Hassouni

I read that the Italian made foodsavers used a piston system to pump the air out - any comments on that?

It's also not cloying like so many sub $50 cognacs*. 1840 is the real deal as far as I'm concerned. *Ansac VS Cognac, for example, while nice and cheap, is also so sugared/boissed that it is LITERALLY sticky if some of it spills.

Is the Weston good at wet stuff?

I thought these were in fact the cheap POSes that gfweb was referring to?

What's the most reasonably priced non "cheap POS"?

WAY too expensive and bulky.

I honestly don't know, a friend and his girlfriend told me about it, a friend of theirs knows a farmer, or something on those lines. As for the Italian foodsavers, the ones on eBay now are pricy! Also, is there a problem with current production Foodsaver-branded bags?

I do have a decent freezer. I want to vacuum seal so I don't lose 1/3! Surely a trip to a resto isn't required? (Plus, the Anova thing)

Disaronno (remembering back to my college days) is horrifically sweet

1/16 of a cow is nearly 48lbs of beef. It's a sort of cow-share thing, where other people are also getting the same amount (some crazy people are even getting 1/8th!). It's delivered frozen and butchered into various cuts - I don't know what I'll be getting but according to the people that went in for it last year, it's a pretty fair and even distribution of cuts. But it's NOT in primal form. Total for parts and labor, as it were, comes to just a hair over $3/lb for organic, grass-fed beef.

I've never SVed before, though the vacuum sealing wouldn't be just for that, but also the year's worth of beef I'm acquiring. Good to know about thicker bags, though.

I'm about to take delivery of 1/16th of a steer, and also my Anova is on its way (sooner or later), so I want to get a vacuum sealer. I've heard the new Foodsavers are pretty mediocre, especially with any liquid involved, but the older Italian-made ones are rock-solid. Can anyone else comment upon this? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a chamber sealer or anything over $150, really.

I agree, they do taste quite different. But that doesn't mean the price of the AOC rums isn't nearly ALL marketing and hype. But seems you agree w that too I'd say 1/2 Barbancourt 15 and 1/2, I dunno, La Favorite or something would make a very affordable, convincing, "aged yet funky" cane juice rum.

More updates - the Pur rocks for clarifying vermouth, but I think the fruit infused brandy clogged it the hell up - I had to change filters. For doing very murky stuff, I think each filter has a functional lifespan of maybe a gallon or two.

I'll have to try the ... -!

Pfff, it's all marketing. Barbancourt 15 is honestly aged and is $45, my Rattray Caroni is 15 and from a defunct still and was $80 - Shit, even Highland Park 18 is $100. What's special about AOC Rhum Agricole? Nothing at all.

Try Ardbeg or Caol Ila, or indeed Lagavulin. Smoky without the medicinal nature of Laphroaig

Do you want to slice/draw cut or do straight up and down push cuts? I recently got a fairly new secondhand White #1 gyutou, which was sharpened prior to my receipt of it. It is a slicing DEMON, but it's not quite as good on a push cut, which to me implies the edge is still toothy. If you want to do up and down chopping, I'd recommend a highly polished edge, but for slicing, drawing or thrust-cutting, toothy works great. Murray Carter sharpens on 1000 and merely strops on a 6000, and then again on newspaper. He does not sharpen (as in, back and forth) on the 6000. I suppose it gives tooth but polishes the teeth? On the other hand, it seems most sharpening enthusiasts would typically sharpen on the 6k or equivalent medium-high grit stone (say, 4k-6k), at least for a knife made of Japanese steel.

The last is 'Araq Ghantous & Abou Raad, from Zahle, Lebanon Plus the same of Soldeico pisco (unpictured), a really fantastic and reasonably priced Peruvian pisco imported by a local distributor

I do this a lot too. The drink in question I was creating for tonight was up with 5 other drinks, 3 served in rocks glasses, and 1 served in a collins glass. Coupe for the new one won out, and I think it was probably the better for it.

Tiny bottles like that should be fine, frankly. Master of Malt ships their 30mL samples in a wax sealed vial, but I'm not sure the wax is necessary. As for the type of glass....you could always buy minis of whatever, drink em, wash the bottles out, and reuse them. If the glass is indeed dealkalized, there you go! ETA: Also, the argon-in-a-can trading under the name Private Reserve should serve you VERY well if your sample doesn't reach the top of the bottle/vial/jar/whatever.

I need me some Calvados/Apple brandy.... So, Leslie, when does the eG signature NZ-distilled rum come out?

Shalmanese and Elise, I know exactly what you mean. It's those few, let's face it...mostly the sour family, and to a lesser extent, the aromatized wine cocktail family that really could go either way and that really led me to ask my question. Egg white definitely goes up, and agreed on long drinks and carbonated drinks definitely getting ice, but there seem to be no actionable guidelines other than that. I think Shalmanese's point about carefully balanced drinks being served up is quite valid...except for Tiki drinks, which are EXTREMELY carefully balanced and almost never served up. Short of experimentation, let's say you were making a sour, 2 oz spirit, 0.5/0.5 sweet/sour, perhaps a dash of bitters or tincture of something. Would your instinct be to serve it up or on the rocks? Mine is to serve up, but I can't really explain why.

When you're creating an original cocktail, are there any guidelines for whether it should be served up or on the rocks? Some drinks worth both ways - Daiquiris are a prime example (up vs crushed ice), but I've seen Margaritas both ways, to say nothing of Manhattans (though frankly a rocks Manhattan is an abomination before me). To some extent, the Sazerac is nothing more than an un-rocked OF, with some absinthe added. Sours in general seem to go both ways, cf. the Daiquiri as mentioned, but also the Pisco sour, always up (because of the egg white?), vs the whiskey sour, which always seems to be on the rocks. Or indeed the Collins vs the Fizz, which at their core are the same except for ice. So really, what dictates whether a drink gets ice at the end? Sometimes it seems obvious, if the flavors are very intense or the booze strong, like most tiki-style drinks, that ice is the answer, but otherwise less so.

Hey, one I can make!