haresfur

today Powells put several copies online for $10; available on amazon marketplace or directly, so hurry up if you're interested ← Me too. Thanks!

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."

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

← But will it tell me if I'm supposed to like it?

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!

Check out the syrup flavor shown on this bottle label! Torani Orgeat

← 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.

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.

hmmmm 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.

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.

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?

Sounds like the makings of a great science-fair project

You can use it to "bread" eggplant for parmigiana (sp?). Tastes good and oh, so healthy.

First trial of the ginger infusion I made. It didn't freeze in the chest freezer - so far so good. Straight it is strong but sippable - not bad. Then I threw some stuff together: 2 oz Appleton White Rum 1/2 oz ginger vodka 1/2 oz cheap Triple Sec 2 oz lime juice 1 oz 1:1 simple syrup (or was it 1/2 oz :-( Shake with ice, strain, serve with 1 cube and a lime wedge. Threw in a tad more ginger. I think it has promise

I like Murchies, but I'm not sure how any Earl Grey would go with chocolate. Guess I'll have to try it sometime.

I'm getting more into distilled spirits (and trying to make up for lost time ) so I'm no expert but I'm pretty impressed with Tangle Ridge 100% rye from Canada.

I think it depends in part on what you like (or can develop a taste for), in part on what sort of image you want to convey (what *do* you want to look like?), and what sort of establishments (something that they won't totally screw up but will be really good when made well). You probably don't want to order something they won't have a clue how to make but it sounds like you want to show a certain level of sophistication. Just avoid anything with too suggestive a name I agree a sidecar may fit the bill. Maybe something rum based like a daquiri, if you don't like gin, a rum collins could work. If rum sounds to "pirate" for your crowd, you could try a whiskey sour. If you like wine, but want to go a bit more unusual, kir is tasty. Or Dubonnet on the rocks with a lemon twist. What's the point of drinking if you don't enjoy it? Maybe you could conscript a friend to go do some research with you?

I recently celebrated surviving the 'flu season by infusing some of my massive bag of candied ginger into vodka and have a few questions like, "Now what?" I filled a pint mason jar about 1/3 - 1/2 full of coarsely chopped candied ginger topped it up with Fris vodka and let sit for about a week. Had a really hard time filtering it through coffee filters - clogged immediately. Any ideas why or a better way to filter? BTW, I mixed the leftover ginger with orange marmalade and slathered it on a chunk of halibut that I baked - yummy. Right now the infusion is sitting in the deep freeze and I have only tasted the potent drops spilled on my fingers. Do I want to let it age at room temperature for a while longer? Would that kill the heat (and would that be a good or a bad thing?). So where would this stuff work better than say, ginger beer, in a cocktail? I don't think it is something that would be wonderful neat. The only idea I found upthread was #42. Then, I was wondering if you get a different flavor from a ginger-alcohol infusion from a ginger syrup, and if there is any advantage to each. Opinions? Thanks everyone. In the last year my liquor cabinet went from an ancient bottle of Oban, Cointreau, and some CC to overflowing so I'm still getting the hang of things.

Perogies (deep fried) and sour cream - a favorite in Manitoba pubs. At home I like to eat them with mango chutney. Never developed a taste for dulse and beer - Nova Scotia style, but I love the idea. We were really popular in Yellowknife NWT when we showed up at the bar with insanely salty Dall-sheep jerky.