Hassouni

Arabic style frozen mint lemonade - fresh lemon juice, water, sugar, and a handful of mint leaves blended with ice Rooh Afza, lime juice, some water, and grapefruit bitters Everything else are just plain juices/sharbats (Mitch, I thought you were a coffee and cocktails only guy! )

Yeah, 1/4 Luxardo is plenty

One full ounce of grenadine? Wow. I find this quite terrifying :-) Two ounces lime though, mind. It's fairly well balanced, even verging on the tart side. Of course, my grenadine may not be as sweet as commercial grenadine or someone else's homemade.

Looking for a way to use up two limes I zested for a marinade, I figured what better than consulting Beachbum Berry's Tiki+ app, where I found: Cesar's Punch: TWO WHOLE OUNCES lime juice (!!) 1 ounce grenadine (homemade per slkinsey's recipe from a while back) 3 drops (dashes in my case) Angostura 2 oz Barbancourt (they don't say white, 3 star, 5 star or what, but since I have the white and 5, I went with the 5) Shake w cubed ice, strain over crushed. Quite delicious! Only problem - I got the 2 oz lime juice from just one of the damn limes!

last two days have seen: (from my hand) Ancient Mariner, with ED5 and Appleton 12, and homemade pimento dram Mai Tai w Scarlet Ibis, homemade orgeat, and Senior Curaçao Caipirinha w Sagatiba (from others) Hoegaarden Cass - "Sound of Vitality!" Chum Churum Soju - lots and lots tonight

Hey FP, Total Wine in Cali has Rhum Dillon 100proof for a cool $14 a litre. Funky and gasoliney and everything an agricole should be, at a price befitting an unaged spirit

Well, just to avoid people needlessly looking up answers, I bailed on this place and am moving into another.

Except most curries don't contain it

That ain't no daiquiri!

What's the 1:1 SS equivalent of a teaspoon of superfine sugar?

Jasper's rum punch last night, probably the best tiki-style drink in terms of the simplicity/ease of preparation to deliciousness ratio 1.5 oz WN overproof .75 oz lime .5 oz 2:1 re-hydrated cane syrup a few dashes of Angostura stir with crushed ice, grate nutmeg and a pop Maraschino soaked cherry atop, and rock on.

Daiquiri no. 3 yesterday afternoon, the Constante Ribalaigua non-Hemingway version (has sugar in addition to Maraschino) 2 oz Palo Viejo blanco 1 oz lime 1/2 oz 1:1 white sugar simple 1/4 oz grapefruit 1/4 oz Luxardo Shaken with ice cubes, and strained over crushed ice. Like liquid nitrogen on a hot day!

Of ya yaba Hallaaaab! Best sweet shop in the world. And one of the best desserts in the world! I never knew how they made the wrapping - and I've never seen the layered style, only the wrapped, across Lebanon and even at Hallab in Trablus. So did you make it from scratch Nicolai?

Maraschino and Chartreuse are two great options. The big one you're missing though is Cointreau or another similarly strong orange liqueur - also unlimited shelf life and arguably used in more drinks that any other liqueur - Sidecar, Margarita, Pegu Club, Mai Tai, etc. After that I'd say Bénédictine, though it isn't as prevalent. FrogPrincesse kicked off a thread about its use in cocktails, which is quite handy: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144979-cocktails-with-benedictine/

Cool, thanks. I haven't closed on the deal and taken possession yet, but I'll do that first thing when I do.

So in a couple weeks I'll be moving into a condo that has a Viking range. I guess it's a 30" model, 4 sealed burners with a small grate in the center. Did the home inspection, and even on high heat, each burner doesn't seem to produce much of a flame. I'm used to gas stoves where high means a veritable torch of blue flame - on this Viking, it's pretty sedate and the flame does not appreciably rise above the burner cap. Is that normal for Vikings? I put my hand a foot or so over the burner and it was bloody hot, so I'm not sure whether something is wrong or not.

Would Japanese style short-grain not work? It certainly looks just like bomba...

Going to Lebanon 2-4 times a year for the past few years has utterly ruined me on Levantine food eaten anywhere else. Persian/Iraqi food and Turkish food are sufficiently different that I'll still eat them in the US/UK/wherever, but I don't even bother with stuffed vine leaves, raw kibbe, hummus, pickled turnips, falafel, or anything like that when I'm outside Lebanon.

The sort of liquor license I mean is not one for sale of bottles of booze, but for the sale of drinks. In other words, I'd look for a restaurant that was not making much of its liquor license, or something along those lines. There's a specific place I have in mind - not that I'll necessarily set up shop there, but it's what set off my idea - it's a Salvadoran restaurant, serves great food, reasonably priced, and has a pretty solid customer base. They have a liquor license - they serve beer, margaritas, and whatever else, but mostly people just have beer, horchata, or other aguas frescas. They have a few bottles of tequila, bacardi, and whatever else, but I hardly ever see anyone having a mixed drink. This is what I mean by an underutilised license. Yeah, I've thought of the rotating themes - one night whisky, one night gin, one night rum, one night tiki, etc. To my knowledge in DC such a thing hasn't be done. Thanks, will check it out

Other than bringing some stuff to friends' places and shaking up a bit there, no, I haven't. I was thinking of maybe just seeing about doing it only on weekends, until it because seriously profitable, and also maybe doing just a trial run of a night or two at a place without obligation to continue (though if it goes well, of course, i'd ask them to consider continuing the relationship)

So, I'm toying with the idea of setting up a pop-up cocktail bar along the lines of what Danny Bowien did with Mission Chinese in SF - find a small restaurant with an underutilised liquor license (I can think of a few of them in DC - places that have a few crusty bottles of spirits that are rarely ever made into drinks and served), and essentially take over their bar. I'd provide my own supplies, offer the establishment a cut of the profits, and offer the restaurant's food - the idea is that it'll increase visitors to the resto, boost their food sales, and, because I wouldn't be paying much in overhead, allow me to sell good drinks at under the average price. As for what I'd offer, I'd probably take my inspiration from the 12 Bottle Bar site and just keep things simple - classic or modern drinks that can be made with a limited number of ingredients, maybe rotate the drinks week to week or day to day, and/or have demand-driven prices (there's a bar in DC that already does that for beer). Additionally, I'm not sure how I'd structure it legally - it would operate under the existing license of the host establishment, and I guess sales sold under that license would have to be credited to the licensee? Anyone have any insight on this? Re: everything else, does this sound like something that would work? What are some other things to consider, be they legal, practical, or whatever else?

What kind of mint do you grow? Yours looks much better than the thin-leaved variety in my yard...

Ito En's pricier offerings are still reasonably priced and are a pretty good product, that's mostly what I have

Personally I feel the Manhattan is something to drink in anticipation of food...

Cadenhead's shop might be a good place to stop in