Jump to content

notahumanissue

participating member
  • Posts

    56
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by notahumanissue

  1. A bar is a bar.  We are not selling booze; we are selling the idea that everyone is witty, cute and going to get laid that night.  There is a certain decorum that should be met.  If one is a gentleman or lady, one should abide by rules that were ingrained in him or her by the time they were two, not 21, and we wish they surely didn't need to be posted on the bathroom wall. 

    When taverns turned into speakeasies and women came into the mix, we as humans had a conundrum, where bellying up to the bar became a suave, if indelicate, dance among the patrons.

    There will never be a perfect meeting of the knuckle-dragging troglodyte, the cosmo-swilling Carrie Bradshaw clone, and the sporting dandy.  We behind the stick must ascribe to not only make those two worlds collide but make them mesh, i.e., the Red Bull guy meeting the gentleman who can tell upon entering the bar if Kold-Draft is in the shaker.

    I, as a barkeep, tip my hat to those bacchanalian revelers who in their cups will stand tall at the mahogany and tip their faux-hawks to any genteel young lady who walks in in Blahniks.  Here's where the rubber hits the road: in a perfect world, every patron who walks in the door would be of quality, but due to the rather rambunctious times, that is not the case.  Those of us who try to preserve a quiet, gentle bar have nothing to do but sadly base our judgments on the first thing they order, and try to swerve them from their reprehensible instincts.

    And at the same time, we know that these condemnable activities are worth their weight in gold as long as they're done in their own place.

    Been reading some Charles H. Baker Jr, Toby? Methinks, methinks...

  2. I totally disagree. Gaining a taste for something by way of effort isn't a bad thing. While it'd be nice if it were totally natural, many of us didn't grow up anywhere around, say, hard spirits, and getting over those college experiences -- shots of Jamesons, anyone? Bacardi? -- can be a major project. Am I happy I trained myself to like whiskey and rum? Hell, yes. Sometimes, in order for it to be fun, and to enjoy something the way others do without violent flashbacks to that terrible frat party your roomate took you to, treating booze like a science experiment can broaden some seriously delicious horizons.

    But come on, this is egullet -- preaching to the choir and all....

    And the real point: Plymouth for my fizz, Beefeater for my negroni, and Junipero or Aviation any ol' way you like. Yum.

  3. And from my understanding, Maraska was a postwar, communist era start up in what used to be Zara, bottled and labeled under the name Luxardo (which had moved its distillary to what solidified as northern Italy). Through a cross-Iron Curtain legal battle, the name was eventually changed to Maraska.

    I'd like to believe there's some cloak and dagger romance floating around in the story. Somewhere.

  4. Just bumping this thread to see if there is a "preferred" recipe for  an Aviation with creme de violette.  What seems to work?  I, unfortunately, have to use stock marachino.  I'm not sure who carries luxardo in MA.  The luxardo I do have isn't going anywhere near work... :raz:

    I'm typically using beefeater or plymouth for gin, .5 to .75 lemon, .5 marachino.  I'm thinking .5 violette?  I'll report back on what the creme de violette brand is.

    Sean

    The violette cuts into the maraschino ratio as the drink's sweetening agent. I've most often seen it as 0.25 violette and 0.25 maraschino for an Aviation No. 1.

  5. They also whipped us up a "Final Word" to try.  A Last Word with Rittenhouse bonded Rye in place of the gin.  I dunno if it was exactly an "improvement" over the traditional formula for the last word.  Quite enjoyable in its own right, in any case.

    If done right, the Final Word should have been Rittenhouse in place of the gin and lemon juice in place of the lime juice. Its Phil Ward's variation, I think.

  6. A.  I'm pretty sure that the Brambles they were making at East Side Company Bar a while back used muddled blackberries.

    ...keeping in mind that the last time I was at East Side Company Bar, I had a horses neck that was nothing of the sort. no neck, just some lime wedges. but then again, it was never really intended as a haven for cocktail geekery, right?

  7. Given that this is how "foam" is made by 90% of the "foam"-making populace, I think you're fine with the whipper. Now to buy a new one since my old one has gone MIA...

    [...]

    I might also add, I recently had a cocktail with a Xanthan (or was it Lecithin?) foam, and while it looked good to start with, it got pretty ugly about the time you get half way through the cocktail. Weird lumps of undefined foam goo floating at various levels in the cocktail. Never really noticed this as much with an egg white foam. Well, at least egg white foams seem to look more "natural" to me.

    Egg whites are bad enough; but, I've also read that some of these other products can be a real pain to clean off your equipment.

    I think maybe whoever prepared the foam didn't dissolve the chemicals properly before "foaming," or used far too much of it -- excess creating those unpleasant clumps. Yuck.

    Did the foam have an overly bitter taste?

  8. I did mentally toy with the idea of a foam based on the elderflower liqueur.  Still think it might be fun...  Maybe a bit more citrus and an egg white wouldn't be out of the question here.

    I actually played around with St-Germain-as-foam not long ago. Didn't have any chemicals on hand, so i just put some of the liqueur, egg white, and a bit of lemon juice (as the acid stabilizer) into a whipper. Pretty tasty, and a great textural addition to cocktails that have worked well the the St-Germain already.

  9. Yeah, I pre-ordered a couple weeks ago from Amazon. I had no idea it was coming out until I was searching around for something else. Unless it's in serious pre-order (i'm thinking months), then the publisher has done a crap job of getting the word out.

  10. Oh St-Germain, how lovely. Here's mine, obviously similar. I've had the following on my menu for the last few months with pretty good response:

    <b>The Volstead 18</b>

    1 Fresh Strawberry, lightly muddled so as to break up the fruit

    2 oz Bombay Dry Gin

    0.5 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

    0.5 oz St-Germain Elderflower

    2 Dashes Luxardo Maraschino

    Shaken, strained into a chilled cocktail glass, topped with prosecco (~1.5oz)

    It's one of those instances when gin really shows its versatility, effectively being bombarded by the other flavors but still adding something distinct through the mess. It's my "I like cosmos. Make me something" drink.

  11. ...you keep sending frantic emails to your brother who just moved to Germany, hassling him to send a package of Bitter Truth. He replies, "dude, I have a new job, i'm kinda busy, gimme some time," but that's not really good enough. He never loved you anyway, the bum.

    ...you leave the East Village and move to Red Hook, partially to save money, but mostly you're just lying to everyone -- you want to be within walking distance of LeNells.

    ...you only sign a year lease because, well, the store might be gone next summer.

    edit: public school education.

  12. Liquor store and bar managers, and interested consumers:  Empire's code for Laird's Bonded is # 577974

    I just called my Empire rep. He seemed a little confused, almost insisting that it'd be impossible to get. He's gonna check for me, and I'll see if it's in my Empire shipment tomorrow.

    Oh joy!

  13. The only place I know in NYC that has VEP for service is Gramercy Tavern.  They keep it on the top shelf of the back bar.    I would assume it would be fine to keep out, but if you want to play safe you could put a vacuum top on it and pump the air out if you don't use it that often.

    I'm pretty sure every Keith McNally place has VEP -- I've seen it at Balthazar, Morandi, and Pastis, but can't really say about Schillers. They just leave it on a shelf.

  14. Sorry to non-NYCers for this post, but curiousity made me do it.

    Did anyone go to LeNell's for the Chartreuse tasting last Saturday? Like many a young drink geek out there, I've become obsessed with Chartreuse cocktails hard and fast, but don't have the financial means to go beyond the standard yellow and green varieties -- nor an owner who's willing to foot the bill for a bottle of VEP I'll probably just pour down my or my guinea pigs' throats. Is it silly to even mix the higher-end Chartreuses, financially or for fear of a monk hunting you down?

    Anyone have any musings on the Elixer? I've had the VEP once (thank you Keith McNally for stocking it everywhere). Any good cocktail ideas come out of the tasting?

    I'm heading out to Red Hook tomorrow for apartment searching...might just need to stop by the shop and see if i can talk them into a taste.

  15. I'd hypothesize that the "modern" Aviation has essentially become a showcase for maraschino liqueur....and in that sense is probably closer to an Allen than to the "original" Aviation.

    I also see the Aviation as a really effective "gateway cocktail," in that it's inherent ingredient simplicity can show people maraschino's contributions to a drink. It's so easy to start from there and move someone on to a more complex, but similar in some respect, cocktail like the Last Word.

  16. Also, it's entirely possible that you caught M&H on a night when they ran out of Luxardo. I know, it seems like a silly oversight, but they could have just grabbed a backup bottle of Stock and went with it... It is the kind of place that would try and own that mistake, pumping up the virtues of Stock when they really didn't have a choice.

    As someone who works in the same neighborhood, I've been stupid enough on a couple occasions to not order a bottle and gone running around to every bar/store around, only to find that the closest maraschino is at Astor -- not too helpful at 11:00pm when you go rummaging through the liqour room. AND i shot myself in the foot with a menu heavy on the stuff...lame.

    So, you know, it's possible...

  17. No, I live in an early 20th century walkup with two units per floor and, well, pretty much NO internal ventilation to speak of -- a standard East Village building, I guess. The layout of my apartment distances me considerably from the surrounding tenants, but I really don't wanna be the kind of jerk who smells up the stairs every week.

    I have a ton of windows, most of which open up to Thompkins. I'm guessing everything would be fine -- i just remember my early attempts at homebrewing in *cough* my college dorm complex in california *cough* as not the most subtle smell in the world.

×
×
  • Create New...