slkinsey

Yesterday evening, I met dosconz and JosephB at Madison Square Park to hear a concert by our friend Luciana Souza. Afterwards, we walked to Flatiron Lounge for a quick drink and thence to Casa Mono where we had a delightful dinner. We arrived sometime around 9:30 and were offered a table almost immediately. As others have observed, it is a somewhat crowded restaurant by nature and not the most comfortable. Nevertheless, the food really is worth a trip. We started with razor clams a la plancha, artichokes a la plancha and lamb's tongues. These were all delicious. The razor clams were infused with smokey flavor, chewy but tender, drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of garlic and parsley. We would happily have had another plate of this. Our only disappointment was that there were only five clams -- or perhaps I should say that it was Joe's disappointment, since he drew the short straw and only got one. The artichokes were also very good: cooked just through with a hint of smokiness and a bit of lemon. We also enjoyed the lengua, which was given an unusual (to us) treatment. They appeared to have been braised until tender, then given a coating of flour and deep fried to order. This made them crisp on the outside and very tender on the inside. They were served with a sweetish piquillo pepper sauce and a little salad of celery and pickled fiddlehead ferns. All in all, the meal started on a very high note. Next they brought over a little dish of tripe stewed with chickpeas and morcilla, and "sweetbreads with fennel al Mono." The tripe was just tender without being gelatinous, and surrounded by a flavorful, porky liquid. Perhaps not as good as the tripa alla parmigiana at Babbo, but very nice. I think we all agreed, however, that it was really more of a winter dish. The sweetbreads, on the other hand, blew us away. I love sweetbreads, I think they're a natural match for anis flavors like fennel, and Batali's places always seem to have a great sweetbread dish. These were three approximately golfball-sized pieces of sweetbread fried with a crispy exterior and a coating of crushed almonds plated on top of several cooked baby fennels. This hit the same high note as the razor clams, and we agreed that we would have been very happy to have a double order of the sweetbreads. Next we had giunea hen with piquillo peppers and some kind of greens, fideos with Manilla clams, fava beans and chorizo, and setas with garlic. The star of this group was the guinea hen. As I know from experience, guinea hen is not easy to cook. At Casa Mono two generous pieces came out just right at around "medium" or maybe even "medium rare" -- juicy, flavorful and tender with crisp skin and none of the chewiness that can be a problem with guinea hen. The fideos and setas, while good, were probably the least successful dishes of the evening. The setas were oyster mushrooms, which I like but do have a flavor that is not everyone's favorite. We also thought the cook might have let the oil flame in the pan to give them some smokey flavor. Unfortunately, it had just a hint of carbonized "lighter fluid" flavor in the background that detracted from the dish. The fideos were okay, but didn't really blow us away. We saw others around us eating some lamb ribs and skirt steak that looked delicious. Next time, I'll order those and forego the fideos and setas. To finish we shared the Mono sundae (plum ice cream with arrope and almonds annointed with Pedro Ximenes) and a kind of ice cream sandwich thing they were offering as a special. All the above, plus a nice bottle of white wine docsconz picked out for us and a bottle of Vichy Catalan mineral water came to about 60 bucks a person with tip. That seems like a good value to me, and I left Casa Mono with the intention of returning again.

Ah, okay. They grow some across the other side of the Adriatic too.

I will have to try this variation as well. I quite liked the drink and while on the sweet side, I did not find it cloying. A sugar rim would have put it over the top but deGroffs book says the sugar rim is what gives the drink it's name. Yea, I think you do want to do a sugar rim. You also want to have an orange peel going all the way around the inside of the glass. If you look on this page you can see the illustration of the Brandy Crusta from Jerry Thomas' book. Here is a more modern picture from our friends at the Museum of the American Cocktail. As far as I know, Maraska cherries are only grown in Dalmatia. The process of making maraschino, at least as employed by Luxardo, is fairly complex. I'm going by memory here, so I may have the details wrong, but it goes something like this: The pits and fruit are separated. The pits (and stems?) are crushed and distilled into what is more or less cherry pit grappa. The fruit is crushed, fermented and distilled separately. The two distillates are later recombined, aged for two years in ash wood vats (which is considered a crucial step in the process) and dosed with cane sugar. (I can't find the material I had on Luxardo's process, so I shot them an email. If they respond, I'll translate their response and post here.)

Maraschino is a liqueur (bittersweet) made from Maraska cherries and pits whereas kirschwasser is an eau de vie (dry) made from the juice of black cherries. Maraschino is usually around 30% abv whereas kirschwasser is often around 40%. IMO, kirschwasser has more of a recognizable cherry flavor than maraschino, and maraschino has a distinctive almond-like flavor component that derrives from the cherry pits. IMO there is a notable drop in quality once you move away from Luxardo and Maraska.

So, nothing's really changed?

The thing about a Crusta or any sugared-rim drink (especially one including a liqueur) is that, if you don't want it to be too sweet, you need to choose a base spirit that isn't too sweet. That's not always so easy to do with bourbon, which tends to be an inherently sweet spirit. So, first you might ask around for a relatively dry bourbon. The other thing to do is switch to brandy and use something like Hennessy. As far as I know, the real classic you'll find in Jerry Thomas, etc. is a Brandy Crusta. Jerry Thomas' formula for a Brandy Crusta also does not contain maraschino. It's more or less 2 ounces of brandy, 1 tsp of orange curaçao, 1/2 tsp of lemon juice and a dash of Boker's bitters. My library is by no means exhaustive, but I don't find it with maraschino until the Savoy Cocktail book, by which time I imagine it was considered fairly old fashioned.

Hmm. I'm not sure I agree, not that our interpretation of the author's intentions is terribly important in the grand scheme of things. Overall Platt seemed to have more bad things to say about RUB than good, and most of the good things were tempered with criticisms. Even the final paragraph which you quoted -- which strikes me as very positive -- says "on this night, at least, and at long last, real barbecue had come to New York City." (emphasis mine). This says to me: "on other nights, it wasn't so good." I came away from this review with the sense that the author thinks RUB is running at about 60% mediocre-to-bad, 35% good-to-very-good, 5% excellent. Whether that reflects reality (or whether the author knows enough about barbecue to make these judgments) is another matter.

Adam Platt reviews RUB in New York Magazine: Later in the recview he describes the Baron’s Down Home Pig Pick’n, which features a whole pork butt, in glowing terms. Sounds like RUB still needs some work according to this author. It's possible, I suppose, that Paul Kirk, who has apparently never owned or managed a barbecue restaurant and who commutes from Kansas City to manage this NYC spot, is still learning how to transfer his competition-winning barbecue knowledge and technique into a restaurant setting. Cooking barbecue for a competition and a restaurant can be very different animals.

Salt cured anchovies and sardines.

I'm with Steven on the double smoked bacon. It's some of the best around. I think Schaller & Weber does a substantial amount of its business selling meats to restaurants and the like. They probably make more money there than they do on retail. It wouldn't surprise me if they are the #1 seller of German specialty meats in the Eastern United States. In fact, bergerka and I were just in a fun little restaurant in Black Mountain, North Carolina called the Berliner Kindl. It's run by a very nice German woman. All their sausages were from Schaller & Weber. If anyone is interested, they have a web site at schallerweber.com.

Boy do I ever agree with that. The better the ingredients, the better the final product. Of course, there is a law of diminishing returns, and I wouldn't use Porfidio's single-barrel Barrique at $500 a bottle, of course.We had a thread on this subject just a little while ago, where I offered my über-geek suitability-for-cocktails by price graph: I've been using a big bottle of Herradura silver I got on sale a while back. For Margaritas, I tend to just use the least expensive 100% agave silver tequila I can find. Most any 100% agave tequila is more than good enough for mixing (unless there are some real clunkers our members can warn me away from). I also tend to stay away from Cuervo products. I should add that regular Sausa Blanca, while not 100% agave, is a pretty good tequila if you're mixing for a crowd, especially if you're making drinks with a lot of flavors going on, and easier on the wallet than most 100% agave tequilas.

Keep in mind, however, that these are Americanized pronunciations. Take, for example, the French herbal liqueur Chartreuse. Merriam Webster would have you pronounce this word as "shar-troos" whereas I would argue for "shar-trœz." Merriam Webster would also like to have you pronounce liqueur as "lih-coo-er" instead of "lih-cœr." ("œ" is a French vowel sound one produces more or less by forming your mouth into an "o" position and trying to say "eh" through it.) This is not to say that I think English speakers should try to pronounce 100% correct French/Italian/whatever when referring to ingredients, and of course there are certain foreign words that have more or less become anglicized in pronunciation (e.g., absinthe). But I do think "shar-truz is preferable to "shar-troos."

People are learning to love the snoot, I see. I wish they could do their more usual dish, which is rib tips and snoot, but apparently there isn't enough room for them to have a fire (or, for some reason, the need for them to have fire for the rib tips means they can't do it).

mbanu, I think I understand what you're saying but it's more a matter of flavor for me than it is one of alcoholic strength (although that's important). Marie Brizard triple sec is sweeter and less "orangey" compared to Cointreau, and the drop off is fairly steep after Marie Brizard with most lesser brands of triple sec being substantially sweeter than Cointreau with substantially less orange flavor. Cointreau's refined orange flavor allows me to get good flavor from it in a 2:1:1 Margarita and its (relative) dryness lets it work okay in a 3:2:1 Margarita (personally, I think I would find an "equal parts" Margarita with Cointreau too sweet and limey with not enough tequila flavor). Marie Brizard is close enough to Cointreau that I don't think any big adjustments need to be made. If I were using some lesser-than-Marie-Brizard triple sec, on the other hand, I'd be inclined to use less triple sec in order to keep the drink from becoming overly sweet. I'd never consider a 3:2:1 Margarita, and even 2:1:1 would be sweeter than I'd like. I'd probably start off with 2:3/4:1 and maybe even use less triple sec than that. That, to me, is the problem with triple sec compared to Cointreau: much more sweetness, much less orange flavor. You naturally want to use less triple sec to avoid making the drink overly sweet, but at the same time you naturally want to use more triple sec because it has less orange flavor to begin with. It's impossible to do both, of course, so you have to decide what is more important to you. I'd rather have a dryer drink with less orange flavor if I'm forced to choose. Cointreau is 40%, and Marie Brizard (IMO the only triple sec worth buying other than Cointreau) is 30%. MB is 39%. Is it? I could be mistaken. I'm away from home, so I don't have any bottles around and I just googled it. These guys say it's 60 proof.

Cointreau is 40%, and Marie Brizard (IMO the only triple sec worth buying other than Cointreau) is 30%. Absolutely. Shake, strain, serve "up" in a cocktail glass. A Margarita, after all, belongs in the same family as the Sidecar (base liquor, Cointreau, citrus juice). IIRC, here in DC they are running 3 or 4 little suckers for $2.Highway robbery! Does DC have much of a Latino population?Huge - mostly central American, especially in certain suburbs.I would think you could get limes at a much better price in Latin markets. Here in Manhattan (and especially in my neighborhood) it may be the case that Latinos are intermixed with all the other various "types" that limes are always in high demand, and thus less expensive due do volume. I have noticed that limes are more expensive in upscale markets like Garden of Eden that tend to be patronized mostly by Anglos.

IIRC, here in DC they are running 3 or 4 little suckers for $2. Highway robbery! Does DC have much of a Latino population?

Are limes really that expensive? Around here, I can usually get them at something like 4 for a dollar all the way up to 10 for a dollar, depending on the season. Needless to say, you have to use fresh lime juice. Lemonade and orange juice aren't going to get you there. There seem to be two common formulations for a Margarita. One is the 3:2:1 formula, and the other is the 2:1:1 formula. This would translate to: 3:2:1 Margarita 1.5 oz : blanco tequila 1.0 oz : Cointreau 0.5 oz : fresh lime juice 2:1:1 Margarita 1.50 oz : blanco tequila 0.75 oz : Cointreau 0.75 oz : fresh lime juice Your formula is 4:2:1, which strikes me as too heavy on the tequila, and it uses triple sec instead of Cointreau, which strikes me as too sweet and without enough orange flavor (and what flavor there is, is less refined). Personally, I prefer the 2:1:1 formula. The 3:2:1 formula is too sweet for me, doesn't allow the flavor of the tequila to come through enough, and doesn't have that refreshing tartness from the lime. The 2:1:1 formula is tart, has just enough orange sweetness from the Cointreau and is balanced towards the base liquor enough to make it worthwhile to use a moderately priced 100% agave tequila. So I say: 2 oz : 100% agave blanco tequila 1 oz : Cointreau 1 oz : fresh lime juice Shake with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass (salt the rim lightly if you like, I don't). Here is another recipe calling for more lime juice than triple sec. Edited to change a lemon to a lime.

This may be heresy, but you could consider taking the shaker to a silversmith and getting them to put a little hole in the center of the cap. You would block this with your thumb when shaking and leave it open when pouring. If it's an antique, you may not want to do this of course.

You should also consider loosening the top cap when you pour. Some of the shakers I have with that design have a little hole in the cap on the opposite side of the pour spout. You have to cover this hole with your thumb when you shake, which I usually remember after I've already done a few shakes and sprayed booze out the little hole. Rather than simply being an annoyance, however, the hole serves an important function in this design: it serves as an air intake while you are pouring. Without this little hole, it would take twice as long to pour the drink. If your shaker doesn't have a hole like this, not only are you pouring through a narrow opening, but air has to enter the shaker through the same hole. This will inevitably produce the "glug glug glug" effect you get when you pour out a beer from too steep an angle -- and which, as we have all noted, actually makes the beer come out at a much slower rate. If you crack the lid open a bit, you'll let in some air and should pour more rapidly. The other way you could still get some good use out of this shaker (and it would be a shame not to use it) is to shake the drink in the shaker, remove the top, slap on a hawthorne strainer and pour out of the top.

According to an article in the NY Times magazine a few months ago, the original maraschino cherries were made by marinating Marasca cherries in maraschino liqueur. So, all you need to do is find some sour cherries, pour some maraschino liqueur over them, and wait however long you're inclined to wait. By the way, the evil red color of modern "maraschino cherries" has nothing to do with the real thing.

Unfortunately that design sort of sucks as a cocktail shaker. I know, I've got some just like it. The best advice I can offer you is to turn the shaker almost upside-down when you're pouring, which should float the ice up to the other end of the shaker, and to jiggle the shaker when you're pouring, which should move the ice away from the internal screen.

Here is a thread on the NYC and NYS smoking bans that touches on most of the important subjects. A few thoughts: 1. I have a number of friends in the bar/lounge/nightclub business. None of them are having any trouble with business -- and, indeed, business is booming. While it may be true that some bars that offered little more than a place to smoke while being served a stale beer and a watered down shot experienced economic difficulties or even closed as a result of the bans, this kind of business is typically very fragile anyway. All it takes is something like having the nearby factory or worksite move the exit over to the next block for this kind of bar will suffer and/or close. 2. scordelia, I don't know where you're getting the idea that NYC is covered with illegal "smoking bar speakeasies," but this is simply not the case. There are some illegal clubs and bars (most of which allow smoking) and there are some regular bars that allow smoking after hours, but this is not a widespread phenomenon and I don't sense that it's any more prevalent now than it was before the bans. 3. Brad is absolutely correct: this is a workplace safety issue, not a consumer freedom issue. It is reasonable to tell consumers that they can simply move on to the next bar if they don't like cigarette smoke, it is not reasonable to tell a bartenders and waitstaff that they have to choose another profession if they don't want to inhale secondhand smoke. The law is 100% clear that the government can enact laws to protect workers from undue hazards in the workplace, and it is without doubt that secondhand smoke is a significant workplace hazard. Tobacco smoke is no more a necessary component of the bar or restaurant workplace than it is in an office building or airplane -- both places from which smoking has been banned for years. This post from the NYC/NYS ban thread contains good information on the health issues, and you can read the whole study here (pdf). 4. Although it sounds like a nice compromise, air filtration systems of the type that are typically (and can economically be) installed in restaurants and bars simply don't do an adequate job of cleaning the air. It is pretty much impossible to protect workers from secondhand smoke with filtration.

The easiest and best thing I've come across is to surf eBay and pick up a Rival Ice-o-Matic electric ice crusher. These things date from the 50s and 60s, they have powerful motors and are adjustable from a rough crack to a fine crush. Just search for "ice crusher" at eBay and look for the big, heavy ones with fine-course adjustment. The ones you want have a curvy, vaguely art deco design. I don't see any for auction right now, but they are frequently for sale on eBay.

Well, whether alcoholic strength is important depends on the cocktail. There is definitely something to be said for a short, cold, strong drink. There's a very old fashioned cocktail that I like very much. Dave Wondrich's version, called the Tombstone, has two ounces of Wild Turkey 100 proof rye whiskey, a bar spoon of 2:1 demerara syrup and two dashes of Angostura bitters. Now, you could make this drink with Old Overholt, a very good rye at 80 proof, but it just wouldn't be the same. Part of the difference would be in the strength of the cocktail. A better example might be Audrey's Gin-Gin Mule. It's a tall drink with ice, 1.5 ounces of gin, .75 ounces of lime juice, 1 ounce of simple syrup, mint and 2 ounces of ginger beer. That's only 1.5 ounces of spirit to 3.75 ounces of nonalcoholic ingredients -- more once the ice starts melting. Make this with an 80 proof gin, and it might get a little weak. I think the idea of "numbing the palate with high proof spirits" is hogwash. That said, I agree that this is a drink that you might want to balance with a softer gin (I personally prefer only 0.5 of Lillet and lemon juice, but that's another topic). But gin proof and assertiveness of flavor do not always go hand in hand. It's more complicated because of the infusion technique thing. Exactly. You want an assertive gin with a French 75, and it wouldn't hurt to use a higher proof one as well (I think 4 ounces is the right amount). But with the higher proof Booker's you're given more opportunity. :) Well, it's true that you can always cut a higher proof spirit down in alcoholic strength and intensity of flavor simply by dilution. But it's sometimes nice to start with something softer. I guess if you could only use one bourbon, you'd want the higher proof one. Luckily we don't have to make that choice.

Interesting stuff, mbanu. I'm still not sure I entirely understand, however. Here's what Plymouth does to make their gin: Begins with neutral spirits and rectifies to >96% alcohol. Dilutes that alcohol down to approximately 69% alcohol. Puts the botanicals into that 69% alcohol wash and fires the still. Distills the flavored wash to produce gin at 85% alcohol. Dilutes the gin to 41.2% alcohol for their main bottling, 50% alcohol for Navy Strength. I assume this is a fairly standard technique. This is to say that, while a 10% infused wash distilled to 55% and diluted down to 40% might have more intensity of flavor, this would seem to be a largely theoretical construct and it's unclear to me that the 10/55/40 gin distillation you mention wouldn't result in some pretty harsh flavors and un-gin-like characteristics. IMO, a higher bottle proof almost always equals more intensity of flavor in rum and whiskey. With gin also it's often the case, but not always. All in all, it goes back to some of the things Audrey mentioned. Sometimes you might rather use 80 proof Old Overholt rye in a drink instead of 100 proof Wild Turkey because you're looking for a milder flavor. You're also very rarely going to want to mix with ~125 proof Booker's, because it will almost always overwhelm everything else in the drink. Sometimes you might want to use a higher proof gin like Junìpero because the drink you're making has a lot of nonalcoholic ingredients and you don't want to water down the alcohol content of the drink. Other times -- in a modern-style ultradry Martini at 10:1, for example -- you might prefer one of the lower proof gins.