ChrisTaylor

When I've made creme anglaise in a water bath I just used a zip lock bag. Fill sink with water. Fill bag with custard ingredients. Leave bag open while carefully lowering (not all the way, obviously) into the sink. Digsville: displacement. Seal bag. You should be enough to push out enough air that the bag isn't overwhelmed by the urge to float.

It's under vacuum. What am I 'looking for' to determine if a piece is ready for smoking? The meat still has a bit of give to it but, I mean, we're talking bacon intended for breakfast rashers here, not a dry-cured ham.

Another of Moa's 'up market' offerings. Well. Offerings sold in individual bottle w/ cork top/wire cage/slightly higher price tag. This one's called St Joseph. Brewed in the style of a Belgian Tripel. Boozy.

If you want old socks there's always Inner Circle.

Does it have to be a white rum?

I made this. Well. Kind of. I used my commercial orget--not a fancy brand like Small Hand, either--and Mount Gay XO in place of the El Dorado. And, er, Cointreau instead of Creole Shrubb. And I don't have Lemon Hart or any other overproof rum, bar the rather assertive Inner Circle, so I left that bit out entirely. Which is to say I didn't make it. Still pretty good, tho'.

Does vac sealing the meat with the cure speed up the curing process significantly? For instance, I have a recipe that says to cure the pork belly for 7-10 days. The recipe assumes you're loosely packing the pork in salt and then wrapping it in a towel and placing it in a box. Would vac sealing the meat and cure speed this process up? If so, by how much? If you cure your meat in a vac bag, do you occasionally open/drain/reseal/replace the bag? Or do you just leave the liquid sitting in the bag for the entire duration of the cure?

There's a single malt whisky thread. I may or may not have loaded it up with comments about bourbon and rye and other things that are not single malt whisky. Luckily, this here is the brandy there. 'Brandy' is a very broad category, running from inexpensive rotgut to very expensive, highly sought after cognac. Not to mention brandy-based liqueurs such as Grand Marnier. Or things like Laird's apple brandy. This thread is, I guess, the brandy version of the malt whisky thread. What are your favourite brandies? Which do you like to sip? Which do you mix with? Which brandies do you treat as your go-to--acceptable for the occasional cocktail and sipping? Do you have anything special in your collection? Have you tried anything special at a bar or restaurant recently? My personal collection has grown. The first brandy I ever tried and liked was cognac. Mass produced cognac, to be sure, but cognac nonetheless. Enough to keep me amused for a few years before I got around to venturing outside that very specific region. It's very much something I'm still discovering. With a lot of aged brandies I get bashed over the head by oak and have to really contemplate the more subtle differences. Things I have at the moment: KWV 10. This is a South African brandy. I had shit South African brandy when I was in Zimbabwe (Old Meester or something like that--maybe even a younger KWV) but this is pleasant. Locally, at least, it's $50AUD. From memory it was cheaper still in Zimbabwe. If you can get your hands on it, it's good. Out-of-this-world? No. Perhaps a little one dimensional. Perhaps a little rough in places that a stunning cognac mightn't be. But for the odd sip or as a cocktail ingredient? Can't go wrong. I know that locally, unless I stumble across some random special or weird markdown, this is the best I'll get at a price point that's still arguably 'bottom shelf'. The older variants are affordable, too (i.e. there's not the massive price jump of something like Glenfiddich). Jean-Luc Pasquet L'organic VS. My go-to bottle-o, Nick's, used to promote this range heavily. With good reason. At roughly the same price point, VS-wise, to Martell and Hennessy (and much cheaper than those when it comes to the XO) I think it's a superior product. Smaller producer and all. Stunning? Perhaps not. Have owned the XO and the VS. The XO was at a price point where I didn't feel bad using it in a Sazerac if that's all I had around on the brandy front. Magno Solera Reserve Brandy de Jerez. Almost as ridiculously long a title as Star Wars - Episode 3 - The Revenge of the Sith. This is kind of bad, although not undrinkable. Purchased it to make Rafa's 'Man Comes Around' cocktail. Suspect this bottle will last me a good long while. Suspect, too, someone may have ninjaed into the production plant with a bottle or ... umm ... truck of caramel colouring. Torres Jamie I 30. Just had to post a photo of the fiddly-to-open packaging. Frustraingly hard-to-open bottle, too. You're paranoid--or I am, anyway--that you're going to snap the cork. Did that accidentally with a particularly disagreeable bottle of Booker's, once. Anyway. When I first tried this stuff I was very impressed. Have ... not gone cold on it, but become less enamored with it as time has gone on. It's good but I doubt I'd buy a second bottle, despite it being very affordable for an aged brandy (altho', yeah, solera). Rich. Rich but lacking something a spirit that is at least in some small part older than me needs to have. Still, nice box. Janneau Napolean Grand Armagnac. Yet to really sink my teeth into this one. I mean, I've had a wee nip and thought it was good but that is all. Yet to explore it fully. Picked this up as a blind buy at what amounted to half the usual price. Some other things: Laird's bonded and apple brandy. Some shit pisco. Some shit apricot brandy. The standard Marnier.

Bogle Vineyard Old Vine Zin 2009. Picked this up, um, a while ago. Not too many Cali Zins (or Zins in general, although the variety is becoming increasingly popular--albeit in an obscure kind of way--in Australia) available locally. The bloke at the guy said he opted to stock this Zin as his only Zin because he felt it was representative of the style. Or something. Either way, I reckon it's pretty good. A nice sidearm when thesis-writing.

Goddamn, JoNorvelleWalker. You approach this with so much focus I read your posts and imagine a sort of montage set to 'Eye of the Tiger'. I use commercial orgeat. At some point I'll get around to DIYing it. At some point. It's mid-winter. And it's rather cold. So a good time, really, for a Mai Tai. Let's try 1 oz Appleton 12 .5 oz Smith & Cross .5 oz Coruba Juice of a lone lime .5 Cointreau .25 orgeat .25 simple

Made a couple of Manhattans. 2:1, of course, using what is almost the last of my Wild Turkey 101 and Punt e Mes. Basement Bitters Bitter Frost.

Why not look at a book that focuses on dishes that can be consumed in one or two bites? I've worked from the Alinea book to create a 'snack' for a staff morning tea. All components assembled at home. Forty or so portions were reheated and plated in the space of a few minutes. You'd have to pick your dish, of course, and maybe cut a corner or two to make it workable for a 'first timer', but it's worth considering. EDIT Of course, if you wanted to get really, really, really simple you could buy a boat load of pig skin and make crackling (see the recipe in Heston Blumenthal's Heston at Home).

3 Ravens English bitter. This one just seemed a bit more one dimensional, a bit heavier handed than the other 3 Ravens offerings I've tried recently. My least favourite by far. Feral Sly Fox Summer Ale. Citrus. Bitter. Carbonation. Fruit. Not a bad drop. Expect it'd take me a while to get through a case, though.

Some recent things: Amrut Fusion Bruichladdich Octomore 6.1 Writer's Tears pot still Irish whiskey Janneau Napolean Armagnac Campari

Nick's point. About selling and all. But, yeah, truly, I'm not fussed about the creator's intent behind a whisk(e)y. Whether it's to sell, to collect, to be placed on some kind of pedestal, to be a mid- to bottom shelf go-to whisk(e)y. Don't care. If it's delicious whisk(e)y I'll quite happily drink it. And I'd almost regard it as a crime to take something so lovely and place it on a shelf to never be opened.

Writer's Tears pot still Irish whiskey. A friendly whiskey that wants to be liked. Inviting. Caramel popcorn. Mild spice. Then back to caramel. Dessert. Long finish. It's just so fucking inviting. I can't imagine anyone disliking this. The sweetness reminds me of the aged bullshit special edition Jamie, which I still like (hell, I still have a soft spot for the Jimmy McNulty-level Jameson), but there's a bit more going on there. It's a bit more rounded. Less overdone. More a whiskey you could take home to your good Christian family. The name is a bit silly, which makes you--or at least made me--think the whiskey itself will be crap, but it's good.

Silly Saison. Sickly sweet. Can't imagine it having a particularly high Brix rating but, yeah, not good. Burleigh Brewing's Hef. Stock standard German-style wheat beer. Which is to say a stock standard version of something I almost always like. This one was no exception. Probably the best Burleigh brew I've had--all the others I can recall have left me cold.

Bruichladdich Octomore 6.1. Aged 5 years. Bottled at 57%. Picked up at a good price. This one's a fucking monster. Not a monster. A fucking monster. Tasting notes: peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat, surprising clean/warm/sweet down gearing into pleasant, restrained finish. Mezcal. Herbs--maybe dried ones, like those blends off 'Italian' herbs. Bit of citrus at the end. Orange? Wow. Bonus points for the bottle design that's half way between a high end sex toy and a Wachowski sibling-designed bowling pin.

Tried a couple other 3 Ravens offerings: Golden Ale. Felt like a little brother to the American. Balance of malt/hop but not as complex, not as long in the finish. Easier drinking. White. Belgian-style white jacked with orange peel and coriander seeds. Complex. Has this interesting aftertaste that is ... sweet. Not in the way of an alcopop but in a way that's kind of pleasant. Again, this is no session beer.

3 Ravens 55 American Pale Ale. Five (unspecified) hops. Blend of barley/wheat/corn/oats/rye. Really malty. Big. Assertive. This is not a beer you could dispose of by the six-pack. It's interesting. I'm rather fond of it.

This feels like a waste.

I bought some wild-caught tiger prawns and this and made the seafood gumbo from Besh's My New Orleans. Next time I think I'd make a small (but critical, in my view) modification--pick all of the crab meat and set it aside until the very end, cooking only the shells in the soup.

Moa Five Hop. Picked it up on the basis of warming to the wheat beer. This one was just okay. The heavily hopped thing isn't my thing.

I finally caved and picked up some Amrut Fusion, a whisky I'd been meaning to try ever since it was reviewed by Ralfy a few years ago. This is an interesting one. No age statement. It's younger than the bulk of scotches on the market but it is aged in a very different, significantly warmer climate. Bottled at 50%. Initial impressions (first dram from a just-opened, just-purchased bottle): warmth, caramel. Almost like ... sticky date pudding on the nose. The butterscotch sauce part, that is. Looking at the bottle, you'd think they'd watered down the whisky to bottling strength with caramel colouring. Apparently they don't use colouring agents at all. Sweetness takes some time to fade. There's the sense of drinking a high APV beverage without the rotgut quality of cheap and nasty whisky. A whisky that's simply pleasant.

They almost remind me of Tepins.