slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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How do you mean "manual" meat grinder? You want to grind your meat by hand?
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I think the squirt of seltzer was used to help melt the sugar in the beginning, not to add dilution and fizz at the end.
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We used to keep bees when I was a kid. I'll never forget the sound of opening a hive:
<hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm>
(puff puff puff with the smoker)
<hhhhmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!>
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I would love to show the pan to Sam. Alas, he does not respond to emails.
Sorry! My life has been exceptionally busy of late.
There is unfortunately really no way to know what the pan is really made of short of buying one and cutting it in half with a band saw (something I would very much like to do to all cookware as part of writing a book on the subject!). Commonsense weight comparisons, however, do seem to indicate that it isn't copper. The price makes a lot more sense now, although as you say it's still a pretty great bargain despite the maintenance hassle of the outer cladding.
WRT the catalog descriptions, I am forever finding items of cookware sold with specifications that are not the true specifications -- although it is not usual for the misleading specs to come from the manufacturer (it is more usual for companies with something to hide to simply refuse to give specifications, like All-Clad now does). But I have seen plenty of 2.0 mm cookware sold as 2.5 mm.
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Star ratings wouldn't make sense in the context of opera, where casts tend to be together for maybe a half-dozen performances and the reviews primarily focus on the individuals executing a known score of generally acknowledged worth (as well as the staging and set design, if a new production). On the other hand, in musical theater where casts and productions run for years at 8 performances a week, it might make some sense to give, say, 3 stars to Spamelot and 1 star to Cats (or whatever). Just like with restaurant reviews, the star ratings would begin to become stale after a while and those shows that were still running would merit a re-review and a new rating.
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At that point, even though some of us may maintain that the old-fashioned without muddled fruit is superior, I don't think it makes sense to argue that the drink served in most of the bars in the US isn't an old-fashioned.
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.
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That's it! I must have combined that in my mind at some point. Thanks for the clarification, Eric.
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I actually prefer a Snapper (using gin) to a Bloody Mary.
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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...
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I find the whole vodka-hating thing risible. Vodka is a terrific beverage. Yes, it has become more popular than it deserves to be, however that doesn't mean it shouldn't be used at all. I recently had some caviar with vodka and I can't imagine a better accompaniment. It seems to me the thing to have contempt for is not vodka as such, but the super-premium vodka trend.
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.
Let us also not forget the many fine uses of vodka in cooking: penne alla vodka, vodka-cured salmon, vodka-lime vinaigrette.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.
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Yes. To be clear: ixnay on the idgebray and unneltay discussion.
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I'm not hardcore opposed to a splash of soda water...it won't kill it, it's just unnecessary.
Good Lord, you pantywaist! Yes. It. Will.
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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.
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Some interesting/relevant posts I remembered from a thread on muddling:
There are times when muddling makes sense and times when it doesn't, I suppose.There is not much to be gained from muddling a sugar sube with bitters, if that's all you do, compared to simply combining the bitters and the appropriate amount of simple syrup. However, if you muddle the bitters and the sugar sugar cube together with a fat slice of lemon zest and "abrade" the surface of the zest against the sugar grains, you will extract flavors that are simply not possible with an aggressive twisting of the lemon peel. Try it and see.
There is not much to be gained from muddling a sugar sube with bitters, if that's all you do, compared to simply combining the bitters and the appropriate amount of simple syrup.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.
Great post, Dave. There is definitely something to said for the entire ritual that goes into making a cocktail, and the Old Fashioned is one where it comprises a signifncant part of the process. I had an OF sitting at the bar at Milk & Honey a few weeks ago -- stirred with one big lump of ice cut from the block, with the twist cut to order and trimmed of pith, sugar and bitters muddled, etc. It took a long time to make, and watching the process was just as good as enjoying the drink. -
Hmm. I wonder how that's allowed.
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If he wants to put down those places, it's certainly his right. But do it in their own review where an explanation is necessary (at least for most critics).
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.
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What are your thoughts on Hirsch? I have the 8 year and it is very light and smooth, akin to the way Canadian whiskey compares to Bourbon. Really, it is too light and tasteless for me. What percentage rye is it? Wikipedia says that the Canadian laws governing what can be called rye whiskey are not as stringent as the American ones.
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).
Does percentage rye composition really matter? Is there a strong correlation between quality and "rye-ness" and the percentage rye composition? What percentage is the Wild Turkey Rye?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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I thought I heard a waiter at ssam say it was cooked in a combi oven with heat and steam.
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.
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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.
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"The quality grade factors, marbling and maturity, used to determine USDA beef quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, etc.) do not explain all of the variation in beef palatability. However, they are capable of segregating a large dissimilar population of beef into more similar grade classes. " (italics mine)
The Role of USDA’s Beef Grading Program in the Marketing of Beef part of the Agriculture Marketing Administration of the USDA.
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."
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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.
New Generation Gins
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many things that are so cool about Gary.