sbumgarner

Needed to shake myself out of my comfort zone a little last night, gave this a whirl: 1 oz Del Vida mezcal 1 oz Zirbenz pine liquer .5 Prunier orange .25 Fernet Branca Stir, strain, lemon twist A touch sweet, maybe could have gone to 1.5oz on the mezcal, but the powerful flavors seemed to keep other in check while still coming through on their own. Not a finished product but something worth further tinkering in the future.

I didn't really care for the Cruzan Light Rum - the low price tag drew me in but it fell flat for me, not terribly different from any Bacardi-type white rum. I personally like using the El Dorado 3 in anything that calls for silver rum these days, to me the flavor is simply better than most white rums and still works well in drinks like the Daiquiri that would traditionally call for a drier Cuban-style. For my money it's far and away the best value on this list. If I was choosing a more traditional Cuban-style white the Flor de Cana would be my choice from this list. I've also heard really good things about the Tommy Bahama, now they've lowered the price might be worth the risk.

I've thought about making a lampshade or sconce cover out of them to display near the home bar, but given I've never made a lampshade or sconce cover I allow them to continue cluttering my storage area, for the time being at least.

Now equipped with a large wooden mallet and a Packard bag (http://store.thebostonshaker.com/index.php?product=CTJP-PICB-HVY) I've been trying to catch myself up on Tiki drinks that previously were too much of a pain in the ass to enjoy. Tried the Bitter Mai Tai (from Dram in Brooklyn) out of this month's Imbibe: 1.5 Campari .75 Smith and Cross (or other Jamaican rum) 1 lime juice .75 orgeat .5 orange curacao (I used Creole Shrubb) Shake and strain over crushed ice. Absolutely delicious.

A friend of mine gave me a bottle - it's pretty good actually (stupid marketing content aside) but the spice is intense, a little goes a long way. This precludes me from using it in cocktails very often, it has the tendency to overshadow everything else in the drink. Probably best either on it's own with club soda or in small amounts (.25oz or less) in cocktails. Might be a good spice component in a rum or Batavia arrack-based punch as well.

I've always been happy with the tins from BarSupplies.com: http://barsupplies.com/cocktail-shakers-shaker-tins-c-33_34.html A weighted 18 oz tin paired with a 28 oz tin does the job for me, and it's cheap.

Tried this last night and really enjoyed it. 1.5 oz Plymouth .75 oz lemon .5 oz Cynar .5 oz juniper/sage syrup 3 dashes celery bitters Tasted like spring to me.

Flor de Cana 4 year old Extra Dry is usually about $12/750 ml near me and is a solid white rum. In addition to the El Dorado 12 mentioned above, it's hard to find the El Dorado 3 for much more than $15 and it's become one of my favorite mixing rums.

Death and Co. had a drink on their previous menu called the Bella Luna, basically a Rob Cooper Aviation: (proportions from memory, but I'm pretty sure this is correct) 1.5 oz Plymouth .75 oz lemon .5 Creme Yvette .5 St. Germain .25 simple Yes, another drink with St. Germain but it plays nicely with the Yvette, a really good cocktail. Beyond Blue Moon/Aviation variants I haven't seen it used in much, would definitely be interested to see what others are doing with it. Would think the vanilla characteristics would work well with agricole rhums in swizzles and other tiki-style drinks but haven't tried anything myself.

Yes, using unsalted blanched almonds and no salt was added anywhere in the process - the taste was subtle mind you, but to me it was definitely there. Per Toby's post way back I added in some orange bitters (he said bitter orange so perhaps he meant more of an amaro) and a 15ml each of brandy and vodka. I've never tasted a commercial orgeat and have never tasted a house-made one other than my own outside of a cocktail, I might need some standards calibration to wrap my head around exactly what an orgeat should taste like.

Made some toasted orgeat this weekend after reading this thread and while I absolutely love it, maybe more so than the first batch I made using non-toasted blanched almonds, I would agree that the toasted version may not work in all scenarios. I found toasting the almonds brought out a bit of a salted peanut-type flavor in the final product which might be a little off-putting with gin-based drinks. That being said, I just read something over on the Alcademics blog about a drink with Castries peanut liquor and Beefeater 24 that he claims is pretty good (I'd probably need to be convinced, but I'll take his word for now). I'm not saying orgeat and Castries are the same thing by any stretch but given the flavors coming out of my batch of toasted almond orgeat maybe it's not that much of a stretch to say it could work with gin. Guess there's always one way to find out ...

I happen to love the Cocchi in a CR2, even using a less assertive gin like Plymouth. It (along with the Vieux Pontalier I recently picked up) transformed that drink for me from good if not memorable to "holy sh--, I could drink this all night". Been trying to come up with some other non-classic uses - had some blueberry shrub left over from the summer and thought it might play well with the Cocchi, tried this out a few weeks ago. 2 oz Junipero .5 blueberry shrub .5 Cocchi .25 lemon Shake, strain into cocktail glass. First sip or two is pretty intense but after that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My wife got me a first edition of Ted Saucier's Bottoms Up for my birthday recently, and one ingredient caught my attention - Carioca rum. Based on a few searches it looks like this was a Puerto Rican-style rum from the Virgin Islands, but didn't find much beyond that. Does anyone know a modern rum with a similar flavor profile? I'm guessing a decent white or gold molasses-based rum would suffice but curious if there's anything more to the Carioca than that.

Long time lurker, first time poster. Made some vanilla syrup the other day and tried out an Old Fashioned variation that came out reasonably well, if maybe slightly out of balance with the vanilla. 2 oz Bols Genever .25 oz Yellow Chartreuse .25 oz vanilla syrup 2 dashes of Peychaud's orange twist Probably would lower the vanilla syrup down to a teaspoon, but the butteriness and herbalness of the chartreuse played nicely with the vanilla and Peychaud's, respectively. And ever since I was served a genever Sazerac at Death and Co. I've really enjoyed playing with genever in traditionally rye/bourbon drinks.