slkinsey

Here is the web site of the company. Looks like they make a lot of "cocktail mixers" -- "Cosmopolitan mix,"Mojito mix" and things of that ilk (i.e., mixes for drinks that don't need a mix and are better made with fresh ingredients). As far as I can tell, their "sodas for cocktails" are expensive versions of club soda, tonic water and ginger ale in little bottles. I'm sure they're fine, but not so sure they're any better than products already widely available. I see they do make a "blood orange bitters" that I'd be interested to try, though. . .

If you're going ultra old-school, I'd serve sours in a champagne flute -- preferably one that does not curve back inwards. Click here to see a picture of a "sour glass." This is a lot closer to a champagne glass than a cocktail glass. If you're serving the Pisco Sour in a champagne flute, I'd stick with that for all the Sours.

I purchased a bottle of the Laphroaig 15 (being a fan of the 10). I poured a glass, and then gave the rest away. For my taste, I found it lacking character and not nearly as complex or interesting as the 10 for whatever reason. I feel the same way about Laphroaig. The 15 year "refines away" some of the unique funkiness and character that makes Laphroaig so special. This is not to say that I don't like aged spirits, but I do find that the longer spirits age the more they tend to sacrifice their uniqueness and gravitate towards an "aged" sameness. I feel the same way about Calvados, where I tend to find the younger specimens more evocative of apples whereas some of the older bottlings might as well have been made from grapes.

I think it very much depends on the Sour. Or perhaps it depends on what we are calling a Sour. In its most basic form, a Sour is simply base spirit, citrus juice and sugar. When we start branching out by using a liqueur in place of the sugar as a sweetener, I think it becomes more than "just" a Sour. Thus, for example, Gary Regan's classification of the formula base spirit, citrus juice and Cointreau as a "New Orleans Sour" and so on. In general, I don't care for straight Sours with ice in a rocks glass. I prefer them either in a cocktail glass or in a highball glass with no ice. Like Alchemist, I usually prefer straight Sours with egg white. If the sour is going to be fizzed, on the other hand, I'll take it straight up in a highball/fizz glass. I've never had a problem with cocktails in either style of glass getting cold, but then again I've never been known to hold a cocktail for 15 minutes either. The solution to that is to make the drink in an appropriate size.

I like Joy of Mixology very much. It's one of the several books to which I find myself returning again and again. I think it's especially useful the way that he highlights the various "families" of cocktails. There is no other book of which I am aware that points out the familial relationship between a Sidecar, a Margarita and a Cosmopolitan. This makes it easy to create your own drinks and also helps you to identify other drinks that will suit your palate. That said, every cocktail book will reflect the biases and tastes of the author, unless it is a strictly historical book. Even there, the author has some editorial choices to make (viz. Ted Haig's Pegu Club formula in "Forgotten Cocktails"). This is no more true of Gary's book than it is of Dave Wondrich's books or Dale DeGroff's book, etc. Whether your tastes accord with Gary's will, to a certain extent, determine how much you like the recipes in the book. I find some of Gary's and Dale's recipes to be a touch on the sweet side for me, just as I find some of Dave's recipes to be a touch on the sour side -- so I adjust accordingly. Untimately, this is what mixing cocktails is all about: using your palate and mixing the drinks according to your individial taste. One thing I think Gary's book does well is provide a background understanding of how each cocktail is structured so that you have a basis for tailoring the drink to your own preferences. In terms of the recipes, Joy of Mixology strikes me as being very much in the same tradition as books such as Dale's Craft of the Cocktail. . . some classic cocktails given with the author's customized formulae and an equal or greater number of the author's own personal creations. If you just want a library of classic cocktails in their most historical formulae, you should throw away your books and avail yourself of the excellent CocktailDB Internet Cocktail Database. I do agree that he might have been a little carried away adding the "squirrel sour" family, which is more or less an invention of his own and I'm not sure belongs alongside things like the "New Orleans sour" family. But they're interesting drinks nonetheless.

Those are my favorite, too.

"Juniper infused vodka?"

What makes stewed meat tender is a combination of things, I think. Certainly fat and gelatin make a difference. This is why "stew meat" is typically high in both fat and connective tissue. The other thing that makes stewed meat tender is technique. Cooking at low temperatures can make a difference. Meat that was cooked mostly at 70C and was then brought to 100C for 1 minute will have a different texture than meat that was cooked at 100C the whole time. Also, if more conventional cooking temperatures/techniques are used, I think the cook has to know when to check the meat so that it is served right when it reaches readiness. Overcooking can dry out a piece of stew meat just as much as it can a piece of fillet.

This would be fairly easy to do using a sous vide technique. I've cooked short ribs for around 30-36 hours sous vide at 60C. It's good, but nothing like a traditionally braised short rib. So I don't think a stew with tender, medium rare chunks of meat would be very "stew like." One trick might be to cook it LTLT and then, just before serving, take it quickly up to a simmer.

I agree with everyone: It's the meat and it's the technique. IMO, the chuck at Citarella is too lean and doesn't have enough connective tissue -- it's too pretty. I made a beef and cauliflower tagine using chuck I bought at Oppenheimer Prime Meats (and which was cut to order from a massive hunk of chuck) and the meat was one of the most tender I've ever had. I made the same exact tagine a month later using beef from Citarella and it was dry. Keeping below-the-simmer temperatures as recommended by McGee also makes a big difference (one reason why tagines can be so tender).

Although it may not be practical for a small amount, I think the best way is to lay the strips out on a cookie sheet (one with a rim all the way around!) and bake it in a 350 degree oven until crispy, flipping once. Convection ovens are best, but it works well with a regular oven too. This is hands-down the best way to cook large amounts of bacon, and I think it even beats frying on the stovetop or griddle for small amounts. For one, the strips always turn out flat when you bake them, with no curling or buckling. Of course, you can then pour the bacon fat out of the cookie sheet, through a paper towel or coffee filter and into a container. Keep the container in the freezer and dig out a teaspoon every so often when you want to give sautéed mushrooms or other foods just a little extra kick of flavor.

kjohn, just FYI: Alchemist is not "The Alchemist" -- aka Paul Harrington.

Last year our hosts served champagne with a dollop of pom wonderful pomegranate juice. Something about anti-oxidants which I thought was pretty lame. So very California. You've inspired me to serve cranberry champagne cocktails, except I'm going to use homemade Cranberry Liqueur instead of cranberry puree. There's still time to start your own! I'm actually going to make something similar this season using cranberry syrup (1 part cranberry extract from the health food store, 1 part water and 2 parts sugar) instead of cranberry puree. I'll put in the sugar cube, douse with orange bitters, fill with champagne and then pour in an ounce or so of the cranberry syrup, which I hope will make an interesting color effect.

I often try to expand the cocktail repertoires of my less cocktail-experienced friends, which is something I probably have in common with many people who frequent these forums. And, of course, a great technique for learning which directions to explore is simply to ask the other person what cocktails he/she likes, which creates a nice opportunity for me to suggest: If you like Cocktail A, I bet you'd really like Cocktail Z. So, for example: If you like a bourbon Manhattan, you'll probably like one with rye and bitters. And if you like a Manhattan with rye and bitters, you'll probably like the Tombstone (100 proof rye, demerara syrup and bitters). And if you like the Tombstone with rye, you'll probably love it with Laird's bonded applejack. And so on. I'd be interested in hearing other strategies like this. What's the best way to expand the cocktail palate of a devoted vodka tonic drinker? What about a Cosmo drinker?

For me, it's really impossible to say. There are so many that I like. I will say, however, that I haven't been to Pegu Club a single time when I haven't had the Fitty - Fitty Martini (1:1 Tanqueray and Noilly Prat, stirred, strained and garnished with a twist). But whether that's my favorite is hard to say. It's my favorite way to start a long night of imbibing, I'll say that!

An "Apple Pie Martini," eh? What goes into one of those?

I "cured" my dolsots by rubbing them with oil and baking them in the oven (repeated this a few times). I've never cooked rice in mine, but I do heat them over my gas stove, add cooked rice and the vegetables and let the whole thing sit on the flame for 5 minutes or so. As you can see, I get good crisping of the rice (better than I have usually had in restaurants, actually). I'm not sure how it would work with electric. Probably would make sense to use a flame tamer just to spread the heat around. I would think you could effectively seal the dolsots for rice cooking by putting a heavy oven-friendly ceramic plate on the top of each one while it was on the stove. I don't think the "seal" has to be any better than that. Remember, you're trying to crisp the bottom anyway.

From this book we love the Bronx and the Income Tax Cocktail (a Bronx with bitters), Twentieth Century, Aviation, Vieux Carré, Coffee Cocktail, Brooklyn, Satan's Whiskers, Corpse Reviver #2, Blinker, Pegu Club and the Jack Rose. I was familiar with at least half of these before the book published, and I disagree with some of the formulae (strongly disagree in the case of the Pegu Club), but that's a remarkable number of "regular rotation" cocktails in one slim book. I hope there's a volume two.

I like Zakarian too. I think his work is brilliant and Town is IMO deserving of far more recognition and attention than it gets. So it seems a bit odd to me that so many people have been speaking of Country as though it were a "Psaltis restaurant." As far as I know, Country will be a Zakarian restaurant. I have heard that, at least up to this point, the dishes are Zakarian's and that Zakarian is at the chef's station calling orders during service. People initially spoke of Esca as a "Batali restaurant" even though it was more Pasternack's place than it was Mario's in terms of the kitchen, and I'm not sure why we are doing differently here. All this is to say that we shouldn't take any credit for Country away from Zakarian.

Interesting question. My guess is that it probably wouldn't have been posted or written about. Another bad meal at Beard House isn't exactly news. But if it was as bad as Mimi says it was I'm sure the people who were there would be talking about it among themselves, even if only to say "that was one of the worst Beard House dinners I've ever attended." Here is the menu postef on the Beard House web site, by the way:

Yikes. It does sound pretty awful.

This is by no means a defense of Psaltis and his cooking at the Beard House dinner. Indeed, I have little trouble imagining that it was not very good. That said, I am given to understand that mediocre is par for the course at Beard House dinners, regardless of who is in the kitchen. This post by Fat Guy in the Beard House thread back in August may offer some perspective: I've cooked at a Beard House event. A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a latke competition there. I had to prepare latkes for 70 people. . . .The Beard House kitchen is a disgrace by the standards of the contemporary upscale restaurants the Foundation seeks to represent at its events. The equipment is second-rate, the design is poor and it's extremely difficult to work cleanly and efficiently. It would have been much easier to produce latkes for 70 in my mediocre kitchen at home than it was in the Beard House's disaster of a kitchen. . . I've had some good and some bad dinners at the Beard House. Mostly mediocre to bad. Some chefs can pull it off. This suggests to me that Psaltis has some pretty good company in making bad food for a Beard House dinner. FG's impression of the typical Beard House dinner attendees is also an interesting counterpoint to Mimi's characterization: Of course, I'm sure some dinners have more "important people" at the tables than others -- and that may have been the case on Tuesday.

Yes, Boston is very strange about the things the community will support and the things the community won't support. I always thought it was odd that a city that has the BSO -- historically one of the great orchestras in the world, although I think they declined under Ozawa -- has never been able to sustain an opera company of comparable quality. I grew up in Boston, and it was never much of a restaurant town, although I heard that it had made great strides in that respect over the last 10-15 years. Perhaps not as much as we might have liked.

I would think that Campari with limoncello would be way too sweet. As for Campari and rye, you could try a variation on the Red Hook. The Red Hook is 2 ounces of rye and a half-ounce each of Punt e Mes and maraschino liqueur, stirred with ice and strained. You could sub Campari for the Punt e Mes for more bitter herbal bite.

It's definitely interesting. I wonder whether a spoon (presumable a ladle) with a "cock's tail handle" was something commonly used, or if this was a common term.