Custard. Or if you have a dog, I suspect it would be very happy helping you out.Originally Posted by gringokidd
By the way: most classic cocktail recipes that call for an egg white were developed when eggs were commonly much smaller. If you're using large or jumbo eggs it's best to make a double and share with a friend.
There are good scotch drinks, just not that one. Try a blood & sand:
1 ounce Scotch
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce freshly squeezed blood orange juice
3/4 ounce cherry-flavored liqueur, such as Cherry Heering
I prefer a peaty scotch like an Islay, but your mileage may vary.
I've a batch of grapefruit cordial in the fridge now. I upped the sugar a little bit, just to counteract some of the more bitter flavors. I used yellow grapefruit only, although if its any good I'll probably try out different blends, possibly with lemon or red grapefruit, in the future.
If it's bad, I'll hold you entirely responsible. If it's good, as per tradition, you will get no credit whatsoever.
I actually found that grapefruit was naturally sweeter than lime, and I had trouble straining it through my gold mesh coffee filter because I used the same amount of sugar as the lime recipe, and it was much thicker due to the amount of dissolved sugar content. Next time I make grapefruit, I'll probably reduce the sugar by 25%.
Well, damn. It's good. So far it's only seen duty as grapefruit soda (still before noon), but it's a damn good grapefruit soda, and I'm looking forward to other applications.
Incidentally, if you reduce the recipe to 2 cups juice / 2 cups sugar, the result fits perfectly into a 750 mL bottle. You can get nice reusable ones from Lorina sodas, and unlike beer bottling, you don't have to worry about pressure. I could easily see throwing together several bottles in different flavors before having a party, then displaying them prominently on the bar in different colors.
Anyways, mad props , yo. I'm definitely doing this again this summer.
I made some lime cordial over the weekend, per the NYT recipe, and mixed it with gin. I ended with a much lower volume than the recipe indicated, probably because my limes were merely ripe and not super-ripe. I adjusted sugar and ginger (used 4 oz., one pound sounds crazy) to compensate.
I was uncertain about the ginger, but am glad I used it. It's needed to offset what would otherwise be just a giant sugar bomb. End result: Extremely potent stuff. I thought I would be conservative and tried a 4:1 gin:cordial ratio. Frankly, that was not high enough. I also recommend crushed ice over cube.
Tasty drink, but a lot of work. If it keeps for 6-8 weeks in the refrigerator, it will have been worth it, but otherwise I'm not so sure. Peeling 18 limes is no walk in the park (especially when you peel your finger in the process by accident).
I will say, I imagine that using grapefruits removes a lot of the tedium. 2 medium sized grapefruits gives you 2 cups of juice, right there, and there's a lot less peeling as well.
My wife decided that the grapefruit cordial actually has an almost yuzu flavor as a result of the extra bitterness from the peels. I think using 1-2 lemons would make that more pronounced. This is of interest if you like yuzu flavor, but can't find it very easily. with seltzer, it gives a close approximation of yuzu soda, which is nice.
Total cocktail fail today. Wegmans was out of mint, so no mojito. Wegmans also didn't have any maraschino liqueur so no aviation cocktail. It'll be same old same old G&T tonight.
Got some mint and tried to make a mojito but it was awful. I had to dump it.
Called an audible and made a margarita on the rocks instead that was pretty great.
The mint is finally up and healthy in this neck of the woods, so the weekend saw the first mojito and southsiders (think mojoito but swap gin for rum and lemon for lime).
Getting enough mint flavor with just muddled leaves can be a challenge, so prepped a mint simple syrup to build as well. This was successful. Fridge is now rocking with mint syrup, lime cordial and lemon cordial. I find that making the lime/lemon cordial with 6 limes (or lemons) yields about a cup of juice, which, with sugar added, nicely fits in a squeeze bottle. Less time invested in the making, more opportunities to make the kitchen smell like fresh citrus.
Made two cocktails this weekend, the Singapore sling and the Sazerac.
The Singapore sling is a fruity, light, tropical drink. It's perfectly fine, and (thanks to the gin, bitters, and various liqueurs) is a bit more complex than most fruity drinks -- but for the effort/cost involved, it's not really worth it; there are other fruity drinks that are good, too, and you don't have to buy bottles of Cherry Heering and Benedictine and Cointreau to make them.
The Sazerac was disappointing, tasting like rye with licorice notes. I think I'd rather drink the rye straight, and save the absinthe and Peychaud's for a different drink.
If you taste the absinthe then you put too much in (I have to really work at rinsing the glass or I get a little puddle of green absinthe at the bottom which is too much). You should really only get a little waft of absinthe when you smell the drink. If you're just tasting the rye then you probably didn't put enough peychaud's, simple syrup and/or you skipped the lemon zest.
The Sazerac is the most finicky cocktail I make and I still don't make it as well as they do at my favorite cocktail bar. I recommend playing with the recipe a bit before you give up, though, as a properly made Sazerac is delicious. My wife loves my Sazerac and she would never drink rye straight. Part of what makes it so finicky is that it's very reliant on aroma. The best part for me is sticking my nose in the glass before I take a sip.
What recipe did you use?
Another drink that's been a big hit with my wife:
Bourbon Crusta
2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz Cointreu
1/2 oz Maraschino Liqueur
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
2 hefty dashes of Regan's Orange Bitters
Run a lemon slice along the edge of a martini glass and dip it in sugar to add a sugar rim. Mix the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain into glass. Cut an orange peel with as little white as possible and squeeze into the glass then use as a garnish.
...
It has a very interesting mix of flavors. The Maraschino liqueur brings out a zesty, almost spicy flavor that balances the sour and sweet of the rest of the drink.
I went to 3 different stores looking for Maraschino liqueur and none had it.
The interesting thing about maraschino liqueur is that you can use vanishingly small amounts of it and it has a massive impact. Like, a couple of drops in a shaker is enough to completely change the nature of a drink.
At least, that's my experience with the Luxardo maraschino.
Definitely. I've tried to tone it down (in an Aviation for example) but it always comes through rather strongly.
Made quick and easy lime cordial today (equal parts Key lime juice and sugar) and it's fairly good. I never had a gimlet before this thread and I'm thankful for it.
Oh, and I had to go to my local liquor store to order some Maraschino Liquor. I'm totally making Aviations this summer.
Damn all of you.
I went to a Kentucky Derby party on Derby Day, and had my first mint julep. I'd not drunk a bourbon in decades. My family's nearly always gone to scotch and rum. Bourbon's sweet, and to be honest, I'm not terribly keen on sweet tastes, but that mint julep went down well. I discovered mint growing in my backyard (well, let's put it this way: I hope it's mint. It looked like mint, smelled like mint, tasted like mint), so I got the bourbon for the julep. I ended up with Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare, since there was a deal on the Buffalo Trace and I could get 350ml bottle of the Eagle Rare.
The liquor store had a taste testing of vodka, which I've had only when I was a teenager in England and then in a Bloody Mary, the latter which seemed like a watered-down V8 variant. The vodka didn't taste bad in and of itself, but I think I'd like a drink that actually uses the taste of the vodka, not covers it up with something else.
I must make the lime cordial, though. One of the drinks of my youth was a lager and lime. Yes, I know that this was considered a kiddie drink, but at the time I was a wee small girl of 17. What did I know? Anyway, it was made with Harp Lager and Rose's Lime juice. It was a tasty summer drink. I'd like to try it with home-made lime cordial.
Anyway, I've got rum, scotch, whiskey, bitters, simple syrup. I also have real lime juice, real lemon juice, but not a lot more. Clearly I need to go shopping!
This summer is definitely going to be a cocktail summer. The problem is that spirits are oh so much more expensive than their beer/wine counterparts. Thanks a bunch, Qto3.
No, you've got it backwards. There's around 22 drinks in a fifth bottle of spirits, and that Eagle Rare runs about $30/fifth IIRC. That's a really good bourbon, a really good beer runs at least $8/six, so you're slightly ahead.
H.
Not the way I pour.
Lately I've been doing something that is better than it has any right to be. instead of using vermouth in a rye manhattan, I've been substituting whatever amaro I happen to have around. I've done this with Montenegro, Zwack, and Nonino and it's worked pretty great with all three of them. Not very traditional, and I guess the international cocktail brotherhood will revoke my cocktail wankery license for not thinking up some stupid name like "a Firenze" instead of just calling it a Manhattan-with-amaro.
But it's pretty good!
I'm pretty sure I want a Nonino manhattan right now. I'll have to make one as soon as I get home.
Currently I'm on vacation and I only brought a selection of whiskey, so cocktails are out but every day is Whiskey Friday.
"No, no, it's totally a cocktail. See, I mixed it with… ice."
After experimenting with Old Fashioneds and Whiskey Sours, I discovered that I have an entire fifth of Bombay Sapphire gin sitting unopened at my house. I've never been a huge gin drinker, but thought, "hey, why not?"
What are all of you folks doing for bitters?
Can't answer the bitters question, but I found a bottle of Tanqueray and made a Tom Collins with San Pelligrino and the juice of two lemons. Delicious.
Gin & tonics, martinis, negronis, Tom Collins', Singapore slings'...it's all good.
Bitters? I use Angostura Bitters for most of the cocktails that need them, but I also have Peychaud's for the occasional Sazerac and some nondescript orange bitters for who knows what...maybe a Rob Roy?
Oof, I'm trying to recover from a night of mint juleps!
Water, water, water. And bacon.
H.
Yeah, that's not the way I pour either :)
But seriously, a drink of liquor is typically considered 1.5 oz, which works out to about 17 drinks per fifth.
But cocktails--are folks familiar with St. Germaine? It's a great, citrusy liqueur made from elderflowers and goes with anything that you'd put lemon or lime in. Add a splash of it and rum to champagne for simple spritzer. Also try the Foreign Gentleman: pineapple juice, rum, St. Germaine, and soda or tonic water.
I have Angostura Bitters at home, but have come across some drinks that use orange or even celery bitters. I think I might get some orange bitters, but there are a lot of different brands out there, which suggests a lot of different flavors of orange bitters. Any suggestions about which might be a good place to start?
I always saw it as 1 oz equivalent to 1 beer, or so the various traffic schools would have it. That was my point on bang-for-buck.
H.
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