slkinsey

Gelato is simply the Italian word for "ice cream." Well, actually it's a little more complicated than that. It's the past participle of the verb gelare, which means "to freeze over" or "to freeze." So technically gelato simply means "frozen." From this we get latte gelato, meaning "frozen milk." In the sense that it is used to mean "ice cream," the milk part became "understood" and the adjective became the noun standing in for the whole phrase. Anyway... in America, gelato has come to mean "Italian-style ice cream." There are several things that distinguish gelato from ice cream. In Italy, gelato is made from rich whole milk instead of cream. It is also frozen and held at a higher temperature, and is considerably more dense. This results in a different experience from American ice cream. Both American ice cream and Italian gelato have a light component and a rich component, but they are reversed. American ice cream, traditionally made with a high fat content and frozen at lower temperatures, derives its lightness from the air that is beaten into the cream as it freezes. The richness, of course, comes from the high fat content. Italian gelato, on the other hand, made from milk and frozen at low temperature, derives its lightness from a relatively low fat content. The richness comes from the low air content/density, which is created both by the fact that you can't whip air into milk and by the higher freezing temperature. Personally, and I haven't tried Grom yet, I don't think that any gelato in NYC holds up next to quotidian Italian gelato, except for Laboratorio and Otto. Even the "just good" places in Italy seem to make their product daily and use fresh, seasonal ingredients.

Yea, IMO mint syrup has a kind of off-flavor -- especially if hot-extracted, which makes it taste "cooked" -- and the flavor also deteriorates rather quickly. I'm also not sure that the Julep is meant to have "maximum mint." Rather, it should have just a hint of mint, along with the other flavors. And, as others have observed, if the mint is handled to aggressively, it releases bitter flavors that have to be balanced with additional sweetness. This treatment has most likely led to the "bourbon-flavored sweet mint snow cone" school of overly sweet Juleps.

cookman, for what purpose do you want to make this Baily's knockoff? To give as a gift or to drink on your own at home? If the latter, the future Mrs. slkinsey turned me on to the best alternative, which is simply to gather together the Irish whiskey of your choice, fresh cream and sugar. Get some ice as well, if you're inclined (we're not). Then mix together as you like it in a rocks glass and enjoy. This is 1,000% better than any bottled Irish Cream you'll ever have, purchased or homemade.

Unfortunately, in saying this Alton is showing some limits in understanding for the way these things work. A cast iron skillet in a 550 degree oven will never get over 550 degrees. I can almost guarantee you that you can get a cast iron skillet over 550 on a stove burner turned to full blast if you leave it on there a good long time. Keep in mind that super-high temperatures are hot enough to burn the seasoning right off your pans. This is a good reason to keep cast iron destined for this kind of use unseasoned.

What I find interesting in the Grimes review to which Nathan linked is how much of that writing is focused on the food. It's striking, compared to what we're getting now. At a casual glance, I'd say that the writing is a little over half directly focused on the food and wine, and maybe 15% each on the service, decor/atmosphere and history of the restaurant/chef. This is in comparison to the Bruni reviews, which seem to give more space to scene/decor than anything else, with "Frank being clever" coming in at a close second and food somewhere at the bottom.

Put a few chunks of dry ice in the bottom of the freezer. Unless you're there mixing drinks for 5 hours, you'll be fine. As for the glassware, considering that it's warm weather, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by doing exclusively long drinks. Somehow, tooling around someone's backyard with something like a Gin Gin Mule seems more appropriate than holding a cocktail glass with a shaken "up drink" in it. How many people are you talking about here? I'd also suggest that it makes sense to settle on one or two classic cocktails you can batch, rather than trying to show up there prepared to play bartender and make a zillion different drinks a la minute to order.

Meat mallet. Baseball bat. Small cast iron pan. Hefty muddler. Hammer. Cat. Rolling pin. Whatever. The important thing is that you want to end up with minimal bejeezus when you're done.

Enamaled carbon steel is usually a much thinner gauge than uncoated carbon steel. I do not recommend it at all.

Dave! That's no solution. Clearly you need a dedicated freezer in which to make gigantic blocks of ice.

Translation: "We're having a hard time converting over the data from our Pascal-formatted reel-to-reel tape drives."

I'm still not sure I buy the "stretching the sensation" thing. You're saying that you think the addition of sugar lengthens the duration of time the flavor is sensed? The duration of the finish? Both?

In America, "proof" is simply %abv * 2

Note that Plymouth Navy Strength "100 Proof" is actually 57% abv.

I think the evidence is that it's still possible to taste a Julep just fine even after it has reached a low thermal equilibrium. Certainly there is an effect in which flavor sensations are changed by low temperatures, and overall "more" things will be tastable at warmer temperatures. But that's not always a bad thing. I don't think so... Do people really think that adding sugar to room temperature cognac would give tasters "more time to experience the nuance"? I've never heard that theory. One reason to add sugar to cocktails is that perceptions of sweetness are inhibited by low temperatures. Therefore, a spirit that tastes balanced at room temperature may not hafe sufficient sweetness to be balanced when it is chilled. This is easily observable at home. Take a couple ounces of rye whiskey and tip in a short dash of bitters. Taste it at room temperature. It tastes just right. Now, dump the rest of the whiskey and bitters mixture into a shaker of ice and shake the crap out of it. Strain and taste it again. Suddenly it doesn't have enough sweetness to be balanced. This is why a Whiskey Cocktail includes teaspoon or so of thick simple syrup -- to bring the chilled drink back into balance. When the cocktail warms up, voilà!: it is now too sweet.

Doesn't the UK do alvohol by weight and not by volume? 35% ABW works out to 43.75 ABV, or 87.5 proof.

ChefCrash, when employing your "fast way" it seems that you would never completely cut through the onion, especially at the root end. Or am I missing something? Is the idea that you don't really need to cut through that part of the onion owing to the natural divisions it will have as it approaches the "half way point"?

Heh. I agree. Seems like, from what you describe, that extra-fine ice would be important if you're going to make it in a 12 ounce glass.

So, this raises an interesting question: are we making our Juleps too strong? Dave, your recipe calls for 3.5 ounces of booze in an 8 ounce glass. Jerry calls for 3 ounces in a 12 ounce glass. How would that work? Would it have been the case that there was a lot more melting (and thus a weaker overall drink) back in the 18C? Or would the strength have been about the same, and there would have been several inches of "dry" crushed ice on the top of the drink?

Put me down for no sugar. And I second Erik, Ted's article was a good one. Interesting tidbit: the original Rickey was a Rye Rickey.

I like to sub Grand Marnier for orange curaçao sometimes, but often find that I have to rebalance the drink because it is substantially less sweet than orange curaçao. For example, a Pegu Club made 4:1:1 with orange curaçao balances just right, but there have been a few times I've had to use Grand Marnier in this drink and 4:1:1 ends up quite a bit over on the sour side of balanced.

Hmm. That's interesting. If you consider that JT was really talking about making a Julep in a pint glass, with only around 3 ounces of spirits plus a dash or two of rum for aroma, it would have been a pretty weak drink. Or, I suppose, most of the top half of the glass would have been ice with no liquor and the customer would have simply sipped only the part on the bottom?

Was the Boston shaker in use back in those days? These days the glass portion of a Boston shaker is approximately a heavy pint glass. I have a hard time believing this was equivalent to a large bar glass 150 years ago.

In JT's book, the difference between a Julep and Smash seems to be primarily the size of the glass, with the former calling for "large bar glass" and the latter for "small bar glass" (he writes: the smash is simply a Julep on small plan"). The Juleps seem to call for approximately 50% more liquor, so I'd assume that a small bar-glass is around 50% smaller. I somehow doubt that JT's large bar glass was the familiar pint glass we see today.

Liquor store and bar managers, and interested consumers: Empire's code for Laird's Bonded is # 577974

Re the ice size: Jerry Thomas says: <blockquote><b>Mint Julep.</b> (Use large bar-glass.) Take 1 table-spoonful of white pulverized sugar. ½ table-spoonfuls of water, mix well with a spoon. 1 ½ wine-glass full of brandy. Take three or four sprigs of fresh mint, and press them well in the sugar and water, until the flavor of the mint is extracted ; add the brandy, and fill the glass with fine shaved ice, then draw out the sprigs of mint and insert them in the ice with the stems downward, so that the leaves will be above, in the shape of a bouquet; arrange berries, and small pieces of sliced orange on top in a tasty manner, dash with Jamaica rum, and serve with a straw.</blockquote> Note: "fine shaved ice." Erik: Looking at the picture of your Julep, I'd say it could benefit from around triple the amount of ice. This is a hard drink to make in what is, for this drink, an oversized glass, though.