KatieLoeb

Not sure if the fresh citrus juice would react with the gelatin and keep it from solidifying. I know that pineapple and mango have certain enzymes that keep gelatin from setting, but I'm not sure about citrus. Maybe just a little bit of fresh lime juice in place of some of the water would make the jello taste more like a real mojito. I'd just use lime jello, white rum and some sort of mint syrup that would mix in completely and consistently. Actual muddled mint leaves would be too messy and leave inconsistent amounts of leaf in each serving. The Jello is sweet enough that it wouldn't need any extra sugar.

So they aren't wearing the very Seventies corduroy jeans and LaCoste alligator rugby shirts anymore? When I saw the waitstaff I had a flashback to junior high school. This was practically my uniform for a chunk of my adolescence.

I forgot the Pina Colada jello shots made from Pineapple jello and coconut rum and Hairy Navels with Orange jello, vodka and peach schnapps. I'm wondering now if I could make Mojito jello shots with Lime jello, rum and mint syrup? My apologies for the thead hijack...

Flavored Jello made with booze instead of water. ← You can't substitute all booze for the water or I think they won't set up. My personal favorite jello shots are the Margarita shots I've made out of lime jello, tequila and a splash of Grand Marnier. You can also make pretty good Madras shots by combining orange and cranberry jello and using vodka. The best jello shots come from thinking like a bartender. Back to your regularly scheduled discussion...

I'm pretty sure that even Springbank only malts a very small percentage of their barley. Almost all malt used in the production of Scotch comes from commercial maltsters and has its peat content specified by the master distiller. It makes for a much more consistant product when you specify in parts per million how much peat smoke you want. It certainly takes a bit of the romance out but I suppose it also takes out some of the commercial risk when you consider the majority of it will not see the light of day again for 10 years. I'm going to visit one of the four or so working maltings at Balvenie when it starts back again in March. Not much peat involved there though. Cheers Ian ← Ian: Thanks to you and to Splificator for explaining this a bit better. Really does take a lot of the romance out of it though, doesn't it? If you have time to explain how the commercial maltsters work I'd be interested. Does this mean that many of the brands of single malt that are so vastly different are purchasing their raw materials from the same source? Is there a commercial maltster in each region that supplies all the Highlands distilleries, or all the Speyside distilleries or whatever, or do the maltsters ship product to other parts of Scotland? If they do, how do they ship it? In tankers like gasoline??? How does this enterprise work? I'm fascinated and full of questions now that the blinders have been pulled off. The thought that some of these distillers are going completely against the "ancient formulae" and using no peat whatsoever seems akin to the shortcuts bad winemakers use (pumping over oak chips, suspending staves in old worn out barrels, etc.) to avoid spending money on newer oak barrels. I can understand their desire for consistency within their product, but to completely ignore the standard means of production seems counterintuitive to me.

Like Herb, I'm a big fan of Xe Lua. And their soup menu is off the hook. In addition to the usual pho suspects, there's a beef satay soup that's thick, stew-like and spicy and has chunks of both beef and pineapple in it. Awesome stuff. I used to love Saigon back in the day before it was Plaza Garibaldi. On 11th Street I've been to Vietnam but I confess in all my years here I've never been to Vietnam Palace. It always looked like a "banquet joint" to me and was unappealing as a result. I also got some mixed reviews about the place from friends whose palates I trust, and since I'd already discovered Xe Lua (aka The Soup Train) it wasn't so important to me to go. More recently a bunch of us checked out Pho Ba Le on Washington Avenue and it was pretty good. But Xe Lua has my heart and my favorite Vietnamese menu in town.

I did this too, just to see what would happen. Since horseradish is part of the aroma flavor profile of tequila it seemed a natural match. It was pretty good. I preferred it as shots between oysters, but a couple of my regular customers bravely guinea pigged for me and said they liked it with the oyster in the tequila as a shot, so it's good either way I guess. I was going to suggest the very same tomato juice dilutions as judiu. I personally like beef broth and I also prefer V-8 for Bloody Marys over tomato juice. I'd want to dilute the celery salt with a salt-free seasoning blend like Mrs. Dash or similar so that each sip of the drink isn't too overwhelmingly salty. I like the idea though. I'd probably buzz the celery salt and seasoning through a coffee grinder to get a nice evenly textured powder and then rim the glass with Worcestershire sauce and then seasoning. The Lea & Perrins White Worcestershire is a bit milder and might be good for this application. You can also use Aquavit (a caraway infused vodka) and make Danish Marys. Quite tasty!

I did a Saffron-Vanilla Martini for Amada but folks didn't "get" it or buy it so we took it off the drink menu. Bums me out because it was fairly tasty, but I think the reaction was somewhat predictable. It's just too bizarre for some people to wrap their head around.

Welcome to the PA forum mod*betty!! I hope you'll come down and meet some of us sometime soon! We do tend to get together for various eating and drinking binges which are well documented in the forum. Tell us more about your local discoveries as you make them too.

Is anyone sensing a theme here? Vadouvan's point about the money is a good one. Steven Starr is a restaurateur. In a former life he was a rock concert promoter. He is not and never has been, a chef. He's about capital investments in large scale thematic restaurants. The concepts are ones that have worked before, and worked well (read: profitably) for others before him. That doesn't by definition make his restaurants bad, but it does mean that the focus might be different than what the average eGulleteer would seek in the competition for their dining dollars. Nonetheless, his restaurants are successful by his own standards. $$$$

High Heels 1 oz. X-Rated Liqueur (it's a passionfruit/blood orange/mango vodka based liqueur) 1 oz. Ruby Red Grapefruit juice 3 oz. Cava Pour X-rated and juice into champagne flute. Top with Cava. Garnish with a lemon curl.

Sean: Glad you enjoyed it. It's my pleasure to share some of the more obscure things I've put together over the years. We had sour mix that was basically what you used - fresh lemon juice cut with sugar, so it probably came out pretty close to my original if that's how you did it. As for Creme de Violette, I'm having a hell of a time finding it. For a hot second I thought Fee Brothers had a Violet Cordial syrup, but it was an old list. They don't carry it anymore. I think I'm going to have to do more floral tea infusions to get my floral flavors. Edited to add: I see that Monin makes some floral syrups, including Violet, Rose, Jasmine and Lavender. Any one have any experience with these? I'm going to call and see if I can snag some samples from the company. They do make a 10 bottle sampler pack but most of the flavors are what I'd consider coffee flavors and not something I could adapt into cocktails, or there's a liqueur that comes in that flavor that would be more appropriate than a syrup.

Actually my thinking was more along the lines that cachaca is less "sharp" than rum and a better/more subtle "blank slate" on which to layer the floral flavors. I think the green tea base is less flavorful and tannic than an Earl Grey or other black tea might be, so I'd go the way Matt did and marry that with gin or a brown liquor that could stand up to it. The Cyclone tea is sooooo delicious. It smells like a lovely potpourri. I bought it from my local tea shop House of Tea. This is a new product for them and isn't listed on the site yet. But I understand they'll be fully functional for online ordering around 2/1/06 when the site gets updated. The Cyclone infused cachaca is the bomb. I need to make lots more of it.

I'd definitely add the fresh juice to each drink. The lemon oils from the peels are well preserved by the alcohol and sugar, but I suspect fresh juice might be just enough to give bacteria something to feast on. No reason to chance it. Next time follow the recipe as written. It's actually pretty fool proof that way, as simplistic as that may seem. I used to make horseradish infused vodka when I was the GM at a restaurant specializing in oysters. We served it as a shot with an oyster and a tiny dollop of cocktail sauce in it! And it does indeed make an ass-kicking Bloody Mary. Counterintuitively, the horseradish actually seemed to make the vodka taste smoother rather than harsher. It was actually quite tasty, even on its own.

It tastes just like a Philly water ice, if you know what that is. I think it's called an "Italian Ice" in other circles and is a refreshing summer dessert that's similar to sorbet that comes in various fruit flavors. Lemon is the most popular and the drink tastes just like one. It is a sweet "girlie" drink though.

Try these two: Orange Creamsicle 1.5 oz. Vanilla Vodka 1.5 oz. Brizzard Parfait D’Amour Half and Half Shake and serve on the rocks with an orange twist Philly Water Ice 2 oz. Lemon/Citron Vodka 1.5 oz. Brizzard Parfait D’Amour Splash sour mix Splash Sprite Shake and strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Kim: Skirt steak is actually the diaphragm of the cow. Called a "skirt steak" I think because of the confusion with "Faja" or Girdle in Spanish, where the terms "Fajitas" comes from. The skirt steak is the cut of choice for fajitas. Your grocery store butcher might be confined to purchasing 40 pounds at a time, but are there any other butchers in your area? Perhaps a smaller specialty butcher would have better availability of a cut that apparently isn't popular enough in your area to bother to keep around.

Welcome Shaya! There are many others like you here. You're in good company. If this isn't what the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts and Letters is for, I don't know what is. I see the germ of an idea here that is obviously the first of many. The pooled intellect and expertise of this membership is staggering, and the possibility of publications growing out of discussion here is infinite. Future's so Bright...

You haven't checked out the PA forum much have you? There's plenty of restaurants in Philly that can compare to the best New York has to offer, Japanese and otherwise. And there's some we have here that are unique and unlike anything NYC has to offer.

Steve: Thanks for that Danish recipe link! I'll have to play with a few of those now... I think the reasoning behind the dilution is that you get a stronger lemon flavor in the one bottle of vodka you infuse into. That can then be diluted both with the plain vodka as well as the simple syrup to taste. Some folks like a stronger lemon flavor and less sweetness, some like it sweeter, some might even wish to use a little bit of filtered water if they don't want such a high octane end result. If you started with twice as much vodka you'd get a more dilute infusion. There's only a finite amount of lemon oil in the peels of one dozen lemons and one lime, so the larger the volume of alcohol you start with, the weaker the end result will be and the less able you are to tweak it the way you like it. Make sense?

The latest round of Mad Science Amazingly delicious results. An herbal tea infused cachaca sour. Great texture, wonderful mouthfeel and lovely aromatics.

I stand corrected. The lovely aromatic tea I have the sample of is called Cyclone, not Calypso. Calypso must've been the other similar one. Inspired by M.X.Hassett's tea based infusions, I decided to try something different this evening. This Cyclone tea is akin to a lovely potpourri, but not in a gagging way. Very aromatic and floral, with some tropical notes. I will contact the tea merchant and get a better idea of what's in the blend later. My mind made me go to rum for this infusion, but I only had coconut rum in the house. But I also had some Mae de Ouro Cachaca in the house. So I infused two tablespoons of Cyclone tea in two ounces of cachaca for a couple of hours. Then I created this lovely concoction which I am sipping on right now: Cyclone Sour 2 oz. Cyclone tea infused Cachaca 1 oz. fresh lemon juice .75 oz. 1:1 Demerara simple syrup 3 dashes Fee Orange bitters 1/2 a Large egg white Shake viorously over ice until frothy and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Enjoy! Delicious! Definitely one of my better efforts of late. Thanks for the inspiration Matt! This one's a keeper. edited to add: Cyclone tea = Sencha green tea, violets, marigold, rose petals and orange rinds

I think the Crysanthemum is lovely. Do you think the intracacies of the petals would get lost with too many colors of Jell-o? I'd think something more along the lines of a regular cake to see the mold used to best advantage, but maybe I'm wrong.

Not if we talk about her dancing with a ham in each arm. ← I'd gladly dance with Katie atop the bar. Everyone thinks I'm a ham anyway. ← There will be no bar dancing! I need to keep my job and we need to stay on topic!

You mean to tell me it might have something to do with the food? ← Actually, I was thinking more about the penchant for hiring eye-candy-without-two-brain-cells-to-rub-together-and-make-a-spark dressed in vulgar "uniforms" as the servers. The uniforms at Jones don't fall into this category, but the servers at Continental midtown remind me of a field hockey team as envisioned by a porn producer. The Starr establishments will always suffer from the innuendo of being more theme park than real substance. The uniforms and cute-but-clueless staffers at several of the establishments will keep that impression around until there's the same level of professionalism that is displayed at Striped Bass, for instance, across the corporation.