slkinsey

Peelzyme would do the trick.

That seems like an internet rumor about the "plastic linkage." When I've overworked the motor, it simply cuts off for a while. No big deal. The "linkage" between the motor and the blades consists of a metal female part on the top of the motor base fitting into a metal male part in the base of the container. The female part appears to be directly connected to the blades. The metal "drive socket" which is on the top of the motor us surrounded in plastic, but I believe the metal part screws into the connection with the motor. I have also never heard any advice to not put ice into the machine. Indeed, one of the selling points of these blenders is that their ability to make frozen drinks.

I think there is some utility to making syrups infused with things such as lime, lemon or grapefruit peel as a way of increasing those flavors when used in addition to some fresh juice to balance. I disagree that ginger syrup or especially any syrup made from fresh herbs have a very good shelf-life or are an alternative to using fresh ingredients, but that's another subject. As are, I suppose, the above-mentioned zest-infused syrups in a thread about spice-infused syrups. Something like grapefruit syrup or pineapple syrup or sirop de citron has much broader applicability than a cinnamon-clove-cardomom (or whatever) syrup.

I've never quite understood the utility behind making spiced syrups. Why not mix together a "spice blend" of tinctures (aka, a kind of bitters) and dash that in? The problem with spiced syrups, in my opinion, is that you're stuck in a position where in order to add flavor you have to add sweetness. I'd prefer to add my spice flavors and sweetness separately, which allows for much more flexibility in recipes and ingredients. For a bar drink, where the spiced syrup has been titrated precisely for the specific cocktail made with specific ingredients, I imagine it's easier than dashing in a "spice bitters." But, for example, let's say you have a spiced syrup that works really well with bourbon #1. But you want to make the drink with bourbon #2. #2 is sweeter than #1, however, so you don't want to use as much sweetness. But now there isn't the amount of spice you'd like. And so on. Making that same spice infusion (or, in Chris's example, making the same blend of tinctures) into alcohol makes this easy: Just put in the amount of sugar appropriate to the ingredients or recipe variation, and dash in the spice mix until you get the presence you want.

In my opinion, no, none of them are worth eating.

Tom & Jerry. Sangaree. Flips.

Well, no I wouldn't say that's a cocktail. But, more to the point, we're not so interested in drinks simply on the basis that they are old/and or obscure. This thread is to celebrate largely unknown classic cocktails that deserve to be more widely known and consumed due to what we personally know to be their surpassing deliciousness. Hot sour beer with molasses and bread crumbs... doesn't sound like it to me.

The scalability of immersion circulators is a major advantage, in my opinion. I regularly use mine in an 20 gallon stockpot, a 5 gallon stockpot, and a 2 gallon stockpot. Just now, in fact, I pulled two whole pork butts and two whole briskets out of the 20 gallon water bath and am chilling them down.

I believe it comes from The Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book, which says simply that the Cooperstown is a "Bronx with fresh mint." Unfortunately, the picture is complicated by the fact that the book gives several different recipes for a Bronx Cocktail. Their "standard" Bronx formula is a 2:1:1 perfect gin Martini with an orange twist. It does not contain orange as juice found in most formulae for this drink, which formulae are given in The Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book variously as "original," "No. 2" and "Waldorf" variations of the Bronx.

Just put it into heavy duty ziplocks for reheating.

The history of the Jimmy Roosevelt can be found in Chaz Baker's book, along with his recipe. I don't feel at liberty to divulge the exact adaptation of the cocktail they do so successfully at Pegu Club, but a general description of their adaptation may be found above. Given the variables, one ought to be able to experiment and come up with a reasonably-sized drink that suits ones tastes. To me, one crucial discovery is that it needs a touch of extra sweetening, thus the swirl of demerara syrup in the glass described above.

I think there are a lot of ways this sort of thing can be done. Several obvious examples of "modern takes" or "tweaks" of classic cocktails come from Audrey Saunders' oeuvre. The Tantris Sidecar is a tweaked Sidecar, the Old Cuban could be seen a a tweaked Mojito, etc. The difficulty in coming up with anything really interesting is going to be the fact that most any "classic Cuban cocktail" is going to revolve around rum, lime and sugar plus some other stuff. Not too terribly much room to innovate there.

Some of this may have to do with the fact that, as far as I know, Rittenhouse is still restricted in distribution to certain geographies due to limitations in supply. Colorado, for example, is unlikely to be one of those places. So, if one sees Rittenhouse there, it probably got there by some move involved and expensive means, and the local supply is likely rather small -- all of which militates in favor of a higher price.

My guess is that Cinzano's "Rosso" product is similar to Martini & Rossi's "Rosato" product. They appear to be an attempt to split the difference between their "Extra Dry" and "Rosso" bottlings -- perhaps simply by blending the two.

Nilla Wafers Peak Freens Almond M&Ms

Yes, things in the VitaPrep 3 1005 do get hot (although the blades are not the same). This is among the reasons why, for example, it is advisable to include some ice cubes in the cannister if you would like to make a puree of fresh green herbs. The ice cubes not only help in getting the herbs into vortexable form, but also counteract any heating that might cook the herbs and reduce their bright green color and flavor. The "heat from the motor" isn't what caused the friction, by the way. It is the friction of the food against the blades and against the interior of the cannister that heats the contents. There are some differences between the cannister and blade design for the VitaPrep and the VitaMix, but not enough to mitigate the heating effect of friction. The reason the warranties are so different is because the VitaPrep 3 is designed for commercial use. A heavily used blender is going to get far more use and abuse in a restaurant over 3 months than a blender is likely to get in the home of even the most avid smoothie drinker over ten years. It seems likely, for example, that a professional kitchen might actually run the motor as much as three or four hours a day making emulsified sauces, purees, soups, etc. A home user is unlikely to run the motor more than one or two hours a week at most (consider that it only takes around two minutes to make a smoothie, etc.) -- and average home use is more likely counted in one or two hours per month. And, of course, the nature of the use is also likely to be quite different. This is the rationale behind the two warranties. Also, if you look at the two warranties, the VP warranty is effectively the same as the VM warranty for three years (i.e., if anything goes wrong due to defects or normal use, they will set it right) versus seven years for the VM. When considering warranties it's valuable to consider the manufacturer's assumptions, which are that on average nothing will go wrong during the warranty period. So, we now have a basis on which to compare the VitaMix 7 year warranty and the VitaPrep 3 year warranty. Let's assume, for example, that you run that VitaMix an hour a day, every day, for the full 7 years. That equals around 2,600 hours. Projecting that usage back to the VitaPrep, we can take those 2,600 hours and compress them into three years. That equals around 2 1/3 hours of use per day over three years. This seems pretty reasonable to me. If anything favors the VitaPrep warranty, because it is far more likely that a VitaPrep in a busy kitchen will get at least a couple of hours of use a day on average, whereas very few VitaMix owners will really use their blender for an hour a day on average. The "average assumption" for the VitaMix is further lowered by the fact that it's much more common for home users to buy a kitchen tool that hardly gets used than it is for a restaurant kitchen. Whether you "need" the extra HP is totally a matter of preference. I chose the VitaPrep because it's designed for heavy commercial use, has a stronger motor, is the equipment specified by name in a number of high end cookbooks I have, and doesn't cost all that much more than the VitaMix if you buy it on eBay. But, for me, if I'm considering spending money on something like a very expensive blender, I am usually willing to spend a bit more for what I think is the best. To me, the price difference between the VitaMix and the VitaPrep wasn't large enough to make me choose the VitaMix. If I were going to choose something less expensive than the VitaPrep based on price, I would choose something significantly less expensive than the VitaMix.

Why can't an amaro be an aperitif or a digestif? I understand and agree that most are digestifs, but I don't think it's aperitif-ness disqualifies it from being an amaro. I feel like I'm taking my LSATs again. I'm sticking with campari is an amaro. There is no reason to say that amari are only digestivi in Italian culture. Cynar's own product literature, for example, describes it as an "aperitivo digestivo" -- explicitly stating that it can function as either. Given the strong similarity between the two products, I'd suggest that this opens the door for Campari as well. I would also suggest that the reason Campari doesn't stress the "amaro" aspect of their product is that amari are in general still thought of as something that older people drink after a heavy meal, whereas Campari has long cultivated a hip, modern, younger image and the idea that Campari transcends any categorization (which is probably why they sell around a million bottles of Campari for every one bottle of Amaro Nonino, Averna, etc.). I will further suggest that we (meaning those of us in the US cocktail culture) don't tend to think of Campari as an amaro because most of us were aware of Campari and Campari-based cocktails long before we were aware of amari as an Italian beverage category. The fact that there are those of us who hold that "amari" consists of a broad and uninterrupted spectrum extending from vermouth bianco all the way to Angostura bitters indicates that we're not thinking of these things the same ways Italians do (who could consider neither vermouth nor Angostura bitters nor Chartreuse to be amari).

I would assert that most Italians might not ordinarily think of Campari as an amaro for reasons which have been well-described in this thread. But if you were to ask them about it, they'd likely say, "hmm... now that I think about it, I guess it is a kind of amaro." I also wouldn't agree with the premise that Campari is most often used as a mixer in its country of origin. Indeed, there can hardly be anything called cocktail culture in Italy. Yes, it is very popular with soda. But that's as far as it goes for the most part. I would say that it is most common there to take Campari neat or over ice, and significantly less common to mix it with anything other than soda.

This has always seemed a bit dubious to me. Especially since most of the hardcore "blender fanatics" out there promulgating this information are pursuing some fairly fringe dietary and health philosophies. Even if it is true, it seems quite clear to me that most people who can afford a high power blender and eat a normal diet are far more likely to be overnourished than undernourished. Middle class people in developed countries don't tend to suffer from undernourishment as a generality. There are two features I really like about the VitaPrep: First, there is a dial that allows you to make smooth adjustments to the blender speed on the fly. This is not only useful when you want to break down larger pieces into smaller pieces before cranking it up to full-on liquify, but also makes it possible to control for chunkier textures if desired. Then, if you really want a smooth liquid, you can switch it over to high speed which is even faster than the highest adjustment on the speed dial. Second, the VitaPrep comes with a special rubber top with a large hole in the middle into which is inserted a large plunger tool. This tool is not only useful for shoving food items down into the blades at lower speeds (especially useful when making fresh green herb purees with ice cubes), but at the highest speeds you can position the plunger in the blending canister to influence the vortex and insure rapid turnover of the material in the canister. This makes for more efficient blending and also for a more uniform puree.

The Corpse Reviver #2 is indeed a worthy nominee. So worthy, in fact, that it's already in Doc's book.

. . . in which Steve Dublanica demonstrates not only that he's not all that clever and funny, but also kind of a douche and just the kind of waiter one hopes not to get.

It's interesting that you say many of Baker's drinks need tweaking. I suppose that's true. Certainly it's true for the Jimmy, not least because the original formula calls for three ounces of cognac, one ounce of Green Chartreuse and a half bottle of champagne! The Jimmy was cocktail on the opening menu at Pegu Club, which I write about here: Pegu Club came to be highly associated with the drink, and to the best of my knowledge no other bar is offering it. It requires a very large coupe a lot of guys around here actually call the "Jimmy glass" for short. You can still order the Jimmy Roosevelt off-menu at Pegu Club. Lately, Del Pedro, who is now at Pegu Club, has been adding his own touch by igniting a small dish of Green Chartreuse, repeatedly swirling the rim of the glass into the flaming liquid and blowing it out, thereby creating a thin shell of burnt/candied Chartreuse around the rim. Two other Baker drinks I think I'd nominate, and which I have been enjoying lately, are the Holland Razor Blade and the Daisy de Santiago.

We're all ware of Doc's monumental Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie : 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them. But I, for one, am disappointed that some of my favorite lesser-knowns are not included -- and there also seem to be some obvious candidates that aren't in there. So I thought I'd start a topic for people to nominate cocktails for possible "Forgotten Cocktail" great status. Here are the first four that come to mind: #1 The Jimmy Roosevelt : Quite simply one of the great cocktails of all time, from the best-written cocktail book of all time #2 The Parkeroo : 2-to-1 sherry to tequila; infinite possibilities from the Stork Club Bar Book #3 Remember the Main : Another nice one from Chaz Baker #4 The Last Word : Seems like an obvious one

Does that mean that there are wine-based amari? Some, including myself, include Vermouth in the category, particularly the heavily aromatized ones like Carpano. Punt e Mes is considerably more bitter, to my palate, than something like Averna. Interesting. I wouldn't include vermouth as amari, not because it's not bitter, but because it seems like an entirely different category to me as a fortified wine. I can see how you could go there though, especially since I often switch out vermouth in cocktails in favor of (what I consider to be) amaro. The bitterness of vermouth is often, or even normally, not readily apparent, but they are typically flavored with bitter components such as quinine or even wormwood (the origin of the name). In the same way that a properly made Manhattan or Old Fashioned contains bitters without tasing as bitter as, say, a Negroni, good vermouth is balanced in flavor while still having an almost imperceptable bitter quality as part of its profile. But yes, it is not overly bitter on its own, especially if your palate is accustomed to bitterness in your beverages. If I may jump in a little late here, I'd just add that Daisy17 is correct. Vermouth is not a subset of amaro, and amari are not wine-based. Just because amaro means "bitter" in Italian doesn't mean that everything with a bitter flavor is an amaro. Similarly, I don't think it's appropriate to classify vermouth under the same label as Angostura bitters. Indeed, I think it's a bit unfortunate that the English term for amaro ("potable bitters") uses the same word ("bitters") as cocktail bitters -- because they are not two points on a coherent continuum. Rather then have an entirely different conception and use. More to the point, an amaro is what the Italians say it is. And they say that it doesn't include vermouth and other wine-based beverages. Thus, even though Punt e Mes may be perhaps more bitter overall than Campari, Punt e Mes is still a vermouth and not an amaro, and Campari is still an amaro and not a vermouth.

That seems highly unlikely to me. Indeed, part of "settling the stomach" involves reducing gas, not creating more. Also, who says that the stomach produces gas to counteract poison? Or, for that matter, that bitters "trick your stomach into thinking it is being poisoned"? What would be the mechanism for that, exactly?