slkinsey

Less than $15 for sure, I'd think. In fact, $12 might be pretty close.

A mint julep is a fairly labor-intensive drink unless the bar keeps finely crushed ice on hand (which most don't). You're unlikely to find one for under $10 (most cocktails are selling for $10 or more in NYC anyway).

Tried using the "Improved Holland Gin Cock-Tail" recipe with Linie Aquavit instead of genever. Worked very well. Everyone liked it.

I was treated to an "Improved Holland Gin Cock-Tail" at Flatiron Lounge just last night. Delicious, we all agreed.

Admin: Discussion on genever split from the thread on Dave Wondrich's book "Killer Cocktails." Wait... no longer imported into the country?! I thought the insanity was only limited to NY.

For a stock pot, you should do fine with one of the disk-bottom designs that includes a magnetic layer on the bottom of the thermal pad. As for cleaning Induc'Inox... afaik, there are Induc'Inox pans available with stainless handles. If all you can find are the brass handles, if you want them to stay pretty, my guess is that you'd better hand wash them.

How could anyone not like a book featuring a cocktail named "Jewish Absinthe" made with Old Williamsburg kosher bourbon?

I thought I'd just make a few comments about the places with which I am familiar. I wouldn't say that either M&H or Flatiron has a 1920s vibe going on. M&H uses the "sort of secret" phone number, reservations policy and all that as a way of limiting attendance to the number of people they can serve up to their standard and also as a way of hopefully limiting attendance to true cocktail enthusiasts rather than "in crowd" types and poseurs. Flatiron also doesn't strike me as a heavily nostalgic bar. There are some Art Deco touches, but there are also very modern elements. More to the point, however, is that Art-Deco's biggest time was the mid 1930s, as was the first explosion of the Wurlitzer jukebox and the popular era of what most of us would hear played as "vintage jazz" was the 1930s (Jazz was hardly what most people would recognize as "jazz" in the 1920s. Armstrong's "Hot Fives" and "Hot Sevens" -- which would be considered pretty raw stuff by most people today -- were recorded between something like 1925 and 1928. Anything you're likely to hear in a bar will come from a later era.) This all goes back to my earlier point about mistaking 1930s culture for 1920s culture.

Interesting. You're not the first person from those parts I've heard say that. Perhaps it's because of the whole tourist thing. Or because they're generally so poorly made in tourist situations. And it's a shame, because it's really a great drink. And it doesn't always have to be bourbon either (I know some people from Kentucky will gasp at hearing this, but from a historical standpoint it's true). And, of course, you don't have to stop with mint (basil is a nice addition from time to time). Rye whiskey is good, and I like Dave Wondrich's julep recipe using cognac and a float of high proof rum. Lately I've been enjoying "New Jersey Juleps" made with Laird's 100 proof bonded applejack. Believe it or not, a gin julep is pretty good, too.

I went to a very interesting cachaça tasting yesterday to sample the cachaças of Excalibur Enterprise. It certainly was an eye opener. I've always understood that most of the cachaça available in the United States is low quality. But it's hard to understand just how wide the difference is until you've had some of the good stuff. This was the good stuff. We started with their flagship product, Beleza Pura. This is an unaged cachaça, produced from selected lots of sugar cane, fermented with wild yeast, column distilled and blended by Excalibur owner Olie Berlic. This is a cachaça created by Excalibur. It has the clean, slightly sour flavor of cachaça, notably smoother than Pitu and that ilk, with a very interesting light smokiness. Next was one of their imports from Armazem Viera. These cachaças are also fermented with wild yeast, distilled in a pot still, aged in barrels made from local Aririba wood up to 20 years, and then blended by the master distiller using the "solera system." Excalibur is importing Armazem Viera cachaças at 4, 8 and 16 years. We tried the 4 year old. This was one of the most interesting. As described, it has a certain similarity with grappa or eau de vie. It also had a very distinctive nose somewhat reminiscent of a jar of cocktail olives. After that we tried Rochina, a single barrel cachaça from Rio de Janeiro. This is fermented and distilled with a similarly intensive method to those described above and aged in oak casks -- some of which, I am given to understand, were used to age scotch whisky once upon a time. It is being imported in 5 and 12 year bottlings. We tried the younger one. It had a little color from the wood, and definite hints of smoke. Very smooth, but overall I'm not sure I don't like Beleza Pura a little better. Last we tasted GRM, a "small batch" cachaça aged in oak. Lots of spice flavors and some vanilla from the wood. Without a doubt a "sipping cachaça." Currently these cachaças are available in NYC at Astor Wines, and Caviar & Banana Brasserio is featuring them on its cocktail list.

The Great Depression of the 20th Century "officially" started with the stock market crash of 1929. Its worst year was probably 1933, and perhaps not coincidentally prohibition was repealed at the end of 1933. Meanwhile, we had the beginning of the New Deal and things started slowly looking up. Before too long we were into World War II. I also think it's the case that many people who were lifting cocktails at places like the Waldorf=Astoria and the like weren't exactly characters out of Grapes of Wrath. There were still plenty of affluent people around in cities like NYC.

To continue a bit my point from above -- that a lot of what is often taken as 1920s style and culture is really 1930s style and culture -- although "bathtub gin" was certainly a feature of the prohibition years, real gin became the dominant drink of the years that immediately followed. Why? Because gin doesn't have to be aged. Due to prohibition, there simply wasn't very much aged spirit to go around, whereas there had been plenty before (all the supplies of aged spirits had been exhausted or disposed). And most "brown spirits" (whiskey, brandy, etc.) need to be aged in wood before they are palatable. One result is the almost complete death of good old American rye whiskey, probably the dominant spirit in the US right before prohibition. Another result is the popularization of blended brown spirits, where a small amount of aged spirit is stretched by diluting it with neutral spirits. So, the focus on gin, the focus on Art Deco, etc. is all a focus on the years after prohibition than it is the years during prohibition. For example, all the Thin Man movies save the first one were made post-prohibition.

No, I think mbanu is referring to the fact that the prohibition era is commonly associated with the cocktail revival. I speak of the years between January 16, 1920 (the enactment of the Volstead Act) and December 5, 1933 (ratification of the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment). It certainly is the case that the 20s are often associated with cocktails in the modern imagination, and mbanu does have a point that these years were not by and large distinguished by quality cocktail culture in the United States. That said, it might be pointed out that what is commonly taken to be style and culture from the 20s is actually style and culture from the 30s or later (Lindy Hop, big band, swing, Art Deco, early radio, zoot suits, etc.).

If you want a "soup pot" for actually making soup, I would recommend a casserole. You could always get one of the largest sized enameled cast iron casseroles. That would be good for braising and stews as well as making soup. If you ever plan on making stock, though, and if you make pasta with any frequency, you are probably better off with the 12 quart stock pot. In this case, I'd go with a disk bottom design.

I find it interesting that, unless I am mistaken, most of these less than stellar reviews seem to have come from UK-based writers.

I think your chef friend got it slightly wrong. The general sule of thumb is that you either use okra or file in a gumbo, not roux or file. I don't like okra, so I always use file. You just shake a little into your bowl of gumbo right before you eat it. Or, if you want to do the whole batch, you can stir in some file off the heat. I prefer to do it portion-by-portion, because once you put in the file you really don't want to bring it back to a simmer and this can be problematic in terms of reheating leftovers.

Yea, it should work okay on your electric cooktop. If you were using gas, I think you might notice a reduction in responsiveness compared to aluminum or copper based cookware. But you won't notice with electric -- and, of course, one would expect the responsiveness on induction to be excellent.

Here is a good picture of some ramps. A ramp is a kind of wild onion that grows in North America from roughly Southern Canada down to the Carolinas. They are completely edible, from the blade-shaped onioney leaf to the garlic-like bulb at the root end. Ramps are very seasonal, only growing for a few weeks in the Spring.

I don't see why you think this is odd. Many is the time I've been visiting friends in Pittsburgh who have said, "I could really go for a pizza with ähnchenbrustfilet, Blattspinat, Knoblauch and Creme fraiche."

Nice looking 'za, Behemoth. Patrick and others, one comment regarding prosciutto. You want to put the prosciutto on the pizza after it comes out of the oven, not before. This is the way I've always seen it done in Italy. Anyway... if you're like me, you usually have some leftover ingredients the day after making pizza. A little leftover dough, a little leftover mozzarella, a little leftover broccoli rabe, a little leftover tomato, a little leftover sausage... what to do? Why, make a calzone, of course!

Absolutely. Demeyere only has a thin external magnetic layer. With Mauviel Induc'Inox the entire inner thermal layer is magnetic.

Exactly. Crack a few raw eggs on top just before the pizza goes into oven. The eggs cook through before they dry out (mostly, imo, by "frying" from the heat coming up through the crust). It helps to have very fresh eggs for this, as they will not spread as much as older eggs. This is, needless to say, only possible to do well with a very thin crust and a very hot rock. It's a much more elegant presentation in true Neapolitan-style single-serving format. That way you have one egg in the center of the pizza.

I don't measure exactly, but I'd say I use around 25% - 33% cake flour. No preferred brands, really. The cake flour was Swans Down, because that's what seems to be available around here. I often use Hecker's, which I think is a good quality AP flour. As chance would have it, I used Hodgson Mill AP flour this time. I prefer either Hecker's, Hodgson Mill or King Arthur. The cheese is under the eggs. Primarily, I guess I avoid drying by simply not baking it for very long -- around 5 minutes. And I like to use a fair amount of tomato on the pizze with eggs, so perhaps the steam mitigates any drying.

I ran out of 00 flour, so I used regular AP flour mixed with cake flour (highly refined, low protein flour) -- which I find is a good approximation of 00 for pizza.

Mauviel Induc'Inox.