slkinsey

Cafe Edgar on the Upper West Side in NYC has something very similar they call a "Viennese."

For those who may not be familiar with bicerin, it is essentially a drink with a shot of espresso, a couple of ounces of Italian-style hot chocolate (considerably thicker than the American version) and a couple of ounces of unsweetened softly whipped cream on top.

Doc, I don't think viruses can be cultured in a nutrient media. Think about it: viruses don't have a metabolism and replicate by using the machinery of a living host cell. If there is no living host cell, the viruses cannot replicate. Since a nutrient medium is not a living host, no replication. Right?

I don't see why you couldn't use regular sugar. You'd just have to make sure you stirred everything together long enough to dissolve the sugar before adding ice. Simple syrup is often preferred simply because it's easier. It's easy to measure and you don't have to worry aboud dissolving.

Wow mbanu the swirling of the pastis and letting it dry sounds so cool and makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks. That's a neat trick probably best sampled at home since I can't imagine that many bartenders would want to coat the glass and then keep checking it to see if it's dry before they finish making the drink. FWIW, letting the absinthe or absinthe-substitute dry to the inside of the glass is not the standard technique. Actually, I'm not aware of any cocktail where the glass is rinsed and allowed to dry (although of course there may be some of which I am unaware).

Have a look at the thread All About Rye Whiskey and ask around. There are plenty of excellent, reasonably priced rye whiskeys on the market. Indeed, rye whiskey is probably the best bargain for the money in liquor today.

For a few reasons. First, there is the tradition and showmanship element. Second, swirling absinthe around to coat the inside of the glass and discarding the excess is a useful way to get just the right amount of absinthe. Third, when you coat the inside of a glass with a liqueur and pour the drink in over that coating, the rinse infuses into the drink somewhat differently than it would if you simply added a few dashes to the mixing glass. As far as I know, Peychaud's only is traditional. And for sure you need Peychaud's bitters to make a Sazerac. Can't make one without Peychaud's bitters. But there's no harm in adding a dash of another bitters in addition, and a lot of people prefer it that way, myself included.

I feel your pain, Craig. Friends in the know tell me that there are a few places on the West coast that blow away the best places in Italy, but there's nowhere near the ubiquitous baseline quality one can expect on every street corner in Italy (this is discussed a bit in this thread). That's one reason among many I take almost all my coffee at home with my own roasted beans and from my own Rancilio.

A (gin, whiskey or perhaps scotch?) sour with basil?

Absolutely. I think it's clearly a topic on which there is more than one defensible viewpoint. I've only tried to explain mine. I actually kind of like canned corned beef hash and greasy eggs. But I do get your point. Unfortunately for me, there are a lot of fun bars I can't visit any more because of my profession. I can't be damaging my hearing with loud music, straining my voice shouting over same. Them's the breaks when your hearing and voice are the tools of your trade. That's one reason I have been so happy about the NYS and NYC smoking bans -- I can finally go back into bars without screwing up my voice from the cigarete smoke.

That's interesting. I hadn't thought of M&R being necessarily "lighter" than NP, but now that you say that it makes some sense. We have a thread here on vermouth, and it might be interesting at some point to order the various bottlings of vermouth as to different qualities -- fullness of flavor, sweetness, etc. Anyway, back to No. Ten. . . Someone like Gary is in a better position than I to speak on this point, but No. Ten has always struck me as being one of those lightly flavored "martini gins" designed to appeal to the vodka crowd. This makes it a good substitute for vodka -- subbing No. Ten for citrus vodka in a Cosmo formula, for example, although I think Plymouth works just as well this way and has more character (I like aquavit in a "Cosmo" too) -- but a little underwhelming in actual gin cocktails with flavorful modifiers.

As always, interesting and thought provoking stuff... To a certain extent, some of these reactions depend on one's store of knowledge, which I think we would agree is regretably low when it comes to cocktails, not only in the customer base but even among professionals. To return back to my original musical example... one reason I wouldn't like to see a freeform atonal piece for banjo and flute called "Piano Sonata in G Major" is that the word "sonata" has certain connotations as to musical structure (see here), which would not be satisfied by the freeform atonal piece. Now, that's something you might not know about, and therefore you might not care. Similarly, if I were in a bar and ordered a drink called a "collins," I would absolutely expect a tall drink on ice with citrus and fizz, and would probably be disappointed to be served an up drink in a V-glass. For most people, though, this wouldn't be the case because "collins" doesn't particularly mean anything to them. This all goes to my later point, and yours, about writing for a certain audience. . . I wonder if that's entirely true. My guess is that, if you were writing an article for Mixologist, or perhaps even something for an audience such as we have here in the eG Forums, you might have gone a little bit into talking about what a collins has been historically, how or whether this new drink is derrived from or related to that concept, etc. Certainly this is the kind of explaining you do in The Joy of Mixology. But, again, that book has a different goal and a different audience from the magazine article. Actually, I'd still be interested in hearing your thoughts on how, if at all, the Dylan Collins is related to or updated from the Collins category. To a large extent, and on all the important parts, I couldn't agree more. But -- and this is reflective of my personal biases -- I think there are an awful lot of potential cocktail names out there, and I think if someone is going to give a drink a name associated with an established category of cocktail (collins, julep, daisy, etc.) then it should respect those traditions. Otherwise, why not just pick another name? Absolutely. Audrey has made this point to me a number of times. If someone comes into the bar and wants a Ketel One tonic or whatever, you want to make them feel good and give them a great Ketel One tonic. That's job #1.

Christopher, your point is well made with respect to not ascribing the general condition to every individual. If all parents were as considerate and thoughtful as you, no one would give this sort of thing a second thought.

Thanks for stopping in, Gary! I'm at an interesting crossroads on this point. As a classical musician, I guess I tend to stand against the idea of calling an atonal theme and variations composition for banjo and flute "Piano Sonata in G Major." Nevertheless, I do respect the composer's right to give the composition that name, and believe it could have meaning in a certain context depending on the composer's concept. That said, at the same time I recognize that the concepts "piano," "sonata" and "G major" will begin to lose meaning or take on new meanings if they come to be commonly used in this way. As you point out, this has happened in different ways with the words "cocktail" (which in my opinion has had a fairly useful evolution of meaning) and "martini" (perhaps not so much). But... again, I'm someone who specializes in the interpretation of music that was written around 150 to 125 years ago, so I have my biases. I hope you don't think anything I wrote needs defending against. I have my own viewpoints, but believe there is room for more than one. And, as you point out and I was trying to say, you're writing for a certain audience. I'm sure there are things you would have to say to a hardcore cocktail audience that you wouldn't put in an article such as this. Interesting thought, and maybe one that can be explored in a different thread. I've posted the following in an interesting thread Dave started on "The March of Booze Through Time": <blockquote> </blockquote>In reading your work, you have always struck me as someone with one foot in each school of thought -- very much of an "old school" outlook, but also eager to embrace new ingredients and trends and step outside the box.

Have a look at the thread: All About Rye Whiskey. The Sazerac is a cocktail that really allows the qualities of the base spirit to come to the fore, so it's a good one to mix with just about any rye of quality.

I suppose I might as well also mention, unfortunate as it is, that most people who care and can tell the difference tell me that 99.9% of the Sazeracs they've had in New Orleans bars weren't very good -- and these are people who were out looking for a good one. I haven't been out on a New Orleans Sazerac quest, but this does in general align with my experiences of NO mixology. Perhaps when this great city gets its feet under itself again, we may see the Museum of the American Cocktail and other influences spark a resurgance of classic mixology there. This doesn't have any particular bearing on the question of base spirit, but does have something to say about where one should look for authority in matters such as this.

Heh. As much as I'd like to take credit, it's right there in the lead-in to the article.

Interesting, Eric! I wish we had good data on the grain bills for the various rye whiskeys. I know, for example, that the Van Winkle ryes have only 51% rye in the mash -- the lowest percentage allowed by law. This strikes me as hardly a rye whiskey, although I don't know what percentage is more usual for a rye.

I tend to agree with Dave on this one, although I would point out that his provisions ("child is quiet and well-behaved and the parents are attentive") are absolutely key. There are some bars where I can see this working fairly well (e.g., a relatively quiet and uncrowded bar), but many more where I can't see it working very well. And, of course, there does come a point where enough is enough, and there is something to be said for an adult atmosphere. All this is to say that I wouldn't mind a quiet kid or two at a local taphouse on Saturday afternoon, but I don't want to find a crying baby next to me or 5 strollers taking up space at Flatiron Lounge on Thursday night.

I've always felt that Gary's columns more or less served to highlight and, to a certain extent, cheerlead for bartenders he thought were doing something interesting. To the extent that this is accurate -- and I don't know if it is or not -- I wouldn't think that these columns are the place to inveigh against naming conventions. That said, and perhaps this reflects my profession as a classical musician, I don't agree with Gary's premise that Bach would have been pleased to see Air on a G String turned into A Whiter Shade of Pale. But for whatever it's worth, at least Procol Harum changed the name of the piece, and that's more germane to this discussion. It perhaps is a bit ironic to read at the beginning of the article that "a firm grasp on the structure of classic cocktails is essential for today’s bartenders if they want to create new drinks for their customers" -- something with which I absolutely agree -- and then to see recipes for a "collins" in a V-glass with no ice and no soda, and a "julep" with no crushed ice, both of which practices I'd say do not demonstrate a healthy respect for classicism when it comes to cocktails. But that kind of classisism (respecting certain naming conventions) and having "a firm grasp of the structure" of the classics aren't the same thing. It's possible to have one and not the other. Several of the drinks featured in the article do strike me as relatively interesting -- the main point of the article, in my view -- and most of them seem to have respect for their forebears.

FWIW, a "true fifth" bottle and a 750 ml bottle are close enough to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes. A "true fifth" is 757 ml, which works out to somewhat less than one-quarter ounce more than 750 ml. Not enough difference to get worked up about.

IMO, anything made with any base spirit but cognac or rye whiskey is "Sazerac-like" but isn't quite a Sazerac. I personally like mine with rye, two big dashes of Peychaud's, a rinse of absinthe, a little sugar and a fat lemon peel twisted and dropped into the glass. In the Sazerac-like category, I've enjoyed a similar drink made with Laird's 12 year old apple brandy -- first introduced to me by Phil and Chad at Flatiron Lounge.

Last information I had, the answer was "no." Vya is so strongly flavored that it usually doesn't work so well at 1:1. You're right that is would come out as a Vya Martini. I've made a 1:1 Martini with Vya and Malacca that worked pretty well, but Malacca is a very strongly flavored gin and even then I would have wanted a little bit more gin to come through. At 1:1 Vya would completely obscure something soft like Plymouth. 2:1 would probably be the way to go. On the other hand, reverse Martinis at 1:2 with Vya and something like Tanqueray work great.

Note: I split off the discussion about buying maraschino in Pennsylvania into that forum.

The soup with chicken, oyster mushrooms, coconut milk and galangal at Sripraphai is amazing.