Alcademics.com

How to Pick Potatoes

Earlier this month I visited Cape Bjare, Sweden to learn about Karlsson's Vodka. Karlsson's is made from a blend of seven heiroom "virgin new" potatoes. This means that the skin hasn't fully developed into the brown stuff we recognize here in the States. 

In Sweden, restaurants serve these little tiny potatoes as a delicacy (I ate my weight in them while I was there) and Karlsson's uses the slightly larger ones to make their vodka. 

But they wouldn't let us drink it until we helped make it, so off we were to the fields to pick potatoes. 

Potatoes grow in clumps, and are planted in raised mounds of dirt for easier harvest. Virgin potatoes must be harvested when the plants are still flowering.  The harvest is done mostly mechanically, but hand-sorting is required.

We piled into potato trucks and took on the task of sorting potatoes. The machine pulls up the clumps of potatoes, chops off the vegetation, and puts all the round things onto a conveyer belt. Our job was to pull out the undesirable round things: rocks and potatoes with brown skin. 

After our job was done, the potatoes were off to the cleaning plant. They are washed and buffed and sorted according to size.

And in the case of Karlsson's, they're fermented and distilled and blended. More on that part later. 

For a live action shot of potato sorting in the truck, watch the video below. 

 

Mizuwari: Japanese Whisky Highball Ritual

The other day I was talking to Neyah White, brand ambassador for the Suntory family of whiskies, about highballs. He'd told me previously that highballs were a big thing in Japan that he'd like to see become popular stateside.

(Lousy picture but cool new glassware from Villeroy & Boch)

I figured I'd write about Japanese whisky for my column on FineCooking.com, and I wanted to include a recipe to accompany the blog entry. I said something like, "I'm guessing the Japanese have some riduculously complicated way to serve whisky and soda water." 

Right I was. White told me about mizuwari, the serving style in which a whisky highball is made in some places. It involves stirring the whisky 13 1/2 times and the cocktail another 3 1/2 times. 

Read the full recipe here, even though you've got the gist of it already. 

Shrubs For Dummies

Last week I took a shrub-making class, lead by Jennifer Colliau of Small Hand Foods and Aaron Gregory of 15 Romolo.

(Blueberry-Raspberry-Thyme Shrub Ready for Vinegar)

 The class was co-hosted by CUESA,  Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, who puts on the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, farm tours, and educational events and Urban Kitchen, a group that hosts affordable, single-purpose classes and workshops themed around the DIY Slow Food concept. 

(Jennifer Colliau and Aaron Gregory)

Here is what I learned: 

The word shrub comes from a Persian word for a syrup with citrus and fruit in it, which is  also the base of the word sherbet. Originally, shrubs did not have vinegar in them, but as they spread around the world they began to incorporate it. Why? Because Persia had citrus fruit and other countries did not. Citrus provides the acidity that helps preserve these syrups, and so does vinegar, which can be made from non-citrus fruits. So vinegar was a citrus substitute. 

That explains why we see some recipes for shrub syrups with and some without vinegar. Blueberries, for example, need the extra acid; pineapple does not. I had always wondered about that. Mystery solved. 

Furthermore there is a separate type of shrub related to the switchel. According to Colliau, the switchel dates back to Roman times. It was water mixed with vinegar and perhaps sugar that was used to hydrate the slaves. Wikipedia seems to pick up the trail of the switchel as it enters nascent America, where it was used similarly for hydration rather than as a preservative syrup. 

Making Shrubs, Fast and Easy

They made it incredibly easy for us to make our own shrubs in this class. They put out a bunch of berries, stone fruits, herbs, and spices. We filled mason jars with our selection of them. Then we poured hot vinegar to fill the jars. 

Done. Next we wait a week, giving the jar a little shake each day. Then we add sugar and stick it in the fridge -ready to drink! 

I made a blueberry-raspberry-thyme shrub and a strawberry-pepper-coriander shrub. I CAN'T WAIT TO DRINK THEM!

Vinegar tip: Colliau says don't use distilled white vinegar, use wine/champagne or fruit vinegars. Be wary of apple cider vinegar as the flavor can be overpowering. 

Thanks for a great seminar guys. To San Franciscans: check out the activities calendar for more booze and food event with both CUESA and Urban Kitchen. 

Chefs Get Into the Gin Game Before and After Distillation

Two stories have popped up recently on the intersection between chefs and gin. 

Before:

Roxor gin is made in Texas and was developed in part by Robert Del Grande, a James Beard-awarded chef with a PhD in biochemistry. The gin  contains the usual juniper, corriander, orris, grains of paradise and citrus including grapefruit and lime; plus hibiscus,  cocoa nibs, Texas pecans, and cinnamon. 

The chef developed the gin, and it is distilled to his specifications at San Luis Spirits in Dripping Spring, Texas. 

After:

Chef Peter Smith of PS 7's in Washington DC uses the spent mash from gin distillation- the botanicals left in the bottom of the still - to cure meats for the restaurant. He uses the mash from both Bluecoat Gin in Philadelphia and Catoctin Creek in West Virginia. Then:

 At the distillery, the fresh, non homogenized botanical spices are boiled down and melded together into a balance of flavors that is mellow but intense. Peter mixes this leftover, tea-like compost, with oil, leaving it to sit for a month. Then, he strains it through three times to get it pure, clear, and compressed. 
 
He has created a “Ginola,” a play off breseola, by rubbing his beef with the spent botanicals and hanging it to dry and cure for about a month.  The beef develops a gin-like taste and is included on his tasting menu.  He has been curing “GinBelly,” similar to pancetta, a cured pork belly covered with the gin mash botanical and then rolled and dried for two-five months.  PS 7’s also now features a halibut dish in which the fish has been treated with his gin-mash powder, giving it a light and unexpected gin flavor.  He has also worked with Catoctin Creek to develop a gin salt. 

You can read the press release here.

Cocktial Menus: Union and Ruby in Copenhagen

Below are the cocktail menus for Union and Ruby in Copenhagen. I wrote about the bars yesterday.

The menus are long so if you see a link below click it to keep reading.

One Night in Copenhagen

Earlier this month I was in Copenhagen for one night and not surprisingly decided to hit the bars. My host was Gromit Eduardsen of the bar 1105, so naturally we began the evening there. 

1105 is a classy and clean place with striped wallpaper and a few low pieces of furniture, like a small businessman's happy hour bar in Manhattan. The main focus of the room is on the oblong bar with stools around half the circumference. 

The menu offers both seasonal drinks and classics. The seasonal drinks have some pretty awesome ingredients like licorice powder, eucalyptus syrup, aloe vera honey, and sugar snap peas. Most of the drinks have only four or five ingredients, and many of them are contest winners. The menu doesn't go into detail on the ingredients in each; rather it describes them in flowery language. I asked Eduardsen why and he said, "If you listed the ingredients for a Margarita, nobody would order one."

I was there early on in the night but the people sitting around the curve of the bar were friendly and social. There was a Danish guy from Seattle sitting next to me so I had to break the news to him about Murray Stenson leaving the Zig Zag. I carry bad news everywhere I go! 

After three most excellent drinks at 1105, we headed to Union, a speakeasy bar (no name on the door, buzz your way in) that has another speakeasy bar called Bureau inside of it (up the stairs, limited capacity). Gromit and I squeezed into the bar area, which was tight with only a little room between the back of the barstool and a path for people to walk by to where it opened up a little more. There was another small seating area on the other side of the bar.

The drinks here, at least the ones I was ordering, were nice and boozy and fairly experimental. I opted for one with Fernet and gin, which should come as no surprise to anyone.

(Sorry, blurry cellphone pic.)

Among the friendly staff and patrons at the bar I met Geoffrey Canilao, who works the upstairs bar at Bureau. Turns out he's a native San Franciscan who bartended at Employees Only in New York. We were having a great time talking (about burritos, of course) so he and his wife joined us at the next bar too.  

That next bar was Ruby, a multi-roomed space with couch and living room chair seating spread throughout what looks like someone's apartment. There was just one bar serving the whole place (you stood in the bar room, sat in the rest), plus an outdoor smoking patio. In some ways, the take-over-an-apartment thing reminded me both of Lebensstern in Berlin and the No Name Bar in Dublin, but perhaps I've been on the road a little too much this year. 

The crowd at Ruby was young, rich, and good-looking, so I immediately felt I was among my equals.  Kidding aside, the people were pretty friendly for ones so fancy. Maybe it's a Danish thing. I had a nice licorice-root-infused tequila drink, and a passion fruit cooler of some sort that was what I needed (near) the end of the night. 

 

Because the 11 or so drinks so far weren't enough, Gromit and I headed to Cosy, located near my hotel. I guess the place is ostensibly a gay bar, though the genders were mixed 50-50 and people only seemed to care about partying. It was a hootin' hollering' you-know-better-than-to-order-a-cocktail-here good time. 

And then it was time to call it a night. Or a morning, as the case may have been. 

Pomegranate: So OUT It's IN (My Drink)

You too, have felt pomegrate burnout. The flavor of the moment a few years ago, fueled by POM Wonderful juice and PAMA liqueur and mumbo jumbo about antioxidants, pomegranate was all over your cocktail menu. It was unavoidable until it was gone, as people moved on to the next superfood to drink, be it acai or quinoa or whatever.

I brought the past back to life the other day, and wrote up a rather simple recipe with PAMA and sparkling wine over at FineCooking.com. If you're feeling retro for the pomegranate trend, I suggest you check it out. 

 

Cocktail Menu: Clock Bar's Summer Drinks in San Francisco

Clock Bar in San Francisco has a new set of seasonal cocktails, and they're stacked full of berries. Also: "micro-chrysanthemum nectar." Sounds dangerous.

 

CLOCK BAR SEASONAL COCKTAILS

BERRIES, STONE FRUIT, MICRO-GREENS & MELON

 

COLIN’S ANTHEM........................................................ 13

no. 209 gin, house-made micro-chrysanthemum nectar,

fresh lemon served tall on crushed ice with soda

 

5 O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE ........................................... 13

bulleit rye, raspberry gum syrup, fresh strawberry,

one whole egg served in a reclaimed coffee mug with a

fresh strawberry

 

LEONA HEIGHTS.......................................................... 13

campo de encanto pisco, fresh lemon, house-made

spiced blackberry/blueberry reduction, egg whites

served in a port glass with peychaud’s bitter hearts

 

SNOZBERRY................................................................. 13

barbancourt 8 yr haitian rhum, fresh blackberries,

pineapple juice, st. elizabeth all spice liqueur,

fresh orange juice served in a hi-ball with a blackberry

 

MELONIE...................................................................... 13

hangar one vodka, fresh cantaloupe, local urban honey

served up with a melon ball

 

BRIGHT EYES............................................................... 14

hennessy vs cognac, house-made mixed berry jam,

fresh orange juice, fresh lemon served with local

berries on the rocks topped with california pinot noir

 

CHARLOTTE’S DOMAIN............................................... 13

templeton rye, fresh local plum, raspberry gum syrup,

carpano antica sweet vermouth, egg whites served over

crushed ice with fresh mint and a bit of plum

 

PUSHING LIL DAISIES ................................................. 13

martin miller’s westbourne strength dry gin, fresh lime,

green chartreuse, amaranth greens served up