slkinsey

I don't know that it's scientifically possible to explain how bitters accentuates a cocktail the way we can with, e.g., salt added to a bowl of chicken broth. You're adding (usually) very small amounts of a liquid that is highly concentrated with millions of taste and aroma compounds. These taste and aroma compounds, some of which are fairly apparent and others of which are present on a more subliminal level, influence the taster's perception of the drink as a whole. As others have observed, they tend to round out rough edges, marry flavors and add an extra "special" dimension to the drink. One reason may be that these intense compounds in some ways make up for the "loss" of certain of the spirits' tastes and aromas that are inhibited by cold temperatures. But, again, since I think it's far too complex to say what they do in any way scientific way, poetry, metaphor and allusion may be more useful. jmfangio's "umami" comparison might be a good start. I'd suggest that bitters often work the same way that veal stock works when added to a sauce: There is some contribution of flavor that is noticable, but mostly one notices that the sauce seems to be more tied together, unified, fuller in flavor and satisfying while seeming, in some ways, to taste more of what it was supposed to be before.

I would say that Amernick is not using the term levain in any way I've ever seen it used. . . As far as I can tell, the warm water simply acted as a warm-temperature incubator to accelerate the activity of the yeast. I'd imagine you would get better results by pre-fermenting the baseball-shaped piece of dough at room temperature for around 12 hours, or even retarding it in the refrigerator overnight.

I've never heard this usage of "levain" before -- and I'm not quite sure what you're describing. You say you took a "yeast starter" and dropped it in warm water. What is your meaning of "yeast starter"? Is this (1) some kind of sourdough starter (aka natural leaven inoculum); (2) a pre-fermented batter of flour, water and commercial yeast; (3) a pre-fermented hunk of dough comprised of flour, water and commercial yeast; or (4) just some dry or fresh yeast that you are dumping into the warm water? Anyway, this sounds a lot more like the poolish method than the levain method. "Levain" usually describes a natural leaven of a dough consistency that is built up over several stages before being used as the leavening agent for a larger amount of dough. I have heard of putting a small piece of the earliest levain stage into water in order to gauge when it is fully mature and ready for the next stage (when it floats to the top of the water), but nothing like what you describe.

Barbecue is an interesting one, with many people insisting that it properly consists of x, y and z and can't be a, b or c. Interestingly, "barbecue" has been used to describe an open-air gathering where one enjoys grilled (note: not long-smoked, sauced, etc.) meats since the early years of the 18th century.

To echo Toby, I believe the thing with the blades is actually an ice crusher and not a cocktail shaker/mixer.

This sounds an awful lot to me like he's saying he invented/coined it (unless there's more context suggesting otherwise).

Yea. I think Rum and Cokes, Cuba Libres andGin and Tonics are absolutely Highballs. What's the fundamental difference between a Rye and Ginger or a 7&7 and a Rum and Coke?

The OED gives three meanings for "highball." They are: 1. A game, a species of poker, played with balls and a bottle-shaped receptacle (1882, Editor's Run in New Mexico). 2. (In full highball signal.) A signal to proceed given to a locomotive driver, formerly by hoisting a ball aloft (1897, Chicago Record). 3. A drink of whiskey and soda or other mineral water served with ice in a tall glass. Also attrib. U.S. (1898, N.Y. Jrnl.). Since the appearance of the latter two meanings seems roughly contemporaneous, I have my doubts as to whether the third is derived from the second somehow.

Nice! Nothing like putting your name on something completely different from what you wrote.

Hmm. That's a tough one. I guess I feel like the things beyond the scope of some of my quasi-purist tendeicies don't taste good. Honestly, I couldn't imagine drinking a vodka "martini" and I'd rather have nothing than a Domino's pizza. Is there anyone who really won't eat something that tastes good to them because of some kind of foodie purism?

Zardetto makes a pretty good grappa di prosecco that's reasonably priced. The Nardini products are very reliable. The Nonino products are very good. There is a grappa di chardonnay that is nice. Zenato makes a grappa di amarone that I like. Most people like grappa di moscato.

randomwalk, I wasn't putting down your earlier posts wrt pesto (alla genovese) at all. I agree, for the most part, with your points as they relate to pesto alla genovese -- although a hardcore purist might insist on the particular variety of basil used in Genova, and more to the point there is some variation even in Genova as to the precise ingredients (e.g., some might use Pecorino Romano with or instead of Parmigiano Reggiano, some might include butter, etc.) Rather, I was pointing out the kinds of problems one can get into (and, indeed, into which I have got myself a time or two) by insisting on a certain kind of purism only to be either insufficently clear or too narrow. If one is a self-declared "pesto = basil + olive oil + garlic + Parmigiano Reggiano purist" it leaves the opening to be hoist on one's purist petard by the numerous Italian examples called "pesto" made of different ingredients, unless either one is more specific as to the kind of pesto -- and even then there is room for further purism. For everyone who says that walnuts are an acceptable substitution, there may be a few people who will insist on basilico genovese or perhaps on hand crushing. Hey, I've been there. This is the reason I'm a little more relaxed in my purism, especially with respect to something potentially as broad as to be simply described as "pesto." I wouldn't have any trouble eating pasta dressed with a paste of pounded capers, tomato, garlic, pecorino, peperoncino and lemon zest, and calling that "pesto." See, what you've got there is a glass of chilled gin. Delicious, but not a cocktail. Doesn't require a mixologist, needless to say, because it doesn't require mixing.

Yea. I am kind of in the same camp. The more one knows about a certain food or a certain culinary tradition, the more one becomes aware of the range of variation within that food or tradition. So, while I tend to be quite "purist" about many things, I find that it is a broader purism than one might suppose. For example, bucatini all' amatriciana is not one specific thing. Indeed, in Italy there is some controversy as to whether it should include onion or not (in Rome they say yes, in Amatrice they say no). So, I am willing to have it with either onion or without and still call it a "purist" amatriciana. I would similarly accept either guanciale or pancetta. I am not, however, willing to accept a sauce as "all' amatriciana" that is made with bacon, and I strenuously object to pasta that is dressed with more than a wet kiss of sauce. An example of a too-narrow (or perhaps too-narrowly informed) purism is the insistence that pesto sauce be made with basil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, pine nuts and raw garlic. That describes pesto alla genovese but not a whole lot of other pesto traditions. Pesto alla trapanese, for example, has almonds and tomato and other things that the Genovese wouldn't use. That makes sense, considering that Trapani is in Sicilia. With cocktails, unless the name itself has usefully and irreversably evolved away from its original meaning (e.g., "cocktail" -- I am not yet convinced that "martini" can't be saved) I like for cocktails to be named with some sense of the proper nomenclature. If it's called a "silver fizz" then it ought to have an egg white and fizz water in it. All this talk has got me thinking whether we're really talking about a purism of nomenclature in this thread more than anything else -- some version of: "I won't call it a Y unless it has X and not Z." How about a different kind of purism? How about: I won't eat fresh tomatoes except for in the summer. I only eat salmon raw. Or, one of mine: I don't believe in drinking espresso without sugar.

I did a little etymological poking around. It seems that "highball" comes from "ball" meaning "a drink of spirits ("ball of fire" = "drink of brandy" circa 1820) and "high" referring to the height of the glass. So the first criteria of a highball would seem to be that it's served in a highball glass. The word "highball" referring to the drink dates back to the late 18C. Most classically it consists of nothing more than a slug of spirits, ice and fizz water in a tall glass, and its invention was claimed by none other than Patrick Gavin Duffy. Dave points out, however, that the English were drinking brandy and soda some 100 years earlier. He also points to the Splificator as a drink of contemporaneous naming and close similarlty to the Highball. Nevertheless, Highball seems to be the name that stuck and it seems to now describe a drink comprised of a slug of spirits, ice and a fizzy liquid of any kind (seltzer, ginger ale, cola, etc.) served in a tall glass. I'm not sure whether I'd include juice-lengthened tall drinks as Highballs or not -- probably not. I usually think of the great era of Highball proliferation as the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. After prohibition and the War, there wasn't much in the way of aged spirits to go around. "Smooth" blends without much character were made more "easy-drinking" in this format.

I agree that it's not silly to inquire and explore. But I still think it has limited usefulness. That said, I am absolutely open to the possibility that I could be widely mistaken on this. So, in the spirit of inquiry, exploration and discussion. . . You're talking, then, about changing the temperature before the meat has had a chance to equilibrate. The meat will not be at thermal equilibrium until the temperature of the meat is equal to the temperature of the water bath. What this means is that the meat will be in a condition somewhat similar to what is obtained via traditional cooking: It will be warmer on the outside than it is in the center. The outside would be at 76C but the interior would be at only, say, 55C -- with a temperature gradient running from the exterior to the interior. I'm not sure why this would be desirable. When you lower the water bath temperature to, say, 68C, several things could happen, depending on how you lower the temperature of the water bath. If you simply turn down the set point on the water bath heater, the bath will come down to the new temperature quite slowly. In this case, the meat is likely to equilibrate at a temperature only a few degrees lower than the high temperature (say, 73C) before slowly coming down to the new set point along with the rest of the water bath. If you turn down the set point and manually cool the bath (e.g., with ice water) to the new set point, the meat will equilibrate at a lower temperature before coming to the new set point. It will depend on the thermal energy stored in the meat (determined by cooking time at the higher temperature) as to whether it temporarily equilibrates at a temperature higher or lower than the new set point. I'm not sure this is entirely correct. If a piece of beef is heated up to 76C for one second, it's going to be "well done." It may not have any of the other characteristics one would like to have from a piece of well done meat (e.g., the collagen and fat melting associated with braised or otherwise traditionally long-cooked meat) but it will be "well done." This makes some sense, but again I have to wonder whether there aren't better and more effective ways to do this. For example, external fat can be removed and rendered. Or the meat can be browned to start this fat softening (which has other beneficial effects, of course). And so on. What kind of meat can you think of that one might want to cook using sous vide techniques instead of traditional ones, where unequal doneness would be desired?

In terms of muscle fibers and "doneness" I believe that, once your meat equilibrates at the higher temperature, that's the level you're going to get. I don't know that anything would be accomplished by reducing the temperature thereafter, except that you would slow down certain other beneficial reactions (e.g., conversion of collagen to gelatin, melting of hard fat, etc.). If you're going to go as high as 170, might as well do it fast, no? All of which is to say that cooking to 170 for a few hours and then lowering to 140 for another 12 hours strikes me as still being likely to give you the level of doneness associated with 170 and probably the same amount of water loss, but with more retained fat and less conversion of collagen. The contraction of muscle fiber that is responsible for a lot of water loss starts at around 50C.

My understanding is that any redistribution of juices that may happen is due to temperature disequilibrium effects. If the meat has been cooked several hours, as did jackal10's mutton, and the meat and liquid are all at one equilibrated temperature, I don't believe there will be any uptake of the cooking liquid by the meat. Indeed, it's not clear to me that uptake of external liquid is something that happens at all (although I suppose it might happen to a minor extent if one were to cool a hot chunk of deep-fried beef in a container of liquid). e-monster, if you have any information to the contrary from Blumenthal's book that you would like to post, I'd be grateful if you would post it. Considering that jackal10 cooked his mutton for 12 hours, I don't think that resting the meat in the bag would have had any effect. Rather, it seems likely to me that, as others suggested upthread, his temperature of 76C was simply way too high. Granted, given the short timeframe, some compromises had to be made. Next time, I'd try suggest something more like 68C for 36 hours.

To clarify, I recommend a Büchner funnel filter for bitters because, depending on the spices used, they can often contain a suspension of microfine particles that causes a cloudy appearance. Unless the amount of bitters filtered is very small, I don't believe that there is any danger that the filter paper will absorb significant oils from the bitters. If this is a concern, I'd recommend sending the bitters through a fine sediment filter before it is diluted -- or in the case where there is an infused alcohol component and a boiled water component, they can be filtered separately before they are combined (most likely only the water component will need filtering anyway).

Hmm. The Third Degree cocktail recipes I'm used to seeing have dry vermouth and pastis. Mostly I'm wondering about the name, though.

Anyone know the origin of the name "Fourth Degree"?

Temperature can also affect solubility. Chill haze is caused by the precipitation of tannin and protein compounds at low temperature. These compounds can be filtered out without greatly effecting flavor, and most beers and whiskeys are "chill filtered." Unfiltered whiskeys (e.g., Booker's) throw a chill haze over ice. I'm not sure whether or to what extent chill haze is affected by rapidity of chilling. In Eric's slowly cooled and then chilled iced tea example, it's possible that the slow, gentle cooling simply allows many of the haze particles to settle to the bottom of the pitcher.

Certain spirits -- notably absinthe and pastis -- contain large amounts of dissolved oils that have good solubility only above a certain percent alcohol. When water is added to these spirits, it reduces the percent alcohol. Eventually the percent alcohol is reduced below the threshold of solubility, the oils precipitate out of solution and cause the liquid to go opaque. This precipitation and clouding as a result of a chance in percent alcohol is "louching." bostonapothecary, unless your vermouth is so high in proof that it would no longer qualify as a "vermouth" -- I don't think it's possible that it louches. Perhaps you are thinking of a chill haze? Under what conditions do you typically observe this change from clear to cloudy? Regardless, there is no amount of fining or filtering that can prevent a liquor from louching if this is what it does.

I love how these things change as they go further and further from the source. The story jumps over to Eater where Steven somehow becomes "Steve." Then, by the time it's on Gawker, he's "an Internet food writer." I also have to wonder whether either Eater or Gawker bothered to ask permission to use the photographs.

Extensive thread on White Manna here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=4248 Includes pictures and video.

Well... saying that grappa is "moonshine made with the scunge left over from winemaking, invented by peasants looking for a cheap buzz" would be like saying that "bourbon is made from rotten corn, invented by back-woods shitkickers looking for a cheap buzz." And yet, there are plenty of bourbons for sale at well over $100 a bottle. Grappa, like many things alcoholic, is an acquired taste. But I've always loved it and found it fascinating. There is a wide range in grappa from delicate and floral to the more firey and basic grappas. I even have several vrey nice bottles of wood-aged grappa. It's always very interesting to have a bottle of wine for dinner and then finish the meal with a grappa made from the same wine. That said, I do agree that some grappas are prohibitively expensive. This is for a number of reasons. First, many of them are packaged in extremely expensive fancy bottles (this especially true of the Jacapo Poli products). Second, not only does importation raise the price of grappa as much as it does the price of other European distillates (ever buy a bottle ot single malt in Europe?), but I believe that importers selectively bring over mostly higher priced bottlings. I have brought back many excellent examples from Italy in the range of $25-30/Liter. Third, it's not entirely accurate to say that grappa is made from "the scunge left over from winemaking." Grappa is distilled from the pomace (mostly grape skins but also including some minor amount of seeds and stems) leftover after the fermented wine is pressed plus whatever wine remains behind with the pomace. This is a decision the wine and grappa maker has to decide. Press the pomace dry and you get a high yield of wine and a low yield of grappa -- both of which are likely to be somewhat low in quality. Leave behind a wet pomace and you get a low yield of higher quality wine and grappa. The quality of grappa is particularly sensitive to the amount of residual wine left behind with the pomace. This impacts price because the best grappa is made with a wet pomace, meaning that the wine/grappa maker has decided to go for quality over yield -- which in turn means that he must (and can) charge more for his wine and grappa. Fourth, it is significantly more difficult to make a drinkable unaged distillate like grappa than an aged one like cognac (try tasting some of that stuff right out of the still). This means that, among other things, grappa distillers have to go to a lot of expensive extra steps to make sure their products turn out right. For example, the pomace usually needs to be distilled on the same day the wine is pressed (or otherwise specially stored until distillation). These things all cost money. If the grappa you've tried has been too firey and unrefined-tasting for your palate, seek out a nice grappa di moscato -- they are usually delicate and floral.