cdh

Hmmm... this leads to the classification issue brought about by Prohibition and expatriate bars. Was, say, Harry's New York Bar in Paris a French bar serving French cocktails, or an American bar serving American cocktails to Americans who came to Paris to drink them. I tend to lean toward the latter interpretation, as I'd bet most drinks claiming to have originated there, like the Sidecar, are not viewed by the French as products of native ingenuity or tastes.

France still owns a bunch of islands in the carribean where rum is made... some rums are, actually really products of France... just the Departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe, etc... which still count as French soil.

Sounds like you're half way to something like the Fish House Punch... maybe a riff on that would work... The Recipe sub the apricot for the peach, toss in some rum, and mixing brandy or something of the ilk, and call it a Cocktail Maison Peche... or some such. Probably best whipped up in batches and pushed as a promotional aperitif some evening...

Let us know what you've got to play with, and we'll certainly be able to brainstorm ideas for you. When you say weird liqueurs, how weird are you talking? Maybe just a menu of digestif liqueurs might get them moving... particularly with a little descriptive blurb that explains what they're in for if you've got some really left field stuff... and an investment in a few dozen little liqueur glasses to serve them in... As far as drinks that scream "this is French!!!" , not many of them are cocktails... Vermouth over ice. Dubbonet. Lillet. Pastis and water. Kir. None of these are anywhere near the strength of an American cocktail, nor are they built using a spirit as the primary flavor component. You might be barking up the wrong tree if authenticity is what you're really after and cocktails are what you're looking for.

Fundamental misconception... NYT openly disavows "newspaper of record" title, and just did so the other week. See this article: Paper of Record? No Way, No Reason, No Thanks.

When in an office with a hot-water tap on the water cooler, I've always stuck with oolongs and greens that brew well with water at about 180F, as that is the usual temp for such hot-water taps in my experience. No need for boiling water for the teas I happen to like.

You mean to say that egregious D'ag is still there just below 110th St? The injustice of truly worthwhile stores going under while the worst supermarket in the area keeps plodding along... (OK, it is not the worst supermarket ever, but is significantly below the level of everything else that was in the neighborhood.)

AAArghhhhhhhh! This is awful news... Now I'm feeling oooooooold, and I've not been out of Columbia 10 years yet. With Mama Joy's sad departure a couple of years ago (I'm still mourning the loss of their brisket heros), the death of UFM and now West Side too, I'd have no idea where to shop in that neighborhood. I really credit the cheese sections at UFM and Mama Joys with broadening my palate, and much of my early culinary experimentation (after getting off the CU's meal plan the second semester of freshman year) was significantly influenced by the broad selection and good prices at UFM, West Side and Mama Joys. Do culinarily adventurous kids at CU still have any options in the neighborhood, or would they be forced to walk a mile down to the Gourmet Garage at 96th to get some interesting ingredients? Truly disheartening... I still remember West Side's prepared entrees fondly... mmmm... spanikopita...

Update time-- This beer's fermentation took off like crazy after about 24 hours--- very steady stream of gas coming out of the bubbler for about three days. Since I had to go out of town (and still am), I removed the brew bucket from the 70 degree ambient temperature of the room it had been in for the first few days and parked it down in the cellar, which is much closer to 50 degrees at this time of year. Hopefully by the time I get back in a few days it will be ready to bottle... but given how big a beer it is, I might just have to rack it and let it continue. We'll see once I get to sample it.

I'm nearly through my supply, which is what prompted the new brew project... Mine took about a month to carbonate fully in the bottles... which made me quite pleased I had the tap-a-draft thingy which really did carbonate the first 6L on bottling day, and provided me with a few weeks of fine beer before I started trying the bottles and finding them not quite there yet. Was a great project, and a fun brew with you all! I'll keep everybody up to date on the progress of the Belgian Blonde that has been in my primary for a week and a half now... feel free to join in that brew too if you feel like something in the vicinity of a Duvel, or a strong Leffe Blonde. I've not been in NYC much recently... if I find myself up there any time soon, I've still got my two give away bottles that I'd gladly tote along to swap.

Have had the thought, and looked around for quinine, but had no luck sourcing any. Would love to know if there is a commercial source of the building blocks of tonic.

I'm visiting a friend who has been singing the praises of his Nespresso machine to me for a while. At home I have the grinder and pump machine and had been a little skeptical that little plastic capsules could come close. My skepticism was a little irrational since I'd gotten a pod accepting machine for use at the office and had no problems with the coffee that came out of the Illy pods. So now I'm here, and so is the Nespresso machine and a half dozen different varieties of the little plastic pods. I'm actually somewhat impressed. The espresso comes out with a beautiful crema, and tastes like a well made shot. The different blends that I've tried so far have shown that there is certainly some diversity of selection. Not the same as if you had a home roasting setup and a broad selection of green beans to play with, but a nice breadth of flavor profiles is available. My one remaining argument against supporting the nespresso system is that it supports the Nescafe empire, with its tendency to view coffee as a bulk commodity and drive prices down to the point that some growers of unusual and interesting beans can't make a living doing so. Just my thoughts for the moment... pretty good coffee system made by a giant corporation.

I'm in if it is on May 3rd! This is sounding exciting!

OK... maybe I'm revealing a huge swath of ignorance running through my chemistry education, but isn't there no such thing as liquid CO2? I thought one of CO2's biggest claims to fame was that it sublimed from solid to gas without ever having a liquid state... dry ice and all that... What's the deal? I'm really worried for the state of nature if Miller can get liquid CO2...

Bad news for all lovers of Blanche de Chambley, Maudite, La Fin Du Monde, Trois Pistoles and the rest of the Unibroue lineup. The brewery was purchased yesterday by Canadian megabrewer Sleeman. No word on what changes will be made, but my bet is that they're on the way. Stock up on the classics while you can get them! Link to article

I have no fear that my beer will come out weak or insipid with 8 pounds of DME and another half pound of candy sugar in there... are you a barleywine brewer? Or were you reading the recipe as an all grain recipe? I've found that British bitter type beers can be made with a pound and a quarter of dry malt extract per gallon... with nearly 2 lbs of fermentable sugars per gallon in this batch, I'm expecting it to come out in the neighborhood of 7% or a bit heavier depending on how low my Wyeast 1214 goes. Plenty strong for me.

Well... if you want to get historical, copyright didn't come into existence in the Common Law world until Queen Anne's reign... 1730's, if I'm recalling correctly. No copyrights at all before that. Patents, on the other hand, were handed out at royal whim, and conferred monopolies on all sorts of stuff on favored individuals and entities. So modern patents are a lot less than they were historically, while copyrights are a hell of a lot more. Trademarks have stayed relatively stable over time, except very recently, when the concept of dilution of famous marks came into fashion, and then got codified.

No. Doesn't work that way. As said before in the thread, there are 4 flavors of IP- --copyrights, which protect original creative expression (and boat hulls), but not facts; --trademarks, which protect the commercial value in the association of a mark with a particular source of goods and prevent the unfair competition of allowing somebody to confuse the consumer as to the source of the product; --patents, which only apply to novel, non-obvious and useful inventions; and --trade secrets, which require a high level of vigilance on the part of the secret owner, and are totally unprotected from reverse engineering. Recipes could only fit in under the trade secret flavor, and doing so would require a proprietor or chef to make everybody to whom he teaches the recipe (or who could come to know the recipe) sign a nondisclosure/noncompete agreement. That is the best way that the law could protect a creative genius in the kitchen, but if the competition come in, sit down and order all of the secret dishes, and figure out the tricks, then they're free to go forth and replicate them all they want.

Depends on their marketing and pricing strategy. I'm not a believer in many products that proclaim themselves to be "SuperPremium"... that is a decision for the market to make once it has sufficient information to come to a conclusion. If they price it at Kahlua+50%, there's no way in hell I'd think about buying it. If they price it even with Kahlua, then I might try when next I run out of Kahlua. If they price it at at Kahlua -20% then I'd go out of my way to try it. After I've tried it, I'll decide whether it is worth buying again, and at what price point.

Good pastis is one of the finer things...

If you're going to purchase a pastis, I'd suggest getting Henri Bardouin pastis. Best of the bunch , as far as I'm concerned... Which reminds me that since it is so warm and pleasant outside, I should bring a bottle up from the cellar and laze about this afternoon with a tall glass, a splash of pastis and a pitcher of ice water.

I've not yet found anything as pleasing as the Austin brewed Celis White was. I really miss that. It had the perfect flavor and body. I find that witbiers succeed or fail based on their mouthfeel more often than not. Some are too dense, some are too thin, but Celis White really was the right balance.

This was a 5 gallon batch, so not so small... I'd just noticed I'd forgotten to mention that, kinda taking that size as the uniform standard that everybody would assume... then thought the better of it after the post-editing window had already closed. So, this is a normal sized batch, at least as far as I'm concerned. I don't have a kettle that could handle a 10 or 12 gallon batch, and I only have about 12 gallons worth of bottle space readily to hand, so if I want to drink diversely, I have to brew small.

Well, your geography would certainly make a big difference to the answer, and you never said where you were until a couple of your fellow denizens of the mountainous west gave away your secret. Were you in the mid-atlantic east, I'd say go to Moore Bros and pick up the full case of 12 that they sell for $100 and call the Bon Marche collection. Wine shop owned by highly reputed sommellier, which maintains a limited select set of wines... his good taste reaches down into the lower priced wines too. The contents of the collection keep on changing with new interesting stuff making its way in regularly. But since you're nowhere near South Jersey or Delaware, my advice doesn't do too much good for you... particularly since a flight to PHL from Colorado would blow your budget before you got here.

There are a few of us here... check out the Chef's Beer thread from a few months back. btw, just noticed I forgot to mention that this was a 5 gallon batch, and was diluted accordingly before the yeast got pitched.