lesliec

Mansinthe; the Marilyn Manson of absinthe. Because, well, it is ...

Over in the Drinks topic, Rafa asked "But what happened to your love for Wray & Nephew White Overproof, the Keith Moon of rums?" Which got me thinking: what other personalities could we link with our favourite (or not) drinks or ingredients? Starter for 10: Fernet Branca, the Ozzy Osborne of bitters. Discuss.

Santana Abraxas sounds good. Added it to my list. You may have to work on that. See here and, for the result, here.

Tacit peer pressure? That doesn't sound like us. What's in it? I dunno - some chocolate, a few bits of chopped up mole (with the dirt still on). And there are heaps of things it's good for. A modest sampling includes things like the Tres Sangres, Oaxaca Old Fashioned and Rafa's The Man Comes Around. You have years of pleasure ahead of you.

Pretty much - of course you'll adjust your pouring speed to what it will handle, but I don't think you'll find it slowing you down.

I'd hate to have my bottom drop off any time, not just when mixing a drink. But maybe that's just me ... I have a 500ml Yarai from CK and rather wish I'd got a larger one so I can do two drinks at once. The smaller one has done great service for six months or more; it's a rare night it doesn't get used for at least two separate drinks. I keep ours in the fridge all day so it's nice and cold when I need it, so I can't see temperature shock being much of an issue. My favourite bar keeps their collection of mixing glasses in the chiller too. Maybe that's the secret.

Hi Hassouni. Nice resurrection job! I have one of those. I don't use it often - I'm more a stirry kinda guy than a shaker - but it's good when I do. Most recently was the night before last, in fact, on the Spanky Panky Martini FrogPrincesse posted about in the Fernet topic. I think the question of whether it holds an entire cocktail is a little academic. Nobody's just going to dump the whole thing in there (are they?). A reasonably fast pour is just fine. I also have gone off tea strainers. This one is a much better shape and clears faster. Go for it. CK's service has been pretty good too, but then I'm using their Aussie branch.

That's how crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter work, Shel. The original home-use Anova is most certainly available - see the other Anova thread on eG. What we're talking about here is the Mk II, if you like, but the Mk I is a great machine.

I thoroughly agree with Chris's recommendations. Although I think a Negroni is better with an orange twist ... Tzatziki, what's your aversion to citrus? Is it absolute, or is a twist of zest fine? If the latter, the world of craft cocktails is wide open. The vodka + juice stuff? Forget it.

In my part of the Southern Hemisphere we have a drought of public holidays (aka long weekends) from Queen's Birthday at the beginning of June until Labour day around the end of October. There have been suggestions that we fill the gap with a celebration of Matariki, the Maori New Year, but that's also in June. Not that I'm ever going to object to a long weekend. About the best we can do is pretend we're actually in the Northern Hemisphere and have a midwinter Christmas around the end of June. The politicians don't seem to want to declare a day off for this noble purpose, however.

I really like 123 tequila (uno is blanco, dos is reposado, tres is anejo). If you can find it, Chris, at least the first two have my strong recommendation. We haven't tried 3 yet; the day is coming, but it's hard to see how it could be better than 2.

Hi, Gudrun. Welcome to eGullet. With 350 cookbooks you'll have plenty to talk about with us. Dive in - we're friendly. See you in the forums, Leslie

Here on the other side of the world, where distillation at home is quite legal, I completed distillation of the second generation of a rye mash based on pumpernickel bread (yes!) yesterday. I'm not terribly impressed, unfortunately. There seems to be very little rye taste. I'll do a little more experimentation, but my thinking is that it might all end up as a rye vodka to make Genever. For which purpose my labours will not have been in vain. We should set up a separate discussion for home distillation - there's a lot of people doing it, legal or not! - but briefly, the public health argument isn't convincing. Provided you discard the first little bit of each run (the recommendation is 50ml; I go with 100ml to be even safer) which contains most of the methanol and other nasties, there's no health issue. I've seen an even less convincing argument that distillation is illegal in most places because of the amount of alcohol produced, but that's even sillier. Distillers don't produce any more alcohol than brewers. Ours is just more concentrated.

Any issue with staining surely depends of the colour of the stone - my beautiful three metre length of granite is black, so I wouldn't notice! It's lovely stuff to work with. Working with pastry or bread straight on the benchtop feels somehow sinful!

Was it Heston? My memory says Jamie Oliver. But whoever it was, leaving some of the stems in does somewhat enhance the tomatoiness (I think I'll trademark that word). I've done it several times, in things like pasta sauces.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but while I can appreciate a 'proper' Martini, as a drink for pleasure rather than just alcohol I prefer a Reverse or Perfect Martini. Keep playing, Jo. Next step is probably to dabble in the bitter end of the cocktail pool. Learn to enjoy a Negroni and you'll never be the same again.

Not what you're looking for this time, but guanciale is a wonderful thing to do next time you find a pork cheek or two.

Littlechef, whatever you end up buying, DON'T take it on the Camino with you! Everybody ends up trying to shed pack weight once they begin; even a small pan is more than you want to have to carry. It's possible to send items to the post office in Santiago for pickup when you get there. I strongly advise you to look into this, rather than carrying anything that isn't essential (and your definition of 'essential' will change rapidly, once you start walking). ¡Buen camino! Leslie (peregrino 2001)

'Tomorrow' (see previous post) turns out to be a moveable feast. However, the Elmegirab falernum came out very well. It's (understandably, with the extra stuff in it) a bit more complex than Kaiser Penguin's, and I think a little smoother (but I don't know why it would be). This may now have to be my default recipe. It will be interesting to see how it goes with the five-minute treatment in an iSi. Next time.

There's no problem with that. The Anova's 'propellor' is safely tucked away inside the bottom of the steel tube, so it's not going anywhere. And the stainless steel of your pot isn't going to scratch the stainless steel of the Anova, or vice versa, just as there's no problem using a metal spoon in a metal pot.

I started my first batch of the Elmegirab this morning - I'll report tomorrow on how it turned out. It calls for 10 limes rather than KP's eight, and I wonder, with the 90 grams of fresh ginger as well, whether there's more solids than really necessary - the rum doesn't cover them by any means. I'm using 200ml of W&N and 50ml of Gunpowder rum. Should be interesting, with all the other spices! KP's recipes - the 24 hour and five minute - are the only ones I've made previously, so they're my reference (I find them very similar to each other). Have you got a friendly bar that would give you a tiny taste of Velvet? My favourite did and it's scarred me for life.

Read further back in this topic, Dropnbassonu. In this post Jeff from Anova asked us what we'd like to see. So we told him But the existing version is great. Don't wait.

I'm not sure if any of the 'real' iSi ones have internal plastic, but I'd agree with Jo that you don't need a Thermo Whip. I've got one, but now I've used it I wish I'd got one of the ordinary ones I could heat up and cool down as required. The TW insulation is a bit too good! If your sole aim is infusions, anything will do - if you can get something for $30, go for it. All you're using the vessel for is compression and release; you're not even going to be squirting anything (other than waste gas) out the nozzle.

Welcome to the gin world, Jo. I rather suspect Malacca is a slightly different beast to what Hogarth had in mind. Malacca isn't available in shops here, but my favourite bar has a bottle they got from a customer back from a trip. To my taste it's a very gentle gin; the drinks I've been enjoying it in are Perfect Martinis, which I recommend (try 50ml gin/10ml dry vermouth/10ml sweet vermouth), but I think it would also go rather nicely in a Gin Old Fashioned. I suspect it wouldn't handle something assertive like a Negroni very well, but others who have done the experiment may disagree. This is not to say you shouldn't try a Negroni - everybody should - but I'd use a gin with a bit more flavour. Our local Lighthouse works nicely, but good luck finding that. Bombay should be fine.

Fred's your man.