KD1191

Spending the last few days on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc, I had the opportunity to try a lot of fish sauce. I was mildly surprised to find a section of our resort's cocktail menu given over to drinks involving fish sauce, but even more surprised by how tasty one of them was. It was called the Italian Fisherman and was made with Campari, Bianco Vermouth, Orange & Lime Juices & Fish Sauce. The battle between the powerful bitter and funky elements was quite delicious. I'll see if I can get the exact recipe before we leave... ETA: The Italian Fisherman 30 cl Campari 20 cl Martini Bianco 30 cl Orange Juice 20 cl Lime Juice 10 cl Phu Quoc Fish Sauce (45°, preferred)

Not so much the 'liquor store,' but rather a coconut processing camp on an island in the Mekong river...what was described as 'coconut moonshine'. A pretty rough distillate at just under 30% abv. Slightly sweet, nicely nutty. Will be mixing with rum forthwith. P.s. Don't mind the tacky T-shirt, the sale of which likely runs afoul of various trade dress laws.

Wanted to try something new out of Beta Cocktails, so I whipped up The Arbitrary Nature of Time by Maks. It's Wild Turkey Rye, Campari and Cherry Heering with Mole and Regans' bitters. The combination of Campari and Heering was fruity and delicious. Wanting to stay in the same oeuvre, I consulted Maks' twitter to see what else he's been up to lately. From last week's 'Something Like This' menu, devoted to riffs on Charles Baker drinks, the Jockey Club Cocktail caught my eye. I have no idea of the proportions, but my interpretation turned out pretty tasty, so I figured I'd share it. Jockey Club Cocktail (Improvised) 3/4 oz Lemon Hart 151 Rum 3/4 oz Lime Juice 1/2 oz Green Chartreuse 1/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino I packed the shaker with ice and gave it a very hard shake. The chill obtained was also rather impressive due to the proof.

I loved Coop's, even preferred the fried chicken to Willie Mae's.

Unless you're a completionist, I'm not sure you'd regret skipping the Eagle Rare 17 year. It's typically the least interesting of the batch. I'm absolutely in love with this year's WLW. Probably the best wheated bourbon I've ever tasted, Pappy's included.

Apparently it's not just their ice they take seriously...reports are that this evening they are changing the menu every hour, recreating great drinks from 7 different bars over the course of one evening. I heard about it on Freddie Sarkis's Twitter. They started with Milk & Honey, then moved on to Rickhouse and are currently about to finish up The Violet Hour. Apparently Door 74 is up next...

Staggerac, 2011 Edition 2 oz George T. Stagg '11 +1/4 oz Demerara Simple Syrup 3 Dashes Peychaud's Bitters Stirred for a good long while, then strained into a chilled glass coated with Jade Edouard 72 Absinthe. Lemon Peel. Was discussing the relative merits of the latest Stagg on another forum, where Alchemist brought up the power of high-proof spirits to amplify other flavors in a drink. It seems like the complexity of Peychaud's is really front and center here in a way it isn't in a normal Sazerac. I can't say I prefer it, but it's certainly an interesting study.

A Jack Rose, or in a Rye Whiskey Highball a la Roffignac.

And more important for those of us out in the sticks but who might venture to the big city on occasion, who or what exactly is A y A? Not much luck with google. Amor Y Amargo.

I've encountered pretty poor service at a number of places around town when not accompanied by someone of the ethnicity that is primarily catered to by the establishment. Dim Sum and Korean BBQ places stand out as repeat offenders in my mind. I feel like Phoenix has gotten much better in this regard, but it may just be that I've significantly changed the days/times when I visit. It's almost always weekday mornings, when I'm able to order from the menu and have a relaxed meal rather than deal with the crush of carts. Some people prefer the frenetic pace of the latter, but I definitely do not.

Never been a fan of the Amer Boudreau, but I suspect the larger issue is that the Brooklyn (at least for me) is a Noilly Prat or nothin' drink...

allenkelson, have you been to Sun Wah since they expanded? I've yet to have a problem with having enough room in the new dining room. I love Phoenix, and dine there frequently with a good friend and his father, who is Chinese and very particular about authenticity (he won't return to Lao Sze Chuan after pointing out how several dishes used shortcuts he didn't approve of). We always go to Phoenix for dim sum when they are in town, but for dinner we inevitably end up at Sun Wah. On our last visit, my friend's father told me about taking his father there a few years ago...the elder cried when he tried the duck. He said that he didn't think it was possible to find a duck that good in America.

I also love Sun Wah, though I'll add that you should call and reserve the duck in advance to ensure it's available on your visit.

If you like the a la Louisianne, but not the absinthe, try the Creole.

If I had to guess, I'd say their real market isn't zillonaires, but rather the "conspicuous consumption" crowd. For those who want to project an air of having a lot of money, there's no point in learning to make it themselves. Hiring someone to do it for them is not likely within their means, but dropping $50 for a bag of ice that's conveniently placed front and center at a party (next to a Johnnie Walker Blue bottle that's been filled up with Black) sounds like a great investment, especially when everyone else knows it's a $50 bag of ice.

Really? A $500k watch should be a magnificent work of art and engineering that will last a lifetime. This is . . . $5 ice spheres. It's like a $500k Swatch. It's a question of scale of ridiculousness, I guess. Someone who makes $50k would likely say a $5k watch "should be a magnificent work of art and engineering that will last a lifetime" and that a $500k watch is obscene. However, there are always those '1%ers' that push the envelope on 'ultra-premium' items, which are a different scale of ridiculous entirely. Having relatives that work in private aviation, my sense of what constitutes costs 'beyond the pale' is pretty perverted. In that world, I've decided the best way to determine how much something will cost is to take the most that anyone sane would ever conceive of spending and then multiply by at least 5. All marketing BS aside, this product makes "sense" for a certain type of person. Let's say you make $50/hour...if you spend more than 6 minutes trying to make an ice sphere, you're technically undervaluing your time and should spring for a $5 sphere (assuming you could have been earning instead of making ice, and that you don't place some other sort of intrinsic value on the ice-making process). However, since you can make a tray of ice spheres in a couple minutes using filtered water and fancy mold you spent a couple hours researching and importing from Japan, or you've found that you like the art of ice carving and spend long hours carving ice spheres for fun, you think spending $5 is ridiculous and you don't give it a second thought. However, to a Partner at a Law Firm making $500/hr or CEO making $5,000/hr, spending a couple minutes thinking about the best way to make ice spheres is a losing proposition, which is why things like this exist. There are a lot of people out there with more money than time (or sense).

The level of oxygen in the water is a key element in making tea, the higher the better. Thus, freshly drawn water will produce a better cup.

I believe the Rogue/Beta guys were using the phrase "saline solution". I'm not familiar with them using "salt tincture" on the blog or in the book(s) (though the cocktail menu at Cure currently lists a drink with "Smoked Salt Tincture"), but perhaps someone got concerned that their drink would have eye drops in it?

Yes

Here is one guess. Thanks Kerry. Something to start with anyway. I've confirmed the measures on the Holy Mole after further "research"... 2 oz Herradura Reposado 1 oz Dolin Sweet Vermouth 1/2 oz Averna 2 Dashes Housemade Chocolate Bitters Stirred & strained into a rocks glass over large ice, garnished with a grapefruit peel.

On my recent travels, I picked up two bottles of High West's 21 Year "Rocky Mountain Rye"...it was inexplicably priced at less than 40% of what I've seen it for back in Chicago. This is a 53% Rye mash whiskey at 46% ABV. It was aged in reused cooperage for 21 years, so it's not 'Straight' Rye. It wasn't produced by High West, but other than that I know relatively little about it. I didn't get too far into the bottle, but the flavor, at first blush, is quite similar to Van Winkle Family Reserve (a 51% Rye mash at 47.8 ABV, aged 13+ years). In that, it tastes younger than its years, but I assume that's the effect of the reused barrels. I expect it will make a dynamite Old Fashioned.

Based on the crew, I'm excited about The Catbird Seat, which opened last week above The Patterson House.

Try the 'Variation on a Theme' from the Beta Cocktails blog. It's good with both Hayman's & Ransom, but I prefer the latter.

Drove through Germany during the height of asparagus season last year...the vast majority of public restrooms on the autobahns use 'zero-flow' waterless urinals. Torturous is putting it lightly. To add something more than grossness to the conversation, I believe that high levels of coffee (or maybe caffeine generally?) consumption also produce a noticeable change in odour.

Wow, those are some real heavyweights! 71.3 and 66.75% ABV on the first two.. Only thing lightweight now is the wallet! But those look like some seriously special investments. Hard to get those here unless you know somebody who knows somebody. If you think about it, the high proof offsets the high price, to some extent...given the amount of water that you're buying in 'less robust' bottlings. I was lucky enough to be in KY for the release last year, but this year I had to depend on getting my name on the waiting list at a large chain. Thankfully they came through.