slkinsey

You can read the paper here: Trevithick CC, Chartrand MM, Wahlman J, Rahman F, Hirst M, Trevithick JR. Shaken, not stirred: bioanalytical study of the antioxidant activities of martinis. BMJ 1999;319:1600-1602

Here is something I posted eons ago in the rec.food.sourdough newsgroup. I think it speaks fairly directly to what's happening here. The original topic had to do with the wisdom of using a alread-established starter culture versus starting one yourself. For some reason, people who are new to sourdough baking (I should hasten to add that I have no idea as to the level of sourdoush expertise among participants in this thread) often want to begin my making their own starter culture. This makes the task of sourdough baking, which is not without challenges in the best of circumstances, exponentially more difficult.

For Rack & Soul I'd say the specialties are "pan fried chicken, beef short rib, pulled pork, baby back ribs." (They offer waffles among their many sides, but I don't get the impression that "chicken and waffles" is a particular specialty.)

I think you have to toss the short ribs. It's not so much a matter of killing whatever bacteria might have grown during the time that the temperature was too low -- you know you can cook to sterilization over 31 hours. However, no amount of cooking will have an effect on any toxins that may have been produced during the period when the power was off. If, for example, you had some Clostridium botulinum growing in there and excreting botulin toxin during that period, you can cook those ribs until the cows come home and they'll still kill you dead as a doornail if you eat them. Probably this didn't happen... but it's a risk you can't take.

TBoner, you say "Apry came through nicely in good balance with the maraschino." Maybe you mistyped? The Slope, which we're talking about, doesn't have any maraschino. In the Slope, Apry more or less subs for the maraschino in a Red Hook... so it's rye, Apry and Punt e Mes (instead of rye, maraschino and Punt e Mes, as in a Red Hook).

I assume you mean the red one? Could be interesting.

In this drink, I'm usually more concerned about overpowering the Apry than anything else. As opposed to the way maraschino cuts right through in the Red Hook, Apry can get lost behind an assertive rye and especially behind the Punt e Mes. I'd be more likely to bump the Apry up to 3/4 and leave the Punt e Mes at 1/2. Chris, I'm a little surprised that you're concerned about covering up the rye, considering the bottling you use (fwiw, I think Flatiron uses Rittenhouse). It's hard to find a more assertive straight rye whiskey than Wild Turkey. If any rye can stand up to 2:1:1, it's Wild Turkey 101.

A google search for "choctease" suggests that your recipe is missing an ingredient. 1/2 oz. Lena 1/2 oz. Frangelico 1/2 oz. Goldken[n] 1/2 oz. Butterscotch Schnapps 2 oz. cream Honestly, I can't help saying that it sounds like a positively revolting drink.

Wait. You're saying that Arroz con Pollo is not a "traditional Mexican" dish, or is not a "latin cuisine" dish? This is something that can be found in many variations in many different Spanish-speaking cultures. I've had Cuban versions, Dominican versions, Puerto Rican versions, etc. Okay... I haven't had a Mexican version. But this was a "latin" episode, not a Mexican episode, right?

Mmmm, I don't think so. A Manhattan served in a bowl is still a cocktail, and vichyssoise served in a "V glass" is still a soup. The question, in my mind, is how much booze do you have to put in the vichyssoise in order to make a "leek and potato cocktail."

My experience has been that early dinnertimes are more common in the American Midwest, and I think this tradition may be a holdover from more agrarian times. Growing up in Boston, we typically ate dinner sometime around 7:30 or so -- and I didn't have the sense that this was particularly late. It seemed like almost everyone I knew started dinner sometime between 7:00 and 8:00. It was only when I went to college in Wisconsin that I encountered the phenomenon of dinner at 5:00 or 6:00. In a two-income family, I don't see how it would be possible to have dinner on the table by 5:00 or 5:30 anyway. When is there time to cook? Personally, I rarely have more than a cup of coffee with perhaps a piece of toast for breakfast on weekday mornings, and I like to have lunch at around 1:30. After that, I really don't find that I'm all that hungry for a meal again until 7:30 or later.

Right. I think there is a certain concentration of alcohol or in some situations a certain presence of an alcoholic ingredient (e.g., wine, champagne, sherry, whatever), that represents the dividing line between "alcoholic libation" and "cold soup." And, most often, cocktails on one side and cold soups on the other don't get all that close to the dividing line. To make a few examples: If you start with 8 ounces of finely pureed, relatively thin gaspacho and add a half ounce of pepper vodka, you have soup. If, on the other hand, you take 3 ounces of the same gaspacho, add 3 ounces of pepper vodka and serve it over ice, you have a kind of Bloody Mary -- a cocktail. Or, if you take 2 ounces of white peach puree and add 4 ounces of prosecco, you have a Bellini -- a cocktail. If you take 5 ounces of white peach puree and add 1 ounce of prosecco, you have a fruit soup (or perhaps a non-cocktail libation). With both of those examples, I think you will find that as one gradually reduces or increases the proportion or presence of the alcoholic ingredient, tasters will begin saying "this is no longer a soup . . . now it's a drink" (or vice-versa). And there will be some (not particularly appealing, IMO) point there in the middle where it is neither fish nor fowl -- it's either a weak drink or an overly boozey cold soup, or both or neither.

I'll likely have more to say about this later, but to begin will offer this: if it is a cocktail, it should be primarily about the spirit. A cocktail is, after all, an alcoholic libation.

I could be wrong, of course, but I am not familiar with Pecorino Romano being called a grana cheese. "Grana" refers to the finely granular texture, and secondarily to the fact that these cheeses, when grated, result in fine crystalline flakes. This is not the way I would describe Pecorino Romano. Think about breaking apart a wedge of pecorino... it doesn't have that sandy appearance in the broken area the way Parmigiano Reggiano does. The point, regardless of whether I have used the right term to describe it, is that romano cheeses like Pecorino Romano and Pecorino Sardo are not made in the same style or using the same techniques as cheeses like Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano. In the Cheese Primer, Steven Jenkins says:

Well, like I said, I think it would be interesting to see if an American cheesemaker could produce a distinctive and unique American grana cheese. As for the UW romano, their literature leads me to believe that it is made using romano techniques and not using grana techniques. Their own desciption says: "Pecorino Romano cheese, made from whole sheep's milk curdled with lamb's rennet, was first imported to the United States from Italy in 1894. Our Romano is made from part-skim cow's milk and is a naturally lower fat cheese. It is brined for 14 days and cured for a minimum of one year. Romano has an extra-hard body, which is crumbly and flaky, and a sharp flavor." This all seems consistent with romano and not grana.

That seems like an odd way to describe a drink. Do you know what the ingredients are? An insalata caprese consists of only four ingredients, in decreasing order of importance and prominence: fresh mozzarella (traditionally this would be mozzarella di bufala), "salad" tomatoes, fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil. To me, the idea of this dish in more-or-less cocktail form sounds revolting. But considering that he's using chipotle vodka, I have to assume that the "caprese salad in a glass" just a misunderstanding.

Rob, what happened is that bacteria and yeast from the juniper berries and in the flour were able to survive for a certain period of time and eat the sugars in the flour (thus, causing the starter to appear "active"). Then, after a while and a bunch of generations of feedings, those microorganisms died out, resulting in the low-activity starter you have now. Juniper berry microorganisms are evolved to live on... well, juniper berries. Not in a continually refreshed sourdough starter. That is a completely different environment. If you want a healthy starter, feed it twice a day with an extra-thick batter of flour and water (this approximates equal weights of flour and water), and before each feeding discard the entire contents of the starter jar except for a tiny bit clinging to the side of the jar. This creates the optimal growth conditions for sourdough microorganisms, and you should have a working starter after a while. It won't have any juniper berry mircoorganisms in it, though.

This is a modification/tweak? I thought the Trident was an "equal parts" drink?

The frost on the outside of the mixing tin is indicative of two things: First, that the contents of the shaker are cold; second, and more to the point, that the metal mixing tin has good thermal conductivity. Anyway... this is something I covered in some detail here in a thread on cocktail science. The short version: A common glass mixing vessel has a much higher thermal capacity than a common thin metal mixing vessel of the same size. Therefore, if we are using a room temperature mixing vessel, we would like to use metal because it has far less thermal energy to contribute to the drink -- resulting in a colder drink. If we have a frozen mixing vessel, we would like to use glass because it is able to absorb more thermal energy from the drink -- resulting in a colder drink. In terms of real-world application, frozen glass is probably the best. Something like heavy frozen silver would be better, because that mixing vessel would not only have a large thermal capacity but also good thermal conductivity (i.e., it would be able to absorb even more thermal energy from the drink than frozen glass, which does not have good thermal conductivity). My eGCI class on cookware has good sections on thermal capacity and thermal conductivity (the former is far more important in the context of barware).

marvelous_marvin, if I had to guess, I'd say that your knife probably needs sharpening. There's no reason the middle should be slipping out on you like that unless you're having to use too much pressure due to a dull knife.

Torrilin, you say that this UW cheese is a "romano" cheese? Is it made from cow milk? Traditionally, romano cheese is made from either goat or, more typically, sheep milk -- thus, Pecorino Romano, a cheese that has the same DOC/PDO protection as Parmigiano Reggiano. Almost all US romano cheeses are made with cow milk, and I think are quite inferior to the sheep and goat milk versions. Anyway, romano cheeses are made with a special technique called "rummaging" whereby the curds are drained very rapidly and then then the wheel is lightly pierced all over before the cheese is brined. This produces a different texture (romano cheeses are not grana cheeses) and results in a saltier cheese that can be ready after only around 6 months of aging, compared to 24 months typically for Parmigiano Reggiano. Pecorino Romano and the other romano-type cheeses are used mostly as grating cheeses, and they can't compete with Parmigiano Reggiano as a world-class eating cheese. UW probably makes romano-style cheese instead of grana cheese because the production time is so much shorter. It's not clear to me that college experience in making a romano-style cheese would have great applicability to producing a grana cheese.

Joesan, have you tried hitting the fish with a blowtorch after it comes out of SV? Another possibility for a fillet with skin would be to take the skin off, crisp that separately in a pan, and then use the crispy skin as a garnish with the fillet.

The advantage of gins like Tanqueray and Beefeater is that they have a traditional juniper-forward profile and are also high proof. All at around 94 proof are Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire and Tanqueray. Junipero is a little higher at 98.6 proof. Boodles is a bit lower at 90.4 proof. Bombay is lower still, at 86 proof. And then there's Plymouth at 82.4 proof and Gordon's at 80 proof. In addition to this, the various gins have different flavor profiles. Among the higher proof gins, Tanqueray has fairly emphatic flavoring and a strong juniper note, whereas Bombay Sapphire is softer. Interestingly, Gordon's is also one of the more emphatically flavored, juniper-forward gins, and it is the lowest in proof. Plymouth, a lower proof gin, has quite a soft flavor profile. I prefer Tanqueray for the Pegu Club cocktail. I like the fact that Tanqueray's gin flavor carrys through the drink, and since I make it with two ounces of gin to three-quarters each of lime and orange curaçao, I think it benefits from using a higher proof gin. If I were going to use one of the lower proof gins in a Pegu Club, I'd probably go with Gordon's over Plymouth in order to take advantage of Gordon's more emphatic juniper note. I love Plymouth, but I think it's softness makes it most appropriate either for drinks where it can shine relatively unadorned (e.g., a Martini) or for drinks where I would like for the gin to blend in seamlesly with the other ingredients, contributing its flavors but not necessarily signaling "there's gin in here."

It isn't. After following up on some experiments Dave Wondrich did, I confirmed that stirring with cracked ice in a frozen stirring glass will give you the coldest drink. It's all about surface area contact for thermal transfer. With larger cubes, shaking will give you a colder drink because you increase the area of contact (and thus thermal transfer) by moving the liquid around vigorously.

Again, for those who may be considering purchasing new tin-lined copper: consider the cost. Retinning is not cheap. These guys, for example, have you add up the diameter of the pan plus the height of both sides of the pan, then multiply by $4. So, the cost of retinning an 11-inch saute pan would be around 68 bucks before shipping, etc.