KD1191

Well, I don't have any Amer Boudreau, but I just made a Paper Airplane with modern Amer Picon (36 proof) in place of the Nonino and, while it would not be my preferred embodiment, it is quite good. The gentian and orange are there where I'd normally expect a bit more spice, but the overall flavor profile is a pretty good representation of the original. I used Elijah Craig 12 year, which is my favorite bourbon for the drink.

Didn't notice this when it first posted, but the list contains the following addenda: The Best Spirit-Specific Cocktail Bars 1. Mayahuel (New York) 2. Smuggler's Cove (San Francisco) 3. La Descarga (Los Angeles) The Best Restaurant Cocktail Bars 1. Cyrus (Healdsburg) 2. Iris (New Orleans) 3. Heaven's Dog (San Francisco) 4. Fino (Austin) 5. Prime Meats (Brooklyn)

I've yet to set foot in a bar anywhere in the world that's better than The Violet Hour when it's "on"...that said, I've not been to Angel's Share or Zig Zag. I was extremely impressed by Clover Club, and am delighted to see it ranked so high. Had a very nice visit to Death & Company recently, as well. If you've never heard of The Whistler, it's the bar where you're most likely to run into the Violet Hour bartenders on their night off...it deserves its spot, but it's a pretty small operation so I hope it's not inundated.

While I wouldn't hold it up as an example of particularly good design, I think the aesthetics of The Publican are interesting, in a nouveau beer hall sort of way, and the food is consistently fantastic. Food wise, you could do much much worse than eating at any of Paul Kahan's places (Publican, Blackbird, Avec, Big Star). Sepia has food and cocktails that live up to the intriguing decor of the former printing shop. North Pond has striking views of the skyline from the middle of Lincoln Park and perfectly prepared farm-to-table style cuisine.

Much to the consternation of my wife, I don't "get" American breakfast...eggs, bacon, toast...they are all fine, but I certainly don't crave them when I wake up. Usually I crave chorizo or birria or something else Mexican...sometimes phở, which I'll admit is strange for a boy born on the Canadian border. That said, breakfast is a cup of coffee most days. If I'm starving, I'll grab a banana or a granola bar to eat in the car on the way to work. On the weekends I'll occasionally do something more exciting, but generally if I enjoy dinner to the fullest the prospects for breakfast the next day will be grim.

Can't join you, but I'll throw in my 2-cents that my lunch at Ko a couple weeks ago was phenomenal. Had several dishes that completely floored me. The foraged mushroom salad with roasted jalapeño dressing was a triumph. Sweet corn and sour cream ravioli with Spanish chorizo, cotija, pickled tomatoes and lime zest (a riff on elotes?) was one of the best things I've eaten this year. Aji Tataki was spectacular, as was of the more "food porn" creations, a plate that contained both Santa Barbara uni and wagyu beef. The cheese course, which I'm blanking on at the moment, made me appreciate water chestnuts, something I'd previously thought impossible.

Earlier tonight I was drinking what I'm told was the precursor to the Search for Deliciousness, the Bitter Giuseppe: 2 oz Cynar 1 oz Carpano Antica (I did 1/2 ea. Punt e Mes and M&R) Dash Orange Bitters (Bittercube) Who needs whiskey?

Toby Maloney's Juliet & Romeo. ETA: Maybe a Bee's Knees for ladies with a slightly less refined palate.

One of my new favorites is Two Brother's Cane & Ebel...technically a "red rye beer", not sure if that meets your criteria.

Agree with Alcuin, but will add that smoothness is often relative. For example, I find many say that Thomas Handy is smoother than its proof suggests...it is less harsh than expected or in comparison to some other spirit of similar or lower proof.

Just did a variant with the new Tempus Fugit Gran Classico Bitter in place of Campari/Aperol & Black Maple Hill for the bourbon. I actually miss the Campari. The bitterness is not as sharp, which really hurts the dynamic of the drink that I find so interesting...the one that demands an immediate second sip. On the earlier question of what to sub for Nonino, Ramazotti is closest of those mentioned. CioCiaro would be better, if available. Cynar is less than half the strength of Nonino (35%) and the artichoke wouldn't be friendly with the other flavors in the drink in my opinion.

Completely agree. Templeton alone just doesn't have enough kick, and compared to Rittenhouse the Sazerac 6 is boring. Half-and-half Rittenhouse & Templeton would be a noble experiment, though. I've dreamt of a 100 proof Templeton, but I don't think it's likely to ever happen. Handy Sazerac's are certainly the best I've had...felt a bit like gilding the lily, but some Elixir Vegetal added to the rinse (hat tip: Troy Sidle) was phenomenal. About the only thing that's widely available that I could imagine topping Handy in the Sazerac would be some of the very old Rittenhouse, but I haven't tried it.

Templeton Sazeracs are amazingly smooth. Shortly after its Chicago release, I went through a bottle in about two weeks just making Sazeracs. It's probably good for my wallet and sobriety that I concluded I can't really get behind 80-proof whiskey.

The Paper Airplane (the version with Campari) is a Toby Maloney tweak of Sam Ross's Paper Plane (with Aperol).

According to the article, "a siphon that serves three is $26, a Chemex is $22". Assuming that in most similarly situated restaurants you're getting drip coffee that has sat on a burner or in a carafe for god knows how long and paying no less than $5 per person, I don't find those prices at all scary.

Wonderful. It's about time...too many fine restaurants have served terrible coffee for too long. I was discussing this the morning before my meal at EMP on their last day of the old service. Sure enough, the coffee was textbook restaurant coffee, dreck. It's often the last thing that crosses a diner's lips. There's no reason it shouldn't be as high quality as everything else.

I was there on the last day of the old menu. The article details everything I learned about the new setup better than I could have. The only "news" I can share beyond what was covered there is that apparently Chef Humm was planning to head to Japan for a good part of the time the restaurant was closed...though I've no idea to what extent it may have been a fact-finding mission.

The former Sam's Wine is now (unfortunately) just another outpost of the Binny's chain...for an alternative, I'd recommend Red & White Wines (1861 N. Milwaukee). They tend to be pretty in touch with the menu at Schwa and can generally offer good suggestions.

I'd suggest looking at how recipes are created gives you a key. How many chefs sit down a write a new recipe for a new dish they've never made or tasted? I would argue that if the recipe itself were expressive, that should theoretically be how it's always done.

As I mentioned above, I think Buccafusco's law-review piece does a great job of dismantling this received wisdom. To repeat, his argument is: They use recipes to express ideas and emotions? They express ideas by writing down a list of ingredients and procedures? I can see saying that about a finished product, but the recipe is strictly utilitarian.

One form of IP that I haven't seen discussed here is Trade Dress. Related by not entirely synonymous with Trademarks, it refers to the "characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging". I wonder if trade dress issues could arise within some segments of the cocktail community. If "a method of displaying wine bottles in a wine shop" can be protected under trade dress, how far off are various implementations of the speakeasy or tiki bar concepts.

If Eben can't realistically benefit from the Melon Ball Cocktail, it's hard to imagine how extending copyright-like protections into this arena would promote the creation of more and/or better "mixological works." Except, that... Who knows what might come out of that process...when does it start becoming easier to come up with something new instead of just tweaking something successful enough to avoid getting sued? Or, better yet, what if that new tweaked drink is even better and more successful than the original? Copyright inspired you to create it...after all.

What happened in the Rome episode was very different. This was a bustling restaurant in a cosmopolitan city that he refused to name as anything other than Restaurant X for apparently no other reason than he was afraid of a fanny-pack clad horde descending on it and ruining the Italian vibe. At first I thought it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, an almost David Chang-esque "It's just food," for the followers who are a bit too obsessed with eating where Tony eats, and I could forgive him his secrets, but he said something very similar in one of the web-clips for the Paris episode...basically, 'I'm not telling you my favorite places in Paris because they'd immediately stop being my favorites.' These are not some 3-seat Caribbean fish shack, it's a major metropolitan area...it's simply selfishness or pomposity.

I generally love Tony, and the Paris show last night was stellar, but one of the themes of the Rome show (and some of the online outtakes of the Paris show) irks me. It's the idea of, "I'm not going to tell you because you'll all come and ruin it." It's cropped up several times throughout his career, and it's extremely annoying. I understand that there is a degree of truth to it, but the idea that a restaurant isn't on the map until he graces it is beyond silly. Even some of the most out of the way places he visits are already well known to those who would seek them out. (For example, I ate at the phở stall in Hanoi that he deigned to visit in Food Porn II several weeks before he did...it had a healthy reputation online as one of the best in the city.) Do the places he raves about become more popular? Surely, but if he really thinks he's killing what he loves, he needs to get into another business. He's insulting his viewers and doing them a disservice when he adopts this attitude.

I've been having this exact same problem all week with our friend's LG. I can see how this would be annoying. Mine has the same design flaw, but have only had the issue once or twice because I almost never run the built-in ice maker...having switched to Tovolo "faux draft" trays for my ice making absent an urgent need for mass quantities.