lesliec

Hi Jo. As with, I suppose, all cocktails, personal taste comes into this. I don't like tart/citrus to be noticeable in my drinks, so for the Mai Tai I use my own falernum instead of lime juice. There's certainly still lime character, but so much more richness of flavour and less tartness. But you're right about the Grand Marnier/curaçao; I don't recall ever noticing the orange with everything else going on in there.

I'd like a chamber, but I have a problem with space - too many other toys in the kitchen. The price of this looks good though, and I'd hope the quality might be better than some. One thing worries me: And here we are, over halfway through October ...

Yes! Somebody do it!! I want a bright green one to match bits of my kitchen. AnovaJeff - maybe you could do special green ones for 220v buyers.

Nah - much more fun to make your own (if you're allowed). We're talking gallons of the stuff; you'd need a lot of petri dishes! Sorry for highjacking your thread, Kerry and Anna ...

That's what they're for, Rotuts. You can get various bits of oak; some have been previously used for barrels of JD or whatever, others are 'un-aged'. But the idea is you can soak them in either straight alcohol (Everclear over there, probably) or stuff you've already flavoured to pick up more flavour and smooth the result somewhat. I haven't tried this yet, but I have some rum barrel chips for when I get round to putting a molasses ferment through my still.

S&C isn't available out here in the outer spiral arm of the Pacific, so out of necessity I can confirm W&N is delicious in a Mai Tai. Along with Appleton VX and home-made orgeat, falernum and curaçao, and some Gunpowder Rum on top. And I now own a couple of Tiki mugs too ... life stinks sometimes.

La Tour d'Argent is wonderful. When we visited two years ago they seated us by the window, looking out at Notre Dame and the bateaux-mouches running up and down the Seine (with very bright lights. Ouch). The service is faultless, the duck theme everywhere (including tiles in the bathrooms) is great, the history (the table setting for the three Emperors - or was it five?) is beautiful. But the food ... could have been better, we felt. The duck itself was more chewy than I'd expect from a starred restaurant. The sauce was amazingly intense, though. It's worth going for the spectacle of the place, but don't count on the duck being the best you've ever had.

So, what did you wife think about it? Don't leave us hanging. Has she recovered? Looks like they are no longer on speaking terms.Aphrodisiac. No speaking needed. It is an unspeakably good drink. Yesterday was Aethercon 2013, the biggest day on the Wellington steampunk calendar. After the festivities, six of us (in full costume, much to the befuddlement of other patrons) went over to the Hawthorn Lounge, where four of us felt it would be appropriate to order Rusty Automatons (rye, bourbon, Cherry Heering, mole bitters) . If you know anything at all about steampunk you'll probably appreciate why that's so appropriate. If you don't ... in brief, us steampunks like automatons and dirigibles and ray guns and stuff. Anyway, it's a nice drink. More or less rust-coloured, nicely balanced. From somewhere, about five minutes in, I started getting a taste of coconut. Surprising but good. It was even more appropriate because the drink was created by Jonny Almario, who used to work at Hawthorn a few years back.

Completely different. Much stronger in taste, not that I've had it on its own for maybe 30 years, if ever! This is the best Wikipedia can do, and the 'real' site isn't much more informative. The two drinks might work with ginger ale, as distinct from beer, I suspect.

So it was Thursday night again, which is as good an excuse as any to visit the Hawthorn Lounge in bustling downtown Wellywood. After the initial pleasantries (which, oddly enough, included a drink), I said to Gian, 'I'd like to play with some different amari'. So he thought a bit, worked out he had just enough Ramazzotti in a spray bottle to make a drink, and started creating. The main ingredient in these two is Stone's Green Ginger Wine, which Wifey and I used to drink with Coke (sophisticated, we were) when we met back in the 70s. Add a bit of Ramazzotti (the one on the left) or Averna (the one on the right), some Smith & Cross (which is virtually impossible to get here, but never mind) and some Mole bitters and you have a pretty good drink. At this point, the Averna version has a slight edge, to my taste; it's darker, richer, more grown-up. But then, float some Mezcal. Wow! The ginger is certainly there but doesn't dominate. You can smell the Smith & Cross. One dash (say 4-5 drops) of the bitters is enough; more starts getting too chocolatey and doesn't seem quite right. But the Mezcal really lights up the drinks. With that in the mix, the Ramazzotti version wins hands down. So then we needed names. With a gingerbread theme in mind, the Ramazzotti is You Can't Catch Me. The Averna was going to be Catch Me If You Can but Kindred already has one of those, so it's now Run, Run, As Fast As You Can. Enjoy them - they're going fast.

Hi Tyler. Have a look over on the Making Vermouth thread - Kerry's doing a blow-by-blow over there.

Rafa has much to answer for, the bounder. Last night we had his The Man Comes Around again. It was so good we then had to have another one ...

How about putting one of each of the two eggs in a pot with an Anova (say 65°/65 minutes) and see what you get? Not sure how you'd make it double-blind ... (Missed a parenthesis)

That is one horrible-looking device! Only 750W (Anova 1kW), only a 120v version (Anova 220v sometime this month, Sansaire at production time), ugly as ... a very ugly thing, $US299 vs $199. All it seems to have going for it is the Polyscience name. I get an impresssion of 'There's some cheap circulators out there. Put something together, QUICK!'. Not for me.

Remember the original purpose of the confit technique was to preserve the meat for eating later. The salt probably helps with that. On the other hand, if you're making it for immediate consumption (or only short-term storage) because it's yummy, the salt won't be as important. You could quite happily add it to suit your taste as you're plating it to serve.

The gods of serendipity, or maybe just cocktails, were smiling on me last night. I set out to make a Suzette (gin, sweet vermouth, gentian) but grabbed the Cynar bottle instead of the Punt e Mes that was right beside it. And, as it seems with all the other variants on the Negroni theme, it worked rather well. I've searched Kindred Cocktails and CocktailDB but the gin/Cynar/gentian combination doesn't appear. So I claim at least some degree of originality. For your pleasure, the Choke up, little Suzy:

Careful with the 'fill from the tap to save electricty' scenario. The Anova is rated at one kilowatt and will heat just the volume of water in your container. Your home hot water cylinder is far more powerful - at least two or three times more - and then has to reheat its entire capacity once you've taken your containerful out. Potentially, using the tap could cost you much more.

Yes, I've had squirrel. It was fried and then done in a slow cooker covered with gravy. Dark meat....a little chewy even after cooking slow and low for hours. Oh and it's a bit greasy too.Squirrel is (reputedly) much better in cocktails. Which brings us back to my earlier suggestion of frozen eyes. Halloween's coming. Ice, eyes - egad, they even sound the same.

A cocktail is born ... Last night felt like a good night (there are no bad ones) to visit our favourite bar, the Hawthorn Lounge in downtown Welly. While getting ready to go out a name/concept for a cocktail popped into my head, so when we got there I asked Gian to help me create it. The idea was something smoky with a good bitter element. With a bit of thought and some ideas from both of us, we had this: The Nice Bitter Toast. The smoky bit is Mezcal, the bitter is Cynar (because Gian knows I like it), helped out with tequila, lemon juice, carrot marmalade (because it was there, plus it adds to the toasty vibe), simple syrup and an egg white. It's probably a little heavy on the lemon to be in my personal Top 20, but I'm notoriously averse to sour so others may like it just as it is. If we'd had any to hand, I think a sprinkle of toast crumbs on top might have been a nice touch. [Moderator note: This topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Drinks! (2013, part 1)]

I looked at mine last night. The two newer ones are printed/stamped with 'Blade made in the USA' as Liuzhou says, but no indication of where assembly is done. Maybe there is on the original packaging, but that's long gone. The older Microplane simply says 'Made in the USA'.

Here's a thought - how about freezing eyeballs then using them as the ice in a cocktail? Zombie, anyone?

Ruins your decor? No way - that must be an enhancement! lesliec,It is a bit of a joke. Check post # 85 of this topic. OK, with you now. I want a bright green one to match my kitchen!

How's the 220v version coming, Jeff? Do you need a tester ... ?

Ruins your decor? No way - that must be an enhancement!

I had a new batch ready for distillation on Saturday, so here are a couple of things I'm doing with the results. In passing, I had some difficulty deciding where to post this - we have this topic, another called Homemade Liqueurs which would also be appropriate, and a specific one on Amari. But since I started talking distillation here I decided to continue. I made a fantastic Amaro with an earlier batch of spirit. It's now mostly gone (I only made a litre), so it was high time to start another one. First, the flavourings: This is aniseed, gentian root, allspice, cloves and fresh rosemary, sage and mint from the garden. One difference from last time: I've used 'proper' aniseed this time rather than star anise. It will be interesting to taste the difference. Everything gets beaten up somewhat in the mortar, then added to the full-strength (91% in this case) alcohol along with some fresh orange and lemon peel: Now I have to wait three weeks, shaking frequently (shaking the jar, that is; I'll try not to be too shaky myself) before adding sugar syrup. Then another two weeks before filtering and bottling, after which it continues to smooth out (if allowed to) in the bottle. Just have to drink other things in the meantime. I also started some mandarin liqueur: Three mandarins, suspended in muslin above the surface of a litre of alcohol. Apparently that's enough to get sufficient taste, and even a bit of colour, into the liquid. After two or three weeks this also gets sweetened/diluted with sugar syrup. I shall report further when it's ready to go.