JayHepburn

If you will excuse the self-promotion, I thought the readers of this thread might be interested in the latest episode of Oh Gosh! TV which was filmed at Greg Boehm's (of Mud Puddle Books) office/library. Greg gives a great overview of cocktail book history, as well as showing of some rather rare books and revealing details of the next six books that will be published by Mud Puddle this summer. It also provides a great illustration of just how close his reproductions are to the originals... it really amazed me when I saw them side by side for the first time.

I assumed the same about the Dorchester Old Tom too, and spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Dorchester Bar trying it in various drinks (made excellently by Stefano Cossio) because I didn't think I'd be able to get hold of any. While I was there I learned, however, that they stock it in their gift shop. Though at around £60, I certainly don't use it as often as I do any of the other Old Toms!

Almost 3 years later, I finally noticed this behind the counter at a local Italian Deli... Not only that, but scored a lovely large bottle of Amarena Fabbri Wild Cherries in Syrup. Persistence pays! ← I've been trying to track down "Bitter Martini", a spirit by Martini & Rossi that I've seen mentioned in a few recipes recently. While searching for it, I came across China Martini which looks like Martini's attempt at quinine bitters. I much prefer that bottle though Erik! Does anyone know if China Martini and Bitter Martini are related at all? I'm struggling to find information on Bitter Martini, much less a source of it...

So now The Bitter Truth are releasing a celery bitters (I was lucky enough to try some, and they make a fantastic Martini!), does anyone have any old recipes that use them? The only one I've found is the Celery Sour from The Ideal Bartender, but it doesn't really sound all that interesting. A look around my (admittedly limited) bookshelf doesn't turn up anything... are there any other classic recipes that use them?

When I made my Hess bitters both the alcohol mixture and the water mixture was fairly clear, but it went very cloudy once I had combined the two. No amount of filtering with my Büchner funnel helped that, though last time I looked at the bottles it had cleared a little - still cloudy though. I'll check them tonight and see if they have settled any more, it's a while since I last looked. Troy - I'm glad you found your Regans' No. 5 bitters similar to mine, makes me more confident I actually did it correctly!

Troy, while I did make a batch of Hess House bitters, that post is in no way affiliated, endorsed or otherwise connected to Robert. However, I am still in the possession of said 30 bottles of Hess and Regans' Orange No. 5 bitters, so if anyone is up for a trans-Atlantic swap do let me know!

After reading this topic I picked up a bottle from Gerry's at the weekend. I agree with eas that it is well balanced. I found it quite subtle, but there are some interesting flavours going on - it reminded me most of a sweeter Plymouth gin. I wrote about my experience of it with several cocktails over at my blog - Old Tom gin. I really hope we see some other distilleries have a go at an Old Tom, this is certainly a promising start.

Thanks for your entries everybody. Was a fun MxMO, and I now have a big long list of new cocktails to try out!

I got my copy in the post yesterday - from the brief look I had it looks great. I love the old-fashioned illustrations, and the half-sized dust jacket looks very cool. I can't wait to get stuck in to it!