[What Jiggers Should the Home Bartender Have?]

I will say that one major count against the Bar Bone, as I see it, is that it eliminates the speed/accuracy assist that you get from using regular conical jiggers. With a regular conical jigger, so long as you are holding it level, you just fill it up to the top and any over-pour spills out onto the bar mat (or the floor, or in the sink or whatever). So you can work fast and still get accurate pours so long as you fill the jigger to the top. With the Bar Bone, it seems to me that over-pour would tend to go into the other compartments, and thus end up in your drink when you dump in the contents.

Needless to say, the Bar Bone has very limited usefulness if you are not using pour tops on your bottles, as the stream from a regular bottle would not pour into the little compartments very neatly.

[What Jiggers Should the Home Bartender Have?]

Clearly, with respect to a jigger, the home bartender and the pro bartender have different needs and considerations.

The home bartender typically:

• Is not not concerned about speed
  
• Is not using pour-tops
  
• Is concerned about waste/mess from over-pours
  
• Is working in a well-lit environment with sufficient room
  
• Wants something accurate and easy to read
  
• Would prefer using (and cleaning) a single measuring tool over using several

These considerations all mitigate in favor of something like the OXO measuring cups

In contrast, the pro bartender typically:

• Is very concerned about speed
  
• Is using pour-tops
  
• Is not concerned about waste/mess from over-pours
  
• Is working in a poorly-lit environment with insufficient room
  
• Wants something that can be used quickly and accurately in low visibility
  
• Doesn't mind using multiple measuring tools, as they are cleaned/replaced after every use

These considerations mitigate in favor of jiggers

Needless to say, of course people will also tend to favor what they're used to using. Thus, a home bartender who has done some volume bartending will likely favor jiggers.

[Japanese Cocktail Technique Seminar : May 3-4]

Many of you may know that the good people over at Cocktail Kingdom are sponsoring a seminar on Japanese Cocktail Techniques.

This will be a two day event focusing on Japanese techniques in depth, and exploring the differences between Japaness techniques and Western techniques, among other things. All the things we've been talking about will be covered: the Hard Shake, stirring techniques, ice ball carving, and more. This will be a rare chance to ask questions and get answers directly from the source. Mud Puddle Books will also be publising the first English translation of Uyeda's book, Cocktail Technique.

From what I hear, the event is drawing bartenders from across the country. I predict that it will kick off a new focus on techniques in American mixology, and will likely be considered one of the seminal events in the cocktail world for this second decade of the 21st century.

If there are any questions you might have or topics you would like to see explored, why don't you post your thoughts here and someone who is attending will try to bring them up with Mr. Uyeda.

[Unitasker hall of fame]

Mostly what these friends have done is demonstrate that they are fans of Alton Brown. While I do find some of his shows informative, his DIY approach to kitchen equipment is a bit tiresome. In fact, no, tin foil is not as good as a heavy pot with a good lid for braising beef.

There are lots of examples of single-purpose kitchen equipment that is rarely used but absolutely indispensable when it is used. In my house, a good example is the spaetzle maker. Now, I don't make spaetzle all that often, but when I do this is an absolutely essential piece of equipment. Sure, there are other ways to make spaetzle... but they all suck comparatively. Believe me, you want a spaetzle maker and they're only around ten bucks.

[Drink-Making Speed in a Professional Bar]

If you figure 50 drinks over 5 hours, that's 10 drinks an hour, or around 6 minutes a drink. If that is a consistent rate, then that strikes me as not particularly fast. But all these things, I suppose, depend on the style of the bar, etc.

To what extent are you setting up multiple drinks simultaneously? For example, if you get an order for five drinks, you should be able to measure everything out into five mixing tins, preshake as needed, then load ice and shake them out in not much more time than it would take to prepare a one-drink order. I would think it should be possible to do a five drink order like that in no more than ten minutes, which would be half of your hourly average.

As you go along, you'll figure out ways to minimize the extent to which you make drinks on an individual basis during the busy times. Because the walking back and forth, taking the order, etc. all uses up a lot of time. I've watched NYC crews work busy nights many times, and one thing I notice is that they never seem to be making just one drink at a time. It's always three or four or five at a time.

[Unitasker hall of fame]

Gracious host that I am, I invited some friends over for dinner. Actually, I have no friends, and they were just acquaintances. I cooked a fine meal for them and all was cool. But, I proudly displayed my new Nordicware popover pan and was accused of having a Unitasker. I was told that I was not a real chef because I had Unitaskers in my kitchen. Really torqued me.

This seems like an odd thing for them to say. First, you're not a "real chef" because you're (presumably) not the boss of a professional kitchen. Second, I don't see what having limited-use or optimized-use cookware has to do with whether or not one is a "real" cook. Plenty of culinary equipment is really only useful for one thing.

The primary question for home cooks is whether or not you do that one thing with sufficient frequency to merit the purchase of that piece of equipment, and the problem is that many home cooks buy a "unitasker" which is then hardly ever used. For example, looking at your popover pan: One can certainly make popovers in a regular muffin pan. But if you make popovers often, then it makes sense to me that you would have a dedicated pan that is optimized for popovers.

Related questions are the cost of the equipment, storage logistics and the extent to which the task for which the equipment is optimized can be done with other equipment. For example, consider an oyster knife: It can be had for a few dollars, it doesn't take up very much room, and it really does make opening oysters a lot easier. So if you only open oysters once every few years, or even if you are opening a lot of oysters only one time, it makes some sense to purchase an oyster knife. Or, to make another example, consider the waffle iron: If you want to make waffles, you have to have one.

So, I propose a list of useful Unitaskers - the Unitasker hall of fame.

I own dedicated French steel crepe pans, omelet pans and fish pans, a meat grinder, an espresso machine, tart pans, a lever-action citrus press, a kettle, etc. All these, and more, could bs considered "unitaskers."

[Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaica Rum]

Flatiron Lounge has (or had) a great drink on the menu called "Old Ironsides" that had both Smith & Cross and Batavia Arrack.

I think S&C is a shoe-in for any Old Fashioned type of drink.

[Homemade Triple Sec]

I will be shocked if anyone can come up with a DIY homemade product that even approaches the quality of second-tier triple sec.

[Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 7)]

If you are going to keep the meat in the sealed bag, you want to chill it as rapidly as possible for safety reasons. Dropping the bag in an ice-water bath is the usual way.

[Uses of Gum Arabic]

I can't comment as to the quality of the syrup, but that strikes me as a pretty high price for what is for all intents and purposes fancy simple syrup.

Consider this: For 23 bucks, you can buy a pound of gum arabic powder from these guys. That will make a lot more than 16 ounces of gomme syrup.

[Cooking Sea Bass]

Why don't you consider cooking it as a whole fish? You could, for example, do it in a salt crust. This makes for a nice presentation at the table, then you could take it back to the kitchen to break the crust and serve the fillets. The advantage, in addition to being delicious, is that it takes a lot longer to cook than pan-frying fillets, and it also gives you some wiggle room on the timing.

[Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 6)]

I had a nice success attempting to recreate the braised lamb sandwich at Landmarc. I browned lamb shoulder under the broiler, then bagged it with fresh thyme and rosemary and a mixture of softened onions and garlic, tomato paste and veal demiglace. Cooked at 63.5C for 36 hours and it was perfectly tender and shreddable, without a hint of dryness that normally comes from long braising to "well done." As I shredded it, I was able to separate out most of the fat, which was not needed to provide moistness as would ordinarily be the case with a braise due to the use of SV. Brilliant on ciabatta with mayonnaise and pickles, as they serve it at Landmarc, but also does very well with pasta.

[Starch class ideas?]

I would absolutely teach the potato retrogradation trick. Then get them to whip mashed potatoes using non-treated potatoes versus treated potatoes to see the difference.

[Fish filet knife]

Can anyone quickly explain the Western, flexible-blade technique? Or point to a good video of someone doing it cleanly and expertly?

[The Mint Julep]

Imported by Carriage House Imports.

[The Mint Julep]

I'm not aware of any other high-proof cognac that can be had at a reasonable price. The high proof imo makes a big difference in 19th century cocktails. If we assume that cognac comes out of the barrel at 70% abv (that's the proof at which it goes in to the barrels), then 53% cognac like Force 53 is cut down with an additional 32% of water whereas the typical 40% cognacs are cut down with an additional 75% of water. So, in order to get the same amount of flavor, you would have to use around one-third more of the 40% cognac.

[Aioli vs. Mayonnaise vs. Hollandaise]

I think there are several issues at work here having to do with the meaning of "aioli."

Traditionally, it seems that aioli is an emulsified mixture of garlic and oil, sometimes but not necessarily with other stuff. This potentially and often includes egg, but it seems that the oldest and most traditional iterations do not.

Then there is the French "mother sauce" view, which says that aioli is simply mayonnaise with garlic added. In this view, aioli always contains egg.

Then there is the modern view, in which "aioli" has come to be viewed as a "desirable food word" and all kinds of things are inappropriately called "aioli." When a certain sauce name becomes viewed this way, there is a often a confusion created with respect to nomenclature due to the practice of prefixing the better-known sauce name with "ingredient X." This is how we get things like "chipotle mayonnaise" and "blood orange hollandaise." Most traditionally, these things would get different names. This is why we have "rouille" instead of "saffron and red pepper mayonnaise" or "béarnaise" instead of "tarragon hollandaise."

It makes very little sense to me to call something "green chili aioli" that doesn't fundamentally taste like a cold emulsified garlic sauce with some green chilies added. If it doesn't taste fundamentally of garlic, then it makes no sense to call it any kind of aioli. Then there is a question as to what kind of green chilies are meant. Since eggs are not needed to emulsify an aioli, I'd consider doing something like roasting halved poblano chilies until soft (this will cook off some of the water and intensify the flavor) then puree them in a blender with plenty of garlic (you may want to sieve this mixture depending on the power of your blender ) and then drizzle in oil to emulsify to the thickness you desire. Use an egg yolk (but not the white) if you like. If you want the garlic flavor more in the background compared to the chili flavor, you could use roasted garlic. I have no idea how cooking might affect the emulsifying power of the garlic.

[The Mint Julep]

First Julep of the season. A Prescription Julep with old-school fancy garnish.

2/3 Louis Royer Force 53 Cognac, 1/3 Rittenhouse BIB, float of Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaican Rum, sugar, mint.

[Holding Pasta]

For dry pasta you can cook it around 40% of the time required, then immediately shock it in cold water, drain it, coat it with oil, and finish it later. This will reduce the final cooking time to around 25% of regular. But it won't be nearly as good.

[The Iconic Olive]

I like what they do at Pegu and a number of other cocktail bars: olives and cherries are pre-spiked on cocktail picks and stored in the reach-in.

How do they get on those spikes? Is the seeing someone handle the olive thats the problem, rather than the actual handling?

They use their (clean) hands, I imagine. But, more to the point, when it's done all at once, there is a limited chance for schmutz to transfer from the worker's hands onto the olives. Whereas when you have a guy sticking his fingers into a bowl of olives and brine 50 times a night, with his hands re-dirtied each time, there's a lot of opportunity for all kinds of stuff getting in there. Which brings me to...

Is it because someone prepping a large number in advance is presumably working cleaner than someone who's been handling a large number of bottles, a bar rag, etc?

Even if the worker's hands are equally dirty in both conditions, the transfer of bacteria, etc. is much less when they are all prepped at once. One set of dirty hands into the olive pile is cleaner than 50 sets of dirty hands into the olive pile. Because every time the working bartender handles the olive bowl, it might as well be a new person doing it. So, ask yourself. Would you want to eat an olive that one guy had handled with his bare hands, or an olive where 50 guys had stuck a finger into the olive bowl?

I have this mental image of someone with an olive that's rolling around in the bowl of a spoon, and they are chasing it with a toothpick, trying to stab it, and then somehow they try to work it a bit up from the very tip of the toothpick.

What you want is something like this.

[The Iconic Olive]

Presumably one could retrieve them with tongs or an olive spoon. This actually makes a bit more sense to me. It's not so much that schmutz from the bartender's hand is going to get on your olives. After all, bartenders regularly hold ice cubes in their hands to crack them. But they're using a scoop to get the ice out of the ice bin.

So the issue of using hands to dig olives out of the container is that the schmutz on the bartender's hands is staying in the container with the olives and presumably being increased every time a new finger goes in there.

I like what they do at Pegu and a number of other cocktail bars: olives and cherries are pre-spiked on cocktail picks and stored in the reach-in.

[Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 6)]

Longtime cooking will lead to liquid loss up to 20%, and it is worthwhile using the gravy (which is especially tasty when the meat was dry-rubbed or marinated) immediately for a sauce or preserving it in a screw cap glass by heating in the microwave to pasteurize (with the cap only loosely closed to allow steam to escape), cooling rapidly in ice-water and keeping it refrigerated.

It's worth noting that this osmazome (the liquid exuded from the meat by cooking) needs to come to a simmer in order to coagulate out the various substances that don't coagulate at the lower temperatures used for sous vide cooking. Otherwise you can end up with an unattractive, cloudy scum in your sauce. I find that the easiest thing to do is cut a corner of the bag and pour out the liquid into a small saucepan; then bring the liquid to a simmer long enough to coagulate the scum; then pass it through a fine sieve. This typically yields a clear, particle-free liquid that can be used straight away in a sauce or saved.

As for saving it, I have a hard time understanding why one would go to all the trouble of trying to "pseudo-Pasteurize" it in the microwave. Just put it in the freezer.

[Flask cocktails]

It's tricky, because you're talking about something you're going to have room temperature.

I like Laird's bonded with bitters and a touch of simple.

[Artisanal = illegal]

Technically this would apply to any house-made sangria that was not made a la minute. Just how long in advance constitutes "no longer a la minute" is a grey aria. The day before would probably be okay. A month before... probably not.

Again, this is something that is practically never enforced. Clearly someone somewhere prompted a momentary crackdown in California.

[Best Beer for Brats]

Back when I was in Wisconsin for college, we always used Blatz. We used to grill brats for our closest 50 friends every so often. And, it being college, this was always an opportunity for jackassery. Did you know that if you dump a coffee can full of rendered brat fat from the beer simmering onto a bed of hot coals, it can create a column of flame two stories high? Then there was the time we almost blew our arms off lighting the charcoal with gasoline, but I digress...

Isn't the point of simmering brats in beer that you want to use the cheapest, least-drinkable local beer you can find? That certainly informed our decision to use Blatz. Although the name was also part of the reason. We could have used Goebel, Rheinlander ("Refreshing as Wisconsin's North Woods," fer cryin' our loud) or Augsburger for right around the same price... or even Old Style for a little more if we were gonna get fancy der once.