slkinsey

I don't know about it being a Rob Roy. I mean, Hedonism isn't exactly Scotch. It's a vatted 100% grain whiskey. On the other hand, it's certainly not rye either. So I guess that makes it not a Manhattan either. Whatever. I bet it would be awesome, regardless. But also never to be, I think. You'd probably have to go through a bottle of Hedonism to find out which vermouth and bitters to use, and just how much of each, in order to make the perfect drink.

I like Mojitos, but have to admit that I don't drink them much any more. If I want a rum and mint Summer drink, I'm much more likely to go for a Swizzle of one kind or another. As a general impression, I think they're more interesting drinks due to the use of bitters and crushed ice.

...if you keep a few promotional bottles of watermelon Pucker in the back just for the giggles.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one. On that note, ...a Hedonism Manhattan sounds appealing to you at 10am. It's always nice to have a super-luxe cocktail for the road before you come home from the bar.

I don't have any more "you might be" items right now. I'd just like to say that I'm now dreaming of a Hedonism Manhattan.

Read the OP's signature. And check out this thread.

"slkinsey... this is your life."

That's what you get for liking cake more than pie, my friend.

...you're aghast that the bar you're in doesn't have a single jigger. ...you sniff your cocktails before sipping them. ...after looking at the back bar, you realize that there is not a single cocktail you'd want to order. ...you carry around a little bottle of bitters. ...you honestly can't understand why some people are spooked by egg white drinks, and think every cocktail bar should make them. To interject a tiny bit of seriousness in an otherwise fun thread, I'm not convinced that "snob" is quite the right word. "Snob" has certain connotations of looking down on other people who are somehow "below you," whether that be due to education, socioeconomics, class, expertise, knowledge, etc. I don't think many of us look down on people who are not into cocktails the way we are. Rather, I think we tend to take the attitude that most everyone would become "one of us" once exposed to the real thing. I would rather call us "cocktail enthusiasts." On the other side of the coin is what I would call "reverse snobbery," which is to say those who look down on spending $12 for a perfectly made cocktail or $19 a pound for prime beef because this seems like a snobbish affectation to them when (lesser) examples can be had for less money. Those who prefer quality are often accused of snobbery in this country.

I wonder how much pizza-eating you have done outside of the general Philadelphia-to-Boston area. I ask this simply because, although I agree with your basic premise that the pizza here is often burdened with too much cheese and toppings, I think this is much more prevalent around the country in general than it is in the Philadelphia-to-Boston area, where the pizza tends to be thinner and less copiously topped. Think of one of those disgusting Pizza Hut "meat lover's" pizzas. . . that's considered standard in most of the country. I absolutely agree with your premise that the assemblage and proportion (and quality) of the ingredients is of primary importance. If you don't have that right, you can never achieve a superior pizza. However, it is fact that wood or coal fired retained heat ovens are capable of producing certain effects that stainless steel deck ovens cannot. So, for example, as much as I love the pizza at Di Fara, the actual crust itself just doesn't match up to, say, Patsy's East Harlem. I have a theory about this. From a post in the NYC Pizza Favorites thread:

In the Savoy era, there are a lot of cocktails that are fairly similar but have different names. Back then, there was no calling something a "Perfect Scotch Manhattan" or a "Perfect Rob Roy" or a "Calvados Sidecar" or whatever. These would (and did) all have different and unique names. Calvados, Cointreau and lemon at 2:1:1 was called the Royal Jubilee, for example. If the proportions changed enough to fundamentally change the taste of the cocktail, it would often have a different name. Thus, in Savoy we have the Allen (Special) Cocktail, consisting of 2/3 Plymouth gin, 1/3 maraschino and 1 dash of lemon juice, and the Aviation Cocktail, consisting of 2/3 dry gin, 1/3 lemon juice and 2 dashes maraschino. Sometimes just the addition of bitters created a change of name. For example, the Astoria Cocktail is 2/3 gin, 1/3 French vermouth and 1 dash of orange bitters, while the Martini (Dry) Cocktail is 2/3 dry gin and 1/3 French vermouth. And the Hoffman House Cocktail is 2/3 Plymouth gin, 1/3 French vermouth and 2 dashes of orange bitters. The last cocktail above is illustrative of the understanding that, with fairly elemental combinations such as gin-and-French-vermouth, even a change in the base spirit is sometimes enough to make a completely different cocktail.

Want to know something crazy? That's the well scotch at Pegu Club now. Actually a very good one to use for cocktails. You don't want something to terribly assertive or smokey.

As JohnL points out, it's the cheap table wine that they're starting to limit. Personally I'd rather drink Don Miguel Gascon Malbec (okay, from Argentina rather than Chile) at around ten bucks a bottle than just about any French table wine at a similar price.

Lyle's Golden Syrup is not what you want. Lyle's is a golden syrup, which is more or less just a superaturated sucrose simple syrup (partially inverted, which is why it doesn't crystallize). The main point is that it is fairly highly refined. The kind of cane syrup you want* is made simply by reducing sugar cane juice. If you can't buy a bottle of cane syrup such as Petite Canne from Martinique, your best bet is to make a rich syrup using dehydrated sugar cane juice from a health food store. * not the same kind as Steen's cane syrup.

Landmarc has had blood sausage on the menu (served with sauteed apples and frites) since the day they opened.

Interesting idea. So, let's see: - Landmarc: consistently good food and a great value. One of the great places to go at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. - New Green Bo: I can't really add much to what Steven said, especially since I often go there with him. - Grand Sichuan International Midtown: the best Sichuan in the City, IMO, and this is really my favorite style of Chinese cooking -- dark and full-flavored, fiery spices, not to saucy, lots of Sichuan peppercorn. I'd say it runs to outstanding around 90% of the time, and the other 10% ain't bad. - Churrascaria Tropical in Astoria: the salad bar isn't nearly as lavish as it is at Plataforma, but the meat is as good or better. More to the point, at less than half the price of admission plus six dollar caipirinhas, it's the go-to rodizio in the City for me. - Sripraphai: Seems like every time I go there, I am inspired to try an outstanding new dish I hadn't had before. So far above every other Thai place in the City it's ridiculous. - Dumpling House on Eldridge: everything Steven said. It's especially fun to go there for some dirt cheap pre-cocktail dumplings before heading down the block for fifteen dollar drinks at Milk & Honey. - Kang Suh: somehow, when I'm on Manhattan's Korean row, I find myself going back to this restaurant. The largest menu and the most reliably good execution, I think. Too bad that they don't use live coals any more, but bbq isn't actually my favorite part of Korean cooking. - Patsy's East Harlem: there are other places (mostly Neapolitan style) I like better, but there's nothing like Patsy's for a traditional old-NYC coal-fired pizza. I go minimalist on the toppings and I go for the char. Other people have other priorities when it comes to pizza, but there's something I like about the crust at Patsy's. - Pegu Club and Flatiron Lounge: I know these aren't restaurants (although one could make a decent meal out of Pegu's bar snack menu), but they aren't exactly regular old bars either. Considering that I go to these two places more than I do all the restaurants on my list combined, I think it makes sense to include them. Simply two of the best cocktail spots in the world. - Noche Mexicano: this breaks Steven's rule about local places of convenience, but I believe the Mexican food here is worth some amount of traveling for -- especially the posole on weekends. Interesting for me to note that, despite the fact that I am a major Italophile, there are no Italian restaurants on my list. I guess I haven't been able to find any affordable Italian restaurant that I feel is worth a regular trip. This may have to do with the fact that it's difficult to find an affordable Italian restaurant that can do substantially better than I do myself at home.

Yep. According to the Tito's web site it is made from 100% corn in pot stills. The site implies that they ferment the corn themselves rather than simply rectifying a 100% corn distillate from a large producer, but they don't come right out and say that. Then again, most vodka companys don't exactly come out and say "we get our raw spirit from Archer Daniel" either.

One dirty little secret of the vodka business is that most of it starts out more or less as Everclear -- which is to say, as relatively unrefined high proof alcohol delivered in big tanker trucks from Archer Daniel and the like. The vodka companies rectify (a process of selective re-distillation) and filter the raw alcohol to remove various "impurities," and then dilute the spirit down to bottle proof. There are some small, artisanal companies that do less aggressive rectification and filtration so that some of the flavor of the primal ingredient comes through. Whether this is really "vodka" instead of a highly refined eau de vie is hard to say. There is, of course, a certain market advantage right now to calling something "vodka," but just because they call it that doesn't make it so. After all, what is gin if not "juniper and citrus-infused vodka?" Another dirty little secret of the vodka business is that, after they rectify and filter the raw high proof alcohol, they are allowed to "add back in" a certain small percentage of things like glycerine and flavoring. These additives, along with the flavor of the water* used to dilute the alcohol down to bottle proof, are largely responsible for any subtle flavors present in the spirit. * When you start with 95% abv vodka out of the still, it is diluted by more than 50% with water in order to bring it down to the typical 40% abv bottle proof. So there is more water than spirit in a bottle of vodka.

Twenty-three bucks for 1.75L comes to around thirteen bucks a liter, which is a pretty good price. Tito's is a fine vodka, tasting pleasantly of nothing. Frankly, once you get over the hump of rotgut into decent quality vodka, I don't really see the point of spending cognac prices on vodka. There are plenty of less expensive vodkas out there that are every bit as good as the so-called "super-premium" brands. To make a direct comparison, Astor Wines has Tito's in a 1L bottle for 17 dollars. Grey Goose will run you $27/L. Belvedere costs $34 for a liter (not that much less than Courvoisier VSOP!). I certainly can't see any reason why Grey Goose or Belvedere are worth any more money than Tito's. But, on the other hand, a 1L bottle of Luksusowa will run you only $11, and I don't see any reason why Tito's is worth another six bucks a liter.

I think he forgot to mention the lemon juice in the recipe.

Well, that (the "lightening" bit) makes sense to me. You're introducing bubbles to the batter, and these bubbles expand as the batter is cooked to provide extra leavening. Unlike, say, using whipped egg whites, the use of carbonated liquid doesn't contribute any extra structure to the finished product (therefore, even "lighter" is possible). What puzzles me WRT using carbonated liquid for crêpes is that one generally doesn't want them to puff up like that. That, to me, is one of the crucial differences bewteen a crêpe and a thin pancake (the latter is leavened, the former is not).

Interesting about using beer or seltzer. Interesting because you don't normally want bubbles in crêpes, as it leaves little holes behind.

How do you mean, "flight trays?" And is there anything that would make one tequila-specific? Most of the time when I have had spirit "flights" in a restaurant (Babbo, for example, does a grappa flight) it's just been in glasses on the table.

Be sure to let us know how you liked it.

cocktailDB has over fifty recipes with orgeat.