slkinsey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggnog

How can you filter with milk? And once the spirit is combined with the milk, how do you get the milk back out before redistilling?

Wayne Curtis, in And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, seems to doubt that it came from the Planter's Hotel in St. Louis. He notes that, while the claim isn't entirely implausible due to the connection to Jerry Thomas, the fact that the hotel also takes credit for the Tom Collins weakens their claim. And, while JT's book features plenty of punch recipes, none is named "Planter's Punch"). He notes that a Planter's Hotel in South Carolina also claims credit for the drink, and further notes that there hardly seems to be (nor has there ever seemed to be) a standard classic recipe for the drink. Curtis seems to lean in the direction of supposing that the name and concept, if not a definitive recipe, probably came from Jamaica, but that really no one establishment or person can claim sole credit.

I like the simple way: a couple teaspoons of your favorite sweetener in the bottom of a mug, pour in a few ounces of a nice strong rum, add a pat of butter, top with boiling water. Basta.

"Acidity" and "free fatty acid content" in cooking oils are, AFAIK, the same. Filtering removes solids, etc. Refining is a chemical treatment to neutralize tastes and free fatty acid content. Extra Virgin and Virgin oils may be filtered, but they may not be refined. So, a high quality extra virgin olive oil with low acidity comes by this low free fatty acid content naturally.

I'm not sure this comparison carries. Although it is getting somewhat off the topic, despite the popular identification in this country of prohibition with cocktail culture, this was most decidedly not a great time of cocktail development -- unless by "development" you mean "drastic loss of complexity, variety and tradition combined with a major exodus of mixological talent and expertise." In general, I'd say that Prohibition was the beginning of a great slide in the mixological arts, which depression has only begun to turn around in relatively recent times (I don't view things like the Highball as much of a development).

According to the chart, it's the higher quality (i.e., lower acidity) extra virgin olive oils that have a higher smoke point -- around 405F. I'd think that some of the higher quality ones are actually lower than that, though, because they are often unfiltered, etc. It's not really a huge surprise that highly filtered olive oil (aka "extra light") has a smoke point that's higher than the smoke point of oils commonly held to have a high smoke point, especially when in their unrefined state. In general, as oils are refined the flavor is diminished and the smoke point goes up. This is to say that extra light olive oil does have a very high smoke point, but also has zero olive flavor (which may not be all bad, depending on one's perspective). I'm not sure I agree with you about the importance of smoke point for the home cook. If one assumes that the lower smoke point is true for most lower quality extra virgin olive oils, which are presumably the only ones that are affordable enough to use for deep-frying, then this can be a serious limitation. I wouldn't want to deep fry fritto misto di pesce at 320F, and I have to believe that deep-frying at 380F would result in off-flavors.

Re the frying qualities of various oils, there's a handy smoke point chart on Wikipedia. Extra virgin olive oil has a relatively low smoke point, of 320F. This is lower than most people like to fry, although there are people who do deep fry in extra virgin olive oil (Batali used to do this on his television shows). Virgin olive oil, which still has plenty of olive flavor in the context of frying, will get you up to 420F -- plenty high enough for frying.

Interesting stuff, Dave. What would have been the primary benefit of only distilling off <45% of the wort? Was this simply a horribly inefficient way of obtaining a "cleaner" end product using fairly primitive distilling technology?

I can definitely think of some perfectly good restaurants that ultimately failed (@SQC comes to mind) because they were not good at retaining regulars. Interestingly, this strikes me as one area of a restaurant's success -- perhaps the most important area -- that is 90% in the hands of FOH. There are plenty of restaurants that seem able to retain a critical mass of regulars where the BOH is not turning out distinguished food.

I wonder if the current practice of adding back in things like sugars and glycerin are an attempt to get some of that fat texture back.

My family recipe comes from a clipping of an old Four Roses Whiskey advertisement. The opposite side of the page has an advertisement "introducing the 1939 new Ford." 6 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 pint heavy cream 1 pint milk 1 pint Four Roses (I use a good Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey) 1 ounce Meyers Rum Grated Nutmeg to taste Separate eggs. Add 1/2 cu. sugar to the yolks and beat until smooth. Add 1/2 cu. sugar to whites after beating very stiff. In a large bowl or punch bowl, mix egg whites with yolks. Stir in 1 pint heavy cream and 1 pint milk. Add the whiskey and rum. Stir thoroughly. Serve cold with grated nutmeg. Serves 10

Okay, last night I had what was -- to me -- a paradigm-defining Sazerac: a few ounces of Red Hook Rye (LeNell's unfiltered 136 proof 23 year old rye), a teaspoon of rich demarara syrup, 3 dashes of Peychaud's plus 1 short dash of Angustura, a rinse of Nouvelle-Orléans absinthe and a fat twist of lemon. Froze the glass, stirred the rye, syrup and bitters with plenty of cracked ice (and even then it came out plenty strong). Heaven in a glass.

Let's take any substantive Sazerac discussion over to the Sazerac thread.

Despite his fondness for White Russians (or, as he called them, "Caucasians") it's clear that we need to come up with a new cocktail to celebrate the modern-day "King of the Dudes," the Big Lebowski.

Hi freshherbs. I'm a little curious as to a) why one might want a vodka with subtle whiskey notes instead of whiskey (or, perhaps, do-it-yourself vodka with 2% rye mixed in), and b) how those notes might find their way into the vodka.

Well, you can use some kind of emulsifier to stabilize it. But you're going to get some thickening if you do, and it will go opaque. It'll become like a garlic/soy/oil mayonnaise. There's no way around that. If you want it to have the lighter, more runny texture of a salad dressing, there's no way it'll stay mixed for more than a short period. It is the nature of this kind of dressing (just like oil/vinegar salad dressing) that it separates after a while. Nothing to be done about it except to stir the bowl of dipping sauce before you dip. FWIW, separation seems to be fairly traditional. I don't recall seeing a dumpling sauce that stayed mixed. On the other hand, you may simply be using too much sesame oil. It's so strong, I don't see any need to use so much that it would even make an oil slick. A few drops on the surface will generally suffice, and this seems standard. What about adding a little bit of something like peanut butter or sesame paste? Then, if you whizz the whole thing around for a while in a blender or miniprep, it ought to stay mixed for quite some time.

I thought I'd add info to the pile with some stuff I wrote back in aught-five in response to a discussion having to do with emulsifiers. . . * * * Many people misunderstand what an emulsion is. For example, I recall hearing of a deviled egg recipe in which the cooks described the hard-cooked yolk puree as being "emulsified with duck fat." People also sometimes speak of things like béchamel as being an "emulsion." This is a misunderstanding of emulsification. What is an emulsion? An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible liquids.* If you ain't got two immiscible liquids, you ain't got an emulsion. But that's not all. An emulsion combines the two immiscible liquids such that one liquid is colloidally dispersed in the other. These are called the dispersed phase and the continuous phase, respectively. In emulsions, the main stabilizing force is electrostatic stabilization, which is is based on the mutual repulsion of like electrical charges. An emulsifier is simply something that stabilizes an emulsion. Looking at the example of béchamel, it would be incorrect to think of this as an emulsion. I don't think starch emulsifies the fat and water so much as it thickens the whole deal. It would not be correct, I think, to describe a béchamel as "a fat phase colloidally dispersed in a water phase" because that substantially misses the point. An emulsion is, by definition, a kind of colloid. In a colloid small droplets or particles of one substance, generally between one nanometer and one micrometer in size, are dispersed in another substance. Milk is already a colloid. So is cream. So is butter. In fact, these are all emulsions -- colloidal dispersions of one liquid phase inside of another. Where does this bring us with respect to starch-thickened sauces like bechamel? Well, we said it right there: starch thickened. It's not like we can add a tiny bit of starch to butter and milk and voila! an emulsion. In fact, we don't need to use starch at all. Toss some milk and butter into a homogenizer and you'll end up with cream. Perfectly stable as long as the relationship between the fat (dispersed phase) and water (continuous phase) remains within the proper tolerances. With a starch thickened sauce, rather, it is the starch that does the thickening. The sauce doesn't become thick, homogenous and stable unless enough starch is added. I wouldn't describe bechamel as "fat (butter) dispersed in water (milk) and stabilized by starch." What we have in bechamel is a solid phase (the starch granules) dispersed within a liquid phase (water) with some other stuff in the game (fat, salt, nutmeg, etc.). This is known as a sol, not an emulsion. Bechamel is thus related to paint rather than mayonnaise in the colloidal sense. * When classifying colloids we have the following dispersed/continuous phases: gas/liquid = foam; gas/solid = solid foam; liquid/gas = liquid aerosol; liquid/liquid = emulsion; liquid/solid = gel; solid/gas = solid aerosol; solid/liquid = sol; solid/solid = solid sol. There is no gas/gas colloid, because gasses are mutually soluble.

Well, for sure they're not as good at browning. Anyone who has cooked in nonstick will tell you that. You're also limited as to the temperatures you can use (too high damages the coating).

I saw "latke chips" in the grocery store last night.

I get most of my sour cream/crème fraîche by taking Ronnybrook heavy cream I know I won't be able to finish (they're known to give out the occasional pint or two to steady customers at the greenmarkets) and innoculating it with a little yogurt of buttermilk. After that, it keeps more or less indefinitely in the back of the frigde -- just whip it up when you're ready to use it. If you want a more sour cream-like texture, thicken it before use with some strained Greek yogurt.

Right. I believe that the max you can hope for out of a still would be an azeotropic solution of 96% alcohol and 4% water.

Lupa is practically around the corner from Pegu Club.

Yea, that's why I am coveting and not gloating. Maybe Santa will be kind this year I run a couple of Cuisinart slow cookers now. I am starting to appreciate wanting to skip the brown and transfer step in the process. What I understand from reading the materials, the browning step still happens on the stovetop. It's just that it happens in the (nonstick-coated cast aluminuim) insert rather than in a separate pan. The hot insert still has to be carried over to the slow cooker and placed inside after the food is browned on the stovetop. So it's not as though the cooker is turned up to a high temperature for browning inside the unit, and then turned down to slow-cooking temperature.

Really? I've seen the odd bottle of Parfait Amour at UWS liquor stores of no particular distinction. Sherry-Lehmann does have a good selection, although their prices are among the highest and they tend to be not so great for high quality mixing ingredients. They do seem to be the place to go for things like cognac and agmagnac, though. Another expensive store with lots of high-end spirits is the Park Avenue Liquor Shop, which is ironically located on Madison Avenue. They have one of the best selections of single malt scotch in the City, and many high-end bourbons, ryes, etc.