slkinsey

Hmm. Not sure I agree, there. It doesn't make any less sense than arguing that the "chilled vodka served in V-glass" served in most of the bars in the US isn't really a Martini.

That's it! I must have combined that in my mind at some point. Thanks for the clarification, Eric.

I actually prefer a Snapper (using gin) to a Bloody Mary.

Seriously. What's the point of a tiny splash of soda? If it's truly tiny (I assume we're talking about maybe half-ounce?) the carbonation will be gone in very short order. It will provide dilution, of course, but I can get that by swirling the glass in the ice -- and, besides, I like the progression of flavors as the melting ice dilutes the spirit. Personally, I find the idea of a vodka OF less problematic than the addition of cherries and orange slices and the like (especially if muddled!). The only problem with the vodka version is that vodka has no flavor. The Old Fashioned is such a simple and elemental preparation, that I think anything more than bitters and a twist make it into a different drink. After all, if we're going to call a drink with whiskey, sugar, bitters, a lemon twist, a splash of soda, muddled cherry, muddled orange and a pineapple spear an "Old Fashioned" -- why draw the line at Lucinda's mint? Why not "allow" a dash of maraschino? Or how about a dash of absinthe? A Sazerac seems a lot closer to the simple 3-ingredient Old Fashioned than the muddled-fruit-and-soda version, and it gets a different name...

There are a few issues you bring up here. First, I don't think that "vodka-hating," as you put it, is generally done with respect to drinking unmixed chilled vodka. This is a misunderstanding. Some of us might find that boring as a general practice, but I think even the most vodkaphobic among us would say that if you are going to drink vodka, that's the way to do it. I think most would also concede that vodka can be a good accompaniment to things like caviar. I'm certainly not a proponent of vodka, and yet I'd definitely pull a bottle out of the freezer to drink with caviar. "Vodka-hating" has its roots with respect to its use as a component in cocktails. By and large, vodka adds nothing to a cocktail but dilution and alcoholic kick. Orange juice mixed with vodka tastes like slightly diluted, alcoholic orange juice. This can be interesting and useful in a few cocktails like Audrey's Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini, where vodka dilutes the strong flavor of Laphroaig single malt Scotch, but by and large it brings nothing to the table and is used to make easy-drinking alcopop anti-cocktails -- the White Zinfandel of the cocktail world. We have the same feelings towards these cocktails that oenophiles have towards overoaked, sweet-buttery mass-market Chardonnay. The mixological craft is one of combining spirits and flavors. As a result, vodka plays a very limited role in the cocktailian's palette. As I recall, Pegu Club didn't even crack the seal on a bottle of vodka for the first few days of "friends and family" pre-opening. The second point is a valid one. I think that many cocktailians are suspicious of the whole superpreimum vodka trend. This is because, like yourself, we understand that the vodka business is primarily one of image, packaging and marketing. When you're talking about a spirit with virtually no flavor in any meaningful sense, something else has to differentiate that $13 liter from that $40 liter of vodka. This is image, packaging and marketing. Without getting too deep into it, one could say that the history of vodka in the United States is one of marketing. It was Smirnoff's advertising that brought vodka into the American consciousness in a major way, and I think it was probably Absolut's discovery that a fancy, distinctive bottle conveyed prestige and made possible higher prices that led to the image-driven superpremium market we see today. There's a reason the most expensive vodkas come in the fanciest, most distinctive bottles. To be sure, there are differences among vodka brands -- albeit, primarily from the water used to dilute the spirits to bottle proof, as well as the various "add-ins" such as sugar, glycerin and flavoring agents that are allowed in "unflavored" vodka so long as they remain below a certain concentration. But it does not necessarily follow that the expensive vodka brands are "better" than the less expensive ones. If Smirnoff and Luksusowa were secretly rebranded and put into fancy bottles, I have no doubt that plenty of people would choose them over Ciroc and Belvedere, etc. In the end, if you combine these two points, you end up with the "vodka-hating" idea among cocktail enthusiasts: For the reasons outlined above, I do think there is a certain amount of bemusement and contempt for the use of expensive superpremium vodka as a mixing spirit. Vodka definitely has its uses. It's also useful for making flavored infusions, preserving simple syrup, cleaning off the sticky residue those stupid price stickers leave on new glassware, etc. You'll be happy to know that if I ever have to give you an emergency tracheotomy in my dining room, I've got plenty of 100 proof vodka around to use as a disinfectant. In all these uses, of course, we're really not using "vodka" as an ingredient per se, but rather just using "alcohol" for its chemical properties like we might use table salt or baking soda. Yet another reason to avoid using an expensive brand. "Flavored vodka" is something entirely different. It's not clear to me that it really makes logical sense to call these "vodka." After all, what are gin, aquavit, even absinthe but neutral spirits (aka "vodka") into which other flavorings have been infused (albeit sometimes with post-infusion redistillation)? The main difference is one of complexity: gin, aquavit, etc. all have complex, multilayered flavor profiles whereas flavored vodkas tend to be entirely one-note. For this reason, many of us feel that it makes little sense to buy a flavored vodka when it isn't rocket science to make one at home for 1/10th the price. I'll never bother buying lemon or lime vodka, for example, because I can make my own to order by microplane-grating some lemon zest into a vew ounces of vodka and letting it infuse for a few minutes before straining and using it.

Yes. To be clear: ixnay on the idgebray and unneltay discussion.

Good Lord, you pantywaist! Yes. It. Will.

Reading above, although rye whiskey is my choice of spirit for an Old Fashioned, I'm not sure I agree that whiskey is the only legitimate choice for something called an Old Fashioned. I've always understood, anyway, that it was called the Whiskey Old Fashioned, implying that there could be other Old Fashioned cocktails made with other base spirits. My idea of an old fashioned is: base spirit, sugar, bitters, ice (and usually a twist or two). No soda. No muddled fruit. No cherry. I've had a few Gin Old Fashioneds I really enjoyed.

Some interesting/relevant posts I remembered from a thread on muddling: While I would perforce have to agree with this from a strictly gustatory point of view, I think that there's another perspective that some might want to take into account. The Old-Fashioned, the drink being referred to here, is the world's first retro cocktail--an 1890s reaction to the gussification of the cocktail. At the time, to make a "standard" whiskey cocktail, if there was such a thing, a bartender would've filled a large bar glass with a mess of fine ice, dashed some simple syrup and some bitters into it out of little bottles with squirt tops, added a "gigger" of liquor (most likely bourbon or rye) and as often as not a dash of absinthe, stirred the whole thing or shaken it depending upon his doctrinaire preference, strained it into a fancy stemmed glass and applied the lemon peel to it (sometimes there was also a cherry, or a pickled walnut, or what-have-you). Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. But it's not the way old-timers had learned to take their cocktails, back in the days of Andrew Jackson, when the barkeeper produced a cocktail by taking a small tumbler, placing a lump of sugar in it, adding a little water and crushing the sugar with a "toddy-stick" (basically, a slimmer version of our muddler; it could be made of hardwood, silver or even--at the El Dorado, in Gold-Rush San Francisco--of solid gold). Once the sugar was crushed, he would dash in some bitters from of a bottle fitted out with a cork with a length of goose quill thrust through it, pour in a tot of liquor (as often as not, brandy) and add a large lump of ice hacked from the block behind the bar. If it was a fancy cocktail, he might splash a little "curacoa" in it, twist a swatch of lemon peel over the top and rub it around the rim. So the Old-Fashioned was an automobile-age look back to the days when railroads were a dangerous novelty; when Indians still roamed east of the Mississippi; when the best restaurants served roast bear and the passenger pigeon was a popular game bird; when barrooms were alive with "the merry raps of the toddy-stick." It's a liquid plea for a saner, quieter, slower life, one in which a gent can take a drink or two without fear that it will impair his ability to dodge a streetcar or operate a rotary press. That's why I like to muddle my sugar cube when I make an Old Fashioned.

Hmm. I wonder how that's allowed.

Rich, do you categorically object anytime a critic makes an off-hand reference — for purposes of comparison — to something he's not fully reviewing? It happens all the time, e.g.: John Doe gave a thrilling performance, overcoming the intonation problems that have plagued him in the past. John Smith has written a compelling legal thriller, which is much improved over his earlier novel, "The Broken Cherry Tree." In this film, Spielberg focuses on the characters, unlike his earlier films that are flawed by mind-numbing special effects. And so forth. This isn't exactly the same thing, though, is it? More analogous would be something like: The singing in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon is tuneful and skillfully executed, which is a big improvement over the occasionally painful bleating in another Cameron Mackintosh-produced Broadway musical, The Phantom of the Opera. I can't imagine that any reviewer would ever write that. What would be the point? The score, composer, book, director, conductor, set designer, singers, people who hired the singers, etc. would all be different. Just as the chef, cooks, FOH staff, concept, menu, etc. are different between EMP, The Modern, GT and USC.

The Hirsch 8 year is a Canadian Rye. They also make an "American Rye" at 21 years, I think. The fact that they label one of their rye bottlings as "American" tells us something. It tells us that the Hirsch 8 year isn't really what we would consider rye whiskey down here. In Canada, "rye" is just another name for "Canadian Whiskey." Canadian Whiskey, by law, is a blended whisky of cereal grains aged no less than three years. In practice, most of these contain little if any rye. I don't know what percentage of rye Hirsch Canadian Rye has, but I think it's reasonable to assume that it isn't very much. Just about all the rye whiskey in America is "straight whiskey." This means that the grain bill must contain no less than 51% and no more than 79% of the primary grain. It must be distilled to no more than 160 proof (80% abv), aged for at least two years at no more than 125 proof (62.5% abv) in charred new oak barrels, and bottled at no less than 80 proof (40% abv). No neutral grain spirits or any other substances may be added. The rye whiskies of which I am aware that are not straight whiskies are exceptions because they exceed the "<79% of the primary grain" rule (e.g., the Anchor Distilling ryes). Percentage of rye composition doesn't necessarily make a difference in quality. There are some perfectly good rye whiskies with a relatively low percentage of rye in the grain bill. The Van Winkle rye, for example, has exactly the minimum amount of rye allowed (51%). On the other hand, this isnt exactly the most "rye like" rye whiskey I've ever tasted. Here are the percentages of rye I've seen on the internet, which may or may not be correct: Wild Turkey is 65%. Old Overholt is 64%. Van Winkle is 51%. Wild Turkey is distilled to a relatively low proof -- something like 110 proof -- which contributes to its distinctiveness.

The thing that's infuriating about it, is that they wouldn't even have to change anything. Just put less water in the bottle. That, right there, would make a huge difference. Never mind missing out on the premium sipping rye wave. They're missing the boat as the mixing rye of choice. Let's say they're charging 15 bucks a liter for Overholt at retail. Okay, assuming that this stuff comes out of the barrel at 125 proof, a liter of 100 proof Overholt would have to contain 800 ml of barrel-proof whiskey cut with 200 ml of water. A liter of 80 proof Overholt should have 640 ml of barrel-proof whiskey cut with 360 ml of water. That means that there would be 160 ml more of barrel-proof whiskey in the 100 proof liter, for an increase of 25%. Fine. Raise the price by 25%. I'd pay $18.75 for a bottle of 100 proof Old Overholt in a second.

Interesting. Growing up in Boston with parents from the South, I can remember having cod fish cakes but not salmon croquettes. Maybe that was a New Englandification of salmon croquettes. Thinking of cod got me to thinking about canned salmon, however. Brooks, you were wondering how dishes with a fish like salmon became so widespread in areas of the United States where it is not native. I wonder if canned salmon (and canned tuna as well) became a bit like the 20th century equivalent of salt cod. Salt cod, of course, is considered integral to many culinary traditions around the world that are removed from the cod's native waters by thousands of miles.

I was chatting with Dave about this the other day... It's really a shame that Old Overholt, the one brand that kept the rye whiskey flame alight through the years, is allowing the current rye renaissance (ryenaissance?) to pass it by. There are a few cocktails (for me, the Blinker) where I reach for Old Overholt as my first choice, but Rittenhouse BIB has easily taken its place as my house mixing rye, and Old Overholt isn't even a possible contender as a sipping rye. It's too bad, because it doesn't have to be this way. All they'd have to do is release a 100 proof bottling of Old Overholt (in other words, just don't water it down so much for bottle proof) and change nothing else. If there were a 100 proof Old Overholt, I think everyone who is currently enamored of Rittenhouse BIB would use the 100 proof Old Overholt as well. And, if they wanted to, all they'd have to do is age some of the stuff they're already making a little longer and/or bottle it a little differently, and they'd be instant competitors in the sipping rye category. Isn't Old Overholt made by the same guys who make Jim Beam? Aren't these the guys who jumpstarted the small batch bourbon craze when they figured out that they could take regular old Jim Beam out of the still and just age it/bottle it/label it differently as Baker's, Basil Hayden's, Booker's or Knob Creek? I don't understand why they aren't doing this with Old Overholt.

Yes, that's what he said. I'd think this might be approximated at home by keeping a constantly-replenished pan of simmering water in the oven.

There is some kind of bullshitty faux history about Licor 43 going back to Roman times, but I've seen no evidence that the actual liqueur has been produced for all that long.

That says more or less what I said before: marbling and maturity. And that's all good and well as to the rib and short loin sections of the carcass. However, as far as I can tell, the whole carcass is assigned a USDA grade based upon inspection of the rib section only of the carcass. So, a carcass with a prime rib and short loin may have chuck section that would grade out at select or good versus other chuck sections, and yet this chuck will still be considered "prime."

Well, folks... it's been fun. It's not clear to me that there's anything meaningful to add to this topic at the moment and we're going in circles. I'm going to close it up for a while & will probably re-open the thread later on, in case anything additional comes to light. In the meantime, if you have anything on this topic that you think would make sense for us to reopen the thread, please shoot me a message and I'll open it up.

I'm not saying that fat isn't important. Just that it's not part of the collagen-to-gelatin reaction, aka the "breaking down connective tissue" to which we most commonly refer in the context of meat cookery. Fat is, itself, a connective tissue, so to the extent that it melts it is doing some "breaking down of connective tissue." But this is relatively trivial compared to the collagen-to-gelatin reaction in a braising cut. As LT/LT sous vide cooking demonstrates, converting collagen to gelatin without melting out most of the fat still results in very tender meat, whereas the opposite is definitely not the case. On page 131 of the new edition, McGee says: My larger point was simply that it's unclear to me that desirable fat characteristics in one part of a carcass necessarily mean desirable fat characteristics in all parts of the carcass. Looking at my own body, I can pretty much guarantee that the marbling of fat in meat taken from my midsection will be far greater than it would be in meat taken from my calf.

It also strikes me that, while I'm not entirely sure what parts of the carcass are judged for the USDA grading, I have the feeling that it doesn't necessarily follow that prime chuck has more fat and better marbling than choice chuck. This idea is reinforced by the Wikipedia information on beef grading, which says: "The grades are based on two main criteria, the degree of marbling (intramuscular fat) in the beef rib eye and the age of the animal prior to slaughter." I'm not sure what the quality of the rib eye says about the quality of the chuck, but it's clear to me that there are cases in animals where the distribution of body fat is not even. Just look at humans: some have lots of fat in the stomach and practically none in the legs, and some have a more or less even distribution of fat. If you're "grading" humans according to an examination of the lower torso, it seems clear that there can still be wide differences in the amount of fat in, e.g., the lower leg.

According to my understanding, this is not correct. When we speak of "connective tissue" in this context, we are talking about collagen, which with the addition of heat, time and a few water molecules, is hydrolyzed into gelatin. As far as I know, fat doesn't have anything to do with this reaction. Fat is important, however, as I'll get to down below... Any time you braise, you're playing a kind of balancing game. You want to cook the meat long enough to convert the collagen into gelatin. This makes the meat tender, and also provides that unctuous, silken texture that can be so wonderful about braised meats. Gelatin also does a good job of holding moisture, which is important. It's important because cooking meat at braising times/temperatures also has the effect of squeezing water out of muscle fibers. This is also known as "making the meat dry." If there's a good amount of fat in the meat, that's good too. You want to melt that fat to provide additional lubrication to make up for the water that the muscle fibers have given up. If the meat is cooked too long, the lubricating properties of the collagen and fat simply cannot keep up with the drying effect as more and more water is lost from the muscle fibers and the result is dry, mealy meat. There are several things you can do: First, you can cook the meat at a low temperature. Collagen will convert into gelatin at lower-than-simmering temperatures, it just takes a lot longer. The nice thing is that you don't go over the temperature at which muscle fibers lose most of their water. Long time/low temperature sous vide techniques take advantage of this. The drawback is that it can take up to 48 hours. Second, you can start out the braise at a low temperature for a few hours. If you carefully manage the pot and keep the meat at around 115F/45C for a few hours, you can reduce the amount of time the meat needs to spend at 180F/80C. Finally, once you get the pot up to finishing temperature, stop the cooking as soon as the meat is tender. It won't improve at all once it reaches this point. As for whether prime beef makes a difference... that's hard to say. Just thinking about it objectively, it's hard to see how the things that make beef "prime" would make a big difference in a braise. I'd think that flavorful braising beef would be from well-worked muscles with lots of connective tissue, which doesn't seem like a "prime" thing. On the other hand, it's clear that not all braising meat is created equal. I've made the exact same beef tagine with supermarket-grade chuck from Fairway and with high-quality chuck from Oppenheimer Meats. The Oppenheimer beef produced a much better tagine. Whether this was prime beef, I couldn't say. So, my own experience is that the quality of the meat does make a difference (albeit probably not as much difference as technique). I also think that the "prime" designation is not important and that there are other indicators one can look for in selecting a braising cut.

Seems like a pointless and needlessly overcomplicated practice to me, the kind of fetishization of a piece of culture that seems somewhat peculiar to the Japanese zeitgeist (as does the so-called "hard shake"). What's next: Hand-carved natural reed cocktail straws? Olives pitted by hand and stuffed to order? If one really wants spherical pieces of ice, I think it should be possible to develop some kind of flexible mold that could be filled and frozen.

You probably won't find many. But, its not because of lack of enforcement. Um... I'd say its exactly for a lack of enforcement. Every single person who has offered an opinion on this thread as to the NYC scene has acknowledged that they have seen it happening to others and/or that it happened to them. So if there aren't any cases, then the law isn't being enforced in that context. So, what you're saying, as someone who "worked for Danny Meyer and several other 2, 3 and 4 star restaurants" where was "emphasized over and over that we were NOT to serve minors even if they were with their parents" is that if a customer looked like he reasonably might be 21 years old, but perhaps might not be 21 years old, you "wouldn't concern yourself" and would serve that customer. I have always understood that the law, at least as it applies in bars and shops, says you're supposed to card any customer who looks like he might possibly not be 21. You're applying the opposite standard, and saying that you wouldn't card a customer who looks like he might possibly be 21. Plenty of 18-20 year olds -- especially girls, who can avail themselves of makeup -- look like they might be 21 years old. Most of them, in fact. This is exactly what we've been talking about. I couldn't think of a better example than the one you've just given. We're not talking about 13 year olds. That said, I do agree (and I think we all agree) that once the server chose to card Bryan, he had no choice but to refuse to serve him alcohol.

I've been to the main Red Lobster in Times Square many times, and for my last birthday some friends took me to Otto Enoteca. So, the answer is "no," then? I don't see why some people are having difficulty with the idea that the NYC police choose to spend their attention and resources elsewhere than busting fine dining restaurant for serving minors wine. These judgments are made by police all over the City every minute of every day. There's also a law against drinking in public in New York City. This law is not enforced against picnickers sharing a bottle of wine while hearing the Metropolitan Opera in Central Park, but is strictly enforced outside the Chelsea nightclubs. Why? Because it's a problem in Chelsea and not at Met in the Parks. It's simply naive to assume that the NYPD doesn't set enforcement priorities, and I can assure you that underage drinking at fine dining restaurants is not a high priority. Here's a story: The first time I went to New Orleans, it was to attend the national convention of my college fraternity. On the first day, we were given an orientation session by the Chief of Police for New Orleans. He told us what parts of the City to stay out of, the fact that we would be required to decant any drinks into a "go cup" if we left a bar with our drinks, and that sort of thing. He also said, "it's no secret why we raised our drinking age to 21 years of age: to get our highway funding. But people around here, they're not going to change. As long as you're 18, you'll probably be okay." This was an explicit admission by a member of the police force that it was not a priority to enforce the drinking age in the French Quarter. They had other priorities. Similarly, the NYPD has more important priorities as well. I'd be interested to know if anyone can search the records and find even one single case of an under age bust for drinking wine in a NYC fine dining restaurant over the last 20 years.