ChrisTaylor

Rack of venison (52.5C, 1 hour) w/ bitter chocolate/sherry vin ganache and blueberry sauce. Roasted vegetables, too. The ganache refuses to quenelle nicely so it ended up looking a bit ... suspicious.

Yeah.

- pork meatballs, sausages, et al - some curry powders - mouth freshener - planting

Just assembled a Bad Word, subbing Campari for the Gran Classico (Google, at least, tells me it's a good sub--don't have Gran Clas on hand and don't remember seeing it on sale anywhere) and using Hendrick's--tail end of the bottle, see--for the gin. Nice. And, yeah, better than the Last. As much fun as the Final, I think.

That's an awesome sv/barbecue spread, Steve Irby. Out of interest, cooked much venison sv before? I have a rack of venision thawing at the moment. Maybe 550g. How long would you sv that for and at what temperature?

Local, local, local. Moo Brew's American Pale Ale. This is heavy and dark and the label just says Moo Brew. And has a sort of ... I guess it's artistic, yeah, picture. Anyway, I figured it was some kind of dark ale. Then I noticed the fine print on the back that said it was an American-style PA. Well. It's interesting enough.

Out of interest, how much do you pay for Handy? And, too, given you seem to collect these things, would you be keen to trade an Australian whiskey for Whistlepig?

The snapper looks like it's just cooked. Brilliant.

Elmer T Lee single barrel. Wow. I mean. Wow. Just took a sip and at first it was like, well, yeah, that's nice but then it lingered. There's a complex sweetness that just sits there, takes its time with your palate, doesn't hit you with the oak--which is there, no doubt--right away the way, say, Templeton does. A nice blind buy.

Back to the local offerings. Red Duck's Pale Ale. Nice. Be nicer, too, if the weather was warmer. A crisp but not boring pale. Would be nice, I suspect, with some grilled steak and a salad. But perhaps that's wishful thinking on this icy spring evening. That said, drinking it while taking a hot shower is highly recommended. And this one is from experience.

Squid is my go-to, too. Sold at all the supermarkets and everywhere else. Points for accessibility.

A friend of mine and I, we've put together an order w/ Whisky Exchange. WE ship to Australia. The range is superior than what we can get locally (i.e. I just ordered some Smith & Cross) and the prices are, too. By far. We pay a lot of tax on booze. Anyway, their range of bourbon and rye is good, I guess, in the sense it's better than what I can find here (mostly), but they don't sell anything in the Van Winkle range or Whistlepig rye. The Tom Handy rye costs as much as I'd pay locally once you factor in shipping. These are the products I want. I want a store that stocks such products but doesn't charge stupid Australian prices for them. Does anyone know of an online store that ships intentionally with a good range of American whiskies? With a half-arsed Google I've found stores but none sell the things I really want (such as Pappy at less than, say, $200-600AUD, which is basically $200-600USD [depending on age]). I mean, if I had friends or relatives in the States I'd be throwing money at them to buy and post a bottle or two at a time, but that's not really an option for me. Suggestions? I suspect that some of the cocktail/booze nerds elsewhere in the world--New Zealand, et al, especially--would also find this information helpful. EDIT Too, a nice-ish range of mezcals and such would be a bonus, I guess.

Elijah Craig. Just their default bottling. Not the small batch single barrel fancy option. A nice bourbon. An interesting bourbon. When I heard it was a sweet bourbon I imagined that it'd be a whole lot like, say, Woodford Reserve, but it's a bit more complex than WR.

I have just bought some Bittermans Habanero Shrub. Aside from OF variations and Bloody Marys, what can I do with it?

I like the looks of this recipe, It's got lots of add-ins for complexity. And I just bought a bunch of lemongrass yesterday at the Asian Market Is this used as a syrup and mixed with additional soda water or is it meant to be carbonated? Also, it seems that quinine may be available over the counter in Australia, but it appears to be prescription only in USA. Not a big deal as I've got a stash of cinchona bark, but tablet sound really easy. He doesn't say anything about adding soda water (the recipe for the gin and tonic contains gin, the tonic water, a bit of Campari and nothing else) or carbonating it, but in the photo there's a soda siphon lurking there.

Bittermans Habanero Shrub.

Stumbled on a bottle of Habanero Shrub by chance, really. Slim chance. As, I mean, I don't know of anyone, anywhere that sells it in this part of the world. So. Yeah. Here's my starting point. Two glasses--rinse one w/ Monte Alban mezcal then dump a single v large ice cube in it. Set it aside. Build, in the other glass, the following: barspoon-ish brown sugar, 2 dashes each chocolate mole and grapefruit bitters (still debating whether I should go with this or all citrus--I mean, if I had lime or coriander bitters, they'd be fun), 5 drops Habanero Shrub (purely because that's the amount I've seen used somewhere else in an OF variant) and 2 oz aged tequila (Herradura). Pour this into the chilled glass. Garnish w/ lemon zest, if that's all you have on hand. I guess grapefruit zest makes more sense. EDIT Some thoughts: needs less shrub. I mean, it's not a hot drink, but the shrub dominates, I think. the chocolate actually pops up, all subtle like, on the tail end--a keeper. really wish I could get a mezcal that's actually nice--when I bought the Monte Alban it was a choice between a couple of reasonably priced, readily avaliable mezcals (of which the Monte Alban was one) and some hard-to-find, really expensive ones. and, too, it'll be years before I finish that lone bottle, and it's not like I enjoy even tequila enough to justify buying more. this isn't bourbon.

Just tried a Jerry Thomas/Buffalo Trace Old-Fashioned on your suggestion. Really good. Incidentally, next time you're down my way, check out the Bentleigh branch of Cellarbrations. They have a really good range of (reasonably priced) bitters, bourbons and other delicious things, including Laird's apple brandy (in addition to applejack).

I'd be looking to those too. Well, pinot noir and merlot, at least. And probably--I haven't had much American wine--moreso the French stuff than the Australian. Our wine is a bit big and jammy. I mean, I haven't had a lot of buffalo--a bit, yeah--but I'm thinking of other mild, red meat that has a close-enough flavour profile not to matter, such as blesbok and impala and wallaby. A big shiraz or zin would murder it.

If someone's interested in going down that road, the Rockpool tonic water is made as follows: for every 8L water you need 2 quinine tablets, 6 crushed lemongrass stalks, the zest of 3 limes and 3 ruby grapefruits, a teaspoon each of rose and orange blossom water, 2-4 tsp citric acid (they suggest starting with 2 tsp and then fine tuning the acidity once you've stirred in the sugar), 1-2 tsp malic acid and 450g caster sugar. All of this, aside from the sugar and malic acid, is heated to infuse. It's then cooled and the sugar and malic acid are dissolved in the mixture. I haven't made it yet and, tbh, the fact that the minimum quantity I can easily make is 4L and that it only keeps for only 2 weeks kind of puts me off. I mean, I'm assuming portioning it into tubs and freezing it wouldn't do the flavour any favours.

In the Rockpool Bar & Grill book, Neil Perry includes a recipe for tonic water but also includes a little Campari on the finished cocktail.

Indeed it can. And I'd say in this case it was. I enjoyed it. A nice contrast to how ... refined something like Woodford is. 'Tis interesting as I was reminded of something ralfy said about scotch, about how sometimes a particular bottle isn't very nice as they've bottled even the dregs from the cask or some such. When I saw Devil's Cut being marketed I couldn't shake that video from my memory. Altho' I guess maybe they've refined it a bit before bottling it. Have started to notice that. I think it's only a few, tho'. It's not a quality I find endearing. They are. They're charging a lot for young whiskey. As in it's roughly ~$80/350 mL. And for that I could buy a full-sized bottle of basically any kind of bourbon or rye that's not in the super premium category (i.e. the afore-mentioned Stagg/Van Winkle/Handy) category. Granted, most Australian stills do exactly the same thing. Most Australian whiskey is very young and very expensive, altho' there are some nice examples.

Dense fruitcake. EDIT On making it in advance, I have just the fruit soaking at the moment. I get that people make the actual pudding in advance. How should I store it? I'm in a warm climate, so obviously it needs to in the fridge, but I was going to make individual puddings in dariole moulds. Do I just box them up and fridge them once cooked?

Hudson Manhattan Rye. Seen the Hudson whiskey range here and there--by the glass, by the bottle occasionally--but never got around to trying any of them. It's expensive here. Really expensive. As in, what you'd pay for the ... what, 350mL bottles is what you'd pay for half a bottle of a really, really, really nice top shelf bourbon (or rye). By the glass it's on par with Thomas Handy, Pappy Van Winkle, George Stagg, et al. So. Yeah. That rye. It was ... man, I didn't really like it. It was harsh. I mean, yeah, it's ~45% APV, but I wouldn't say either Thomas Handy or Old Van Winkle Rye--both stronger than the Hudson--were that blunt on the palate. Not a winner. Jim Beam Devil's Cut. Don't recall having a Jim Beam whiskey before. Well. That's incorrect. I've had Booker's and a few other bourbons released under other names, but I'd never had Jim Beam Jim Beam. Stuff that's sold openly as Jim Beam whiskey. Not out of snobbishness or anything, but I'd never got around to it. Woodford Reserve was, I think, the first bourbon I ever had and after that I just sampled things or blindly bought things I heard about on eGullet. But the other night a friend brought over some Devil's Cut and ... you know what? For a cheap whiskey it's nice enough. Or, rather, the opening is nice. Sweet in that pleasant bourbon sweetness kind of way. The finish is a bit rough around the edges, but yeah, I could drink this. And I will, as I was left with a half-full bottle.

Four Roses.