haresfur
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Posts posted by haresfur
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That's just wrong!
I'd rather a place just admitted they don't have ginger ale. I guess I'll just stick to beer next time I'm there.
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Is ginger ale as a mixer an East Coast thing?
I went to the Issaquah Brewhouse and distillery last week. They are owned by Rogue and the distillery part is pretty new. At the suggestion of the waiter I decided to try the hazelnut rum. Asked if I could get a dark and stormy and had to explain it used ginger beer. He said they didn't have ginger beer and didn't even have ginger ale - he found this strange being from the east coast. He suggested a rum and Coke. I negotiated up to getting a lime wedge with it.
So, without getting into the wisdom of trying to sell designer spirits without having more than a basic bar, is ginger ale not typically found in west coast bars? What about other areas?
The first time I had rum and ginger ale was hitch hiking on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia where it involved passing a rum bottle followed by a can of ginger ale, but I don't have much experience with mixed drinks in west coast bars because, in the Pacific Northwest, even the most dive bars tend to have decent microbeer.
With hindsight, I would have done best with a shot and an ale chaser.
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This Spring, I set out to devise a portable cocktail bar that could be carried on a bicycle. This is what I came up with. I took an Axiom rack trunk and turned it into a portable martini bar. There is ample room to add a few more items to increase the variety of drinks that could be made. In this photo you can see gin miniatures (the vodka bottle is for vermouth, naturally); a mini shaker; a thermos (with insulated case) for ice; orange bitters; and two small cylinders for olives and twists. Plastic martini glass are slung onto the side by velcro straps.
Very cool!
Also all the other good ideas.
To clarify: I didn't want to restrict the topic too narrowly, sorry for any confusion. I think there's a sliding scale of capacity or complexity. Certainly, sometimes when I'm camping I don't have access to ice, but some trips, ice may not be an issue (unless you demand a certain size or temperature
). If two bottles or a few flasks would make up your ideal traveling bar, I'd be interested in hearing about it. The mini shaker could come in handy...Also if there is a drink list that matches your somewhat minimalist bar, let's hear it. Thanks.
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Both points are well taken. As nice as a flask of single malt whisky may be, a really good rum may be more versatile for sipping and mixing - if you don't feel too sinful using it in cocktails. Citrus keeps ok, and now that I see the hint that you can freeze lemons (& I assume limes) they can keep the cooler chilled, too! But, yeah, good fresh fruit would be a good reason to go with rum.
Now if you want to add bitters into the mix, what about a good brandy? Sidecars, brandy Sazeracs, and you can drink it straight and warm if you have no ice...
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What do you like to make when traveling, when you may be limited in the kit and supplies you can take along? Any ideas for iceless camping drinks? If you had to bring just one bottle, what would it be? Are there a few choice items that would give you a good range of drinks to mix?
I was at a kayak symposium recently and, although I'd brought a variety of bottles along, I ended up making Dark and Stormy variations that were well received and easy enough: Cruzan dark rum, 1/2 lime juiced, and ginger beer. Even warm, they were quite tasty. I'd give you more precise measures but they varied widely as the night wore on...
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2004 Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh (out of print, $26-100)
today Powells put several copies online for $10; available on amazon marketplace or directly, so hurry up if you're interested
Me too. Thanks!
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The site says that mixing water to whiskey generates dilution heat, causing it to rise to about 3 C in temperature. By cooking the glass and the whisky well enough, you can make mizuwari where the whisky is hard to dilute, keeping the balance of flavors.
I am not aware of anything known as "dilution heat." In order for combining whiskey with water to cause the resultant solution to rise in temperature from, there would have to be an exothermic reaction. In consideration of the fact that the whiskey is already at least 50% water, I would say that this is impossible on a chemical basis.
Well, it's been a long time since I took physical chemistry but I assure you it is possible.
Because the weak bonds/interactions between highly polar water and less polar ethanol are different, you get changes in physical properties that are not strictly additive when the two are mixed. So you get a delta-H of mixing that is, um, I think positive and the temperature increases. The effect is really noticeable when you dilute nitric acid with water - it can get really hot. On the other hand if you mix acetic acid and water it gets cold because of the opposite effect on the bonding.
I don't know the magnitude of the temperature effect in mixing alcohol and water or if it really has any effect on the resulting drink. It seems to me that the heat taken up by melting the ice is the same whether it occurs before or after the mixing. But as I pointed out thermodynamics is not always intuitive...
A related illustration is from my thermo textbook (I was hoping they would give me an easy answer to the temperature question). They provide the following example:
"A corrupt barman attempts to prepare 100 cm^3 of some drink by mixing 30 cm^3 of ethanol with 70 cm^3 of water. Does he succeed?" (I'm sure you do this all the time
) Skipping the calculations, the answer is that the volume of the mixture is 96.8 cm^3.Oops, they go on to say, "Comment: It would probably be unwise to attempt to explain this to the barman."
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Going back to the initial question, I think the answer is relatively simple. The Japanese are (or at least were) less familiar with whisky than with sake, and probably find it less off-putting to dilute it with water. On the other hand, many Japanese would feel it rather (or very) offensive to dilute sake with water or use it as a base for a cocktail.
You can do creative and innovative things to something you are not familiar with, like making weird spicy sushi rolls, and the Japanese can put mayo and corn on their pizzas.
Very nice, thanks.
There are things in many cultures that don't make sense when explored from another context. Like, "... stir with ice and strain into an ice filled glass..." In my opinion it is best to embrace the diversity of approaches without over-thinking everything.
In Japan you can spend hours making a bowl of tea (although I understand tea ceremony is not "mainstream"). In the Pacific Northwest USA you can walk all over town sipping your, now tepid, venti soy Chai.
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My latest Campari sacrilege:
1 Campari
2 Tawney Port
2 dashes Fee's Orange Bitters
Orange twist to garnish
Mix Campari and port over ice, add bitters and garnish.
I figured "way bitter" and "way sweet" ought to work together. The orange bitters really make the difference to me. I tried Regan's orange bitters and they didn't seem quite right.
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"How do you get home" indeed. I think that's cut back on the element of excess that used to exist.
(The role of Dionysian mysteries and the Bacchanalian orgies in the growth of Greek and Roman cultures is talked about less and less these days, I must say. Nor is the use of "soma" in the Aryan expansion into the Indus Valley brought up about the coffee urn at work anymore
*)I thought that the Aryans lost access to Soma as they expanded into the lowlands of the Indus Valley and the ritual morphed from quaffing amanita muscaria tea into a more abstract concept of religion.
"How do you get home" indeed. I think that's cut back on the element of excess that used to exist....
The more egalitarian 50s led to new needs. In suburbs thrown up to accommodate an influx of people moving to urban centers, the cocktail hour of the community acted to quickly develop new bonds amongst people from disparate climes.
But this slowly passed as we moved into the 60s and 70s. I blame drugs, myself, which have less of a social element about them (that's only my rather ill-inforrmed opinion, however).
I guess you never went to a 1960's style pot party. Also see comment regarding Soma *ritual* above.
In N. America I do tend to blame the drunk driving problem on the demise of the corner bar. I blame the demise of the corner bar on prohibitionism in our zoning departments. "Drugs" may have contributed a little to the demise of the cocktail hour but only because they provided alternatives. I think the expanded living space of our homes is partly to blame - in the past pubs and bars served part of the function of our living rooms as the social interaction space. We shot ourselves in the foot when we got bigger houses with more awake-space and found there was no one else around to be social with.
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Interesting this topic should resurface at this time. A recent article in the newspaper indicates a group of college and university presidents have formed the "Amethyst Initiative", which is in favor of reducing the college drinking age to 18 from 21.
...
Personally, my opinion is that if we can't talk college kids (and others) into behaving responsibly with alcohol now, we shouldn't expect to be able to just because the law has changed.
I'd love to hear your comments.
I think that the drinking age should be lowered to 14 so kids have a good 2 years of drinking under their belt before they are allowed to get behind the wheel.
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As a WASPY sweet-hating drinker, a good g and t is a classic. I adore rye and bitter lemon, if you can find bitter lemon at a grocery store near you. I apologize that I don't have a longer list, but this ignorant conservative drinker's list, (fewer than ten) might look like this.
Negroni
Campari and Tonic
Gin and tonic
(Withdrawing in shame. I know I don't belong here.)
Just curious, can you really taste the difference between a Campari & tonic and a Campari & soda? Don't get me wrong - you horrible people have got me drinking and liking Campari, but it does tend to make everything taste like, well, Campari IMO. Maybe I need a few more bottles under my belt to refine my palate.
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Not exactly directly in line with the GG problem, but I think in the "spirit" of this topic: I was at a place recently where their drink menu said, "Muddled drinks available."
Hmm, I've heard of that, sounds sophisticated and cocktailian. I didn't know quite what to make of this, did they actually know when to muddle a drink, was it a clue to someone that they would make your drink properly if you knew the list of drinks that should be muddled, was it marketing hype, or just an indication that they had a stick of wood behind the bar?
So I ordered an Old Fashioned and got a blank look from the waitress. Said I preferred bourbon to rye and wanted fruit. She didn't have a clue what rye was anyway and pointed to their bourbon list. I decided to play it save and go high end. I think the bartender had to look it up but the drink was ok. I wonder if I should have just said "bartender's choice" for the spirit or if that would be asking for trouble?
So this brings up another issue, it isn't only the bartender that needs to have a clue regarding drinks - a quality experience depends on the knowledge of the whole staff, just as if I was wondering what wine to order.
Their specialty cocktail list was dominated by flavored vodkas so I assume it is indicative of the fad aspect rather than a desire to present a wide range of innovative choices.
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Great for kayaking. Remove the box and the bag nestles securely at the bottom of the kayak. When you are done with the wine, you can blow up the bag and use it as a pillow. A secure way to reseal it would be nice for wine on the move, though.
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Another tidbit from Chemical Science:An electronic tongue that can 'taste' the grape varieties and vintages of wine has been created by Spanish scientists.
Cecilia Jiménez-Jorquera from the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, and colleagues, created a multisensor device and trained it to distinguish between different wines and grape juices.
When speaking with specialists of the wine industry, the need for a rapid route to obtain valuable information about product quality was noticed, explains Jiménez-Jorquera. It takes a long time to send samples to a centralised laboratory for analysis with complex equipment.
But will it tell me if I'm supposed to like it?
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Sometimes the drink comes first, sometimes the locale, and sometimes the *name*.
And it happens I have a drink that I can stretch to make into an entry this month. It is named after a fine, venerable, company - the Tacoma Screw.
So first the story: Sitting at the dinner table my wife mentioned to our niece that she needed to stop by Tacoma Screw in the morning to pick up some bolts for her horse carriage. Much silliness later, it was decided that we needed to honor the company with a cocktail "worth paying extra for".
Obviously an orange juice base was in order. Tacoma is a seaport and I like rum... Lot's of blackberries on that side of the state but as near as I can tell the WA state liquor control board doesn't have blackberry liqueur so I substituted Cassis - honoring our local puritanical version of socialism (... not that there's anything wrong with that...)
The Tacoma Screw
In a rocks glass mix:
2 oz white rum
3 oz orange juce
ice cubes
pour in 1 oz Cassis without mixing
float a splash of Pyrat XO rum on top
Enjoy!
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Check out the syrup flavor shown on this bottle label!
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I *like* the acrid flavor of espresso poured over ice. I prefer my americano made by dumping the shots on top of lots of ice and then topping up with water. Add some raw sugar and milk without stirring, sip through a straw so you get alternating slugs of sweet and bitter - yum! I think the real reason is that the owner is trying to preserve his milk supply. But even if he gives away the milk, I suspect he is not losing money or at least not as much as he is losing by being a pompous whatever.
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I'm off and on trying to work out a a variation on the sidecar that I want to call the "motorcycle diary" that turns out to be more of a variation on between the sheets - using Pisco instead of brandy and maybe dark rum (Cuban rum?-). Think I might have to go to lime juice because lemon doesn't seem quite right. My current sip using Gran Gala instead of triple sec shows some promise.
Any suggestions are welcome.
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Aging beer
in Beer
Certain kinds of beer can be aged, and can really improve with time. The higher ABV beers tend to fit this mold, along with lambics. This is why my apartment has a whole closet of beer to be drank at a later date -- whether it be a year from how or 10 (the lambics in particular are waiting for a while).hmmmm
... my boyfriend ...bummer.
Well the "aficionado" I referred to is my 22 yr old niece. ... what's your annual income?
I knew some beer aged well, what I found most interesting was the difference between the two bottles. I suppose this could tie back to the screw cap vs. cork controversy for wine. I wonder what it would have been like if I had started with a really good beer.
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Aging beer
in Beer
You might be interested in a happy discovery I recently made.
I stopped brewing beer quite a while ago – I didn't seem to have time and wasn't drinking enough to get good at it (the former excuse still holds but I'm not sure the later still does). My last batch, christened by my DB as “Trash the Kitchen Imperial Stout” (never let your Imp. boil over) was a disaster in other ways, too. In a mis-guided attempt to sweeten up the recipe, I added too much molasses, not knowing that the molasses flavor results from unformentable chemicals. This resulted in a vile, highly alcoholic watered down blackstrap.
So about 8 years later, I found some liter bottles with ceramic caps and a 12 pack of 12 oz bottles of the stuff left in a basement cupboard. I cautiously slipped some from a liter bottle to a beer afficionado who said, “High abv but drinkable.”
Sure enough, after almost a decade, the alcohol had kept the beer preserved but the molasses had mellowed away.
But wait, there's more. We opened one of the 12 oz bottles with a regular cap and the beer hadn't gotten any worse but there was still an overly strong smack of molasses. My theory is that the cap sealed too well and you needed the little bit of oxidation through the rubber gasket on the ceramic cap to take out the unformentables.
Is there a moral here? Maybe that brewing chemistry is way more complex than I understand or that beer-gods are benevolent if you are patient.
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Dulse and beer?
My parents immigrated to Nova Scotia from western Canada after I left home so I didn't gain much knowledge of local cooking - aside from getting jugs of seawater for boiling lobster.
The other thing I remember is the availability of wonderful old varieties of apples.
You didn't mention the immigrant freed slaves who found refuge in Nova Scotia (as opposed to the Acadians who went the other way). Are there any remnants of their cooking culture?
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Sounds like the makings of a great science-fair project
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You can use it to "bread" eggplant for parmigiana (sp?). Tastes good and oh, so healthy.
Organic beer: list
in Beer
Posted
FWIW, hops are highly susceptible to powdery and downy mildew, which can really decimate production and be very difficult to eradicate or even treat.
Thus organic hop production could be a challenge, and certainly would be in areas where powdery mildew has been reported, like the Pacific Northwest. On the bright side, many local small-scale operations could be a good thing in this case since there is less chance for spreading the infection. Also some labor-intensive management practices apparently can help, and there may be some treatments considered organic (I'm no expert).
I read that hops are very toxic to dogs so watch how you recycle anything containing them.