haresfur

Aw, half the fun is in complaining about the list. The other half? I'd say 1/4 tweaks to check out someplace you haven't been when you find yourself in the right town, and 1/4 the regeneration of fond memories of places you know. And isn't it great that there are now more than 25 cocktail bars worth noting? Probably wasn't the case in 1980.

What would you do: Choices are pretty limited here and as I keep whinging, prices are high. Looking for something for mixing. In the local stores my only rye choice is Jim Beam for $35. They also have Blanton's special reserve single barrel bourbon for $50. The Blanton's is only 80 proof btw (for export only). Mail order, Wild Turkey Rye is $57 + shipping. Other rye whiskey mail order is totally out of my price range. I bought the Blanton's because I was into instant gratification. Just couldn't bring myself to pay that much for Jim Beam. But I am interested in your thoughts on a high rye bourbon vs. Jim Beam rye, or if I just need to suck it up and get the WT.

First thought was Zig Zag is very deserving. Second thought, dang, it's going to be harder to get a seat at the bar. I agree about Portland although my experience is limited to one trip when I was recovering from swine flu and only got to Teardrop. I'm betting GQ reads this forum but just couldn't swing a trip to PDX.

I reported on my adventure with the SanRu here. Today I tried it, substituting Polish mead for the sherry: 1 1/4 oz gin (Seagram's up a little from the original) 1 oz Dubonnet 1 oz Kurpiowski mead build over ice As I did previously, I tasted then added a small lime wedge. This was really spectacular without the lime. After adding lime and finding no improvement (well perhaps a twist would have worked) I added a splash more mead. Yum.

Yes, not good timing for this MixMo but I wandered my way in through the back door. I had been thinking about exploring sherry cocktails, in part because a friend gave me a little bottle of Polish mead that I thought might be an interesting substitution for sherry. But a substitution in what? That will have to wait for another night though, because I'm at my limit. Sherry is daunting since there is such a variety from sweet to dry and all the intimidating oleroso, fino, amontillado, stuff. But my parents were partial to a spot of Bristol cream or Bristol milk, or whatever and as a teenager I was happy to join in a sip if offered. Now I find myself in the land of reasonably reasonable fortified wines, Australia. But that has it's own problems: It is bad enough that cocktail recipes are often vague about what type of sherry to use, but even if specified, how do I translate into the local product? After much head scratching in the liquor store, I gave up and bought a bottle of generic cream sherry, figuring if it didn't do the job in a drink, I could always just hit myself over the head with the bottle. In the old cocktail books, sherry seems to show up mainly in variations of generic drinks and in things like flips, which are out since I'm trying to cut down on the cholesterol. So it was back to eGullet, excuse me, the eGullet Society for Cullinary Arts & Letters, to figure out what to mix. Luckily there is a port and sherry cocktail topic to provide guidance. I say guidance because I tend to find something that sounds promising and then figure out how to come close with my rather spartan liquor supply. I settled on a loose interpretation of the SanRu. I had Dubonnet but no Cherry Heering. No matter, Cascade brewery makes a nice raspberry syrup to add a fruit component. SaRu(ish) 1 oz "cream" sherry 1 oz Seagrams gin 1 oz Dubonnet rouge 1/2 tsp Cascade raspberry syrup build over ice. At that point it was one of those "sequential" drinks: raspberry, then sherry, then Dubonnet. The gin surprisingly hid in the background. But something was missing. Hmm, garnish. There in the fridge was a tiny remaining slice of lime, precious as gold. And that's the thing about lime: you can load up a sour with lime juice and make a nice drink... or you can add a tiny bit of lime to a drink to turn something decent into something special.

McCafe is well established at Maccas in Australia. They usually have at least a separate ordering and serving area at the counter (although you can then usually order at the same counter as the regular food). In many locations the McCafe is at a separate counter in the building. They have coffee, muffins, cakes, and biscuits. The coffee isn't as good as the better real cafes or even as good as Starbucks but is drinkable IMO. That and free WiFi have made me a convert. The ambiance is quite a bit better with even the little amount of remodeling if the TV isn't too loud - but it had nowhere to go but up, eh?

I think Tiki drinks are a good suggestion - fun, easy to drink, and you can pack a ton of alcohol in if that is your wish . I'll probably get slammed for suggesting it, but you can sub in amaretto for orgeat if you don't want to go to the effort of making or acquiring the latter. But if you are going for more "sophisticated" any of the classic sours should work. Nothing wrong with a good mojito, either (and someone who plucks their own mint right off the plant should make anyone swoon). Clear drinks are probably more of a challenge but there are some good suggestions here.

I'd put Barbancourt 5* far up in the smooth category. Maybe you could try a flight of similar rum or whiskys with varying quality and proof. Then let us know if your impression of "smooth" relates to % alcohol or something else (or a combination).

I would try the Tinton again, probably with Calvados. Perhaps some extra stirring because I wasn't quite prepared for the initial sock of the nearly pure brandy, even though I wasn't using bonded. So I suspect the skill of the bartender matters for this one.

A few days ago I tried the Tinton cocktail from Savoy, via eje's blog using the end of my Laird's 12 yr apple brandy and Widbey Island port. It was ok. Then I decided to turn it into a fizzy drink with Henry of Harcort Duck and Bull (hard) cider made from a combination of pink lady and traditional cider apples. I think it would have worked better mixed than using the port as a sink since it was hard to judge the right proportions. So what would this be? Not really a sangaree or a fizz or a shandy. Surely it must have been done before.

I agree, but in my neighbourhood the multinational beverage corporations are making most of their profit off pre-mix cans of Jack & Coke or the like. Talk about your culinary apocalypse...

A design for a scientific experiment is creative and expressive but you can't copyright it. A mathematical proof is creative and expressive but you can't copyright it. A process for diagnosing a disease is creative and expressive but you can't copyright it. A philosophic argument might be creative and expressive but you can't copyright it. A design for say a pair of skis is creative and expressive but you can't copyright it (although you can copyright the graphic you put on top). A computer program generally IMO is not expressive but you can copyright it. Utilitarian photographs documenting an object are not expressive but can be copyright. A book on Birds of the world is copyright but the list that goes into it and the taxonomic system are not. I'd say there isn't a single test of whether something is "worthy" of copyright protection. It is fundamentally a political decision and I tend to agree with Sam that "benefit to society" is a reasonable test, although subject to considerable abuse.

I'm still trying to get my brain around your proposal. Law doesn't work very well with vague boundaries. The recipe of ingredients and instructions for putting them together isn't copyright. The technique wouldn't be copyright - like you wouldn't copyright finger-picking a guitar even if it had never been done before. It seems to me you are proposing copyright protection for "presentation". So the ingredients mixed don't matter but the way the "dish" looks when put in front of the customer does. Is that correct? I still have a lot of problems with that. Would a copyright on the "melon ball" cover all kinds of melon? How about infusing melon with the same spirit and making a sculpture of stacked balls? Stacked cubes? I can't overlook some issues with the way copyright laws have been written and implemented for other areas. The successful litigation over trivial music snippets has been mentioned previously. It is all very well to say a simple cocktail shouldn't be covered but fancy ones should but that isn't the way things have worked out in music. In addition IMO the recent changes to copyright law extending the coverage for decades is absurd. Why should works of art, books, etc. be worthy of longer protection than patents? Then when you consider that people can republish a work with some minor additions and gain essentially exclusive rights, (I'm not an expert, but it looks that way) creative ideas are locked away in perpetuity, stifling creation. Try to get Jerry Thomas' bartenders guide from Google Books. Didn't Google cut a deal with the publishing companies so they wouldn't be sued for something like that where someone has decided to republish (reproduce) it? It's not a case of being against any protection of IP but I am against extending badly written and implemented laws any further. Perhaps, but practically unenforceable. I know of potters who have had designs taken and knocked off by overseas factories. Maybe someone should ask Freeman if he has given up IP rights to the things he creates in his new job. Any bets?

Perusing random old posts... Prichard's cranberry rum over an ice cube is a nice sip. EMP is a big fan of the rum and of Fjord horse on the label.

A lot of people will loose. Bartenders won't be able to make the drinks they invented if they move to another bar. They may not even be able to make variations on those drinks. No one else will be able to make similar drinks. We won't be able to have the vibrant discussions that include recipes. And I believe it is the educated enthusiastic aficionados that really are driving the renaissance of cocktails because they are the ones willing to seek out and pay for a good drink. This hits the heart of the matter. It's the execution that is the real value.

I upgraded the wiring and breaker when I installed my induction range. But I'd upgraded the panel previously. Whether you go over your home's total panel availability depends on your other power requirements. Do you have an electric hot water heater? Electric heat? Will you be turning motors on causing peak demand? An electrician may be able to install a sub-panel for the range and save you a little over having the whole panel replaced. Personally I vote for doing it right. But you really need to talk to a good electrician.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to see him get a cut if some huge chain copied his work. But why would they bother? - the logistics seem impractical and they could sell nearly as many "martinis". Besides, jello shots have been consumed by university students for a long time and spiked watermelon has been around for even longer. It appears that the Surreal Gourmet started making other food look like bacon and eggs over a decade ago (think there was also an app. of honeydew and cantaloupe cut to look like a fried egg). So it looks like he took preexisting elements and combined them in a creative way. I don't know how it would play out in court if the situation were covered under copyright law but I tend not to bet against acres of lawyers.

I don't think this is correct in practice - a number of the best known music copyright cases involve people staking claims to simple melody snippets or chord progressions that are far from a large innovative or creative work as a whole. The George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" and a recent Australian case around the Kookaburra Song come to mind. There doesn't seem to be any distinction in copyright law between unremarkable incremental changes and high art. But you can't copyright creativity - just the product of that creativity. I can sympathize, too, but economic investment and hard work just don't enter into the consideration of whether something is worthy of protection or not. And maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think you could copyright a technique - that's where you would have to look to patents or some other form of IP protection. Putting aside discussion of whether the purpose of the copyright laws is to encourage creativity or whether they have the opposite effect, I could argue that there has been considerable innovation in cooking and cocktail mixing without protection, too. It just appears that some people think their efforts are undervalued and undercompensated. For IP protection to make any difference, there would have to be a significant way for it to generate revenue. I'm scratching my head as to what that would be. I don't understand his motives. I just don't see how IP protection would enhance his revenue. I can see how it might make it easier to punish someone who steals an idea. So perhaps litigation is where money could be made. I can understand wanting credit for your work. As a non-professional I'm not sure if I'd be pleased or pissed to see one of my drinks on a bar menu with no attribution to my nom d'electron. Aside from those, are there other possible motives at play?

I think he's heading in exactly the wrong direction. The thing to do is to get your ideas disseminated as widely as possible and as soon as possible as your ideas. No one is going to make any royalties on a drink - the commodity here is the bartender, not the cocktail. Your best bet is to enhance your reputation and make the "brand ambassador" and thus the brand look silly for plagiarism. And go down that route yourself if you think it is in your best interests. I'm sure the manufacturers would prefer to deal with someone with a reputation as truly creative than a hack. And as good scientists know, the best way to claim an idea is to publish first. Now if you are planning on writing a book or an article, by all means keep your ideas under wraps until you get them worked out. Maybe if you are developing a unique menu for a big chain, they would want some kind of protection but I doubt they would give you the intellectual property rights. Maybe if you want to team with George Foreman to market the George Foreman Bar to go with the Grill (Hey kids, want to know what to do with that fat from your steak? Put it into the Bar accessory with some rye, marinate, skim off the booze, and get the rest of the flavor with none of the fat...). Actually the only place I can think of in the "spirit world" where IP has any meaning is for the manufacturers who have a big enough market to make it worthwhile to keep people guessing about the exact formula for, say, Fernet Branca. So if you have a great drink idea, make sure it can be bottled and these days preferably make it taste like Kool-Aid .

Keeps getting better IMO although EMP prefers the Kill or Cure. The Flowing Bowl calls the K or C on the rocks with an orange slice "l'Appetit"

Tried this tonight. Definitely "Cure"

This was a great opportunity for me to try to work out something using Inner Circle Rum. So this is loosely based on a Toronto cocktail. Since Toronto seems to be a non-sequitur I figured I'd call this: the Auckland 1 oz Inner Circle Red rum 1 oz brandy 3 teaspoons Fernet 1 teaspoon 1:1 simple syrup about 3 good dashes Fees aromatic bitters about 3 good dashes Regans orange bitters Stir with ice, strain float of your favorite rum on top (for lack of anything better I used Captain Morgan's Dark, but please don't hold that against me.) I suppose the non-metric units are out of place, too.

I don't expect subjectivity in spirit reviews. Interesting, because as I think about it, I don't see the language developed in a way to make subjective reviews possible or meaningful. The beer people can talk about "true to style" and hop profiles, and yeast qualities in a way that pretty much describes a bottle. Wine people have their whole language - not that I can personally relate it to what I would like or dislike. But for spirits there are few stylistic guidelines. Maybe for single malts but they are strongly location oriented so not much more help than looking at the label. London dry gin is a distinct style, I suppose, but how good are people at describing the differences within the style in a way that let's you know whether something is worth buying? Most of the words thrown around are so generic, I'm not sure how much use they are or how often they are used because they sound impressive, "smooth" "citrus" "caramel" "oak" "funk". Personally I rely on eGullet and sometimes on favorite bartenders. Not that my tastes always align with either. I suppose that's no help to someone who wants to be at the front of the curve but there are some advantages in not being an early adopter. My eGullet strategy could probably be applied to the aggregate of internet reviews, with caution regarding freebies from companies. Much can be gleaned from how people write about a spirit. If someone says that a particular rum makes an amazing Ti punch then that would carry more weight with me than if they only use it in some weird combination of ingredients where its influence is diluted or perhaps neutralized. It is not necessarily bad for an ingredient to be the basis for an entry into a cocktail competition, but I take it with a grain of salt that it is the best of it's kind or even that it is worth exploring. Certainly a long thread dedicated to a specific form of booze is promising. A few more posts and I'll have to break down and buy a bottle of Cynar. Staying power is good, but not everything. If people seem to tire of something and head off in other directions, then maybe it isn't so amazing after all. Anyone remember St Germaine? Nice stuff but maybe not so important. I think the hardest is to judge among the various base spirits because the nuances are very subjective and because so much depends on how it is used. The skill of the bartender is in how they can make the most out of a particular spirit and I suspect sometimes something gets panned because it doesn't behave like the one they are used to. Then again sometimes getting the most out of something means using it to clean windows...

Let's just say I need more visitors from the old country...

Guess I'm off to the eGullet hall of shame because when I read this I had 2 different editions of the Moosewood open as I tried to morph between the two. Guess I won't invite you over for black bean soup. Yeah some of the recipes suck but that's the same for most cookbooks. ... ok maybe I should say some of the recipes don't suck. My vote would be for almost any blender cookbook.