slkinsey

Scott, what chemicals exactly do you think are used in making vodka? Vodka is made by taking fermented material and distilling it to high proof, after which time it is rectified and filtered. Vodka coming out of the still is typically an azeotropic solution of water and ethanol at around 95% abv. Where exactly are these "chemicals" figuring in? Are you suggesting that the makers of "organic" vodka use a distillation/rectification/filtration process that is meaningfully different from the process used by regular distillers. If so, I'd love to hear about these differences. Yes, I know it's a mistaken premise to suppose that congeners are the primary causes of hangovers. That's why I wrote, "This is a mistaken premise." Nevertheless, it is a fact that vodka makers refer to congeners when they speak of "impurities" (and a lack thereof) in their product. It's also a fact that several vodka makers have claimed that hangovers are lessened or less likely when one consumes spirits with low levels of congeners (i.e., their vodka). I should hasten to point out that ethanal (aka acetaldehyde), regardless of what role it may or may not play in hangover symptoms, is not an "impurity" found in spirits. Ethanol is converted in the body by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase into acetaldehyde, which is then converted into acetic acid by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Since the ethanol in "organic" vodka is exactly the same as the ethanol in "regular" vodka, there will be no difference. I'm curious: If we ran two batches -- one "organic" and the other "regular, but otherwise identical -- through an identical fermentation/distillation/rectification/filtration process using the same stills, etc. Do you believe a chemical analysis of the 95% abv vodka at the end of the process could tell the two batches apart? Because I don't.

I find that a good 100% agave tequila makes an especially good match with maraschino. Pairs funk with funk. Campari is also good with tequila. Katie at Flatiron Lounge came up with a great tequila cocktail called (I think) the Siesta. IIRC, it's more or less a Floridita with tequila instead of rum. Delicious.

Here's an odd mention in Gawker with what purports to be a picture of a tray of wheatgrass in the Pegu Blub bathroom. I've never seen anything like that there. Anyone else?

Interesting. I don't find them alike at all.

This gets a little complicated. Yes, there is a huge difference between rhum agricole and cachaça. They are both distilled from fermented sugarcane juice, but there are large stylistic differences. There are, of course, variations within the two categories but if I could widely generalize I'd say that cachaça is distilled to lower proof than rhum agricole and that cachaça therefore tends to be a rougher, less refined spirit. I should hasten to point out that this isn't a judgment of relative quality, but rather a generalization about stylistic approach.

Is this going to be some kind of pousse cafe?

Ramsay has been talking about opening in NYC for at least 4 years. This from the September 2002 edition of Condé Nast Traveler:

Yes, I am given to understand that a copper mug was part of the original schtick. Since this drink was, for all intents and purposes, an advertising gambit, I'm sure there is a fairly unequivoical record and I don't see any reason to doubt the official story.

There are probably many reasons. Given that the bars are not paying retail anyway, I wonder how much money they would save by buying 1.75 liter bottles. Second, as mentioned above, there are practical use and storage issues. Third, there are spoilage issues wrt fruit flies, oxidation, etc. Finally, the 1.75 liter bottles don't have a good aesthetic appearance.

The "corned" actually refers to the coarse grains of salt ("corns" of salt) that were used to pickle the beef. Anything that has been brined to the extent that it begins to show those distinctive changes that result from long brining may be called "corned."

The best technique I've found for braising brisket is to do it very low and slow in the oven to the point of barely fork tender. Then take it out and let it cool, reduce the braising liquid and cut the brisket into thin slices. After that, reassemble the brisked slices in a pan that is barely able to contain them, making sure to get some of the reduced braising liquid in between each slice. Then return the whole thing to the oven until fully tender. This allows for the brisket to be in slices but tender to an extent that it would fall apart if you tried to slice it. And the fact that each slice is bathed in the reduced braising liquid as it finishes cooking seems to mitigate any dryness problems.

Glutamate is the anion of glutamic acid. That's what it is. An anion. Absolutely. Just as it is possible that salt tastes different to different people, or that cut grass smells different to different people or that the color blue looks different to different people. We can never know how each individual person perceives a given sense, only that they tend to agree that blue looks like blue and salt tastes like salt. Most likely because certain foods are high in free glutamate and others are not. Chicken breast stir fried with broccoli and garlic, for example, doesn't seem like it would be very high in free glutamate. There is also the fact that, while certain foods may be high in free glutamate, sometimes you want more umami. Similarly, sometimes an ingredient is naturally high in salt, but you still may want to add more to the dish. Industrially, of course, it allows companies to make chicken soup with fewer chickens. What I think many of us are saying in this thread is that it doesn't make sense for someone to say "I'm allergic to salt that comes from a salt shaker" when they don't seem to have any problem eating anchovies. A lot of it, frankly, is simply a lack of knowledge. It's like people who believe that sea salt is "better for them" than mined salt, when in fact all salt is sea salt (how do you suppose the salt deposits got there?). MSG can be made many different ways. It was originally discovered as the white crystals covering kombu seaweed. It can also be made by hydrolyzing grain or soy protein using either enzymes or hydrochloric acid. Today it is typically made by fermenting things like sugar cane, corn, sugar beets, etc. with bacteria that excrete glutamic acid. Either way, the glutamate is filtered out, concentrated and crystallized. It's certainly possible that contaminants can find their way into the process, depending on who is making the stuff. This is, of course, equally true of any number of food and ingredient production methods (decaf coffee, for example). I think the issue is that a lot of people decide that they're allergic to MSG because they get a reaction in Chinese restaurants sometimes, without really doing any of the work to determine whether it really is MSG. I can't tell you the number of times someone has told me about their horrible sensitivity to MSG while munching on a bag of Doritos or grating a big pile of parmigiano-reggiano on their pasta. This has some similarity to people who will tell you that they're "lactose intolerant" and therefore can't eat that nice piece of Stilton (which doesn't contain any lactose). Usually, people who have peanut allergies aren't telling you about them while eating food that's been fried in peanut oil. But, then again, peanuts aren't exactly something that play an important role in human metabolism and occur naturally in thousands of foods.

The "burnt crust" bread is likely Pane Pugliese from Sullivan Street Bakery. It is indeed supposed to be like that (ironically, their picture is one of the lightest colored examples I've seen).

LindsayAnn, I don't think anyone is suggesting that no one can ever get a headache from MSG... or rather that no one can ever get a headache from exposure to a certain amount of free glutamate, since as I mentioned above there is no chemical difference between the glutamate you get from MSG and the glutamate you get from, say, parmigiano-reggiano. If you get migraine headache from eating Doritos and aged parmigiano-reggiano and real dashi and concentrated tomato paste and soy sauce and dried mushrooms and canned soup, etc. -- then, yea, it sounds like you have a real migraine trigger from glutamate. It's certainly true that some people do have this sensitivity, juas as some people trigger migraines from chili peppers or alcohol or caffeine or bad rap music.

Well, yea it's sweet and syrupy. It's a liqueur. Straight creme de cacao or curacao or even Cointreau can be a little off-putting as well. Dave Wondrich recommends a dry style of apricot brandy in at least one of his books. Maybe we can get some brand recommendations out of him.

A friend tells me that, according to the Marie Brizard folks, "there are bottling issues" with Apry and we shouldn't expect resolution any time soon.

Whenever I have a dinner party or some such thing, I'll just make whatever I think might be an interesting cocktail -- the same cocktail for everyone. Needless to say, if I know that one of them is a huge fan of gin I might make a gin cocktail, or if one is a Manhattan drinker I might make a Red Hook, or if one is a Cosmo drinker I might make something like a Juniperotivo. If I get someone who says, "I really don't like anything other than vodka Gimlets" I'll usually ask them to give my cocktail a try, but reassure them that they don't have to finish it and that I'll be happy to make them a vodka Gimlet if they don't like it. After a while, if it turns out to be the case that that one friend really does only like vodka Gimlets, I'll just make her a vodka Gimlet and thank God that the only cocktail she likes doesn't have nine ingredients.

I think it might be useful to provide some information about what glutamic acid is, what glutamate is, what "glutamates" are. This seems insufficiently understood. Glutamic acid is an amino acid having the chemical formula C5H9NO4. This is a common and important amino acid, playing roles in the human organism in both cellular metabolism and as a neurotransmitter. Glutamate is the commonly occurring anion (negatively charged ion) of glutamic acid. "Glutamates" are salts or esters of glutamic acid. Monosodium glutamate is a sodium salt of glutamate (meaning that it is glutamate plus a sodium atom). When monosodium glutamate is dissolved in water, it dissociates into free sodium and glutamate ions, much the same way that table salt dissociates into free sodium and chlorine ions. There is, then, no difference between the glutamate ions that come into your body from monosodium glutamate and the glutamate ions that come into your body from other sources of free glutamate.

Moderator's note: I've split out a side-discsssion from this thread on the subject of MSG. I'm reworking that into a thread, and will move it back into the forums shortly. Please continue in this thread with discussion of Momofuku Ssäm Bar only. Thanks.

Slacker.

Functionally there is no reason you shouldn't be able to scrub them with copper scrubbies. The reason All-Clad doesn't want you to do this is because it will leave scratches on the surface of the pan and the cosmetic appearance of All-Clad Stainless is important to most people who purchase it. Personally, I'd recommend Bar Keeper's Friend over a copper scrubbing pad for this use. Either way, you're not going to have that mirror finish any more. I should point out that a certain amount of discoloration on your All-Clad Stainless isn't going to change its performance one bit. I gather we're talking about this post here where I said: If you're asking about Falk's "oval casserole," most of what I said about their "stew pot" also applies here. I just don't see why it's worth sprending the money for copper and would gravitate towards enameled cast iron, which has the added advantage of being much less expensive. If you're talking about gratin pans, it gets a little more complicated. The thing about a gratin pan is that looks do make a difference, because you will be bringing the pan to the table. Whether copper makes sense will largely depend on how you think you might use the pan. Strictly for making things "gratinée" (which is to say, cooked in the oven or under the broiler until brown and crispy on top), it probably doesn't add anything to use copper and you might as well use porcelain. Metal gratin pans can have added functionality, however, because they can be heated on the stove. You could use it as a "sizzle plate" to finish items in the oven. You could toss in some fat and garlic on the stovetop, start a whole fish in the pan, and take the whole thing to the oven. You could roast poultry in the gratin pan, use the same pan to make a pan sauce, return the poultry to the pan and take the whole thing to the table. There are a lot of things you could do with a metal gratin pan. For many of these extended applications, heavy copper could really come in handy. Keep in mind, however, that the 1.6 mm Mauviel line is called "table service." It is fine for the oven, but is too thin for stovetop cooking. That last bit is actually quite important. Mauviel's Table Service line is not intended for stovetop cooking, and won't perform well in that context. From a purely functional standpoint, something like Falk Culinair's large gratin pan pan at 2.5 mm thickness would have good versatility in that it could be heated on the stovetop. You couldn't really do that with a piece of Mauviel Table Service.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! Oh well, I'm still getting a bottle of it.

Another tidbit: Hotaling's should hit NYC around September/October.

Some more info from friends: Blackwood's gin should hit the NYC market sometime in September/October.

Friends in the know have passed along some exciting news: Sometime in the October/November timeframe we should start seeing Rittenhouse 21 year old in NYC. Brian from Pegu Club was able to try some of it during a recent trip down South, and he told me it was outstanding. I can hardly wait.