Hassouni

Yeah, I have the grey glass bottle, the clay bottle labelled Zeer Oude Genever, and I also have a clay bottle of Bols Corenwijn

It seems my pop-up bar is kicking into life again, and I dislike juicing dozens of lemons and limes in a hand press. It seems the two best rated commercial-style presses (on Amazon, at least) are the OrangeX Olympus and similar, and the Hamilton Beach 932 - the latter stands out as it appears to be the highly-rated only rack-and-pinion system. I just got back from Turkey, where on very street corner, someone is squeezing oranges, and they all have rack-and-pinion presses. Is that setup really better than the OrangeX lever type? Is there a decent one for less than the very high cost of the Hamilton Beach?

I saw the same Caroni at Schneider's on Capitol Hill

For what it's worth, many independently bottled rums do have whisky-type qualities to them, but that has more to do with the absence of any added sugar, caramel, or anything else, and they tend to run on the dryer, scotch side rather than the sweeter bourbon side.

Yeah, the pan is not too important. Tomatoes and eggs are the two must-haves, but onions and peppers feature more often than not, I'd say

eGullet'e hoş geldiniz Tunca Bey! Any chance you know the secrets of good tantuni? Also, maybe which brands of commercially prepared biber salçası are the best? Over here we can get Tukaş, Tamek, and a few others.

Another rare foray into this thread... My favorite resto in the DC area is said metro area's only Lao restaurant, where one of the signature dishes of course is tam mak hoong, known in standard Thai as som tam. However, the Laos invented it and in my mind do it best. So here's my first attempt. I used about 15 Thai chiles, though it still wasn't as hot as when I order it "Lao hot" at the restaurant. Next time I'll try 20 chiles (And also hopefully have some crab paste on hand, as that's almost a required ingredient) Served with Lao/Isan style sticky rice, and ping gai/gai yang (Lao/Thai) - grilled spatchcocked small chicken marinated in and basted with a paste of lemongrass, garlic, chiles, fish sauce, oyster sauce, lime juice, and lots of chopped coriander (sadly not pictured) Funnily enough both these dishes are in the Pok Pok cookbook, which I have, but I didn't follow Ricker's recipe at all, preferring to base mine off Lao cooking blogs and videos.

Don't look a gift bottle in the mouth! I'm sure it'll make lovely fizzy drinks for kids' parties

Hampden distills Smith & Cross, so no surprises there, and yeah, Samaroli "Caribbean" is indeed Cuban. So the Rattray Caroni was Scotch-y? It's on sale at a local boozeria and I've been thinking about getting some. For what it's worth, Sea Wynde, which is a mix of purely pot-stilled Guyanan and Jamaican rums, is smoky in a non-peaty way, too. Come to think of it, why haven't I tried that in a Mai Tai....

What's the newish Bols product? The one introduced to the US market in the last few years? Surely that's a jonge genever, and it's a far cry from vodka as far as I'm concerned

Inspired by a recent breakfast at Van Kahvaltı Evi in the Cihangir district of İstanbul, I had to get myself a menemen pan...and make menemen! At its most basic level, it's onion, green peppers, and lots of tomatoes sauteed/softened in olive oil, with beaten egg thrown it at the end and then scrambled until barely set. Utterly delicious. This was a plain one, but it's often made with cheese and/or meats such as sucuk (sliced spicy sausages) thrown in as well. PS: Turkey is the place to get copper cookware, this pan wasn't more than about $15.

Disagree, the genevers I've tried have far less juniper than any London dry Yes, weightier in the sense of maltier. It's like a lighter malt whisky with some juniper notes.

I'm fond of this one: http://importfood.com/sama3001.html 30% oyster extract, according to their website

Yeah, this one bottle cost €15 in a Brussels shop...ouch

Also, Bomonti Filtresiz is not terrible either...

Westvleteren 12. I don't know if it's the best in the world, but it really does live up to the hype

Is this basically the same as the Clever dripper?

A million times yes

Oh man, too good. My friend sent me another

It means in the finished product. A distilled spirit should not have ANY sugar in it, with the possible exception of something aged for a while in sherry, port, etc casks, and then not more than a couple grams/L

Not to get all preachy, but zacapa burst onto the scene sugared and colored to hell, which it still is, and even if the 23 years is real, there's doubtful more than a mere drop of it in the bottle, because that's how the industry works. (per the Finnish govt's site, 20g/L https://www.alko.fi/en/products/103867/?fromsearch=true)

Rakı and water. Oh and ice, does that still count as two?

Efes Filtresiz (unfiltered), a Turkish beer that doesn't suck! (The Dark is not awful. Filtresiz might be better. Regular Efes is RANCID)

Um, no, a regular rocks/OF glass. I don't know what was up with that recipe, but that "c" of cachaça must be a mistake. Same 2ish oz pour as anything else. Also, no shaking. Rocks glass - half a (Persian) lime, quartered. add a few teaspoons of sugar to taste, muddle, add cachaça, stir, then add cracked ice, stir again, and done.

About damn time are my thoughts! (But I wish SweetGreen weren't so damn expensive...I live just around the corner from one and can never justify going)