lager.... dry vermouth leads into the coffee liqeuer in the most beautiful way.... i will play with this until i get the proportions correct.... classically it was garnished with an olive.... from the state organized socialist culinary school "alto cucina's" cocktail contest in the 60's.... many great cocktails came out of these young country's attempts at eutopia.... forget traditional values.... embrace the avante garde.... cheers! i don't know how to compare this to a wine.... its just funky and cool and shows the specialness of the "cocktial"....

a new egg cocktail for me... that looks like the chronic... my malt mixer will make a mockery of trying to integrate that cocoa powder....really looking forward to this....

i had to make shots for some staff members i wasn't too particularly happy with so i did it on my own terms... sort of a variation of a frisco... i easily call benedictine the greatest liqueur ever... 2 oz. bacard 8 .... (i had no rye on hand) 1 oz. benedictine.... 1 oz. juice of the granadilla.... (almost as tart as lemon) they shot theirs.... i sipped mine.... it came out very nice.

Chinese Cocktail 1 Dash Angostura Bitters 3 Dashes Maraschino (1/2 bar spoon Luxardo Maraschino) 3 Dashes Curacao (1/2 bar spoon Senior Curacao of Curacao) 1/3 Grenadine (1, well 3/4, oz Home Made Grenadine) 2/3 Jamaica Rum (2 oz Appleton Estate V/X Rum) if a mahatten is your maximum level of desired sweetness and you make it 2 to 1 you might want to scale their recipes to achieve the brix of one ounce of sweet vermouth. which is like 25 i think. homemade grenadine might have a slight contrasting tartness but it is much sweeter than 25 brix so you just killed it all right there... the drink could be pretty cool if properly proportioned as the fruit flavors would creep across your tongue. i've found that cocktails that lean forward on sweetness are pretty cool if you can keep them under the limit. unfortunately there is not much of an arsenal to use to make them.... to many liqueurs blow past sweet vermouth in brix. which is why most of the liqueurs i make in sugar content i peg to sweet vermouth. it takes me just a spoon of simple to get the stuff back to a 1:1 ratio for use in a sour.... the seelbach leaned forward on sweetness which is maybe why it could handle all those bitters. the sugar may suppress any intense sharpness of the bitter leaving you to taste whats under it.... i haven't drank one in a while so i think i'm gonna have to test my theory.... i may use it as a template for something new as i am a couple days away from my wild cherry bark bitters being done.... = )

i went to no. 9 after work and ben was behind the bar so i knew i could get something good.... a vieux carre.... danflou calvados up against talisker.... dubbonet rouge spoonful of benedictine peychauds and agostura orange twist.... really complex. talisker clobbers so many things but it was in perfect stalemate against the calvados. best talisker version yet.... and john's advice of dubbonet with singlemalts hasn't steered me wrong yet....

life is short and the art is long

to get a name as cool as "chicago cocktail" it makes you wonder how popular that drink was at any point in time.... i would find it drinkable but was any bartender like "this is the chronic; i must make you one...." were any of these drinks made simply to fill a book??

i found some marie brizard apry today are girace wine and spirits in the north end.... that place is incredible by the way.... picked up some nardini amaro as well....

inspired by a buttermilk pannacotta the pastry chef made for me....because it is fun to contrast creamy things in the summer.... granadilla gin fizz.... 2 oz. gin spoon of sugar 1 oz. heavy cream 1 oz. juice of the granadilla white of an egg shake with plenty of ice for like 90 seconds.... splash soda water.... a carribbean take on a ramos....simply using a new very fun fruit....i was scheming on an appropriate rum but i didn't think i had one in my arsenal.... very tasty. unfortunately those i let try it drank most.

would hemmingway drink a recreational treacle? i'm gonna try it but i'm gonna use st. james royal amber for something more expressive.... hemmingway drank st. james in "islands in the stream" i think....

i saw something in the newspaper about the EU proposing changing naming rules to protect traditional vodkas. are these changes aimed at super premium stuff like ciroc which is made from grapes? or is this aimed at the bulk and plastic handle market? another question..... what is bison grass vodka all about. i've heard about it but never bothered to pick a bottle up. a bartender friend got a free bottle and asked me what to do with it.