Tri2Cook

I've already made peace with not caring what's commonly accepted as correct, what's cool, what others think something should be, etc. and with not feeling the need to explain when I part from those conventions. I eat my steak cooked the way I like it. I salt my food the way I like it. Why shouldn't I mix my drinks so they taste good to me? Disclaimer: I'm not discounting the opinions of those much more experienced in the cocktail world than myself. I'm just making a case for personal preference over convention.

I did try the bostonapothecary creation... and I liked it. Tonight was a 50/50 with Tanqueray, Noilly Prat and Twisted & Bitter orange bitters. I think I'll stick with a little more on the dry side but I didn't hate it.

I've never seen that pdf. Thanks! The low and high acyls and JJ are the only types I'm familiar with but that doesn't mean they don't sell others.

I think it's going to be the blend more commonly known as "JJ". I asked them if the unspecified product was the high acyl or the JJ blend of high and low. I didn't get a response but, if the response they gave you was "medium acyl", I would bet it's the JJ. They may not be aware that it's a blend since it comes from the manufacturer that way.

I've emailed Chef Rubber a few times with this very question... not a single reply.

Probably not. I tend to lean towards the hermit side under the best of circumstances. A bunch of people I don't know isn't the best of circumstances.

Got my bitters from House Made today. I ordered the grapefruit, cherry, coffee and their seasonal roasted pineapple bitters. They also included a bottle of their chai spice bitters as a gift because I apparently helped them pinpoint some troubles with their shopping cart on the website. That wasn't necessary but it is appreciated. All of them are nicely aromatic and in keeping with the bitter aspect of traditional bitters but I haven't actually used them in a drink yet. I also got my Twisted & Bitter orange bitters from Victoria Spirits in British Columbia and Bittermen's Xocolatl and Elemakule bitters. I'm thinking the Elemakule and roasted pineapple bitters should play nicely together for summer tiki stuff. The Twisted & Bitter has a floral orange blossom note in it that I think will be nice in some drinks. Now I just need to get better at creating drinks so I can find some fun uses for all these new toys.

Johnny posted on his site earlier in the week that he's dined at El Cellar de Can Roca once before and at El bulli in 2009 and 2010. Edit: Overlooked the "FG" part of the post, shouldn't have answered for him. Sorry about that.

I just checked Johnny Iuzzini's site, he hasn't started posting yet. I think it'll be fun reading his thoughts along with yours.

As someone who cooks for a living, this is almost more humbling than inspiring. It feels kinda like I imagine it would feel to look at a bowl of fruit I painted after a visit to the Sistine Chapel. I'd be very interested in hearing more about that apple dessert though.

I ordered ticaloid 310S at work to play around with doing stable fat in water emulsions but they sent me the spray dried gum arabic instead. The 310s is just an arabic-xanthan blend so I'll play around with blending my own and see what I can come up with. The cookingissues guys have worked with it before so I was going to check with them and see if the data sheets gave any information about the ratio of arabic to xanthan but their blog seems to have taken a (hopefully temporary) dive... so I'll figure it out the old fashioned way.

Le Sanctuaire. Terra Spice. Chef Rubber. L'epicerie carries the low acyl.

There aren't 10 total options for most categories where I live, much less a top 10. I couldn't even do a top 2 bourbon list from my local LCBO store because there is only one stocked... Jim Beam white label. I have to drive oven an hour one way for a few other options. It's a drive I gladly make when necessary.

I think I'm going to give that one a try this weekend.

It's an enzyme that encourages the bonding of specific amino acids, not an actual glue or chemical frankenstein, so it's really not all that scary if you leave out the term "meat glue". But if one wanted to avoid it for whatever reason, sticking with your basic cuts of meat and avoiding the restructured stuff like some nuggets and patties is a good place to win a large part of the battle. It may require some detective work to sniff out the rest.

That's a little too black and white for me. Obviously, foam in the culinary world is not a new thing but that doesn't mean that some of the things done in fairly recent years within the boundaries of the word "foam" weren't new and wonderful. The first time someone decided to see what would happen if you whisked cold cream long enough or wondered what would happen if they dropped and egg white in the cocktail shaker, it was probably considered new and wonderful even though some form of foam certainly would have existed before those things took place. There is always going to be a backlash to whatever is considered cool by those who want to feel like they're at the leading edge: "Foam is cool." "Hmmm, Joe at the local diner knows what foam is." "Okay, now foam is not cool. Something else is now cool that means I'm still above and looking down." Of course some people will not like some types of foams... but that's not the same as not approving of them in general.

As a novice and late-bloomer to the world of cocktails, I agree with Chris and Matt. Four bottles is going to be tough. I went into it thinking I was just going to get a few bottles to play around with. A few short months later, my cabinet is running out of room and I still have a fairly long list of wants. A list that grows as fast as it shrinks because I keep coming across drinks I want to try that include something I don't have or the LCBO brings something in that wasn't previously available. Maybe you could break your project into segments. Gin and three other bottles to spend some time exploring gin based cocktails. Ok, we've spent x amount of time with gin, now everybody add a bottle of rye if you want to keep playing along. Ok, now let's all get a bottle of (whatever you want to explore next). That way you could keep the initial investment low, focus on a particular spirit and, as you add to the list, you can begin to incorporate multi-spirit drinks into the project. I think that would keep people's interest much longer than a strict four bottles would.

I think the suggested pulling a vacuum on a sponge candy is going to be the best bet here. Shooting steam into a container of super-hot sugar doesn't sound like a good plan to me even if the moisture wasn't a factor... which it would be.

Try it in an Old Fashioned with Laird's Bonded & Angostura Orange...a mighty tasty cocktail. Sounds tasty. Unfortunately, Laird's isn't an option here in Ontario. Best I can do is Boulard Calvados... which I realize is not the same critter.

I always have maple sugar around but it never occured to me to try to find a cocktail use for it. Maybe I should.

Dredging up an old one. While working my way through lists of classic drinks, I came across the Orange Blossom. Gin, Cointreau, OJ. Kinda unexciting. I thought I had a flash of brilliance. I spent a large part of my life in the southeast U.S. and I'm a fan of country music so I thought "make it with bourbon instead of gin, toss in some orange bitters for good measure and call it an Orange Blossom Special". It was way too easy so I googled it and sure enough, it already exists minus the bitters. Maybe I'd seen it at some point while searching recipes and it pushed out of the depths after trying the Orange Blossom. I don't remember having seen it but it's possible. The point I'm slowly working towards is, when I googled "Orange Blossom Special", a large variety of drinks came up with that name. How do you track down a drink name and figure out which version is the real deal? Maybe it's time to start adding a few cocktail books to my bookcase?

Yep, there are a lot of really nice uses for both out there. I've done some things I was really happy with using them (in the past, before I moved here, and with frozen puree since moving here). I was leaning more in the direction of things in the spirits and cocktails world with this thread though. I suppose the easiest way to go with the blood oranges is to simply slip them in where regular OJ is used.

For the first time since I've lived in this area, the local grocery store has blood oranges and seville oranges in stock. Anything interesting to do with them that would make grabbing some a good idea? Actually I grabbed a few blood oranges and a pomelo today but I'm thinking about going back tomorrow to grab some of the sevilles and more bloods.

I'm going to check out some Canadian-made bitters from House Made. I've exchanged emails with the maker and they are indeed alcohol extractions that are formulated with bittering agents in addition to the flavoring agents, not simple tinctures or an attempt to downplay the bitter aspect (I'm not casting judgement on those types of products, it's just not what I'm looking for at this time). This isn't made readily apparent through the information on the website so I began contacting them and they were quick to reply to all of my questions. They're reasonably priced so I'm going to take a chance. Best case, I've found a Canadian source for some nice bitters. Worst case, I don't love them. Only one way to find out.

Well, since I said it would be between Blais and Jennifer C. before the season started and I was obviously very wrong about the Jennifer C. part, I hope Blais brings it home. Just so I don't have to be completely wrong.