slkinsey

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.

I'm not sure about the wine glass part at all. Go to the cocktailDB recipe search page and search for "cooler." It will bring up over 100 recipes, just about all of which are served in a large (14 oz) "tall glass." This accords with Erik's idea that "cooler" is just a generic name for an oversized, sweeter highball. For example, this Brandy Hiball calls for 1.5 ounces of brandy, ice, a lemon twist and a fill of soda water or ginger ale in a 9 ounce highball glass. This recipe for a Brandy Cooler calls for 2.5 ounces of brandy, ice, a lemon twist and a fill or ginger ale in a 14 ounce tall glass. In comparing highballs to coolers at cocktailDB, it also seems that the coolers are more likely to have multiple ingredients. For example, This recipe for an Applejack Hiball is much the same as the Brandy Hiball: 1.5 ounces of applejack, ice, a lemon twist and a fill of soda water or ginger ale in a 9 ounce highball glass. The Applejack Cooler, on the other hand, in addition to being served in the 14 ounce tall glass, includes lemon juice, sugar and floats of brandy and grenadine.

Julep makers: Do you find, as I do, that the crush of the ice has a tremendous effect on the quality of the Julep? I've often made them with ice crushed on the finest setting of my Ice-o-Matic electric ice crusher. This gets the ice pretty fine -- right around what I've seen in most pictures and what I get in my favorite bars around town. But I got to thinking that ice rasped off of a big block would be a lot more fine than that. So, I've experimented with pouring my crushed ice into a tea towel and having at it for a minute or so with a meat mallet, which produces something a lot closer to snow. The result was a lot better, IMO.

Interesting. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I suspected that might be true. Either way, it seems that the crushed product is going to be comprised of the "too ripe for whole" and also "not ripe enough or otherwise damaged/inappropriate for whole" tomatoes. Question: What information do you have that says tomato puree can't be made from paste? 21 CFR 155.191 says: This seems to say "cooked for concentration" (as you say) and also seems to leave open the possibility of making it by thinning out paste. Or would using paste be disallowed because it's made from tomatoes and not "juice"? Given the fact that crushed tomatoes are not thin and watery, I have to believe that they're supplemented with high percentage tomato puree (low percentage would actually produce a thinner product than 100% ground tomatoes), which would suggest quite a bit of concentration.

Russ, I agree that a lot of what gets sorted out must be the softer/riper (and therefore better-flavored) tomatoes. But, of course, a lot of what gets sorted out must also be the not-ripe-enough tomatoes that aren't good enough for sale as fresh, etc. I have to believe that the average quality of tomatoes used for crushed tomatoes is lower than those used for whole by the same canner. But this may not be true 100% of the time or for 100% of tomato canners. I'd probably be a lot more up on using crushed tomatoes if they were actually mostly crushed tomato and didn't include a significant addition of tomato paste, which only serves to further lower the average quality of the tomatoes in the can.

Hah! That's awesome. Not a bad buy at 70 bucks. That would be something like a 10 year supply of Grand Marnier for me.

There are several factors here: First, when you start with whole tomatoes, you can determine the texture of the finished product depending on how you want to treat the tomatoes. Significantly, you have the option of keeping out the seeds (just cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out into a fine strainer). Second, when you are in the business of making canned tomato products, you go through a selection process. It's not like the same tomatoes are going into the canned whole tomatoes and tomato paste. The best tomatoes are going to be kept whole, and the lesser-quality ones are going to find their way into the other products. I've never found a crushed tomato product that is comparable in quality to whole tomatoes I run through the coarse disk of my food mill (although, as I wrote above, this difference can be masked by the use of other strong flavors such as garlic, onion, herbs, sausage, etc.). Third, it's not like canned crushed tomatoes are nothing more than whole tomatoes that are crushed. Rather, they take some ground tomato pulp and mix it into a base made of tomato paste. This is something I'd rather do myself.

Yea, happens pretty much every year right around this time. Not sure why the recipe calls for "powdered sugar" since I can't imagine the recipe is meant to be made with modern-day powdered sugar (surely it's supposed to be superfine sugar).

I wish some of these new companies would come out with mixing-appropriate (in terms of price point and flavor profile) whiskies, but they all seem to try for the superpremium sipping whiskey niche. Assuming small Manhattans with 2 ounces of rye and 1 ounce of vermouth, each one made with Hudson Manhattan Rye would have around six bucks worth of whiskey in it. By volume, it's more espensive than Michter's 10 year.

Satan's Whiskers (Straight) is a good one. I've seen it as equal parts gin, white vermouth, red vermouth, orange juice and Grand Marnier (use regular orange curaçao instead of Grand Marnier and it's "curled") plus a few dashes of orange bitters. Some people like to dial back a bit on the orange juice and Grand Marnier. cocktailDB has many recipes with Grand Marnier that might interest you.

That stuff is awfully expensive for mixing, even in something as elemental as a Manhattan. I've seen it around for something like 35 bucks a bottle -- a 375 ml bottle!

Yikes! You're not kidding! The Monkey Gland video has gin, orange juice and grenadine (no absinthe or absinthe-substitute) with ice in a highball glass!

I tend to buy Le Valle DOP San Marzano tomatoes at Fairway, where I can get them fairly inexpensively. I find these to be sweeter and less acidic than most other brands. I like to buy whole tomatoes rather than crushed. It gives me the option to decide what texture I would like, and I think they're higher quality than the tomatoes that go into the crushed product (which afaik is usually thickened with tomato paste). How much difference the quality and nature of the tomatoes make depends tremendously on what you do with them. Using tomato sauce as an example, it makes a big difference in a simple sauce of tomato and butter but not so much differnce in a sauce that includes softened garlic, onion, carrot and celery plus some herbs.