slkinsey

Very interesting. Those prices range from $8.15 up to $23.95 for 750 ml. Those prices may be so low, however, because the store is owned/operated by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and therefore perhaps not taxed.

FYI, I've created a thread in the NYC forum about the top cocktail bars in the City. Please go over there and chime in with your thoughts.

In a recent thread over in the spirits forum, a fellow City-dweller asked a very reasonable question: It struck me that many people won't know the answer to this question. For many people with an interest, serious cocktail drinking is done at home. This is a practice adopted because... well... most cocktails in most bars mostly suck -- especially if one would like anything that deviates too widely from the beaten path of "Martini, Manhattan, Cosmopolitan, Margarita." So... what are the top cocktail bars in the City? Where can one order an Aviation or, heaven forbid, a Twentieth Century and not be greeted by a blank stare? Where are the places where you don't have to ask for bitters in your Manhattan? Or better yet, where they will ask you what kind of bitters you want? Any places that still have a long, elegant bar and a bartender who dresses up? Old school? New school? Let's hear your favorites.

I've made a nice-tasting variation on the Aviation using Cherry Heering instead of maraschino.

Interesting... I was served one of the best martinis I have ever had at Town's bar. It was a Hendrick's martini, served with a translucently thin slice of cucumber as the garnish and a little plate of cucumber and sea salt on the side. I liked it so much, I just had to rip it off, and this presentation has become a popular one among my friends.

Lots of good ideas for next time in there...

Roasted marrow bones with oxtail "marmelade" at Blue Ribbon.

[Editors Note: The side discussion on the "Original Gin" thread on aviations reached the point where it seemed to cry out for its own thread, so here it is.] Any brands you recommend?

My curiosity was piqued by a post of Gary Regan's a while back, describing a cocktail known as the Twentieth Century: My thinking went something like this: Gin and Lillet Blonde? Okay. Gin and lemon? Okay. Lemon and chocolate? Ummmmmm, I don't think so. Gin and chocolate?! No way! I had to try it, of course. And, you know what? It really works? I'm not sure how it works, exactly, but it does. The Twentieth Century Cocktail has now become a favorite in the slkinsey household. I'm curious to hear from other eGulleters about cocktails that seem like they won't work, but which turn out to work great after all.

I'd say rather that they don't like the taste of liquor, since alcohol is the one thing you can taste in vodka. Well... straight, I'd agree. But, mix it with just about anything and it doesn't really taste of alcohol. A Cosmopolitan or a vodka Gimlet, for example, doesn't really taste of alcohol the way, say, an Aviation or a gin Gimlet does -- nevermind a Manhattan.

Which coclktail he didn't have there, right? I don't think his table had the signature cocktail. Or, do you mean this: I'm curious. As the only one among us who has actually had this cocktail... did it strike you as cerebral -- something you had to do some paradigm-adjusting to fully appreciate?

You mean there are actually people out there who think gin is "bad for you" compared to vodka?! The author summs up my take on vodka in his next sentence: I have always thought that most (although not all, obviously) people who take vodka as their liquor of choice, do so because fundamentally they don't like the taste of alcohol.

Given that Per Se doesn't figure to have a busy or significant bar scene, I would imagine that they don't have too much breakage/shrinkage to deal with in the bar area. They probably also don't even bother stocking well liquors (although that is only a guess). Based on this drink, anyway, I'd guess they're trying to operate on 20% liquor cost. Back to Per Se, though... I have to pick up some White Pineau Des Charentes and give it a try. Given the austerity and presumably subtle flavorings of this drink, I can imagine that the brand of vodka might actually make a difference, whereas I don't think it does in most cocktails (above the rotgut level, of course).

Interesting, Beans, and thanks. We don't often see things from this perspective. FWIW, I've seen prices for White Pineau Des Charentes as low as 40 bucks at retail. Assuming the wholesale cost is somewhere around 16% lower than that, we're talking about something like 34 dollars, or $1.3412 an ounce. Does that sound reasonable? That would give us $1.0039 : ounce Ciroc $1.0039 : ounce Ciroc $1.3412 : ounce White Pineau Des Charentes $0.1443 : dash Grand Marnier $3.4933 : total At 20% : $17.46 At 25% : $13.97 Would you say that 20% ingredient cost (i.e., a 500% markup) is standard in the business? It certainly puts the wine markups everyone is always complaining about into sharp perspective.

Again, this precision is more important when one is grinding for espresso. Since I only use my Rocky for espresso, I make only the most minute adjustments to the grind depending on how the beans are reacting (fresher beans need a slightly coarser grind). Since I only grind for espresso and I only use one blend, I find that I can reliably grind by volume -- a leveled-off filter-basket does the trick.

I recommend grinding all the beans you want to use for the individual coffee-making session into the doser. Then use a small brush or other implement (I used the end of a small flathead screwdriver I kept on to of my Rancilio to unscrew the screen for cleaning) to sweep any extra ground coffee from the chute into the doser. Then place whatever receptical you are using under the doser and click the doser until all the coffee is dosed out. If you like, you can sweep out the coser chamber as well -- although I think this is overkill and I normally didn't bother with that. Owen's points are well made about the amount of stale grinds that can be left behind in the chute (and, to a lesser extent, in the doser). However, this is much more significant when making a shot of espresso than it is for a big old pot of press pot coffee. The reason is that the left-behind stale ginds might make up a significant percentage of a single espresso shot, but they are unlikely to make up a significant percentage of the (much larger) amount of coffee beans used to make several cups of presspot coffee. Just in case anyone is curious... due to the design of the Rocky doserless grinder it is impossible to sweep out the extra grinds from the chute. Therefore, the only way to ensure 100% freshly ground coffee is to run the grinder for a second or two and discard those grindings.

Oh yea... I guess that means that whoever came up with the cocktail had a lot of cocktail "book learning" but was extremely difficult to nail down as to which books he had read. That's gotta be worth another 10 bucks right there.

AFAIK, there is no {I} (as in "is") vowel in French, only the {i} (as in "see") vowel. Strictly speaking, I would pronounce "Lillet" as: lee-LEH (in the International Phonetic Alphabet: [li-'lE]). If I were saying "Lillet" while speaking French, I'd hit the "Ls" very lightly with the tip of the tongue. When saying "Lillet" while speaking English, I'll use regular old American English "Ls." If I were singing "Lillet" in French, I'd even go so far as to linger on the double "L" between the syllables.

The recipe is something like this: For this they are charging 17 dollars? We're talking about maybe 4 dollars of ingredients.

Re: zeppole, Lo Zingarelli says... Ring shaped cakes or sweet fritters that are prepared above all for carneval, or for San Giuseppe, in Napoli, in Calabria and in other Southern regions. The plural is zeppole.

Katie, I'm still not sure that one can buy true bison grass vodka in the US. While the Bison Brand people do go out of their way to make it seem like it's true bison grass vodka, my suspicions are aroused because 1) Bison Brand Vodka has long sold a bison grass flavored (as opposed to bison grass infused) vodka in the US, and 2) when I see things like this on their web site: I also note that nothing I have read suggests that the ban on true bison grass vodka containing the blood-thinning chemical has been lifted. This suggests to me that they have figured out a way to remove the "dangerous" chamical from the blade of grass in the bottle, but that the Bison Brand "zubrowka" sold in the US is still flavored to taste like bison grass vodka rather than being true bison grass-infused vodka. I don't know... maybe they figured out a way to entirely remove the chemical from zubrowka without screwing up the taste, but I doubt it. Here is some relevant information from polishvodka.com:

No. There's a chemical component of the grass that is classified as a "hallucinogenic agent" or some such nonsense, and hence is treated as a controlled substance, much like cocaine or heroin. Actually, IIRC, the reason it is banned is that there is a chemical component in the grass that acts as a blood thinner, the fear being along the lines that someone will get drunk on a lot of buffalo grass vodka, pass out and bleed to death from what would otherwise be a minor cut.

Monica, those look delicious! And I have always loved Indian treatments of cauliflower. Get thee to recipeGullet and put in some recipes forthwith!

Gotcha. Affectations of any sort are annoying as hell, I agree. regards, trillium All the moreso given the fact that such affectations are usually incorrect. Anyone who called it "leeeeeee lay" would have the acceeeeeeeeent on the wrong syllaaaaaaaable.

I honestly have to say that I don't really see why the writers cooking skill comes into play at all. I mean, there are plenty of sports writers who are not and have never been athletes at all, never mind in the sport about which they are writing. God, if that were a requirement, can you even imagine what would be written about boxing? All this is to say that I think there is a big difference between being a writer who understands food and who understands cooking, and being a writer who is a good cook. I wouldn't think that a sufficiently skilled writer would even need to be a good cook to write a book about how to be a good cook, so long as he/she had the necessary information. After all, plenty if not most of the best teachers of certain crafts are not the best practitioners of that craft... else they would be professional practitioners instead of professional teachers.