Alcademics.com

New Booze: A Second Van Gogh Vodka

Once upon a time, premium vodkas were premium enough. Then along came a little brand called Grey Goose that convinced everyone that they should pay more for vodka. It took several years for other brands to react to this, but eventually they did, releasing new and more expensive versions of their vodkas. From this era we received Stolichnaya Elit, Level vodka from Absolut, Skyy 90, and I just read about something called Belvedere Intense.

Several of these vodkas have an increased alcohol percentage that helps explain their price increases. Others have taller bottles.

Now Van Gogh Vodka has launched a second unflavored vodka. What's interesting here is that it's hardly more expensive than the regular one. The Classic vodka uses "natural grains" but doesn't specify further what those grains are. Let's guess corn or sugar beets. It has a $27 suggested retail price for a 750 ml 40% alcohol bottle.

The new release is called Blue and it's also known as Triple Wheat as it's made from a "blend of premium European wheat sourced from Holland, Germany and France." It sell for a suggested $29 for a 750 ml 40% alcohol bottle- only two dollars more than the Classic.

I tasted each to compare the two bottlings. The Classic smells more of neutral alcohol than the Blue, which does have a touch of wheaty grain smell. The Classic tastes rather like neutral alcohol with a very sweet finish, while the Blue has a much softer body and tastes creamier in texture, closer in flavor to Absolut in breadiness but less yeasty. The finish has a touch of grain but is dominated by a granite-style minerality. It's good stuff.

Long story short: If you like the unflavored Van Gogh vodka, you'll probably like the new Blue triple wheat bottling even more. And for two bucks more per bottle, it's well worth the upgrade.

Don't Forget the Wild Tofurkey

When you're out shopping for your liquor-loving vegetarian guests for Thanksgiving this year, don't forget to pick up some tofu and booze to make my special Wild Tofurkey dish. It's tofu marinated in a cocktail and baked. Mmm.

Vodka, Vodka, Vodka: Flavor Trends, New Distillates, and Muscle-Building Additives

Vodka is getting weirder, which makes it more interesting in my book.

Vodka can be distilled from anything that ferments and is already made from wheat, rye, corn, sugar beets, molasses, potatoes, maple syrup, and other ingredients. Now it's also made from oranges. 4 Orange Vodka is "distilled from 100% orange spirits derived from four unique Florida orange varieties - the Hamlin, Parson Brown, Temple and Valencia."

The website say 4 Orange Vodka it's initially only available in Florida, retailing for $24.99.

360 Vodka, an organic vodka made in the midwest, has launched a new flavor: Cola. The company suggests mixing their cola-flavored (and colored) vodka with lemonade, cucumber slices, and soda water in a cocktail called the Ecolade, or (get this) mixed with Sprite.

A soda-flavored vodka sounds odd to me, but I suppose it shouldn't. The biggest trend across vodka flavors is mocking the flavor of other beverages. Sweet tea vodka was all the rage last year, Three Olives released a root beer flavored vodka, and Burnett's launched a pink lemonade flavor as well.

It seems to me the division between pre-mixed cocktails and flavored vodkas is getting smaller. You can probably just pour most of these over ice or into an up glass and call it a cocktail. 

Lastly, there is a new protein-infused vodka, Devotion Vodka, hitting the market. This solves the problem that so, so many vodka drinkers have: you want to drink your protein powder to gain ultimate muscle power, yet you also want a vodka cocktail. Until recently you'd have to mix them. No longer! According to the website:

The protein used in the Devotion Vodka blend is PeptoPro® and casein, PeptoPro® , which was developed by DSM Food Specialties with the Dutch Olympic Committee is a recovery ingredient for fast muscle refueling. The target was to give the Dutch Olympic athletes a competitive advantage at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. PeptoPro® is a casein hydrolysate (a protein cut into fragments), which is the same protein found in dairy products.

So it's also good as a post-workout cocktail ingredient while your muscles are recovering. Sure.

But actually I want to try the product because I wonder what the protein will do to the texture of the vodka. If it makes it thick and silky, that could be interesting in cocktails. And it would be nice to bulk up my drink muscles.

Another Clue to Ice Clarity: Slow Freezing Like a Japanese Pond

The other night a friend of mine told me that she read something about clear ice, which as you may recall is a topic of interest of this blog. Naturally I forgot what she said (we were at a bar, remember) but the next day I found the following email I had sent to myself:

"Clear ice old japan sawdust"

The amazing thing is that when you put that into Google the very first story it comes up with is what I assume is the exact thing my friend was talking about. In this story on natural ice (popsicles) in Japan, a person in the story gives a quote that could prove useful. 

Masao Yoshiara, the fourth-generation president of the company, said: "In Nikko, the daily lowest temperature in winter averages around minus 10 C, ideal for making crystal-clear ice.

"If it's colder than that, ice can be made quickly but it is not solid enough. Here, ice grows 1 centimeter thicker a day. When ice becomes about 15 centimeters thick over half a month, we cut out ice blocks. If an ice block is thicker than that, it contains cracks."

Minus 10 degrees Celsius is 14 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know the temperature of my home freezer, but it's worth investing in a thermometer to find out. Perhaps slow freezing equals clearer ice.

The other factor we'll have to consider about pond ice is that the bottom never freezes. Thus the air that is a major factor in cloudy ice is still in the warmer water below the surface layer of the ice.

This is another strategy I've been considering in attempting to get clear ice in the freezer: if I place a good insulator at the bottom and sides of the water container that doesn't cool down nearly as fast as the water (for example a super thick glass bowl, or a pan of ice that sits on a stone surface), will that cause all the air in the water to migrate to the bottom and freeze last?

This reading inspires a lot more ice experiments to come. I'm glad I emailed myself from the bar.

Does Freezing Water in Layers Make Clear Ice?

Here's a new edition in my ongoing ice experiments. So far, there experiments have been:

• Distilled vs. Tap Water
• Melting and refreezing water
• Hot Water vs. Cold Water
• Carbonated Water vs. Still Water
• Horizontal vs. Vertical Container Shapes

With successes in:

• Releasing Air Trapped in Ice
• Cutting Corners to Make Clear Ice

So far my conclusions have been that (at least with my San Francisco water), temperature and filtering have less of an effect than trapped air that migrates to the center of the freezing cube. Thus I am trying to minimize this effect.

In this experiment I froze ice in layers in small lasagna pans to see if we had a maximized surface area, hopefully no air would get trapped in the ice and form cloudy parts. Apparently some commercial ice machines such as Kold Draft spray an upside-down mist of water in layers, so this would be the home approximation of that.

I tried this experiments with tiny layers, medium layers, and large layers in the same sized pan, the difference being that I added more water per layer. I let the water freeze before adding another layer.

As you can see, none of the layers turned out clear:

 

(Tiny layers, medium layers, and large layers left to right.)

The small sized layers were made only adding a couple of ounces of water at a time, so I can't get much smaller layers than these unless I use a spray bottle. 

We'll have to call this one a failure. Freezing water in layers does not appear to make clear ice, just ice with smaller layers of trapped air.

Below is a closeup of the layers for your ice ogling enjoyment.

The Smuggler's Cove Rumshakers

Smuggler's Cove, the new San Francisco tiki bar in the former Jade bar space, run by "Shoeless" Martin Cate formerly of Forbidden Island, will open December 8th to much fanfare. 

The word on the scene is that the rum selection is going to be ridiculously large. The staff are in training now to make the probably very long menu of undoubtedly complicated and delicious tiki drinks. They've already announced they have a rum, and wine, and a beer made exclusively for the bar. And it keeps getting better- I just got word on the staff.

The Smuggler's Cove rumshakers will be:

• Christine D'Abrosca-England (ex-Malo, Seven Grand in LA)
• Matty Eggleston (ex Varnish in LA)
• Reza Esmaili (Conduit)
• Melissa Garcia (ex-Trader Vic's)
• Jacqueline Patterson (Heaven's Dog)
• Alex Smith (soon-to-be-ex Ramblas & Thirsty Bear) manager
• Dominic Venegas (83 Proof, John Walker & Sons, Appleton Rum ambassador)

The other folks in the picture are barbacks and a door person. Aloha! See you in December.

New Booze: El Grado Tequila

Hey, there's another 100% agave tequila on the market. El Grado tequila is available in California, Arizona, and Texas so far. The tequila is made at Productos Regionales de Atotonilco, a distillery where they also produce brands El Rincon, Los Kikirikis, and Sol De Mexico, according to Tequila.net. Atotonilco is the town where they make Don Julio and Siete Leguas, so lots of good stuff comes from there.

The press release is rather vague on production details. The agave is from the Highlands,they use ex-Tennessee whiskey barrels for aging, and the picture of the still looks like it's tiny and made of stainless steel, but other than that we don't know anything about the treatment of the agave: autoclave, stone ovens, diffuser, tahona, etc.. 

So we'll just have to go on taste. I received samples of the reposado and anejo. The reposado is aged 6 months and the anejo for a minimum of 15 months.At first sniff, the buttery wood notes are pleasant with the baked mango yam and black pepper notes typical of agave following. On the reposado I get a lot of unbaked vegetal notes like wet spinach and olive brine with a mouth that suggests peeled sticks (not in a bad way). On the anejo, caramel pickled mango chutney on the nose gives way to a thin texture in the mouth with dominating shallow spices on the palate.

Of the two I like the reposado better as the anejo seems a bit clumsy, but I'd like to try the blanco sometime to see what I think about that.

Also, I like the caps on these bottles- not just style-wise, but because they work like a cork but are made of plastic and super easy to remove and replace. I wish more brands used them.

New Booze: Oxley Gin

Oxley is a new gin just launched in NYC, SF, LA, and Vegas. The interesting thing about this product is that it's made through "cold distillation." The theory is that the high temperatures used in traditional gin distillation to boil alcohol (to separate it from water and the infused botanicals in the still) can impart 'cooked' notes or lose desirable flavors in gin.

However, the press release didn't go into what cold distillation is. One option could be freeze distillation, where you put out a jug of wine outside your front door in the winter to let it freeze. You scrape off the frozen part (the water) and keep the rest (the alcohol). After a few times you get a higher-proof drink than what you began with.

The other way to achieve cold distillation is by lowering the pressure by creating a vacuum in order to lower the boiling point of liquids. It turns out that's how they produce Oxley:

The boiling point of all liquids alters with the pressure change; the lower the pressure, the lower the temperature required to achieve boiling. It is for this very reason that water boils at a lower temperature at the top of a mountain than at sea level.

 

Cold Distillation uses a vacuum to reduce the pressure in the still and as a result lowers the temperature to approximately -5C, causing the macerated spirit in the still to ‘boil’ and turn to vapour. At this point the natural flavours from the botanicals are captured, resulting in a spirit that is reminiscent of the natural ingredients used to create it.

 

The reduced pressure within the still means that the molecules in the macerated spirit are no longer forced together by pressure, and instead start to separate, reducing the kinetic energy required to boil and changing from liquid to vapour (but without the use of heat). When this was observed during the development of OXLEY, it was discovered that the natural essences from the botanicals were captured and preserved in the vapour transferring to the final distilled spirit.

 

The Cold Distillation process occurs at approximately -5C and the resulting vapour is condensed at a temperature of -100C. As a result, the botanical flavours and aromas are not altered as they often are during traditional distillation methods. During other distillation methods botanicals are exposed to temperatures of 80C or greater. Cold Distillation, by contrast leaves the structure of the botanical molecules unchanged, thus preserving their original intensity. As a result, harsh and cooked notes, tops and tails and ‘spirit safes’ become a thing of the past. All the spirit distilled for OXLEY is of such high quality that everything produced goes into the final bottle and nothing is discarded.

The first part is interesting, but the last few sentences are very interesting. During distillation usually the first vapor that comes off the still is both yucky tasting and poisonous. The last vapor off is yucky and potentially watery. Thus much of the art in distilling is choosing the center cut- the heart- while not wasting too much of the spirit from the heads or tails. (This waste alcohol is often redistilled in a new batch or recycled into industrial alcohol) The folks at Oxley are saying that they've eliminated this alcohol waste entirely through this high-pressure, high-tech distillation. Very cool.

Anyway, the stuff costs fifty bucks a bottle. How does it taste?

Largely it tastes like gin. The nose is lemon zest and juniper, and on the palate more citrus comes into play as do almond notes that the press kit says comes from meadowsweet. To my mouth, the most unique aspect of this gin is the finish- I don't get a lot of the oiliness that reminds me of dried juniper berries usually found in gin, but in its stead I get a metallic dryness, like aluminum or stainless steel. (I wonder what the still is made of...) Other palates may just identify it as just dry or non-oily. I have not tried the drink in anything beyond a G&T and a Gin Sour, in which the aftertaste is still very dry.

Oxley Gin is interesting and high-tech stuff, but ultimately you'll have to decide whether or not you like it on your own.