Tri2Cook

Getting a gin and tonic sorbet that's not too sweet but has good texture is probably going to take a few rounds of tweaking. As you've already discovered, it's easy to get the taste right... but then you have textural problems (too soft, icy, etc.). It's pretty easy to get the texture right... but then you have taste problems (too sweet). You could up the solids while reducing the relative sweetness a little compared to sucrose with glucose powder. Sorbet stabilizer would help as well. Regardless, a low sugar/low solids/high alcohol sorbet with good texture is going to be a bit tricky (unless you happen to have some liquid nitrogen handy).

That way of thinking isn't wrong, it just isn't reality. It should be reality. The best person for the job should get the job. It just doesn't always work that way. The bottom line is that an employer can use whatever criteria they want for selecting employees. Officially, there are certain things they "can't" consider but that's like handing someone a Victoria's Secret catalog and telling them it's illegal to picture the models nude. They just can't tell you they've done it, you can't really stop them from doing it.

If you're just wanting a curd you can slice into strips and bend around on the plate into curvy shapes, gelatin works nicely. If you're wanting to do the loops and twists that Chef Stupak did with his version, good luck! They're a P.I.T.A. even with his exact recipe. I did a no-chocolate version that was flavored with fresh mint a while back by subbing in cocoa butter and adjusting the amount of cream. It was bendy but I couldn't get it to do twists or loops. If I wanted to try a blueberry version and was determined to base it on that recipe, I think I would make a soft blueberry curd or cream with minimal added sweetness and use it to replace the cream in the recipe, then sub white chocolate (which means I'd probably drop the sugar in the original recipe) for the dark as a starting point. It probably wouldn't be that simple and may fail completely but it's a minimal distance from the original and a small batch would give you a reference point for further adjustments depending on the results.

Ok, I killed the fun enough making my point so... ...you can load any liquid that compliments what you're serving and spray it in the air or on the food (malt vinegar with fish and/or fries is an obvious one)... ...you can make liquid versions of dishes that diners can spray in their mouth (maybe infuse some apple juice with cinnamon and nutmeg, infuse some apple brandy with graham cracker or baked pie crust then fat wash it with brown butter, add a little demerara syrup or maple syrup and a touch of lemon juice... sprayable apple pie)... ...you can load it with a flavor characteristic of whatever you're serving (such as a vanilla spray with a wine that has vanilla as part of it's profile) to bring that characteristic forward in the taste via the nose either to highlight that flavor or push it towards a particular pairing you want to do... ...and, of course, what Toliver said... ...most importantly, just have fun.

It has powerful potential which is why I mentioned that knowing what you're going to use it with has to come before knowing what you're going to put in it. Rob Connoley (gfron1) did an experiment a while back where he served a non-chocolate cheesecake to random people in a completely dark booth that he aromatized with chocolate and his subjects were completely convinced they were eating chocolate cheesecake. So just suggesting assorted stuff to spray around the diners without knowing what they're eating really isn't a good plan. You're looking for a twist before you've developed the plot.

What you would fill an atomizer with would depend entirely on what you were serving that you thought a little aromatherapy might enhance. In other words, we can't suggest what to put in the bottle until we know what you're doing. A shot of eau de garlic during the dessert course may not go over real well...

Is there a practical way to replicate the Waylon at home without benefit of having a fountain? If I could find coke syrup, I could just smoke it and combine a little with the bourbon then shoot it with soda. Finding the coke syrup seems to be the hard part though. What would happen if you cold smoked the bourbon and just added regular coke? Would that bring something nasty to the equation?

PDT used to do one too, with Blackstrap Rum, chocolate stout, and a whole egg. I'm sure I don't need to tell you it was divine. Hadn't seen that one. I found the recipe and will be trying it soon... conveniently, I have all of the components on hand.

The Penn Shandy. I think I found it on starchefs but I'm not 100% sure about that. Anyway... Ginger-Infused Bluecoat Gin: 1/2 pound ginger, peeled against the grain into 1/4 inch slices 1 750-milliliter bottle Bluecoat gin Cocktail: 1 bottle Victory Prima Pils beer 1 ounce ginger-infused gin 1 ounce fresh lime juice 1 ounce simple syrup 1 twist lemon For the Ginger-Infused Bluecoat Gin: Combine the peeled ginger with the gin in a blender and puree. Using a fine mesh strainer, separate the pulp from the gin. Store the gin in a tightly sealed bottle. For the Cocktail: Pour the beer into a Pilsner glass. In a shaker, combine ginger-infused gin, lime juice, and simple syrup. Add ice, shake, and strain into the glass. Garnish with the twist of lemon. Edit: Yep, it was on starchefs.

There is no such critter as a non-government liquor store here and I can rarely persuade the local LCBO to order in stuff that they do carry in their other stores so something they don't carry isn't going to happen. The rye would be a yes but BC is a long trip for a few bottles of booze so I guess that's out too.

I had just the opposite opinion of Big Chef/Little Chef. I'm a huge Heston Blumenthal fan. I find his relentless pursuit of getting something exactly as he wants it or just canning the idea altogether inspiring. I also really enjoy how he's not afraid to include fun as part of the dining equation. I've watched every show I've found of his (Kitchen Chemistry, the two seasons of In Search of Perfection, Heston's Feasts) However, I found this particular show boring. I just never really got into the concept. It's kinda like having Grant Achatz revamp the KFC menu... he could definitely make it better but the average KFC customer wouldn't be too happy about it and the company would reject 99.7% of what he wanted to do.

That may be the most polite "piffle" I've ever seen... Why would a stabilized simple syrup be out of you league?

Yes.

Golden raisins hydrated with verjus, dried cherries hydrated with spices, sugar and port.

I'll jump on this one... but I'm not sure which recipes I want to commit to yet.

I can't think of a cocktail I've heard of, tasted or read about that would say "wild, wild, west" to me more than Eben Freemen's The Waylon... but that one already exists. I'm pretty knew to this cocktail thing though, so I'll leave the creations to those who know what they're doing for now.

I think that's a pretty cool idea Martin. I don't think I could be much help though. I can handle doing the recipes but my photography skills are almost non-existent.

I searched gomme syrup here on the forums and the recipe I found appears to be pretty much identical to the one I posted above, just much more massive in volume. The actual ratios and directions match up pretty well though.

I got a sample for a project I'm working on (at work) from Rene Rivet Inc.. which is the Canadian distributor for DD Williamson. I don't know if they will sample to residential or not but it doesn't hurt to ask. I'm still in the testing stages with my project so I haven't got to the price and package size point with the rep yet but I think making your own or the king arthur suggestion are probably your best bets for what you're doing. The only potential problem with cooking your own really dark syrup that I can think of is that it could add a bitterness that you may or may not be happy about depending how much you use but if it's Kerry tested and approved I'd say you're safe with it.

Ok, so no rye and no maraschino + very limited selections of most other things... I'm lovin' the LCBO. On a brighter note, I ordered a ridiculous selection of bitters!

I'm suspecting this is closest to the real answer. We have a tendency to take poetic license with things here in north america in the name of the dollar and I can easily see someone looking at their unfiltered apple juice and thinking "you know, if I call this cider I can probably get away with charging more for it than I do for the filtered stuff which actually required an additional amount of work to make".

I have this recipe in my files. I don't remember where I got it or why I saved it and I've never used it so I can't verify it's worth but I was pretty sure I remembered it being in the dark recesses of my storage drive. gomme syrup: 60 grams arabic powder 75 grams hot water Combine and allow to hydrate, stirring occasionally. 230 grams sugar 115 grams water Simmer to dissolve sugar completely. Stir in the gum mixture.

Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. So the cocktails aren't being changed with "real" grenadine, they're being taken back to what they should be and were before the "fake" stuff came along?

Soooo... I've read through this entire thread and I'm convinced making my own grenadine is a good idea. I have one question though (and I'm kinda surprised that I didn't already find it asked and answered in this thread knowing eGulleters). One common theme to this thread has been people saying how much better and different the homemade stuff is. In other threads I've read on homemade versions of and substitutes for common bar basics, the general opinion seems to be that cocktails designed with the original just aren't quite the same with other versions. Comments like "yes, the cocktail would probably be very good with that but it wouldn't be a (whatever) because it was designed around the flavor of (whatever)" seem to pop up. So my question is: if a cocktail was designed using off-the-shelf grenadine and the homemade stuff is noticeably different, is the resulting cocktail still the same critter it once was? Does it only improve the drink or does it turn it into something else? If off-the-shelf grenadine doesn't scream pomegranate and the homemade stuff does, that seems like an entirely different flavor profile on paper. And no, I'm not doubting the experts. I'm just curious. I'm kinda just diving into the cocktail thing and I have an irritating tendency to explore things deeply once I become interested.

...and on the food network in Canada as well.