slkinsey

What do you mean? The list isn't that long. Maybe 15+ cocktails, and I'm guessing that 4-5 drinks have mint in them. I happen to like mint a whole lot but I recognize that not everyone does. Compare the menu now with back in 2005: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1001104 A lot of those drinks are still on the menu, whereas the newer places (Tailor, PDT, etc.) revamp their menus on a more regular basis. The last PDT changeover jettisoned all but one or two drinks, IIRC, which is more interesting to me. Anyway, I agree with Sneakeater. As usual. On most things. Part of the reason for this is because a lot of those cocktails are signature Audrey Saunders drinks that have, by now, entered into the canon of "modern classics." I speak of things like the Gin Gin Mule, Tantris Sidecar, etc. With all due respect to my talented bartender friends at PTD, etc. -- and I don't think they would disagree with me on this point -- this is something they simply haven't done as yet. Audrey is someone who is in the running for "most important mixologist of her generation." When customers go to Pegu Club, they expect to be see Audrey's famous classics on the menu. It's also a lot easier to completely tear down and rebuild a menu several times a year when you've got two to three bartenders serving a capacity of 35 than it is when the capacity is 150. That said, I do think the Pegu menu is due for some expansion and, now that Audrey and Philip Kirschen-Clark have revamped Pegu's food offerings into what the NY Times called "the most elaborate and successful in the city" I think she may look into revamping the cocktails menu. It's doubtful. Just about every top mixologist in NYC worked at Pegu during the early days. That's a difficult evaluation to make. There is a distinction to be made between "bartender" and "mixologist." There are some excellent mixologists that are so-so bartenders, and many of the city's most acclaimed and influential mixologists rarely if ever tend bar anymore. They're really focused more on "sipping spirits" and absinthe than cocktails, per se, aren't they?

Would you make the same claim about every place on your short list? With the possible exceptions of Clover Club and Flat Iron,* yes.** __________________________________________ * I hate to say anything bad about Julie, whom I adore, but I don't find she's as much of a maniac about staffing as the others. ** I haven't had the bad times at Pegu that others claim to have had. All cocktail bars eventually go through a lull as talent matures to the point where it moves on and new talent has to be developed. This hit both Flatiron Lounge when a lot of talent moved to Pegu, and it hit Pegu when a lot of their talent moved on to D&C and a few other places. The problem, more or less, was that there simply wasn't enough talent on that level in the city to go around. New talent had to be made. It hasn't happened to places like D&C or PDT yet, but don't think it won't. Eventually, for example, Brian and Joaquin (and maybe even Phil) are going to move on to their own places. By now, both Pegu and Flatiron have bounced back very well and have a good mix of experienced bartenders and young up-and comers. Clover Club, for example, has Giuseppe Gonzalez, Pegu Club has Kenta Goto, and the last time I was at Flatiron Lounge, Damon Dyer was behind the bar.

No cocktailian I know has ever mentioned Bobo, which is a restaurant. Just on a cursory review, the cocktail list is not worthy of a top five list for NYC. Neither would Angel's Share be worthy of inclusion on such a list. I think you will find that the vast majority of NYC cocktalians would agree with the list of five I first proposed, and I don't think there would be any debate about leaving any of them off of the "top five" list. If anything, you may find people arguing for making it a "top seven" list -- but I don't think you'll find significant argument that any of the five I proposed should be striken from the list in favor of any other bar. Certainly, there is no leaving off Milk & Honey. And I don't see how one can leave off at least one Julie Reiner bar. The only real contender not on my list is Tailor, which is kind of a special case. So, perhaps one might suggest a "top six" list consisting of: Pegu Club Death & Company PDT Tailor Milk & Honey/Little Branch Clover Club/Flatiron Lounge The only real debate is whether to choose Milk & Honey over Little Branch or Clover Club over Flatiron Lounge. Both "couples" draw from one pool of bartenders and are overseen by one person (Sasha for M&H and LB, Julie for CC and FL), so while they may feature different drinks it is hard to definitively say that one is "better" or even remarkably "different" in terms of the quality of the cocktails or mixology. My preference is for Milk & Honey over Little Branch because Little Branch is more or less Milk & Honey minus the exclusivity and special attention; and for Clover Club over Flatiron Lounge because it's newer and has a more expansive menu at the present time. No, the USHG restaurants and places like that can aspire to the third tier. They have a nice program, but serious cocktailians aren't going to Tabla for cocktails. Even when Jim was a Gramercy, it wasn't considered a destination cocktail spot so much as a place where you knew you could get some great cocktails along with your meal -- nothing like he has going at PDT.

I think you could add Little Branch to this list. There are plenty of places on the next level down. Places with good bartenders and good drinks that are good enough to be far and away the best cocktail joint in most American cities, but are second-tier in NYC. These are places like Freeman's, Rayulela, Brandy Library (although cocktails really aren't their best thing), Employee's Only, B Flat, Elettaria, East Side Company, etc. Angel's Share, I don't get. That place has been cruising on a no-longer-valid reputation for at least 5 years.

In New York City, and in no particular order: Pegu Club Death & Company PDT Clover Club (or Flatiron Lounge if you're restricting to Manhattan) Milk & Honey I don't think there will be too much argument among NYC cocktailians on this list. One of the things you will find is that 95% of the top cocktail spots are closely related, all sprouting from the Audrey Saunders/Julie Reiner/Sasha Petraske tree in one way or another. Tailor would be the major exception to that -- and, needless to say, Eban is doing his own unique thing there.

The demise of the corner bar in America is linked directly to suburban sprawl and the proliferation of car culture. In order to have a viable corner bar, there needs to be a sufficient number of people within walking distance. This is why there are plenty of corner bars in communities with sufficient population density (which also tend to have pretty good public transportation) and also why the cocktail revival has largely grown out of dense, older cities.

For me, in no particular order: Improved [spirit] Cocktail Old Fashioned (which includes the Sazerac) Negroni Martini Martinez Hemingway Daiquiri Manhattan Silver Fizz Swizzle Julep

Actually, no sea salt is "seawater with the water taken away." As I said before, all edible salt is at least 99% sodium chloride. Sea water contains 7.68% sulphate, 3.69% magnesium, 1.16% calcium, 1.10% potassium and around 0.72% other stuff. Sea salt is refined using fractional crystallization via solar evaporation, and sometimes by "washing" of the resulting crystallized sodium chloride with a saturated solution of sodium chloride. The color comes from a minute percentage of "other stuff" that remains in the salt.

There are several different kinds of "supertasters." Some of them do seem to have a greater concentration of fungiform papillae, which would account for the greater taste sensitivity. But it's also true that while most so-called "supertasters" have some increased sensations of non-bitter tastes, they are often not "super-sensitive" to other tastes the way they are to bitterness. For example, supertasters rarely complain that something is too sweet (more on which later). So there is something about supertasters that makes them especially sensitive to bitter tastes, and this has been linked to the genetically-mediated ability to taste phenylthiocarbamide and other bitter-tasting compounds that not everyone can taste. Supertasters tend to dislike things like cruciferous vegetables, asparagus, spinach, grapefruit, coffee and tea, and alcohol (!). Quinine and all bittering substances (aka, bitters) have an increased bitterness for supertasters. For most people, however, the effect of bitterness can be tamed with sweetness. In other words, if you have a cup of coffee that is too bitter to drink straight, most people can balance the bitterness with sugar to the point that they are able to drink and enjoy it. The amount of sugar will depend on the person, and perhaps on that person's genetic sensitivity to bitter compounds. We are already a bit behing the 8-ball in America, because the American palate is trained to enjoy sweet tastes and avoid bitter tastes. Italians, for example, don't have this problem. Anyway, it's interesting that you mention a particular sensitivity to bitterness, because when I have made your cocktails, they have often seemed sweet to my palate. As for bitter lemon, it seems probable that there is a small enough amount of quinine and a large enough amount of sugar and acid to counterbalance for whatever your level of sensitivity might be.

In my continuing experimentation, I just mixed 1.5 ounces each of Famous Grouse and Mirto with a dash of absinthe. Interesting! I like it.

Bols has long been a favored genever. Indeed, the first post in this thread (dating to 2005) laments the fact that Bols had recently decided to stop distribution to the States. We'll be very happy to see it back here! I ran in to the US brand guy at Pegu Club some months ago, so I was aware that there were plans to bring it back. Any ideas as to when it will hit the states? And which versions? A Jonge and Oude are expected, but a Korenwijn would be great.

There is also a "Savoy Corpse Reviver" dating to 1954 from Joe Gilmore at the Savoy, consisting of equal parts brandy, Fernet Branca and white crème de menthe. As for the naming convention, I think it is quite old. There were all kinds of drink categories back in the 18C -- although I think that most of them "defined" a feeling and perhaps a style, time,situation or manner of imbibing rather than more well-defined categories such as a Julep. This we have from Notes and Sketches of the Paris Exhibition, by George Augustus Sala (Tinsley Brothers, 1868) on page 374: I think of "Corpse Reviver" as being more or less along the same lines as drinks like the "Moustache Twister."

Again, we could give more meaningful advice if we knew your intended purpose for this knife.

Bitter lemon is, essentially, lemon soda with quinine added. You could approximate a home version by adding lemon juice to tonic water, but I'd think that would make the soda too acidic. Best thing, probably, would be to make a quinine tincture and add that to something like limonata or the GUS Dry Lemon Soda to-taste.

I think it's cool to have some extremely-limited-edition bottlings. I have several bottles of Red Hook Rye of various issue, for example. Needless to say, with a $200 initiation fee, $35 yearly dues and average prices in the $85 to $140 range, one would need to have a goodly amount of money allocated to "special sipping spirits" on a yearly basis to make this worth it. I wouldn't think it makes sense to join if one were to purchase only one <$140 bottle a year.

What's the average price they charge for a bottle once you join?

It's impossible. They're adding something back in. The secret is that they're allowed to add stuff back in below a certain amount, and they don't have to admit it to anyone. It seems likely that the 9X rectification stripped away so much flavor that even a minute amount of vanillin would create a relatively "huge" flavor impact (for a vodka).

To what use will you be putting this knife? George Tichbourne makes a chicken slaughtering knife that sounds close to what you're looking for (see here and scroll down to the section on Kosher slaughtering knive).

For general purpose salt, there is not going to be anything "better" or "cleaner tasting" than Diamond Kosher salt. This is because this salt is 100% sodium chloride. There is no potassium iodide which, as Steven points out, some people say they don't like; there is no glucose (added to prevent breakdown of the potassium iodide) and more importantly there are no "free-pouring" anti-caking agents such as calcium silicate or, less commonly, ferric ammonium citrate, silicon dioxide, sodium ferrocyanide, magnesium silicate, magnesium carbonate, propylene glycol, aluminum calcium silicate, sodium aluminosilicate/sodium silicoaluminate, or calcium phosphate. Sea salt is actually less "clean" than refined table salt -- although the reality is that all edible sea salts are >99% pure sodium chloride (sea salts are also refined, they're just refined by solar evaporation in combination with other techniques). As Steven points out, sea salts are largely distinguishable due to their shape and size, so unless you are sprinkling the salt on at the end so that it does not melt, there is no use in using expensive sea salt.

In NYC these days, I'd say that around 16 bucks for a fifth is an average retail price.

No. Avery is explaining why it was possible to buy Angostura in the US during Prohibition. Angostura is a "non-potable" alcohol -- which is to say that the government decided that it is impossible to get inebriated drinking nothing but Angostura bitters.

I have also owned several bottles of Stoli Elit. I would never buy it, but have been fortunate to work a number of events where Stoli was a sponsor and was able to snag some bottles. The bottles are awesome, and I figured why not have Elit if I'm going to keep some vodka around. Nothing particularly noteworthy or special, has been the universal reaction. And, really, if you are going to sell your product based on what tiny amount of finish remains when you take everything away, how much can possibly differentiate them (hint: it's the things they're allowed to add back in, like glycerine, sugar and minute amounts of flavorings and aroma agents)? It's okay to not like Luksusowa. But, on the other hand, there are plenty of other vodkas at that same price point. Don't like Luksusowa? Try Smirnoff.

I'm guessing the name is based on the color, which could be said to be similar to the blush on a young and as-yet innocent woman's face. "Maiden's blush" is a common name for things with a pale pink color.

I think that they figured (and probably rightly so) that they would do much more business to consumers than they do in bars, in consideration of the fact that none of these spirits is likely to be used in the well by any but a very select few establishments. What about Tanqueray and Cointreau? Are those bottles any more "bartender friendly" than the St. Germain bottle?

Just pour them Smirnoff or Luksusowa out of an Elit bottle and see if they can tell the difference.