Kohai

Quite. The Americano appears to have been created almost as soon as Campari was made.

Right. I've never been of the understanding that amari were solely considered after-dinner drinks. It seems further unlikely to me that Campari was developed with the intention of creating something to mix with other spirits. Rather, I imagine it was something to be consumed on its own but turned out to be a versatile product for which other uses were soon found.

I asked my friend for a bottle of Unicum when he went on a recent business trip to Hungary. From his hotel he sent me a picture of my promised bottle of Unicum sitting on a table: my heart leapt with excitement! When he got back, it turned out to be a 50ml. bottle he got from his hotel minibar. Been drinking it from an eyedropper to conserve the precious nectar.

Resurrected this thread to ask: Is anyone else having a hell of a time finding Rittenhouse 100? Here in sunny Minneapolis, where it was once plentiful, it's been impossible to find anywhere for a month now, and the shortage is predicted to last even as long as the end of the year.

There's no way this hasn't been made somewhere before, but I stumbled on this yesterday and it's pretty fierce (albeit more of a summer drink): 2 sprigs mint 1/2 lime, quartered 2 oz. Hendrick's 1 oz. simple (2:1) 1 oz. Green Chartreuse dash Angostura Bitters Champagne Squeeze limes into the bottom of a Collins glass and add mint, syrup and Chartreuse. Bruise the mint with a muddler or barspoon, add gin and stir briefly. Add ice, top with champagne, stir again gently, and serve. I would name this but I'm certain it exists already. Anyone know what this might be called? A Google search is not turning up anything.

Thank you for the suggestions. These sound good. I'll look into them.

I of course agree it is counterproductive to call someone's drink crap. What I am suggesting is that it is unnecessary to attach some kind of additional sobriquet to a well-made cocktail. If it's a good Manhattan, it's good; it needn't be a "classical cocktail" to distance it from all the poorly-made Manhattans out there. To expand on this, it is also unnecessary to apply some kind of special term to the movement as a whole; simply observing that bartenders are getting better, caring more, and making better drinks needn't be called "mixology" when it's still really just bartending. Still, if you are saying that words like "classical" provide us with some kind of reference point to help steer people in the right direction... well, I see how that is important.

I've said this already but I feel it bears repeating: terms like "classical" only apply to a small slice of the many worthy bars out there. I love dearly Death&Co, PDT, the Violet Hour and Milk & Honey but there are many fantastic bars all over the world who are not trying to bring back the speakeasy. If we are trying to describe the entire mixology/culinary/craft cocktail paradigm - in short, the growing awareness that "cocktails" don't contain Red Bull - then we ignore a vast number of excellent bars by using the word "classical". It describes a subgenre, not the entire movement. For the same reason I call myself a "bartender" and not a "mixologist" (and certainly not a "barchef"), I am reluctant to aggrandize my cocktails by calling them "classical" cocktails or "craft" cocktails. As Toby has it, there are good cocktails and there are crap cocktails. It's only from a public relations standpoint that we feel the need to separate ourselves from the chaff, to distance ourselves from the idea that a Cap'n'coke is a cocktail. Just my two dashes (and maybe a barspoon of Devil's Advocacy thrown in). <edited because I'm a compulsive proofreader.>

As an avid Campari/Rocks drinker, I'm surprised to hear it described as a "condiment" spirit. And since its creation predates the likely migration of cocktails to Italy, I'm inclined to doubt this categorization. To the best of my knowledge Gaspare Campari was trying to recreate "bitter Dutch liqueurs" when he created Campari. This is obviously a break from the solidly Italian tradition of amari; is it possible that this is one point of difference? My feeling is that, ultimately, there's some as say it be, and some as say it be'n't. The lines seem too blurred for a definitive answer.

All this discussion regarding the amaro-ness of Campari has got me wondering. Are there any good, authoritative books on spirits? Not cocktail recipes, but actual discussions of the production and history of various liquors? Any good recommendations?

Also maybe try Gonpachi (near Shinsen station). A little pricey, but very foreigner-friendly. Kill Bill Pt. 1 was shot in the Hiroo restaurant (not the one in Shibuya).

I kinda know what you mean when it comes to cut fruit. The difference seems like it would be negligible. The issue arises, I think, when you're doing infusions, syrups or cordials using the fruit skin and there is more potential for the whatever-is-on-there to be ingested or otherwise affect the flavor.

I ran into this just the other day, myself. A colleague suggested I "flash boil" my citrus to remove the coating; apparently that's what they did at his last job (Alinea) for everything citrus. I tried it. I didn't use actual, 100ºC boiling water but I did douse the fruit under the near-boiling water from the coffee machine. No matter what I did the fruit would get a thin, pale layer of wax on the outside after they dried and came back to room temperature. It almost seemed like the wax just welled up on the surface where it then hardened. They were quite unusable. Letting them sit longer in the hot water produced the same result, but also browned the fruit in an extremely unappetizing manner. I wonder what Alinea does to avoid these problems.

Today's emerging cocktail culture may well have a lot to do with craft brewing, or not, but the issue is how to specifically address the subgenre of "craft cocktails" or "culinary cocktails" (which term I am somewhat partial to, despite its pretentiousness) that is executed by D&Co, et al. Plenty of places use fresh juices but are still quite distinct from them, stylistically. ETA: I like "classical" as a descriptor of this style, as long as it is not confused with "classic". Which it probably will be, inevitably, in the big game of Telephone that is the dissemination of pop culture.

I understand the need for a pithy term that will encapsulate the spirit of what these bars are doing, especially in any piece aimed at the masses. I also feel that we all understand the futility of really 100% capturing the essence of what anything is about - especially anything that is still developing as a genre - in a single concise phrase. That said, I am uncertain about "craft cocktails" since for me it seems to discount the craftworthiness of more new-school styles of cocktails. Is molecular mixology necessarily less of a craft? I'm not sure that it is. If the term doesn't make you feel too nauseated, I'm tempted to suggest "retro cocktails", implying an eye to the past but with a new spin on things. Just like kids in high school would wear "retro" bellbottoms to raves. (Oops: did I just date myself there?) Of course, "retro" often carries post-1950s connotations to me, so it might be just as misunderstood as any other term that has been suggested. I guess I'm trying to capture a sense of reappropriation, appropriating old ideas for new creations. ETA some stuff.

Re: Is Campari an amaro? A colleague suggested to me last night that the word amaro denotes the presence of fortified or aromatized wine in it. Campari lacks it, so it is not an amaro. Does this sound plausible?

Good point. And just in case we're not tired of hilarious bartending videos yet: http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink7620.html "A lot of ladies like it... It's very sweet, with a little aftertaste 'cuz of the soda." And don't miss the failest flair ever starting at 0:58. BWAHAHA.

Question: Is Campari considered an amaro? I'm finding some disagreement on this point and I'm uncertain, myself.

Your point about vanilla extract is well taken. I work in a restaurant that allows children and I'm hesitant to even add the bitters that some of our N/A drinks call for when I know it's going out to a child. Or to call them N/A, for that matter: I was once berated by a recovering alcoholic who accidentally ingested bitters in one of our N/A drinks (it was on the menu but he didn't see it). This would be all solved with appropriate labeling and some common sense, of course, but I am still curious: do you think that freezing grenadine would be too detrimental to the flavor to be worthwhile?

That sounds like a wicked recipe. Question about storage: If one were to make this in bulk (using Sam's recipe, or one of the others above) could one freeze this and expect it to keep well? I'd like to be able to use grenadine in N/A drinks too, if possible, which precludes adding vodka for shelf-life. Better, if possible, to store ten delis down in the basement freezer and thaw as necessary. Will freezing ruin the flavor?

I wonder if experiments on ice should be kept separate from experiments on shaking styles. Could combining the two cause some kind of interference or noise in the results? Would it be more insightful, at least initially, to simply add ice to alcohol and watch the natural, unassisted temperature and volume change? Hmm...

Brilliant, it seems I missed that one.

I assume many people have read these experiments by Eben Klemm, Alex Day and David Arnold? They were subject of one of the seminars at this year's Tales: http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/07...nce-of-shaking/ http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/07...-of-shaking-ii/ These experiments, which appear to be fairly rigorous, seem to show that neither the type of ice nor the style of shaking make much difference in temperature or dilution of cocktails. This defies common sense, to my mind, but the studies appear to be well-executed and controlled. A New York Times article recently summarized the studies (bottom of page 1): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/dining/2...ardshake&st=cse This challenges a lot of things I believed to be true. What do you make of this? <edited to fix link>

I agree with KD1191, in that I've never found NY sours to be particularly wine-forward in terms of flavor. Delicious, yes, but not a great way to point up the flavors of the wine used. That said, you could try a spicy NY sour. Blood On The Rocks 2 oz. bourbon 1 oz. lemon juice .75 oz. simple syrup dash demerara syrup dash Angostura bitters dash hot sauce .75 oz. big red wine Shake, strain into an ice-filled highball, float red wine on top. For hot sauce, Tabasco will do in a pinch, but this would probably be worlds better with a spicy bitters similar to Alchemist's hellfire bitters. I guess I better get working on that....

Death to Cointreau and Hendrick's, however. Iconic? Yes. Bartender-designed? No.