Chicago restaurant Scofflaw has updated their cocktail menu. Scofflaw is a gin-focused cocktail bar in the Chicago neighborhood of Logan Square featuring American craft beers on tap and small plate fare. The head bartender is Danny Shapiro.
This is one of those menus where I read the drink descriptions and think, "I have no idea how that is going to taste." Intriguing.
I see: banana orgeat, banana ice, strawberry soda.
Wrinkled Tie - Tanqueray, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Escorial, Rhubarb Bitters
Deerfielder - Old Grand Dad Bonded Bourbon, Fernet Branca, Vanilla Syrup, Angostura Bitters
Ford Cocktail - Scofflaw Old Tom Gin, Dolin Dry, Benedictine, Orange Bitters
In my latest post for Details.com, I talk about the interesting trend of leafy green salad vegetables making their way into cocktails.
Shut Up and Drink Your Salad: Cocktails Embrace Spinach, Kale, and Arugula By Camper English
The West Coast style of cocktail in which bartenders muddle a cornucopia of fruits and herbs in their drinks has long been known as a "salad in a glass," but that term is taking on a whole new meaning as mixologists move to mashing leafy greens like spinach, kale, and arugula into drinks this spring.
During Hawaii Cocktail Week, I attended a seminar called LA Confidential, held at Thirtyninehotel. Panelists were Julian Cox, Paul Sanguinetti & Cherish Mumme, all of Los Angeles.
The talk was meant to illuminate trends and techniques popular in Los Angeles today. Here are a few notes I took.
A good place to buy molecular mixology/gastronomy supplies is Modernist Pantry.
Using goofy names for cocktails makes them less intimidating to guests.
Julian Cox measured the Brix level of the most popular cocktails, and found most of them to be around 14-15 Brix, so the perception of the more popular girlie drinks as being sweeter isn't quite true.
Cox uses sous vide for infusions with fruit and/or herbs. He says to set it on 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and infuse it for four hours or so, making sure that it doesn't go above the boiling point of alcohol at 173F.
For tea infusions, blanche the tea first to eliminate harsh tannins.
I know a lot about Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber, but I didn't know about Harry Yee until this year. I learned a bit about him at a seminar called Modern Tiki: A Pirate's Life for Me, which took place during Hawaii Cocktail Week at the Moana Surfrider Hotel. The seminar was lead by Julie Reiner (owner of the Flatiron Lounge, formerly Lani Kai, and consultant on Hawaii's Tiki Iniki) and Brian Miller (bartender for hire).
Harry Yee lived in Hawaii and was the inventor of the Blue Hawaii cocktail, shown above.
He was also the first person to use an orchid as a cocktail garnish.
He was also the first person to use cocktail umbrella garnish, according to Reiner. [The internet has a different answer - would love to find out.]
He may have created the Banana Daiquiri.
He invented the Tropical Itch as well as its garnish: a backscratcher. This drink actually kicked off a backscratcher craze. I remember always getting them at county fairs as a kid - I had no idea they were garnish.
Here are three new product releases. Information below comes from the press materials.
Herradura Colección de la Casa, Reserva 2012, Port Cask Finish
Tequila Herradura, today announced the release of the first of a series of small-batch tequilas, Colección de la Casa, Reserva 2012, Port Cask Finish. Each year, a new tequila will be released that will offer consumers a one-of-a-kind experience.
The inaugural product, Colección de la Casa, Reserva 2012 is a port cask finished reposado tequila. Crafted by Master Distiller Maria Teresa Lara, Casa Herradura uses blue agave, traditional production methods and a proprietary fermentation from naturally occurring wild yeast to create the tequila. The tequila is then rested in medium-char American oak casks for eleven months and then transferred to vintage port casks from the Duoro Valley in Portugal for an additional two months of aging.
Colección de la Casa-Port Cask Finish will be available at fine wine and spirits stores in April. A limited quantity will be available in Mexico. Each 750 ml. Only 2,000 cases are available with a suggested retail price of $89.99.
Marteau Absinthe Master's Reserve and Marteau Belle Époque
Marteau Master's Reserve is a gold-labeled elixir that will sell at the same price as the current product. Then, there's a new version of Marteau Belle Époque (the familiar blue and white label) made with grain spirits and which should retail at around 40% less than the price of the current product. This will replace the current product and go into production in May.
• The currently-sold product has a grape spirits base and a blend of the proprietary and wildcrafted absinthium wormwoods. • The new Master's Reserve has a grape spirits base, and only the proprietary wormwood. I'll be growing other botanicals myself this year as well, such as the petite wormwood and the lemon balm. • The new Belle Époque will have a grain spirits base, which is the industry standard for liqueurs. It will also use botanicals sourced from both the USA and Europe, but not the costly proprietary wormwood.
In addition, by late summer or before, both labels will be available in 357ml half-size bottles.
Blue Chair Bay Rum
Fishbowl Spirits is an independent spirits supplier based in Nashville, TN. It is wholly owned by country music star Kenney Chesney and its first release is Blue Chair Bay, a collection of premium-blended rums inspired by Chesney’s love of the island lifestyle.
Each Blue Chair Bay variety, including White, Coconut and Coconut Spiced, is produced at one of the most respected distilleries in the Caribbean. The Blue Chair Bay collection rolls out nationwide in May of 2013 and is available in 750ml and 1.75L bottles.
Imported and bottled by Fishbowl Spirits, Rochester, NY. Blue Chair Bay White Rum 40% ABV, Blue Chair Bay Coconut & Coconut Spiced Rum, 26.5% ABV. SRP $18.99 750ml.
Someone wrote on Facebook that a trend they'd like to see is smaller cocktails so they could enjoy a larger range of drinks over an evening. I also think that would be pretty cool, so I asked PR folks and Facebook folks if they knew of any.
If your bar is doing mini cocktails, feel free to add them in the comments!
Pic from Vessel in Seattle. They don't really serve them this small.
Canon in Seattle The Negroni Experiment is three Negronis: Original, Boulvardier, Right Hand
L2O in Chicago Mixologist: Allison Frey L2O’s Sazerac, served in a 4 ounce Bourbon Glass, is portioned by a bartender and then concocted tableside by the server.
Levant in Portland, OR Chamomile Whiskey or Black Lime Rum "At this point the Chamomile Whiskey is a fully developed mini cocktail. It contains house infused chamomile whiskey, honey lavender syrup and orange zest. The Black Lime Rum is just basically just a shot of appleton estate rum infused with black limes." Each cocktail is 2 ounces.
Served in antique glassware that the team has sourced, the cocktails come in at about 3 ounces. Libations include: o Bee Sting – gin, lemon, honey, peach bitters o Little Waffle – bourbon, lemon, maple syrup (the restaurant serves a larger version called the Kentucky Waffle) o Primrose – house-infused berry vodka, lemon, orgeat o Diablito – tequila, cherry, lime o Daiquirita – rum, lime, simple syrup
Saison’s cocktail menu features smaller libations in hand-etched Japanese glassware coming in at about 4 oz each.
Carry Nation, Marseilles, France "la verticale" = 4 mini-cocktails, in 2 cl (about 2/3 ounce) mini martini glasses. La verticale is made of : Sazerac , Jack Rose, Last Word, Hanky Panky.
Brasserie S&P, Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco Gin & Tonic Tasting Flight - four gins with one tonic
Tavernita, Chicago "Little Twins" = your choice of small pours of two of their cocktails on tap
One of the most popular pages on Alcademics is the Airline Liquor Regulations page. It rounds up the rules of what liquor you can pack in your luggage according to various airlines.
But no matter what the airlines say, you can't neccesarily transport the maximum amount of booze into every state in the US: your final destination matters.
Travel + Leisure magazine took to the 'what you can pack' rules in their April 2013 issue. Here's what they had to say about it.
Anything less than a liter is generally permitted duty-free. Thanks to the 21rst Amendment, it's up to each state to determine how much alcohol you can carry. Most states limit you to a "reasonable" amount for personal use. If you're from a control state, however, check with the local alcohol board to see if there are restrictions. Utah, for example, sets a two-liter limit. For the record: absinthe (anything bearing the brand name Absinthe, containing thujone, or decorated with artwork "project[ing] images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic, or mind-altering effects") is not allowed in the States.
They don't say it in the above description, but the absinthe for sale in the US is perfectly valid and can contain thujone, up to a legal limit (that they deem legally negligible).
Most airlines allow you to pack unlimited wine/beer in your luggage, and up to 5 liters of hard alcohol. That said, anything over a certain proof is not permitted. Check out the Airline Liquor Regulations page to see what you can pack in your luggage, at least according to the airlines.
In the Water Project I'm studying water in spirits in cocktails, from the source water for fermentation through to the sparkling water we use to dilute drinks. As part of the latter research, I'm looking into deconstructing and reconstructing mineral water.
Much of the work on this has been done by other people and I'll just be reproducing it here. In short, the mineral content of mineral waters is publicly available, so you can add minerals to your own water to recreate your favorite brand.
You can either start with your tap water, taking into account its mineral content, and add more minerals to it (as done on the Khymos blog), or you can start with completely mineral-free water and add to that (as done in the Craft Cocktails at Home book).
What's in My Water?
I decided to look at San Francisco tap water to see what it contains. From the annual Water Quality Report we can see the standard minerals that we look at in bottled water including calcium, magnesium, and sodium. My local water also contains metals like copper, lead, and aluminum. Then it has added chloramine and fluoride for disinfectant and dental health.
I know my water tastes good even without filtering it, but is it appropriate for use to make mineral water? Most of the numbers in the water report are given in ranges, and some of those ranges are pretty wide. They also give average levels of minerals and contaminants. Some averages from the report are:
The average amount of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in my water 132 ppm. The TDS is an important number as we use it to measure mineral waters. Water sold as mineral water in the US has to have TDS of 250 at minimum.
Intrigued by the fact that my water seems to be halfway to mineral water, I decided to test the TDS of my tap water.
Testing Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
TDS is super easy and cheap to test - a TDS meter costs about $15 on Amazon.com, or you can get one for free when you buy a Zero Water pitcher for $33. The pitcher is designed to get reduce the TDS in tap water to zero, so I bought one.
Using the enclosed TDS meter, I found that my tap water has super low TDS in the first place - only 32 ppm, compared with the San Francisco average of 132! I then compared it with filtered water:
San Francisco Tap Water, Average = 132 ppm Camper's Tap Water = 32 ppm Camper's Tap Water, after filtering with Mavea water pitcher = 28 ppm Camper's Tap Water, after filtering with Zero Water pitcher = 0 ppm Distilled Water (purchased), no minerals added = 0 ppm
I also tested Carbonated water, just to see how it reads, as most mineral waters that I'll be looking at later will be sparkling. It turns out that this is harder to read - the meter jumps around quite a bit and then settles around a number range. When I carbonated TDS 0 water it settled to 17 - 22 ppm. Interesting.
But what about the rest of the stuff in the water?
So even if I get the solids down to zero, what about the chloramine and fluoride? Are they still there and can you taste them? It turns out that the Zero Water pitcher gets rid of fluoride and some chloramine. From the FAQ:
Q. Does the ZeroWater filter remove Fluoride? A. ZeroWater filters are not certified for the reduction of fluoride however fluoride is an inorganic compound. The TDS meter is designed to detect inorganic compounds. Fluoride levels in water are usually around 2 to 4 ppm, which will show up on the meter as 002 to 004. So when filtered water reads 000 it is not likely that fluoride is present in water.
Q. Does the filter remove Chloramine? A. We have done internal lab testing that shows our filters can reduce chloramine. However, the presence of chloramine can reduce the expected life of the filter, so if you have chloramine in your water, you may need to change your filter more often than normal.
I then looked about getting rid of chloramine on the SF Water website:
Chloramine is not a persistent disinfectant and decomposes easily from a chemistry point of view but for water supply purposes chloramine is stable and it takes days to dissipate in the absence of substances exerting chloramine demand. Therefore, it is not practical to remove chloramine by letting an open container of water stand because it may take days for chloramine to dissipate.
However, chloramine is very easily and almost instantaneously removed by preparing a cup of tea or coffee, preparing food (e.g., making a soup with a chicken stock). Adding fruit to a water pitcher (e.g., slicing peeled orange into a 1-gal water pitcher) will neutralize chloramine within 30 minutes. If desired, chloramine and ammonia can be completely removed from the water by boiling; however, it will take 20 minutes of gentle boil to do that. Just a short boil of water to prepare tea or coffee removed about 30% of chloramine.
If desired, both chlorine and chloramine can be removed for drinking water purposes by an activated carbon filter point of use device that can be installed on a kitchen faucet.
Can you taste chloramine in drinking water? Several sites say that chloramine tastes better than chlorine in drinking water, but can you taste it at all?
"Chloramines do not give off any taste or smell and are relatively safe." [link]
The Water Quality Association, says [pdf]: "While chloramines are not a drinking water health concern to humans generally, their removal improves the taste and odor of drinking water. " They do not mention boiling but activated carbon filtration.
So maybe you can taste chloramine, and better safe than sorry.
My guess is that if I boil water for 20 minutes to remove chloramine, then cool and filter it in the Zero Water filter, I could get pretty good quality water, with which to begin mineral water experiments.
Or, you know, just buy distilled water by the gallon at the store.
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The Water Project on Alcademics is research into water in spirits and in cocktails, from the streams that feed distilleries to the soda water that dilutes your highball. The research for the project is supported by Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. For all posts in the project, visit the project index page.
Camper English is a cocktails and spirits writer for publications including the SF Chronicle, Details.com, Fine Cooking, CLASS Magazine, and many more. Learn about Camper and Alcademics, or read clips of his published work.
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