ChrisTaylor

I don't have the Lustau East India Solera sherry that the book calls for. I don't know if I can get it locally: my go-to place for booze stocks a few other Lustau products but not the Solera. A bit of research told me that it's a blend of oloroso and PX. I didn't have any oloroso on hand but I had some PX. I knew it'd be a different drink but I figured, hey, why not? I can see it working, I guess, but I'm tempted to cut the PX with something that'd inject the savoury note of oloroso. This just comes out super choclately, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Are there any other sherries that blend oloroso and PX in the one bottle? I don't drink enough sherry to justify having a lot on hand. EDIT Is the stuff that's marketed as 'cream sherry' roughly similar to the East India solera?

Just don't buy the ones that come in a foam box that's been sitting under a supermarket heat lamp for God-knows-how-long. They just taste like cheap vegetable oil that's been bound together with sand. EDIT And, for fun, I'd try both tiny adult birds and tiny not-even-born birds. Sans towel. I think the one thing I drew the line at, in Zim, was a pot of goat intestines. Not because it was offal but because I'd had the following conversation earlier in the afternoon: Do you want me to clean them? (The goat was being hacked apart by a grandmother wielding a homemade axe) Oh, no, it tastes better when it hasn't been cleaned. I might eat baby beasts (or baby-sized beasts) but I usually don't eat shit. Oh, yeah, and the week old kidneys that'd been sitting in 35 degree heat for the 13 hour drive to Victoria Falls. Yeah, nah. I haven't eaten anything especially interesting. I've had the worms JohnT mentions. And some game meats that are slightly unusual in their countries of origin (e.g. possum, which is not the same thing as an opossum).

Another cocktail from the Amaro 102 page: 1:1 Campari and del Capo over ice w/ soda. Americano goes fennel. It's workable.

A work in progress. The Old Main Drag. 1.5 Jameson, .5 Byrrh, .25 Dolin sweet, .75 Campari. It's not balanced. But it's amusing enough that I'll probably go back and tinker with the quantity of whiskey (a full two ounces?) and/or Byrrh.

I give short ribs about forty minutes, although that's when I'm angling to make some sort of saucy dish (ragu, chilli, curry) that contains flakes/soft chunks of meat. If yours are extra thick I'd start at forty minutes and go from there. Give them another ten minutes if they look like they need it.

The Cobble Hill sounds appealing. Do you have the ratios on hand? Anyway, I just mixed another of the drinks from that page: a Tennessee del Vecchio. The author calls for bourbon but the recipe name mentions a certain State known for its own kind of whiskey. I decided to go with Dickel #12 rather than Buffalo or Maker's. The recipe called for orange bitters but didn't mention how much I should add. I took that to mean 'a dash' so I added two: one each of Angostura and Regan's. It's not a bad drink. I can't say I'd turn to this particularly often but it's workable. I reckon del Capo would be great with Maker's or Bernheim's wheat whiskey. Booker's, too. Although a Booker's-powered version of this would kick your arse. I'd also be tempted to try it without the orange bitters. Maybe my bitter-happy palate got the better of it me as I feel like the bitters are dominating the del Capo.

Improved Whiskey Cocktail: 2 oz Ritt, .25 oz Luxardo Mara, .25 oz simple and three dashes of Angostura bitters stirred/poured over a lonesome ice cube. Absinthe (Grande Absenthe) rinse. Rather pleasant. I reckon it'd be especially pleasant with the beastly Millstone 100 I recently purchased. I mean, if you're going to set out to make a rye whiskey, it doesn't hurt to do a better job than most of the American and Canadian distillers ... EDIT Rocking the adverb.

I thought some of you might find this article interesting: http://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-102-beyond-basic-bitters/ A few of the cocktails, at least, give me ideas for Montenegro and del Capo: both of which are gathering dust, even though I'm not actively delaying the day when I find myself looking into an empty bottle (Nonino is a little expensive here). I made the La Merced, adjusting for what I had and how much I felt like drinking: an ounce of Pisco Control, an ounce of Montenegro and a half ounce each of Dolin sweet and Punt e Mes. It's fairly, well, sweet. I'm glad I made a smaller drink than the 1.5/1.5/1.5 of the recipe. I don't recall mixing with Montenegro before but I find myself wondering if it needs to be presented in much smaller quantities (as a modifier rather than one of three equally-portioned ingredients) or paired up with something beastlier than D&C's 'house vermouth' or my shitty pisco. Rye? Brandy? Maybe something a little rough and mean? A gutsier, juniper-heavy gin, even.

Notscotch. But most Australian notscotch is made in the style of scotch. The double (port/bourbon) cask expression of Sullivan's Cove. SC have picked up a few awards and a lot of attention in recent years. This bottle is a few years old. I opened it when I got it, poured a small dram and then set it aside--not because it was bad but because I kind of forgot about it. Time to have another shot at it. On the nose you get the oak and the 'mustiness' I associate with whiskies that have spent some time in a wine cask (this is most obvious in the pinot edition of Hellyer's Road, another Tasmanian whisky). It tastes young. No age statement on the bottle, as you can see. Most Australian whisky is sold really young, although that's starting to change. I don't know much about the expressions of SC that have been collecting awards. Sweet entry. Oak. Floral. Butterscotch. Not bad.

If you want to skip making the chutney you could buy Mrs Ball's.

I just made this. It's a bit like Power Rangers. 'Cynar! Byrrh! When your powers combine ...'

As I type this I'm tasting it for the very first time. I served it the way I often serve apertifs, with a single large ice cube. It's really interesting. I get the port comparison. EDIT I've seen a few cocktail recipes floating around--Kindred has some--but I have to admit my first thought was some kind of Manhattan variation. Maybe Dolin jacked with a bit of this. Ritt, maybe, as the base. Altho' I'd be more inclined to use the more subdued WTRYE101 if I could be bothered tracking it down (an advantage of living somewhere where they one of the more memorable Simpsons specials: you can still dig up things like that).

Does it have to be pork belly? If so, I'd slice it thin and grill it, as someone suggested. I mean, if you count the prep, searing, assembling some kind of sauce from the braising liquid, etc as part of the 45 minutes then you'll be pushing it--seriously--to turn out a pressure cooked pork belly dish in 45 minutes. I reckon you'd spend a fair amount of time if you tried to mince it, too. Unless you own a very serious mincer.

*shrugs* It's the first bottle of absinthe I've owned. I can't say I've even really tried absinthe much: once straight from a random bottle haresfur produced, a few times in cocktails. I doubt my standards are anywhere near as high as theirs. And I also suspect it'll take me so long to finish the stuff that buying a second bottle--Lucid, say--would be wasteful. EDIT Tasting it with water--I can live without the sugar--it seems okay. It may well be 'average' but I guess it's like if your first ever bourbon is, I don't know, Wild Turkey or Elijah Craig. They mightn't be the best in the category but they're a rather welcoming introduction.

Les' Tolkien to try out one of my latest acquisitions, Ramazzotti. I used Grand Marnier as I didn't own tangelo liqueur. This is nice.

For some inane reason, I've wanted to make the Nana Ester cocktail from beta cocktails since I purchased the book. I bought some Teeling poitin yesterday with a view to making it. It was okay but not something I'll be revisiting any time soon. I also made a Negroni variation with poiteen. Let's just say that poiteen is one of the few ingredients I've come across that can beat the double team of Punt e Mes and Campari into submission with one hand tied behind its back. I followed the equal parts formula and I'm glad I did it: after reading about a white dog-powered spin on the Boulevardier, I was tempted to work on a ratio of 1:1:1.5 (with the 1.5 being the rotgut). The experience was promising enough for me to want to try it again, albeit at a different ratio, but not so much that I'd contemplate a Manhattan-style drink (i.e. vermouth, even in considerable quantity, going up against poiteen with only a couple dashes of bitters for back-up) unless the poiteen was cut with another, more subdued spirit. What else can I do with this stuff, aside from clean wounds and make Molotov cocktails? I've done a little digging online and most of what I've found doesn't look promising. Oh, hey, you can mix a measure of the stuff with three measures of Bailey's and have a real good time. Or, oh, you can make a Whisky Mac/Hot Toddy sort of thing. Or, oh, you can mix it with soft drinks. I'm hoping for something that is tolerable under my glasses-on-the-end-of-my-nose, utterly-snobbish view of the world a bit more interesting. The only thing that's popped out, thus far, as somewhat interesting is this: a bastardised martini that pairs potcheen with unfiltered sake. Really. Hey, I said 'interesting' and not 'must-make-this-now,-even-though-it's-10AM appealing'. Oh, and Kindred has a drink that uses a Cocchi product I don't have/probably can't get.

I bought some in Australia. <40%, too. I don't know anything about NZ prices--Les?--but down here (or, say, next door) alcohol is very heavily taxed. I've wondered if selling something at just-this-side-of-40%, as opposed to 40%, is a way of avoiding some kind of tax bracket and having to charge consumers that little bit more.

An experiment I'm calling the Belfast Negroni but could maybe called the Boyovardier. Equal parts Poitin (Teeling), Campari and Punt e Mes. The ... distinctive smell of moonshine was peeking out from behind the crushed bugs and Punt before I put the glass anywhere near my face so I floated a couple of dashes of Regan's orange bitters on top. You know, if you're the kind of person that likes Negronis made with genever ... this is pretty fucking good. Even if it's the first time I've seriously contemplated a Negroni variation that works on a 1:1:0.75 setup, with the Poitin making up the 0.75. EDIT Just pointing out: this thing hits you like a truck full of fuck. EDIT No. Seriously.

Coruba is very cheap. That may have something to do with it.

I'd be inclined to ditch it and replace it. I say this not because I'm rolling in piles of money but purely because if it stuck once, it's likely to stick again after you bust it open and attempt to use it.

Nana Ester: 1.5 oz Shiraz, a half ounce of Poitin, three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, a half ounce of simple and five drops of orange blossom water. Big and bold cheap Shiraz gets beaten into submission by moonshine. Not bad but you could hardly session these bad girls the way you could say, Silences or Times. Fruity. Moonshineynailpolishremovery. Citrus, yeah, obviously.

I don't own any white dog so I'm curious to see if the poitin will serve as a near-enough-is-good-enough stand-in for all my new make spirit needs. I suspect this 500mL bottle will last me a good long while. The PX and plonk are cheapies. The PX, which I've had before, is perfectly serviceable for cocktail use. The red wine is purely so I can make a beta cocktails cocktail that is based on poitin. The tequila was one that someone on here recommended to me ages ago. I'd seen minis available, briefly, months ago when the tequila was introduced to the Australian market but hadn't got around to buying one before they disappeared. I spotted a handful of them in a store today and figured I'd give it a go. I mean, I'm normally not swayed by fancy bottles--that rum that comes in a bottle that's a bit like a shrunken head, the other rum that's in a wonky bottle, that vodka that's in a skull-shaped bottle--but this looks kind of cool.

Nothing but bitter. I noticed that I hadn't posted about the drink in this thread before--when I make something from the book I do a quick search in this thread to see if I've had it before/what I thought of it--but I'm sure I had it before. Sure of it. Sure I liked it, even. Guess I didn't post or, if I did, posted elsewhere. But with a cold all you get is bitter. None of the metallic notes. None of the 'balance' that the drink actually has. You may as well be downing mole bitters straight. EDIT Trans-Europe Express. Equal parts yellow Chartreuse, Macallan Glenfarclas 25, Punt e Mes and Campari with a couple dashes of bitters (Peychaud's and Regan's orange) and a green Chartreuse rinse. I find it somewhat endearing that Chartreuse can knock the shit out of assertive ingredients like Campari, Punt e Mes and the whisky.

I just mixed a Havana Club-powered Art of the Choke. A lovely drink. 2 Cups of Blood. This drink is completely mental. Equal parts mole bitters, Suze, Punt e Mes and Del Maguey Vida jacked with orange bitters and agave syrup. Drinking this with a cold/blocked nose is unsettling.