slkinsey

markk, I don't understand what better evidence you're going to get. If nothing will convince you that this is so beyond a peer-reviewed controlled study with a large sample size and a p value of 0.001, then you're not going to be convinced. I note that note that not one single person who has any meaningful experience in NYC fine dining has come forward to say that it is not the status quo in NYC fine dining restaurants for late-teens with their parents to be served wine. I, at least, am not even arguing for a continuation of the status quo. I'm simply pointing out that it is the status quo and giving some reasons why I think it is so.

I can't imagine there is a restaurateur alive in this City that would cop to tacitly serving almost-legal-looking kids in the presence of their parents, with or without a promise of anonymity. Rather, I can only assume they would say that they do everything they can to make sure it never, ever happens.

Check out Uncorked: The Science of Champagne by Gérard Liger-Belair. It answers this, and many other questions about champagne. Here is one of his articles.

I have to assume that the (needed) crackdowns on drunk driving are due to the fact that sprawl and car culture are becoming a much larger part of European culture. With increased car driving comes increasing problems with drunk driving. As for "avoiding problems" like alcoholism and binge drinking, it's not clear to me that there is all that much one can do to avoid these problems among those who are inclined in that direction. It may be unclear to you that "countries where young children are exposed to drinking in the home and alcohol is a normal part of family meals, have thus, avoided problems" -- but it's also not clear to me that such an arrangement creates or contributes to these problems either. Given a choice between early education and exposure to responsible consumption of alcohol, or treating it like some magic elixir that you only get to have when you're 21, I think the former makes much more sense.

This is getting off the topic, so if we would like to continue I'll split out some posts and make a new thread. Anyway... I think that when people speak of "Prohibition Cocktails" or "cocktails that came out of Prohibition," I think they are thinking of cocktails invented in America during the period from 1920 to 1933. For some reason, this era is imprinted upon the popular imagination as a great era in the cocktailian craft, when in fact all signs point to it being a terrible era and the beginning of a long decline that we are only beginning to turn around in recent times. I wouldn't call a cocktail invented in, say, London in 1928 a "Prohibition Cocktail."

This practice, in my opinion, is just a lame excuse for not setting up a kitchen that is disciplined and organized enough to have the various dishes done and out to the table at the right time. It's called an expediter, folks. Get one. Do what he says. As for the Chinese food model, I have in practice rarely if ever found bad sequencing to be a problem. At New Green Bo, for example, the kitchen always brings out the dumplings and pancakes first, then the soup, then the more substantial dishes. Of course, the dumplings may not all be finished before the stir-fried rice cakes some out, but the nature of a Chinese meal of this kind is such that this doesn't really pose a problem. It's not a big deal to have another dumpling while eating the rice cakes.

Two things about the Sidecar. 1. As far as I know, the first printed recipes for a Sidecar appeared in 1922. If we assume that the drink was invented perhaps a few years earlier (a reasonable assumption, I think) then that would put it outside of the Prohibition years (1920 - 1933). 2. Also as far as I know, the Sidecar was created in Europe, not the United States. This would not make it a "Prohibition cocktail." There are any number of good cocktails created in Europe during the Prohibition era (the Golden Dawn comes to mind).

Doc's a busy, busy man. I was able to glean that a follow-up book may be in the making.

MADD was founded in 1980. You're <26?

According to my reading of the chart on the Alcohol Policy Information System web site, NY State does not prohibit the consumption of alcohol by those under 21 years of age. Of course, it does prohibit the purchase of alcohol by and the sale to those under 21 years of age, as well as the "possession with the intent to drink" bu those under 21. But it actually seems as though it might be the case that a parent could purchase wine at a restaurant and serve it to a child with no liability to the restaurant. I think "perceived" is a big part of this statement. It's not clear to me at all that underage drinking is meaningfully worse now than it was 25 years ago. In fact, if a comparison of the atmosphere at my alma mater today compared to when I was in school is any indication, it's significantly better. The difference is that it's covered a lot more by the mass media (which is more "mass" today than ever).

JohnL, if you look at all the legal steps being taken, I think you will find that thay are all done with the goal of preventing drunk driving -- something I support (er, preventing it, that is, not doing it). As for European drinking ages: Austria: 14 with your parents, 16 for beer, 18 for spirits Belgium: 16 (no age restrictions on beer and wine in shops) France: 16 Germany: 16 for beer, 18 for spirits (no age restrictions in private) Greece: 16 (no age restrictions in private) Hungary: 0 in bars/restaurants, 18 in shops (rarely enforced) Ireland: 18 Italy: 16 in bars/restaurants, 0 in shops Netherlands: 16 <22% ABV), 18 >22% ABV Spain: 18 Switzerland 0 in bars/restaurants, 14–16 for beer and wine and 18 for spirits in shops United Kingdom: 5 in bars/restaurants (with parent), 18 in shops As for the US, here's an interesting graphic. Wikipedia says: "Contrary to popular belief, few states specifically prohibit minors' consumption of alcohol in private settings (an exception includes Connecticut). ... As of 2006, 20 states do not specifically ban underage consumption and an additional 15 states have family member and/or location exceptions to their underage consumption laws."

Dude. You remember anything from chemistry class? Whoa. Okay... I have been able to determine that the legal definition of ABV in the US specifies a temperature of 60F.

You have an oven that can reliably maintain 50C/122F?! That's impressive. I don't think I even know of a home oven that has that setting. Most home ovens only have a temperature setting as low as around 90C/200F. What do you perceive as the advantages of open air long cooking in the oven versus sous vide? I'd be a bit worried about drying and contamination.

Yes, this is how it works. Ethanol and water together can pack tighter than either one can on its own. I should add that the same thing can happen in the other direction, depending on the substances involved: two volumes mixed together can result in a volume that is greater than the sum of the original volumes. The question of alcohol by volume is a difficult one to answer, however. What, exactly, constitutes "volume" in the context of a 1:1 solution of alcohol and water? More to the point, how is this determined? Are we looking at a hypothetical idea where all the various constituents of a bottle of liquor are separated out, measured as to volume and then the percentage of alcohol by volume is calculated on this basis? What basis are we using to determine abv when it's got more than just water and ethanol? What about something like Drambuie, which is comprised of alcohol, water, sugar and various other dissolved substances?

Norman, is this a dish that is baked for a long time at low temperature, which the bbc link provided by Duncan implies, or is it cooked sous vide for a long time, which is implied by the complete recipe linked to by Duncan? If sous vide's what you're looking for, we have one of the best collections of information on the internet right here in the eG Forums. If you're wanting to cook something in an oven for 48 hours at, say, 60C -- I'm not sure this is possible without a specialty oven.

markk, I don't think anyone is suggesting that, in the purely legal sense, the restaurant is not assuming some legal risk. Arguments are being made and examples given for why people believe it is a small risk in the context of NYC fine dining. I also don't think anyone is "giving rationalizations for why it's okay to declare a grey area around this law." The fact is that this grey area does exist. Fine dining restaurants in NYC have been doing it, and will continue to do it for the forseeable future. It is a de facto grey area.

I was talking about this with my father the other day, who is a chemist of some repute. He mentioned that it's not necessarily a no-brainer to say what percentage of a given liquor is alcohol. This is because when two liquids (or two solids, or a liquid and a solid, etc.) are mixed together, it does not necessarily follow that the volume of the resultant mixture will be equal to the sum of the volumes of the two liquids. It might be more than the sum of the two volumes, or it might be less. In the case of alcohol, for example, if you mix together a half-liter of pure ethanol and a half-liter of pure water, you do not get a liter of alcohol-and-water. No, you get 956 ml of alcohol-and-water. This is because equal volumes of ethanol and water will have only 95.6% of the volume of the equal parts of ethanol and water when unmixed. So... is that 956 ml of water 100 proof (aka 50% abv) or not? It is comprised of 500 ml of water and 500 ml of ethanol for a total of 956 ml. In the most literal sense, it does not add up. This is pretty easy to figure out when we mix the alcohol ourselves, but it seems like it would be quite a bit more difficult to back-calculate if you're staring at a 956 ml bottle of booze. If you correctly say that the 956 ml of booze contains 500 ml of alcohol, does that make it 104 proof (52% abv)? Or if you correctly say that the 956 ml of booze contains 500 ml of water, does that make it 96 proof (48% abv)? As you may imagine, when the bottle starts to contain things other than just ethanol and water (i.e., everything but vodka), and when the amount of alohol deviates from the 50/50 example I gave above, it becomes even more complicated. So? How is it done?

I don't think I agree with this at all. I suppose one may say that the government of the United States has decided to take the position that alcohol consumption outside of one's home is a privilege rather than a right. But I don't agree that it's anything like driving a car at all. There is no reason whatsoever that the government should be sticking their nose into what I drink in the privacy of my own home. I think it's also worthy of note that the only reason we have a legal drinking age in this country at all is a combination of the aftereffects of the misguided temperance movement and a desire to reduce drunk driving accidents (with respect to the latter, I should hasten to point out that the same effect could be achieved by lowering the drinking age to 18 and raising the minimum age requirement for a driver's license to 21). Certainly I plan to introduce my children, when I have them, to reasonable amounts of alcohol quite early in their lives. This is commonplace in many countries. In Belgium, for example, it is not unusual for children as young as 5 years old to have a small glass of low-alcohol beer (tafelbier) with a meal. There was even a program in Belgian schools to replace soft drinks with tafelbier!

Well, I live in NYC and I'm not sure I'd be inclined to tip 20% to stand at a bar and eat a panino. Other tipping threads include: Tipping Tipping with Cash or Credit? Is Tipping Big the New Black?

Here is the Wikipedia entry on tannin. In relevant part, it says:

I suppose part of the point I was making is that the percentage of wine geeks among regular wine drinkers in the United States is significantly higher than it is in Europe. I'd say that one degree or another of wine geekitude is higher than 50% among Americans who drink wine more than 5 times a week. I'd put this at less than 10% among their European counterparts. Even the wine geeks I know in Europe, while they may peruse the wine list with interest, are unlikely to say, "I think I'd like this bottle of wine tonight. Now let's see if I can construct a menu around it." A perfect example would be the lunch I had with fellow eGulletarians Eric_Malson and Pelayin at Casa Tataguyo in Aviles (Asturias, Spain). Pelayin is quite the wine enthusiast (we met him at his favorite wine bar in Gijon) and chose a very nice wine for our lunch. Nevertheless, we settled on the food first. and the wine second.

Erik: When you infuse something into alcohol, you are getting alcohol-soluble substances and water-soluble substances. This is because even 100 proof alcohol is 50% water by volume. You would only start missing out on some of the water-soluble substances at very high proof. You'd be surprised how many things infuse very well into just water. For example, in making a lime syrup the conventional wisdom would be to infuse the lime zest into alcohol and then incorporate the lime-infused alcohol into a simple syrup. But, in fact, lime infuses into plain old room temperature simple syrup pretty well. It's not the same as the alcohol-into-simple method, but it works quite well and some people prefer the water infusion over the alcohol one. They don't call water the Universal Solvent for nothing. (Both water and ethanol are polar protic solvents.)

These are all good recommendations with respect to a normal bread dough technique. Experience would indicate, however, that the impact of these additional steps is minimal in the context of a dough that is bulk fermented for 18 hours.

I have to say that I still don't understand some of the "not enough flavor" complaints. Complainers: Are there other "flour, water, yeast and salt only" recipes you've used that you feel produce a more flavorful result? I will say that most of us who are used to sourdough are likely to find commercial yeast doughs underflavored, but I don't gather that this is the main complaint.

Here is one of Gary's SF Chron articles, on Audrey's Earl Gray MarTEAni. The infusion is 1/4 cup of loose Earl Gray tea into 1 liter of Tanqueray for 2 hours. This recipe in New York Magazine calls for 4 tablespoons (aka 1/4 cup) of Earl Gray tea into 750 ml of Tanqueray for 2 hours. The Earl Gray infused gin is plenty tannic after two hours, and I certainly wouldn't want to infuse it any longer than that. One of the things that makes this cocktail work so well is that the egg white works to tame the tannin and smooth out the cocktail. Even then, there is a fair amount of that tannin drying effect in the finish.