auds

Thanks bostonapothecary--some Noilly Prat and a bit of simple fixed her right up. I forget that sugar is more than just sweetness, that it can help meld the flavors together. i wish i could try it out but i don't have any ginger liqueur... but on paper it looks very tart... a 1:1 liqueur to lemon/lime acid is a good starting point for most products but you are .25 over the limit plus more acid in the form of very tart sparkling wine (brut cristalino??)... a little more sugar could be a flavor enhancer... or subbing out a fraction of your lime juice... dry vermouth could add some of the complexity you desire and is carribean approved IMO... dry vermouth is an acid but far less tart than lime juice... ginger, angostura and any of the plantation rums sounds like my kind of drink... you just need an acid / sugar balance within the average of most people's tastes... cheers. ←

So I've been playing around with trying to make a variation on a Dark and Stormy in honor of my friend Elaine, whose favorite drink it is and who is being thrown a party on Friday. Why not just make actual Dark and Stormys? I dunno. Too easy! But here's what I've got so far (if anyone's got comments, please, I'd appreciate the help): Light and 'Liane-y 1.5 oz Barbados Plantation Rum .75 oz lime juice .5 oz (scant) Canton ginger liqueur 2 dash angustura stir, strain, top with champagne (or actually Cristalino, given my budget) It's good, but maybe could use something? Better with a dark rum? It's got a nice fizziness and a good gingery bite, but not as much complexity as I was hoping for. I've been messing around with proportions and different types of bitters, and this was the best so far. Cheers, Audrey

Hey dudes-- Lurker type, relatively new to the fold, thought I'd try and join the party. I recently got my first bottle of Laird's Apple Bond and dang if it's not delicious. I've been putting it in whatever struck my fancy and tonight made a Champs Elysee variation I think might be appropriately called the Short Hills Mall 1.5 Laird's apple bond .75 green chartreuse .75 lemon juice dash Fee's orange bitters (figured orange worked in the Bijou, so why not?) Turned out pretty tasty, to my mind. Fruity, yet spicy. Clashy? I dunno. For my boyfriend (who is a Sazerac lover) I made an Apzerac, which is exactly what you'd expect except that I did the wash with the chartreuse instead of absinthe since I had it out. Anyway, cheers. Audrey

Hi everyone--my first post, and of course it's in the gallery of regrettable foods. Sigh. So apologies for the blurriness of the photo, but the idea was this: my best pal was getting married. In college, he lived on these entenmann's doughnuts known to us as pokey donuts, which I know, gross already. But so for his bachelor party I wanted to make him a cake featuring his other favorite food, chocolate bundt cake (no he's not horribly fat, the bastard) "iced" with these doughnuts. I imagined a scenario where I'd have this awesomely weird textured cake and really '50s-looking architectural elements created by poky donut holes on toothpicks. Alas, as happens to many of my grand-yet-untested baking plans, things did not go as I'd hoped. Behold the pokey donut cake: Side view: Scatalogical, I know. All I can say is that I'm sorry.