Ian Tuck

Camper did yeoman's work on contemporary Campari coloring a few years ago. Perhaps it'd be worth reaching out to him at his website or on twitter @alcademics to see if he might know? Campari is Made Differently Around the World: Cochineal, Coloring, ABV, & Eggs

Jeff Morgenthaler did it too. Now, I actually have a Campari bottle full of eggnog I made last Christmas (2013) in the fridge. It's the second of two bottles I made. The first one was horribly off when I tried it at about 8 months. It's quite possible that this one will be too. Jeff tweeted out a while back that he had some that was delicious. Perhaps my ABV wasn''t sufficient as a preservative.

I'd certainly want to try a sidecar or variant to see if the extra depth makes a difference. Maybe pull back a bit on the citrus?

I've never tried this, but seen it mentioned many times over the years. No glass cutter required.

Man, I want to be where you are. I only ever get about 3/4 oz of lime juice from a half a lime, with either a hand press or a big lever press. I guess I should count myself as lucky that we're able to get any citrus way up here in the frozen tundra of Canada.

I liked them a lot. It seemed fitting to use the Tiki ones as the flavour profile rapidly shifted as I modified (read: completely abandoned) the original sidecar idea. Since this is the first drink that I honestly would say I tried to come up with completely on my own (with the obvious h/t to the sidecar), I'd like a little more time to play with the flavours to see if I could take it somewhere else. I thought about floating some red wine on top a la a New York sour, but that just seems a little busy, and completely screws up the nice froth of the egg white. I should probably just leave well enough alone.

Made a very simple drink the other day as part of a "customers make bartenders a drink" night at a local bar. We raised about $600 in tips for the Bartenders' Benevolent Fund here in Toronto. Anyway, I call it the Panga. Appletons donated some bottles of Vx, so I started with the idea of a rum sidecar. Once the base spirit was rum, I figured lime would work better than lemon as the citrus, and rather than Cointreau I decided to use Domaine de Canton to add the sweetness and because it had cognac in it I thought it was still in keeping with the idea of a sidecar. I still added 1/4 oz 1:1 simple to bump the sweetness a little. When I tried it, it tasted good but seemed a little thin. That's when I went off the sidecar reservation. I added egg-white, which thickened it up, but it had a really quick finish. 4 drops of Bitterman's Elemakule Tiki bitters later I had a pretty dry, rum based islands-type drink. Quite a way from a sidecar, alas. To name it, since it was an island-y drink, it got me to thinking about those zodiacs that often ferry people between larger boats and shore - when I was in Galapagos they called them "Pangas". So a Panga was sort of a sidecar to the boats. At any rate, people seemed to like it - we went through a bottle and a half of Domaine de Canton. I tried it with both vanilla and cinnamon syrup and it seemed to work fairly well with both, but I went with just regular simple as that was what was on hand and I ran out of time. Here's the recipe for a Panga: 1.5 oz Appleton's Vx 3/4 oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur 3/4 oz Lime Juice 1/4 oz Simple Syrup (1:1) 3/4 oz Egg White 4 drops Bitterman's Elemakule Tiki Bitters Dry Shake, Wet Shake, serve in a 5 oz Coupe. I googled the name and the recipe and found bupkus, but it would surprise me if someone hadn't already made something exactly or pretty-much exactly like it. That said, I came by the recipe honestly, so thought I'd post it here. I've thought about trying to modify it to use The King's Ginger, which would require a bit of balance-rejiggering because it's much more more ginger-y, but I think I'll just leave it as is.

Astor Wine and Spirits had a sale on the 31-year old Inchgower, so I picked up a bottle of it to bring back to Toronto with me. Also picked up a bottle of the Pierde Almas +9 Mezcal-Gin, and an intriguing-looking bottle of Amaro Sibilla. Had one of the most epic cocktail crawl weekends I've ever experienced in NYC, so thanks to the many, many amazing bartenders who fed and (fire)watered us.

I've got two bottles of Eggnog in my fridge from Christmas, based on Jeff Morgenthaler's assertion that he aged his for a year. In seven months I'll either be back to report on the results, or suffering in hospital from severe salmonella. Will let you know either way.

Every year "Tales of the Cocktail" in New Orleans (this year is the 11th annual) has a dinner called the "Spirited Awards", which awards bartenders, spirits, etc. While they don't have awards for a cocktail, per se, they do award a "spirit of the year" award. http://www.mutineermagazine.com/blog/2012/07/the-2012-tales-of-the-cocktails-spirited-award-winners/ That said, most every spirits company now runs regular local, regional and global competitions for cocktails made with their spirits, generally limited to industry but with prizes that usually include a trip to the distiller. A quick google search reveals many of them: http://bit.ly/V7j62D

I couldn't seem to find any information on whether the VP210 and 215 have a port for sealing containers, like the VP-112 does. Do they? If not, are the chambers of the 210/215 big enough to hold the containers within to seal them? (I think I saw someone say that this works with a 60-70% vacuum before the containers collapse).

Thanks for the tip, Keith! I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Finally made my first recipe from either MC or MCaH (I own both). Wife's boss was coming to dinner so decided to make the braised short ribs with red wine glaze. Below are the results. I made so many mistakes during the process, but the recipe was surprisingly forgiving, so it all ended up being (I would say) among the best meals I ever made. Unbelievable how so much can go into something that will be so little in volume (but voluminous in flavour!) Here's having sweated it all out. After pressure cooking, the beef and the meat off the bones had lost most of their flavour, I assume, because it was all in the stock. Here's me filtering it, and Here are the bones afterwards. After running it through the sieve, this is what I had to reduce. Because of some mistakes I'd made earlier with the oil, I put it into the fridge for a while so I could get the excess fat away like that. Worked a treat. Moved it to a smaller pot to reduce. You can get some idea of how little juice is left when you're done. Wish I could've done something more with the leavngs. At the same time, I found some lovely heirloom carrots to SV. In the bag, with some oil, per www.chefsteps.com I made the potato puree recipe from MGaH as well, and aside from the prep for the glaze, it was the most labour intensive part of this dish. It was *soooo* well worth it, tho'. We also roasted up some brussel sprouts with balsamic glaze to finish the plate. My plating is awful and I'd most assuredly plate next time on a plain white plate, but having cooked this dish just made me want to cook more from this book. Next up, the Adobo Pork Belly. That all said, this is my first post to the community. Just found this place, and can't wait to participate more in the future. I've learned so much from the little I've read here already.