KD1191

I got a bottle of their Rocky Mountain Peach Whiskey shortly after their move to Colorado, years ago...if the Georgia one is at all similar, it'll be plenty peachy on its own. I generally adore the Leopold products, but found it hard to taste the whiskey at 30% ABV. It was pretty sweet and I found myself using it more as a modifier than a base spirit...paired with an over-proof spirit, it produced some interesting results.

Broke it open last night and tasted it against the regular Rittenhouse and a couple other ryes...the blue label had significantly more oak than the regular. It also came across as the driest/least sweet of all, which I guess could partially explain the comment about being spicier, but I didn't note any particularly increased level of 'spice'. I would hazard a guess that the barrel used for this bottling has quite a bit more age on it than your average bottle of Rittenhouse...maybe 8-10 years. All in all, I think it was a decent investment.

Anyone have any first hand experience with the specialty bottling of Rittenhouse for La Maison du Whisky? I was able to extract minimal notes from the clerk due to my terrible French...he mentioned it was 'spicier' than your average bottle. At roughly $50, I'm hoping I got more than just a special label.

Apparently I was also celebrating, albeit unknowingly...a reverse, perfect that turned out quite well thanks to the overproof gin. 1 oz Leopold Bros Navy Strength Gin 1 oz Noilly Prat Dry 1 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino 12 drops Bittercube Barrel Aged Blood Orange Bitters Lemon Twist

I tried the Chipotle Garlic Taco Skillet Sauce (on ground beef instead of the suggested steak)...the result was not terrible, but I believe the general consensus was "classy Manwich".

Yes, I think that's the idea: but I believe this is the first time anyone has tried to apply for patent protection for their method of cutting. The idea of a process patent is not new, of course, but applying it to butchery is, AFAIK. If a butcher skirts the patent on this new steak, is the rancher on the hook for contributory infringement? What about the knife maker?

I recently noticed that St. George had started offering a 200 ml bottle of their absinthe...I think it was priced around $20 at my Whole Foods. Not exactly a great value, but it seemed like a nice option for those who make the occasional Sazerac or Corpse Reviver #2 but don't want to drop $70-$80 on a full bottle.

This one sprung into my head fully formed as I start to reach the point of the year where I would kill for some decent peaches. In my mind, the ultimate taste of summer is good black pepper cracked onto a fully ripe peach. This was extremely delicious, quite refined at the start with the last few sips packed with spice. 1.5 oz RinQuinQuin a la Peche .75 oz Leopold's Navy Strength Gin .5 Koval Ginger Liqueur 8 drops Bittercube Jamaican Bitters #1 Stirred, strained and garnished w/ freshly cracked Phu Quoc black pepper

Two relatively new (and completely new to Illinois...I was told these were the first bottles sold at retail here) products from one of my favorite U.S. distillers. Leopold Brothers Navy Strength American Gin & Fernet Leopold Highland Amaro Leopold's Gin has been one of my favorites going back at least 6 years when I first wandered into their old distillery in Ann Arbor, MI. Their traditional gin has a great balance of juniper and unique citrus notes (pomello, love the pomello), rounded out by familiar spices (clove, coriander, cardamom). My only knock on it has been the low proof...no matter how good it tastes, something about an 80 proof gin doesn't sit right. So, imagine my delight when I heard they were coming out with a higher proof version. My anticipation was heightened, if that was possible, to see if referenced in extremely heady company on Tuesday. To paraphrase a terrible marketing campaign, "Gentlemen, this is gin." It leaps from the bottle and smacks you in the nose, proudly announcing that this is not another one of those "New American" gins striving for the acceptance of the vodka-soda crowd. It hits all the high notes of the original Leopold, but they are amplified...turned up to 11 if you will, because as we know, proof is flavor. As good as it smelled & tasted, I didn't reach for the jigger at the late hour I finally got around to opening it. At 114 proof, it's not going to effortlessly integrate into most (if any) existing gin recipes...this is going to require restraint and judicious thinking, probably some algebra. I'm looking forward to the challenge. If the gin presented as a sock in the nose, the Fernet Leopold is a warm (bartender's) handshake. It is, of course, evocative of Fernet Branca, the de facto standard-bearer of the genre, but there are also facets all its own (a touch more citrus...orange, I think, certainly less saffron, thankfully in my opinion...and perhaps more spearmint than aloe/eucalyptus). A short pour in a Glencairn glass and all the excesses of earlier in the evening promptly melted away. Will shots happen? Highly likely. But, if so they'll be missing some of the refinement of this amaro. Not to say it isn't bold, but the sharp edges that are characteristic of some more mass-produced liqueurs are absent, and it'd probably be more comfortable with being sipped by the fire.

This is a variant of the Teenage Riot from Beta Cocktails, which calls for both Dry Vermouth and Dry Amontillado Sherry. I replaced both with the vin jaune I had picked up earlier in the week. The 'Shortcut to a Teenage Riot' turned out really well. This combination was better at equal parts than the original ratio.

Yesterday I picked up a bottle of this vin jaune that I've been wanting to play around with ever since tasting it paired with the turtle soup at Next's Paris menu. Oxidized & somewhat sherry-like, but not fortified. My initial reaction upon tasting it was that I'd like to try mixing it in cocktails where a dry vermouth typically gets lost...tonight, it was a Brooklyn, which turned out pretty splendidly.

To be honest, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be...I've got some really sharp knives, but it's certainly not going to be my de rigueur method for a daiquiri. I imagine someone with smaller/better trained hands wouldn't have that bad a time with it. I muddled them up good and then pressed the result through a strainer. The yield was poor, about 1/2 oz from a nice sized lime.

1.5 oz 'Cuban Style' White Rum .5 oz Lime supreme juice (exactly what it sounds like...juice pressed from lime supremes*) 1 tsp Demerara syrup (1:1) The Platonic ideal of a daiquiri, pretty much. No trace of bitterness from the pith or interference with the pure juice flavor from traces of lime oil. Was it worth the time/effort to fillet the citrus? Most definitely, and I'm sure I'll do it again. But, it's not going to become a standard practice anytime soon. *Hat tip to Troy Sidle for the idea.

Was also playing with derivations from that theme the other day. I called this one the Clown Car: 2.25 Bas-Armagnac 1 Grapefruit .5 Cointreau .25 Batavia Arrack The flavors just kept coming out, and they were all rather strange.

ECC Paris is certainly not large, but the crowds were not omnipresent in my experience...early on a Sunday, for example, would generally give us plenty of time to chat with the staff (and, I imagine that this will also be true for the NYC branch). Our bartenders in Paris were from Brooklyn more often than not, so I'm not surprised to see they've expanded in this direction. Have they brought with them their vast supplies and skills with obscure Japanese whiskies? That's perhaps the thing I miss most about cocktails in Paris.

Last night it was an actual Fish Sauce Martini. A Fiddy-Fishy, if you will... 1 oz Ransom Old Tom Gin .75 oz Cocchi Americano .75 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth .5 oz St. George Dry Rye Gin Barspoon Blis/Red Boat Bourbon Barrel Aged Fish Sauce 15 drops Bittercube Barrel Aged Blood Orange Bitters Lemon Twist The flavor of the fish sauce wasn't really discernible against the many other strong flavors going on in the glass, which was intended. What was definitely present was the salinity (a tsp of the stuff packs 65% of your daily recommended dose of sodium), a general savoriness, and the rich, rounded mouthfeel. Maybe try this on the next person to ask for blue cheese stuffed olives in a dirty martini?

I love Paul McGee's Arrigo Park...you don't notice the cucumber much at first, but by the end it's completely changed the drink. I believe it goes something like: 2 oz Rittenhouse Rye 3/4 oz Carpano Antica 1/2 oz Cynar Stir over ice & strain into a chilled rocks glass, add a slice of cucumber.

I'd be pretty cautious with this. The glazing used on those types of pieces has the potential to contain some pretty nasty stuff, and what is whiskey but a solvent?

How very strange. 2:1:1 Russell's Reserve Rye, Gran Classico Bitter & Noilly Prat Dry = a drink that reminds me of nothing more than raspberries dipped in extremely high-cacao dark chocolate.

Havana Club

It's pretty tasty, and relatively unique. That said, there certainly comes a point where if you have enough rums on your bar, you can achieve a similar effect, but Banks takes the guesswork out of it. How do you feel about Batavia Arrack? Banks is a nice segue into that milieu without being overly funky.

No luck on the VWFRR front...I'll have to drown my tears in this ~30 year old bottle of Green Chartreuse. ETA: The price tag says $22.99...about 1/3 of the current going rate in many Chicago stores. Hooray for stores where the inventory isn't subject to inflation.

Apparently we may be in the midst of, or headed towards a Wild Turkey 101 Rye shortage. Cowdery seems to think it may be non-existent or short lived, but I've had two different liquor store owners tell me that Wild Turkey currently has no rye mature enough to bottle and their distributors have none to ship. This may be overstating things, I don't know the truth, but while I am traveling for work I like to take advantage of visiting out of the way liquor stores to see what dusty gems I might find and stocking up on some WTR made for a good enough motivation. On this jaunt I also found an old bottle of Unicum and a tax-stamped bottle of Amer Picon (the store owner told me it had been on the shelf for 32 years and the only other person who had bought any was a chef at a French restaurant). All-in-all a rewarding search...maybe even more so once I follow up a lead on some VWFRR tomorrow.

And for anyone not in New York who was as intrigued and curious as I was after reading this, the recipe is available on Audrey's write-up on the Starchefs site. Just made one of these. As Sam mentioned, this packs a wallop. "One and done" is an understatement. Tremendous balance to it, though. I'm eager to play around a bit...thinking my first tweak will be trying fish sauce in place of the Cholula.

I have them both in my cupboard and, while I've never tasted them against each other blind, I'll say that I'm relatively certain I could tell them apart. HC is the standard for white rums for me. Others are judged in how close they come to tasting like HC. Of what I've tried, I feel like FdC comes closest. Now, does absence make the heart grow fonder? Does the forbidden fruit taste sweeter? Surely. It's not the best rum in the world, far from it, but that doesn't mean HC isn't still an iconic flavor. Also, I believe the frequently sited debunking of Mexican Coke was paid for/performed by Coca-Cola itself. Numerous blind studies have shown there is a perceptible taste difference between Coke formulations around the world.