vice
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The last installment is also important here, as they delve into more subjective measures of shaking technique that do yield some qualitative differences.
http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/08...ence-pegu-club/
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I received my bag full o' bar tools today. While some of it is a bit more, shall I say, economical than one is predisposed to after building up a decent home bar (hawthorne strainer, I'm looking in your direction), overall I was delighted to receive perfectly serviceable spares of some valuable items (mixing tin, barspoon, jiggers, and the like). When you consider the cost of all of these, the course fee is even more reasonable.
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It's described in Paul's method (linked below). Basically just shaping the dough on a piece of parchment, which makes the pie easier to transfer from peel to stone when the dough is on the wet side.
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I usually use a half a teaspoon (or a couple of tablespoons of starter) for 600g of flour. I also don't let it go beyond a day or two.
For what it's worth, I do 1/4 tsp yeast to 500g AP flour and retard for 5-7 days in the fridge, with no overproofing issues.
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Well, I did some digging. From the pastis topic, we have this post indicating that the 3/4 oz lime & simple proportions above are indeed Audrey's:
The extraordinarily generous Libationgoddess shares this with the faithful:- 3/4 oz Fresh Lime Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup (1-1, uncooked)
1/4 oz Pernod
1 sprig mint
2 oz Plymouth Gin
Muddle / shake / fine strain
Glass: Small Cocktail
Garnish: None -- the opacity of the drink is the "Pearl"
So, side-by-side, original and pretender:
- 2 oz Plymouth gin
3/4 oz lime vs 1/2 oz
3/4 oz 1:1 simple syrup vs 1/2 oz 1/2 oz
1/4 Pernod vs 1/8 oz
10-12 mint leaves (call it even)
I think that this indicates my own preference for more "ginny" drinks. The balance between the lime and simple is 1:1 in both, and there's more of the faux green fairy in Audrey's original. It'd be more pearly, natch.
I also whipped up one a little bit stiffer as you specified, and consider me a convert. I have to admit that it's a subtle difference, for me at least, but I feel that nosing the drink I can pick out each individual ingredient just before the meld seamlessly together. The Pernod is actually a bit more prominent here even in its reduced volume. The sweet/sour dynamic is definitely tamed down a bit too, as was expected, and I consider that a plus. I've never made this drink with a London dry gin, but I suspect the original proportions might play out better there than with Plymouth.
- 3/4 oz Fresh Lime Juice
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While the food at Flo's is more than enough to keep me coming back, the added perks don't hurt. When the line gets a bit serpentine and it's a hot day (yeah, not many of those in RI this year til recently), they'll often pass out free glasses of beer. Oh man...
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I'll give yours a whirl and report back. The French Pearl is just the trick for the heat that's taken all summer to arrive.
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As it happens, I made one last night. I use Audrey's proportions, but I've noted yours in the past and been meaning to try them. The Pernod doesn't get lost at only 1/8 oz? It certainly isn't overbearing at 1/4, but I guess cutting back on the lime might let it come through a bit more, too.
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Thanks! That could've taken me a while.
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For Chris or anyone else who has taken the on-line course, where's the bloody login screen? I'm through module 1, but my browser history reset, and no I can't for the life of me figure out how to sign back in to continue...
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A child gets a new toy and won't put it down for a week. Come back in a month and it's gathering dust in the corner. Sam's observations are evidence that people may grow older, but certain parts of our character always remain the same. Not that this should be surprising to anyone. I think a large part of the rapid rise phenomenon is excitement for what's new, and we've been really lucky over the past few years to have a whole lot of new to get excited about. When I pick up a new ingredient, I'll often use it quite a bit at first, to get acquainted with its features. The equally rapid decline in popularity could stem from (a) fatigue due to over-saturation or (b) moving on to focus on the next new thing.
As an aside, there are a few places out there that sell Plymouth sloe gin at a more reasonable price. Sam's Wine has it for $30, which as far as I can tell is about 30% less than most other retailers. That makes it a lot more affordable to use more liberally (as it should be).
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Over the weekend, I tried the Cynar flip that David mentioned upthread. I was impressed by how complex it turned out to be given the simplicity of the ingredients. The coffee notes were really stunning.
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Much agreed, just made one for myself.
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An unnamed Negroni variation at Cure in New Orleans, by Maks Pazuniak:
Equal parts:
Rittenhouse Bonded,
Punt e Mes,
Campari
with an orange twist.
Fantastic. Just had that "something" when everything combined...
That would be a Boulevardier, provided one agrees that PeM can be subbed in for sweet vermouth without it becoming a new drink.
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In re cooking:"Cook" is slang for just letting the booze sit on the ice when you make a stirred cocktail rather than stirring it. ... It's a practical way of "pausing" the chilling and dilution of the stirred cocktail when multitasking.
In a home situation, or when not multitasking, there is no practical reason to do this. However, for some reason, once this professional practice was described in these forums, people got the idea that it's a meaningful and beneficial technique to be used in preparing stirred cocktails. It isn't really, though.
Now I'm confused. Over in the gin proof topic you referenced the Cooking Issues blog and wrote,
Have a look at this chart here in particular. Dilution continues to increase over time, long after the mixture goes below 0C.I had always understood -- and had been told by a couple of bartenders -- that dilution continued after you stopped stirring, thus the "cooking." Why does dilution stop when you stop stirring? Wouldn't the same principles apply as in the chart above?
Allow me to put on my speculation hat.
Perhaps "slowing" is the more accurate word rather than Sam's "pausing". Dilution absolutely will increase after stirring if the drink is left on ice, but this may happen relatively slowly. For mixing a drink at home, where multitasking isn't necessary, it's easy enough to just stir to the desired level of dilution and strain immediately. For the professional bartender, cooking keeps the time-intensive stirred drinks cold while the rest of the order is prepared.
The Cooking Issues chart shows dilution vs. active shaking time, not "cooking" time. We might assume that dilution vs active stirring time would look similar, but dilution vs cooking time would have a much flatter slope.
eta: I do let stirred drinks sit for a minute at home, but it's mostly because that's when I put bottles back in the cabinet and make a garnish. I think this is just more of a habitual rhythm I've gotten into than something really purposeful.
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Why not incorporate the stilton right into the custard?
Rosemary, stilton, and peaches are all fairly strong flavors, so you might want to keep things relatively simple beyond that. Maybe a touch of lemon zest to keep things bright?
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I loved this, my wife thought it was too bitter:
1 1/2 oz. Reposado Tequila
3/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz. Cynar
Mezcal Rinse
Float a thin slice of cucumber on top of drink
The aromatics of the cucumber with the Cynar, Vermouth and Mezcal is really wonderful
Gave this a shot last night, David. I think it's right on. The one thing I'd try next time is adding a slice of cucumber to the tin before stirring to get a bit more of its flavor. Definitely not in need of any more sweetness for my palate - a great drink.
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I'll probably do a very light muddle prior to steeping.
Hot or cold? It's been my experience that heat doesn't do good things for mint long-term (like when making mint-flavored simple). A light muddle and a long cold infusion was next on my list of things to try. Based on how hard I've found it to get concentrated flavor once frozen, two tightly-packed cupfuls per quart of dairy would not necessarily overkill. I think this is also an instance where eggs are particularly problematic, but I've yet to play with starches/gums as thickeners.
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Anyone have any experience with the fresh mint chocolate chip recipe?
I'd be interested to here reports on this as well. I've tried fresh mint ice cream every which way I can think to do it, but the flavor always gets lost.
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Whenever I take it out of the fridge to grate over pasta, I always slice a piece off to nibble, too. It also gets deployed in non-pasta situations, as noted above. Particularly good with marinated vegetables, cured meats, and other items in the antipasti realm.
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Only 4 of these are available in Washington State!
i feel your pain. even being in california, a state that presumably should have much available. locally, that isn't always the story. web orders are your friend. there are several vendors that waive shipping over a certain amount (drinkupny.com for one).
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At a conference in Albuquerque, I happened in to the Artichoke Cafe downtown. They were offering something along these lines:
cucumber
chile-infused vodka
lime juice
agave syrup
muddle cucumber, add other ingredients
shake, strain over rocks into a collins glass with salt rim, straw
It was the perfect refresher given the NM summer heat. If I had to guess at proportions, I'd start at 3:2:1 vodka:lime:agave.
eta: while it was delicious, I couldn't help but thinking while I was drinking it that an infused blanco tequila certainly might have upped the ante.
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do tell, how was it? i'm going to be back for a week in september, so i might stop in to see for myself.
The Church of Kold Draft / The Cult of Hard Shake
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
Whenever one considers the effects of more than one factor, there is the potential for interactions between them. Off the top of my head, I can think of four factors that are addressed by the Cooking Issues experiments and Sam's discussion:
- ice type
- ice quantity
- shaking style
- shaking duration
If all these factors had only two 'levels' (which they don't; shaking duration, for example, is a continuous variable), there would be a total of 16 unique combinations to test. So, you can see how quickly such experiments can grow in size and complexity. When you consider that there are multiple response variables of interest as well (temperature, dilution, texture, etc), and that the treatment combination yielding the optimum for one may not do so for others, it can get still more complex. Indeed, it's enough to make one want a drink...