EvergreenDan

My error -- Yes, I mean the rum variation of the usually-gin cocktail. It is very good as a rum drink. I'm not sure where I got the rum variation from and had actually forgotten that it was usually gin. I try to be more careful now when I enter new recipes in the database to note where they came from (year, creator, and source reference).

Rum, tonic, and a wedge of lime is a good way to taste the rums. Another favorite is the Old Cuban. I discovered it at Eastern Standard in Boston, but I'm not sure who invented it. And a vintage cocktail featuring Cherry Heering is the Gilroy Cocktail. It doesn't really highlight the rum, but it sure is delicious.

You've piqued my curiosity about Stone's Ginger Wine. I had assumed it was pretty awful, and have a very vague memory of having been served it once as sort of a "this is all we have" kind of thing, but perhaps I'm wrong. What does it taste like? Can its flavor be simulated with other ingredients? I'm wondering about say Canton and sweet vermouth or something. I'm trying to avoid expanding my liquor cabinet beyond all reason.

Not too dry? 3/4 oz of Punt e Mes for you. As I live in a Bauhaus-style home, I'm not too fond of "international-style" being used to mean "watered down for lowbrow tastes." Humph. But then my house was designed by an American. From Germany. Oh dear. Oh, and Dave, it's Bostonian and it's "wicked pissa Geneva". I have friends who's relatives still live in Holland. It's funny to listen to them talk about being subjected to shots of Genever whenever they go there. Sounds like fun to me.

So if I've got this straight, international-style gins are made by domestic companies and non-international-style gins are made by international companies? I need a Martini.

Very nice drink. Thanks, Chris. I used Balvenie Doublewood, Bonal Gentiane Quina, and Boissiere Sweet. I started with it neat, but the proportions make it a tad sweet for my taste. On the rocks, it came together. It's more of a Manhattan than a Scotch drink as the Scotch is remarkably subdued. I might try 1/2 oz of the modifiers next time to let the Scotch through. Or maybe a "perfect" variation with 3/8 oz Sweet and 3/8 oz Dry vermouth? I'm loving your recent enthusiasm for Scotch drinks. I never knew that I could combine my love of cocktails with my enthusiasm for Scotch.

Scotland the Blave. Oh my. I had my doubts about it being too sweet or too strongly flavored. I used Balvenie Doublewood 12 and (sniff) no CAF on hand, I used 1:1 Punt e Mes and Dolin Dry. That said, I think I prefer the neat sip out of the mixing glass pre ice to the cold drink. It was like a nice single malt, but with all this complex stuff going on. The Fernet is NOT overpowering in modified amount. Great drink for a Scotch lover.

I think a classic sour with the chestnut liqueur as the sweet component would work. I'd try something like 2 parts rum, 1 part liqueur, 1 part lemon or lime, 1 to 3 dashes spicy bitters, such as Angostura. I'd then try something more interesting like 1 part bourbon, 1 part chestnut liqueur, 1 part amaro (Ramazzotti, Averna, Meletti, or even Cynar or Campari), 1 to 2 parts lemon (depending upon how sweet things are). Or try a Manhattan-type drink, perhaps in the "perfect" format with rye to keep it from getting too sweet with 2 parts rye, 1/2 part liqueur, 1/2 part dry vermouth, 1+ dashes bitters (maybe something with a strong bitter edge, like Fee Whiskey Barrel Aged). If nothing works, you could pour it on ice cream or pound cake, serve it neat after dinner to those with a sweet tooth.

FWIW, my bottle may not be remarkable, but it certainly doesn't have the unpleasant characteristics mentioned. Personally I consider maker's reputation and reviewer consensus when I discover an unexpectedly bad product. And of course, some good products just aren't to my taste.

Made this tonight. Great drink. I have to admit that I omitted the syrup and added 1/4 oz lime, plus a squeezed end slice of a lime. I'm not sure what a Ti Punch slice is, and wikipedia didn't clarify it. This is the kind of complex cocktail that I love. The flavors linger and evolve on the tongue. The Menta comes through at the end, for example, after the sour and rum funk have faded.

My home procedure is to cut the lime into the desired size. I'm pretty good at guessing how big to cut, based on size and juiciness. I used a green or yellow enameled pliers-style squeezer like you see now-a-days. I place my small OXO measuring cup into the sink or on a strainer over the sink, then squeeze into it. In this way, the stray spray goes into the sink and doesn't make a sticky mess. I sometimes cut the fruit in half over the sink to keep the cutting board clean. I then keep the halves in a tuperware container in the fridge. If a grapefruit half hangs around threatening to go bad, I search for Grapefruit in my cocktail database. That said, it is a pain to make 2 rounds of drinks for 6 people if each drink calls for an ounce of juice.

Warning: self-serving biased opinionated drivel follows: I created Kindred Cocktails to address this issue (and others). I observed that ratings of cocktails by the general population aren't very helpful because your taste in cocktails is unlike that of many of the people doing the rating. To someone who thinks a Screwdriver or Jack 'n Coke is the cat's pajamas, a Moment of Silence or Aviation is going to be just yucky. And vice-versa. Witness the thread on Chowhound where someone said that Campari was the worst bottle they had ever bought. Dagger to my heart.... I found that when I opened a general cocktail book, unless it had a narrow focus around my area(s) of interest, it was filled with many uninteresting recipes, many of which seem somewhat similar. I've been very happy with cocktail books where the author has a focused point of view. Perhaps the most extreme example is Beta Cocktails. My solution to finding and collecting good recipes was to create my own personal cocktail book by collecting recipes from books, forums, blogs, and articles. I did this first in a word processing file. That got unwieldy fast. Then in a FileMaker database. That worked fine, but it was hard to get cocktails in-and-out, and I had to launch an application whenever I wanted a recipe. And I couldn't share with my fellow cocktail enthusiasts. So what I have now is an early version of my ideal cocktail recipe website. It allows you to easily enter cocktails of your own into a personal cocktail book (called My Cocktails). You can also click to add another person's cocktail to My Cocktails. You can search and organize in a wide variety of ways (e.g. My Cocktails, grouped by Primary Alcohol, whose name contains "Fizz") or that you've rated 4 stars or greater or that you've indicated should be on your personal menu, etc. This is your personal cocktail book. I keep ratings and private notes and build a personal cocktail menu with it. I'm not sure how eGullet would feel about it, but if there is no objection, I would welcome a group effort to create a collection of high-quality cocktails from eGullet. In fact, you'll find quite a number of them in Kindred Cocktails already -- because I collected them for my personal My Cocktails from reading old forum threads. I'm envisioning a group of users who can work either on their individual cocktail book (My Cocktails), or collaborate on a group cocktail book ("Our Cocktails", perhaps?). I'll be away on vacation for the next week or two, but will be interested to see if this idea get traction.

+1 for cocktaildb.com. Invaluable research and quick look-up tool for recipes. I have been developing a website for organizing your own recipes, as well as sharing them with others. It's a different kind of thing -- certainly not authoritative because the recipes are from other users. Think of it as your personal cocktail recipe book plus Wikipedia for cocktails. As a registered user, you can create your own cocktail recipe book by entering cocktails, pasting them, importing them from a file, or merely clicking to sharing recipes that others have entered. As a non-registered user, you can look up recipes that others have entered. It is still pre-release, so there aren't many recipes yet (fewer than 500). Of course, my recipes are they so they are of the highest quality. If anyone is interested in becoming a pre-release tester (particularly if you have an existing consistently-formatted cocktail database that you'd like imported), just contact me: dan at kindredcocktails dot com, or through eGullet.

The disease is, apparently, contagious. Careful with those caps. I cleaned up a sizable pile of crystallized Pimento Dram after the cap let me down on my overflow bottle stored on its side.

I have been working on a cocktail organizer website. It is still in it's "formative years" as they used to say. You will be able to organize, categorize, and share your recipes. I would be most interesting in hearing from this elite group about a couple of items: 1) What categories do you use (or would like to use) to categorize your cocktail recipes? The software already can organize by cocktail name, ingredients, and primary alcohol. It also has a "Menu category" for each cocktail. For my own use, I use these menu categories: Classic -- Major well-known long-standing cocktails, like Martini or Manhattan, perhaps with a twist (like a Hemmingway Daiquiri) Vintage -- Cocktails from the past, not so well known (e.g. Martinez) Tiki -- Mai Tai's and the like Easy Drinking -- Sweeter drinks without challenging flavors (e.g. Caipirinha, Pisco Sour) Challenging -- Bitter, herbal, or other out-there drinks (e.g. Art of Choke, Negroni) Innovative -- New drinks that aren't too challenging So what organizational categories would you find useful? These could be additions to a menu category, or some other completely different category. For example,I currently don't do anything with glassware or mixing/serving style because I didn't find them useful (but others might). Or maybe you categorize by when you would drink it (lunchtime, before dinner, with dinner, after dinner, summer, winter)? 2) If you are currently using a computer to organize your cocktails and are willing to send me your file, I would be interesting in examining it to continue to improve the cocktail import process. There isn't much standardization in cocktail recipes, so I plan to be as flexible as possible on import formats. If so, please send them to dan899 at gmail dot com. You would also be welcome to beta test, when the software is ready. Thanks much. Dan Chadwick

I too have a tiny supply of Picon Biere. The person who hand-imported it said that, contrary to the wikipedia article, it is different from Picon (as she had both, and wasn't parting with any Picon). I too would be interested in knowing how these various things compare (to say the current Picon and to the historic one). I just sipped the Biere and it has a savory mild bitter flavor with a fairly subtle orange flavor. Not spicy like, say, Ramazzotti.

Janet - how varied are the drinks you make? For example, if you have a "usual" few drinks, you could keep those ingredients in the kitchen (sort of as Jaz suggests, but prioritizing what you use a lot). For myself, I intentionally make varied drinks. I open the cabinet (or browse my cocktail database) looking for an idea that I haven't tried yet, or something I haven't made in a long time. Therefore, the bottles that I use are almost always completely different from those I used yesterday. Finding space in the kitchen, at the expense of the hassle of re-bottling into smaller bottles works for me. It's less working than constantly walking to a distant bar. I do sometimes have to step up on the rung of a bar stool to see/reach the bottles on the upper shelf. I keep "top shelf" bottles a bit farther away, because they are usually served neat, and go straight into the dining or living room, without need for ice or mixing. And overstock goes in a sort-of pantry cabinet at the entrance to the kitchen. If you have a bar with a sink (or could add a sink), how about putting an icemaker there and really making it a full cocktail-making station? Then there's the issue of the glass storage... Like a well-designed kitchen, a well-designed drink making station makes preparing drinks a joy. I have never understood the "bar in the basement" thing, unless you move your guests down there too. Running up and down steps every time someone wants a drink is a huge hassle (unless the bar is self-serve).

I shouldn't let this blue curacao thing bug me, but it does. "Gee this ketchup sure makes my sauce look purdy, so I'll dump some in". Surely it would be more aesthetically pleasing to add a drop of blue food coloring without the crappy low-end flavor of rot-gut blue curacao (and up the quantity of, say, Cointreau) than it would be to use that awful ingredient. Or forgo the unappealing color altogether. I don't find blue slushies appealing, either. It offends my aesthetic sense in the same way that, say, beautiful watches with illegible hands do. Design sticking its tongue out at utility. Apparently I suffer life's small indignities without grace. Different values, different cultures, I guess.

Tried the Bonal/S&C 50/50 and thought it was a tad sweet with that amount of Bonal. I added 1/2 of Lime and liked it. I also tried it with Batavia Arrack van Oosten / Bonal, and added 1/2 oz of lemon and like it a lot.

Did a pair of polite Smith & Cross guys in black suits and white shirts knock on your door within the last 5 days?

Margara 1 1/2 oz Tequila Anejo 3/4 oz Creole Shrub 3/4 oz Lime juice 3/8 oz Cynar 2 dash Angostura Orange Accessibly bitter, peppery from the tequila, but still recognizable as a Margarita. My wife and I gave it 5 stars. Sipping from the mixing glass, it seemed good without the Cynar for those wanting something more true to the inspiration.

I have no special knowledge of things Japanese, except from the few acquaintances that I have. That admitted, is it fair to look at tea (American dunk-a-teabag or English make a pot versus Japanese tea ceremony)? The Japanese event is at least as much about the experience and the preparation -- maybe more -- than about the actual beverage. Or consider sushi at the sushi bar, if you've ever had the experience of going with first generation Japanese person and having the chef make things on his whim. There is a lot about the beauty of the knife work -- probably more creativity and skill than the "recipe", compared to a more western sushi experience, which might have novel combinations or ingredients made out of your sight and plunked down by the server. I guess I would have to experience the Japanese cocktail scene to appreciate it. Yes, I would like to put on a nice little show in my kitchen for my guests. But I'm pretty sure that they care a lot more about what's in the glass than how it got there. A very lot more. An American point of view, it would seem. In a good way. And to put salt in the wound, I'm not sure even the most perfectly made Daiquiri is going to excite me as much as something new and challenging (like the Martinez variation a bartender whipped up for me with Punt e Mes, Campari, and 2 kinds of bitters). I was thrilled and excited. I didn't see it made. I'm a barbarian. I taste with my mouth, not my eyes.

At the risk of restarting the whole ice thread, I think the temperature of the ice would make a big impact on the difference between built and pre-chilled (shaken or stirred). If you are straining out the "used" 32 degree ice and pouring it over fresh -10*F ice, that drink is colder, will stay colder longer, and will melt more slowly than if you just built it. With 32 degree bar ice, the difference would be much smaller, and related to things like thermal conductivity, mixing efficiency, water on the ice, and so forth. It may be me, but I find very few drink improve with additional melting. I usually like the beginning of my drinks more than the end, unless I drink them quickly. Up drinks get warm. Rocks drinks get watery. Things have improved considerably since I bought some smaller glasses of both types.

Funny how no one ever mentions the Galliano problem. One being essential, the other ... not so much. There's at least 1/8" to spare.

Schwartwald 1 oz Gin 1 oz Black Balsams 1 oz Amaro Lucano 3/4 oz Lemon Delicious, spicy, not excessively bitter, good sour balance. Complex and thought-provoking. A very good drink. I'm sure any of the spicy amari would work: Ramazzotti, Meletti, Averna, etc. Had it after a Shiver, one of my all-time favorite cocktails. Excellent imbibing tonight.