in the 2k10 i am learning to make cocktails. this is my mixology thread

damn i think i used all the ginger at home or i would work on this tonight

btw the pieces in the drink were TINY

grated?

almost like teeny tiny dice?

if you boil ginger pieces you'll def get little solids that could be missed by a mesh strainer.

for tehresa, here is an experiment using the pegu club formula:

2 oz. plymouth gin
.5 oz. lime juice
.25 oz. st. germain
.25 oz. ginger syrup
dash angostura
dash angostura orange

(ginger syrup: bring to a boil 1 cup water, 1 cup water, 2 inches of peeled/sliced ginger root. simmer for 2 mins, steep for 2 hours, strain)

this is pretty good imo!

oops one cup water, one cup sugar that is

thanks. i think this was my first gin drink in maybe a year? i don't even have any in house. i might start playing with it again, though i think i'd still try for a ginger water over syrup bc the st g is more than enough sweet for my taste. on the other hand, I had a blast making flavored simple syrups 2 summers ago so maybe I'll give it a go again.

so the liquor store near my workplace sells 750mL bottles of chartreuse for $35, which is about twenty bucks cheaper than i can find elsewhere. they also look like they've been sitting there for years (the bottles are dusty and i can't quite tell if some of them are meant to be yellow or green). should i avoid? i mean it's 80 proof liquor so i can't imagine it goes bad, per se...

i wouldve thought it would be fine... surely

the green is north of 100 proof, the yellow is 80. so that should help you tell if they have both (the bottles are extremely similar-looking!) that's a pretty amazing price and the stuff should be fine. worth a gamble imo.

The color might be off, but I'd bet it's fine. I know I'd snatch up a couple!

ok, just wanted to make sure. i probably won't be making another liquor run until my next paycheck but i doubt anyone's gonna snatch 'em up before i do. thx!

...as it turns out, they're all yellow. copped one today, will try later.

i also bought a bottle of fernet-branca and am trying it right now (neat). just had some weird proust/madeleine thing where i could smell my elderly italian relatives' cologne. that being said, i like it!

woah! yeah i love fernet branca but usually its not something that ppl are into the first time they have it.

i just made some ginger syrup which i now need find uses for.

this is one of my friend's fave cocktails

http://www.cocktailchronicles.com/2009/01/19/strong-medicine/

that's a Penicillin btw

thank you! i will try that.

oh! forgot to say, i boiled ginger with water and have so far mixed it with seltzer and a bit of lime juice -- delicious. i think i will use that for any gingery cocktails i want because i just can't handle too much simple syrup in my drinks.

what's a good substitute if a recipe calls for irish whiskey? bourbon? a non peat-y scotch?

yeah a non-peaty scotch or makers imo

hmm. in the house are a few ryes, a few bourbons, glendronach (kinda gross, we stole it from the inlaws) and hibiki. last one's prob my best bet, huh? even tho the wife saw me looking at it and said (don't u dare touch my whisky, ha)

what bourbons?

tho i think that most likely the hibiki is your best bet

i guess just one. henry mckenna. o, and found a caol isla, but that's like the smokiest whiskey ever (and so damn good)

looking for things to use my g. chartreuse in; just made a Jewel Cocktail

2oz gin
1.5oz green chartreuse
1oz sweet vermouth
3 dashes orange bitters
marischino cherry (don't have any)

pretty good. think i'd prob use a lil less vermouth next time. i've also seen other recipes for same cocktail that use equal parts gin/chart/verm.

the bijou! one of my local places makes that. i just checked my copy of savoy and it's equal parts in there. never made it at home tho.

ya, same ingredients as bijou, diff proportions.

what are some cocktails u make that use green charteuse? everywhere i read about it people say how they can't keep a bottle of it at home, but i'm having a hard time finding recipes that call my name.

also, what do you guys do about pineapple juice? make your own from actual pineapple? seems so labor intensive.

did you check this thread? the chartreuse swizzle, the beuser and angus special, and the last word in particular are great drinks that use a good amount of the stuff.

re: pineapple juice there are a few choices. the most commonly-recommended one is to go to the supermarket and pick up some of the dole 6 oz. cans. whole foods also sells a larger bottle of pineapple juice for like 4 bucks if you plan on using more of it or just lie drinking it. i don't think anyone attempts to make it fresh unless you own a pretty serious juicer.

ah, thought people claimed unless you made your own it was gonna be shit

hahah no they always say that the one juice that is ok out of the can/bottle is pineapple. which may just be an admission that juicing a pineapple is a huge pain in the ass.

yeah im a big fan of the chartreuse swizzle - you need to use a lot of crushed ice for it, or it wont work properly, but if you get a taste for them then yr chartreuse wont last long

Discovered Maurin Quina this weekend, a cherry brandy-fortified white wine with a lot of quinine - it's like the amaro version of cherry cough syrup, but ... in a good way? I mean, it's definitely more medicinal than most vermouths, maybe comparable to Punt e Mes. I forget the proportions, but we ended up using that, Aperol, lemon juice, Cheribundi tart cherry juice, and Smith & Cross rum to make this cherry rum punch that hit the spot.

re: Chartreuse, I'm a huge fan, it's like comfort food for me - but I nearly always make some variant of the Last Word. You can sub out any base liquor for the gin, and I often sub another liqueur instead of the maraschino.

I mentioned curiosity about Barolo Chinato earlier - finally got around to buying and trying some. It's very good, but I don't think I can justify the over $40 - i.e. two Rittenhouses - price again. Maybe if I were less invested in cocktails, I would feel differently, but I think I get more value out of two bottles of liqueur or a bottle of Chartreuse.

Speaking of liqueurs. Also got Rothman and Winter's peach liqueur, which ... is it new? It's not listed in the Haus Alpenz portfolio, but neither are a couple of other recent products - they've gone from having the website list upcoming products a year in advance to lagging behind. Anyway, it's good stuff - recognizably peachy, good for summer.

the price has definitely scared me off given that i don't know a lot about what i would actually do with it. can you describe a little more what it's like/what it might be good for?

btw, last word variant i made yesterday--chartreuse, lime, smith and cross, r&w apricot.

Yeah, I started to describe the Barolo Chinato, backspaced what I'd written, and forgot to write something better! Hm. Well, it's recognizably a fortified red wine. The way Dubonnet Rouge is, for example - the red wine flavor is going to be there in whatever you make, and that limits what I can see doing with it. Like, you can make a Manhattan variant, and make it any of a dozen ways by adding a drizzle of a liqueur or a shake of bitters, and then ... what else is there, really? Dubonnet Rouge lasts a hell of a long time for me because anything you make with it is going to taste like Dubonnet Rouge - moreso than that's true of Cocchi Americano, let's say.

And I suppose that's not a problem if you love the thing in question - maybe I should think of Barolo Chinato (or Dub R) as comparable to Punt e Mes, something that can stand up to the Campari in a Negroni. But it tastes both more subtle and more winey than Punt e Mes. Less bitter/bracing, too. Sweet - maybe not as sweet as a liqueur, but sweeter than I'd want to drink straight.

Before I really *discovered* cocktails, I drank a lot of port, and I think if I had never diverted onto the cocktail road, Barolo Chinato would be right up my alley. It has some complexity, you can sip it, you can have a cigar with it (I have not yet tried it with chocolate, which is supposed to be a good pairing). I've just ended up in a place where I see most bottles of alcohol as ingredients, and this one isn't really best-suited to that.

It is good with rye. Just not good enough to justify the price.

thanks, that helps--the dubonnet comparison in particular because i'm really not a big dubonnet guy.

maybe i can find a bar that's working with it around here but in the meantime it's def a simple value proposition--a bottle of this would be two bottles of punt e mes or cocchi. even carpano is cheaper!

Do I need to refrigerate velvet falernum? It's only 11%, but made with a rum base.

i have often wondered this! i have never bought it but the answer to that question would play into my decision to do so.

i have a bottle of this, and i dont put it in the fridge but thats just cuz im running out of room in there... i should prob taste it to see how its going

just made this. it's pretty amazing. way more mellow than i was expecting from the ingredients. i remember you guys mentioning chocolate goes w/chartreuse and tequila, so i added the chocolate bitters and it worked really well.

Kama Sutra

2 ounces añejo Tequila
1/4 ounce mescal
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse
2 dashes Chocolate Bitters
1 flamed lemon peel for garnish (this smelled awesome btw)

Instructions: Place Tequila, mescal and green Chartreuse in a mixing glass. Add ice. Stir for 15-20 seconds and strain into a cocktail glass. Add garnish.

there are a couple of other non-citrusy tequila drinks on the second page of this article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/03/FDDT179ORE.DTL

i had this amazing cocktail the other day - a "ginger long island iced tea" at some fancy schmancy restaurant. it was a revelation, but unfortunately, i do not see the recipe anywhere on the internet so far. and there's not even a recipe for long island iced tea at all on this thread!

it tasted like a regular long island ice-t, but maybe had some actual fresh ginger in it. also it was a hair lighter and tea-y-er than your typical long island, so i wondered if it maybe had a splash of actual iced tea in it? like high quality earl grey or something. seriously, this drink was the bomb. anyone know how to make one?

there are several possibilities--gin or whiskey infused with tea, ginger syrup, ginger liqueur, muddled or pressed fresh ginger. i'd go ahead and guess that the recipe does not look much like the standard l.i.i.t. recipe at all.

actually, the original long island iced tea is being ceremonially buried at tales of the cocktail this year: http://offbeat.com/2011/07/01/tea-and-tales-of-the-cocktail/

ha, the long island iced tea will never die! it's the same price as other cocktails, but has like 2-3 times as much booze in it, and is still pretty tasty to boot, and will thus be the drink of choice for cheapskate alcoholics for all eternity.

i was thinking there may be some infusion going on with the g-liit, they do a couple other infusions at this place for other coctails. and the ginger tasted really fresh and authentic, it was part of what made the cocktail so damn good. do they put vodka in those things as well? vodka's kinda the go-to booze for infusions.

i'd buy the ingredients and try to duplicate it in my home, but knowing myself all to well i'm pretty sure i'd wind up drinking every bottle of liquor in its entirety the night i brought them home, and since there's like 5 different kinds of booze in it i'd probably put myself in a coma

the long island iced tea is a great choice if you really like getting drunk but really hate cocktails

love this photo. ran with a writeup on the bartenders at Heaven's Dog (great cocktails, terrible restaurant)
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2011/06/fun_with_cocktails_at_heavens.php

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/sfweeklydion-2.jpg

first home experiment with egg white/dry-shaking: a variant on the hawaiian cocktail that goes like:

1.5 oz gin
.5 oz pineapple juice
dash orange bitters
egg white

creamy, VERY light, i.e. not much of a taste but i'm also realizing i forgot to shake the pineapple juice before pouring

made this last night. like a mojito, but i don't tend to like drinks w/soda water in them. i served it up and loved it.

The Whiskey Smash
2 oz. whiskey
1 oz. simple syrup
1/2 oz. lemon juice
A handful of mint
Instructions:
Muddle the mint and lemon juice, then add the syrup and whiskey. Fill your shaker with ice. Shake it hard. Strain. Serve over ice and enjoy!

mmm

the double strain is key here but yeah total classique