Penwu

About the Anejo Highball...I just tried one with the addition of 1/4oz pimento dram (St Elizabeth), and it was really flippin' good. The allspice really fits in well. I tried it because apparently Dale DeGroff originally made them that way: (http://www.smallscreennetwork.com/video/97/anejo/)

I've been building up a list of interesting, hard-to-find liquor that just isn't available in Arizona (for some reason, Phoenix seems to have a serious lack of really good liquor stores). I saw a mention of Hi Time Wines somewhere, and when I checked out their catalog I found almost everything that had piled up on my "unavailable" list! The prices are pretty good, too. Maybe not screaming deals, but I'd've been willing to pay more for some of this stuff just because I can't find it anywhere. They delivered overnight via private courier/package service (cost: $20 for a $155 order), so they might be able to skirt some of the shipping regs in some states. Anyway, I thought it might be a great resource for other folks in those poor over-regulated places. I'll certainly go back to them when I need to restock and get more unusual ingredients (Canton Ginger liqueur is definitely on my list for next time).

Another one (which I happen to be drinking as I write this) is Satan's Whiskers: 1/2 oz gin 1/2 oz sweet vermouth 1/2 oz dry vermouth 1/2 oz orange juice 1/2 oz orange curacao 2 dashes orange bitters Shaken

Thanks, guys. I'll definitely be getting Campari and R&W Creme de Violette. I do have Fee Bros orange bitters, but I've been meaning to get some Angostura orange as well. Dunno about the yellow Chartreuse, though - it's just pretty expensive, and I really like my green Chartreuse... As for vermouth, I should have been clearer. I do have some 375s of M&R sweet and dry, it's the more expensive stuff I'm leery of getting, like Carpano Antica.

I've been dabbling with rum for a while, and I've built up a pretty good stock of the various styles of rum, and a bunch of liqueurs and such that are generally used with rum (orgeat, falernum, etc). Now I'm looking to get to know gin better. I'm making a mail-order purchase from Hi Time Wines, and to save money on shipping, I'd like to pick up as much as possible at once. I have a pretty good selection of gins at my local liquor stores, but I'm wondering what specialty items go particularly well with gin, so that I can get them with this order. I do already have Maraschino (Luxardo), Green Chartreuse, Cointreau, Apry, and Benedictine. Any others that would jump out as important for gin cocktails? I'm a bit leery of getting any really good vermouths simply because I don't go through booze very quickly, and I expect vermouth would go stale on me before I had drunk much of it...

Soy sauce sometimes. Or Worcestershire sauce. Some people like a lot of hot sauce; some just a little. Often a whole lot of lime juice (3/4 oz or more). Some people like a chilled glass, some want a little ice, some want a lot of ice. Some people want tomato juice or a premade bloody mary mix. I'm sure they're tasty to drink, but I detest making the things. I can't predict what people expect, and always have to either play 20 questions when taking the order or remake the drink (after squeezing my whole tray of lime wedges). It doesn't help that they seem to be ordered exclusively by people who don't tip.

Mine is 32% as well...

A friend of mine recently returned from a trip to Mexico, and was kind enough to bring me back a bottle of Havana Club rum. Being wary of confiscation, though, she got the cheapest one available, Blanco. Can anyone tell me what thew quality is like on this? I've seen a fair amount of talk about "Blanco Anejo", but this is just "Blanco". Is it worth drinking, or should I keep it as a neat souvenir and stick to drinking/mixing the white rums that are readily available in the US?

I forgot to get some fruit for tonight's cocktail, so I decided to try out one of the recipes in "Vintage Spirits" that I could make with my still fairly small home bar: pink gin. I like bitters, and I've had a pretty favorable time with my one gin brand (Plymouth) - so I was dubious but hopeful about combining the two. I made a definite point to make sure my shaking got it suitably diluted, but ended up not enjoying the result. Just too harsh for me. I drank a bit of it, and then added a little bit of sweetness (about 1/4oz velvet falernum, into 1oz of gin and probably another 1oz of water) to make the remainder more palatable. It still didn't really taste good, but it was drinkable (I'd hate to toss liquor out). Given the simplicity, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong in the mixing...perhaps this is just more of an acquired taste? If I had someone who claimed to not like gin, I'd give them an Aviation long before a Pink Gin.

Thanks, guys! I just picked up a bottle of Plymouth, and I'm sipping on a 4:1:1 Aviation as I type this. Very tasty - much more than I had expected. Busboy, perhaps a bit of background is in order. I actually am a bartender. About a year ago I was stuck in a really lousy job and looking for something different, and I went to a bartending school as a sort of "well, why not?" option. Note that I had never really drunk alcohol at all; didn't like that ubiquitous alcohol flavor I found in all the wine, beer, and cocktails I ever tried. Anyway, I passed the bar school course, and they got me a lead on a really good bartending gig, which I have been doing ever since. (In retrospect, I didn't get much out of the school beyond that one job lead, but that alone was well worth the time and money). Anyway, I found that I really enjoyed what I was doing, especially the detailed and eclectic knowledge about all sorts of spirits. I realized I would have to start drinking to ever really move beyond beer-tap-jockey as a 'tender - and the bar I work at has a pretty limited selection of spirits (and drinking on the job is verboten anyway), so I have to build up my home bar to play with the interesting stuff. I'm quite enjoying the process of trying out all these, but there is such a huge field of liquors to discover that I decided to do it in a more-or-less organized manner, one major spirit at a time. And now I've finished off my Aviation, and the last sip was even better than the first. I suppose it should have been, since I really like Maraschino and the smell of juniper. Next up will be a Ginger Rogers (a riff on the mojito, from "The Art of the Bar", using gin and ginger-infused simple syrup) with dinner.

I am slowly working on developing a home bar and taste for alcohol, and it's about time for me to take a step into the world of gin (until now, I have focused on experiencing sugar cane spirits). There are just way to many really interesting looking cocktails based on gin for me to ignore any longer. So, what would you folks recommend as a first gin? Price isn't really an object for me, though I don't think I need to grab something like Old Raj quite yet. I have been planning on Plymouth, as I see it recommended by name in a lot of recipes, and it appears to be pretty highly regarded amongst internet cocktail geeks. What think ye?