Member Profile
Robert Hess Age 53
about
- since August 2007
- website
- location Seattle, WA
- country USA
- job Cocktail Evangelist
- interests
Cocktails, Cooking, Computers, Science Fiction
favorites
- spirit Gin
Cocktails, Cooking, Computers, Science Fiction
Latest
Comments
The Bitter Truth Aromatic Bitters and Angostura Aromatic Bitters are similar, yet different. At a certain level it is sort of like asking "How comparable is River Run Chardonnay to Bent Whistle Chardonnay?" You can use the two interchangeably, but you may notice a slight difference in cocktails made from them. I find Angostura to be fairly complex and sharp, while the Bitter Truth is a little rounder, with perhaps just a little more sweetness? It wasn't that long ago (ok, we're talking around 1999 here) that our choice of bitters was extremely limited. There was Angostura, and... well... that was about it. Peychaud's could be found, if you looked hard enough, as too could the Fee's products. Then Regan's Orange Bitters came onto the market, and soon afterwards various other "craft" bitters started coming around. Today, I dare say there are probably two dozen? three dozen? more? different bitters available without needing to search too far. While this can be seen as a "good thing", it also adds a little confusion to the fold when you see somebody using one of the bitters that you might not have. Aromatic Bitters and Orange Bitters should be seen as the standard products that any self-respecting cocktail enthusiast should have on hand, and while they don't need to, perhaps they should even have a couple different brands. If you see somebody use a brand of aromatic or orange bitters that is different from the brand that you have, feel free to simply use whatever you have. If instead they are using one of the more "esoteric" bitters, then I might first try whatever you might have on hand, and if you think the drink seems interesting, you might want to try picking up the same product they used just to see what the difference might be. -Robert
Yeah, that garnish was sort of a fun little addition that came to mind after we already shot that final bit, so I made us re-shoot it so I could include it. Love those drinky-birds! :-> Fransos... yeah, I did forget to mention Maraschino. Oops! -Robert
Which of course is exactly why we are doing these videos! Glad you are enjoying them (and my book!) -Robert
The juicer I am using in this episode is the Zyliss All-Citrus Juicer (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00421ATPY). I'm finding that I'm not using it that much, it just doesn't have the nice solid feel of my other juicers and I don't think it still does quite as good of a job. I'm still using my Amco Vintage Citrus Squeezer (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NQB2MQ) which unfortunately isn't being made anymore and their website (http://www.amcohouseworks.com/) has been "under construction" for some time now.
I agree, the Zyliss has problems, but so far it hasn't broken on me yet! As for the Marteau... Gwydion is a very good friend of mine, so it wasn't so hard getting a bottle. He gave us several bottles as a wedding present. The reason it is hard to find, is that he has been in the process of moving his distilling operation from Oregon to Washington so he hasn't been producing anything for quite some time. With any luck, he'll be up an running again before long. As for using a quality/expensive absinthe in a cocktail... Marteau is head and shoulders above Lucid, but in a usage like this that difference would probably not be noticed. But when you are talking dashes, cost wise the difference is negligable. Lucid here costs $65 retail, so that's about 3 cents a dash, and Marteau I believe was going for $90 retail, so that's about 4 cents a dash. -Robert
Blair, I have a Chef'n juicer, and while I think they are better than the traditional "mexican" juicers, I still don't find myself regularly going back to it. But it is more portable than an Ebaloy or the Amco. As for the glass-sitting drinking birds... I actually had to search for a while to find some. They apparently aren't being made any more, and I ran into a small company that still had some... which I could remember where, but I honestly can't at the moment. -Robert
Jeffero, TheBalch basically covered this, but in general an apertif will be softer and less of an alcohol bite, while a digestif will be heavier in flavor, and sometimes higher in alcohol content. Conceptually an apertif shouldn't be so flavor-rich as to deaden the palate. So overly sweet, sour, or complex drinks should be avoided.
TheBalch, you face a somewhat common problem for the home-mixologist. The "best" way to do this is to unfortunately waste the fruit, since it is always best to use the freshest possible fruit. However, if you have a lemon you are using for twists, and only need one or two a night, then you can wrap the remaining fruit in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. After a couple of days, the twists won't be as good as "fresh", but at least you won't feel you're wasting anything.
I will definately second Blair's recommendation of "Imbibe!" as well as his followup book "Punch!". Dashes... these can sometime be as problematic as the nefarious "splash" as a measure which you'll sometimes encounter. When it is a cocktail bitters being discussed, it would have almost certainly been dispensed via a dasher top, but even there, the problem is that no two seem to measure the same, and you'll even notice a difference in measure often between a full bottle, and a nearly empty one. This is one of the places where a bartenders instict kicks in and aids them in getting an amount which is "appropriate". And by appropriate, I don't necessarily mean the same amount each time... it's sort of like a recipe which lists "salt and pepper to taste". Boker's bitters is unfortunately a defunct bitters... however there are a few folks attempting to craft it again.. here is one: http://bokersbitters.co.uk/bokers_ver2.html A "wine-glass" can be very confusing if you mistake it for truely a wine glass! It is fairly well accepted that it is intended to be about 2 ounces, It is believed this came from a smaller wine glass which they used to serve port and sherry in. Curacoa is definately intended to be curacao... which would have typically been clear or sometimes orange, anytime blue (or the I believe now defunct red), they would have definately specified that specifically. As for lumps of ice. Back in those days, ice "cubes" didn't exist. Ice was delivered in large blocks, which were the result of cutting them out of ice which were harvested from frozen lakes. It was a very big business, with ice from America being transported all around the world to countries which were too warm for their lakes to freeze over. So a lump of ice would have been ice that had been chipped off of the large block to a size that it would be appropriate for the intended use. Hope that helps! -Robert
And Blair... the bitters bottles I recommend for folks who really want a consistant dash, are the Japanese ones being sold on CocktailKingdom.com, they are a tad pricy, but they are beautiful and work wonderfully. -Robert
A pet peeve amongst many of us is recipes that call for "juice of half a lemon". Not only could there be some confusion between the size/variety of lemons/limes/etc used back in those days and now, but I regularly see citrus vary from shopping trip to shopping trip. "on average" I'd say a lemon produces 1.5 ounces and a lime produces 1. So when I find a recipe which calls for the juice of half a lemon, I'll start with that, and then adjust as necessary to make it taste proper to my palate. I figure if they wrote the recipe with such an inaccurate measure to begin with, then they probably weren't terribly consistant themselves, so they shouldn't mind if I "adjust" it. As for simple syrup. if the recipe calls for sugar and a teaspoon of water (as many old Old Fashioned recipes do), I'd use just simple syrup and skip the water. For finding a good bar in the Cincinnati area, I might recommend asking over at ChanticleerSociety.org, this is a discussion forum site I run and in addition to the general discussions, I'm also trying to gather listings of the "must check out" bars in all parts of the country. So far, nobody has added any Cincinnati bars, but I'm sure there must be something? And it looks like somebody else has asked there already, and nobody responded... Hmmm, maybe you should reask the question in the same thread? http://chanticleersociety.org/forums/p/783/4922.aspx#4922 -Robert -Robert
It's definately a great drink, but not one that I see being made very often. Glad to hear you have it on your menu! -Robert
Rhett, Another option would be to get a bottle with an eye-dropper top. You can often find them at some grocery stores that sell bulk items, as well as health stores that sell homeopathic materials, and various other places. -Robert
Slight correction here... and it is totally my fault. As listed in the Old Waldorf, the recipe for this drink should be two parts of vermouth and one part of whiskey. I just had a mental lapse when I was making the drink. Sorry for that!
I've been "off the grid" for a couple of weeks (more on that later) so let me catch up with some of the questions here in the Hakam thread.. Jelly - for the recipe converter I wrote I use a calculation of 96 dashes per ounce to upsize/downsize recipes. Granted, dashers will differ, but this should be a decent ballpark for now. So 7 dashes would be .437 tsp and 14 dashes would be .875 tsp, which shoudl help. Adjust as necessary, you might find .432 tsp would work better in this case. :-> rehills - Yes, I too love Carpano Antica, it used to be very hard to find, but I'm seeing it more and more these days, so maybe it is time to start using it in some of these cocktails! bullhorn - why yes. That is a new ring on my finger, thanks for noticing. Audrey Saunders and I got married this last July, and in fact we just now got back from our honeymoon, which is why I was offline for so long. :->
Rhett, $26 in the US and $90 in Canada? Wow! Is the difference due to taxes and such? I thought our liquor taxes were a tad high here in Washington, but looks like you guys have us beat! -Robert
Steven, this set of jiggers is made by "Progressive International", you can find more information about the jigger, and a link to it on Amazon.com here: http://drinkboy.com/Tools/Tool.aspx?id=29
Steven, To the best of my knowledge the definition of a "cooler" isn't just adding soda to any drink. Typically it would be a drink made from spirit, citrus, sometimes a sweetener, a carbonated beverage of some sort (usually soda water, but ginger ale, tonic water, and sometimes lemon lime soda), served in a collins glass with ice. Another aspect that is common with the cooler is a rather fanciful garnish of a long spiral of citrus peel. -Robert
I think the lack of citrus and/or sweetener in the Suburban would make it a "not worth writing home about" cooler. A good way to think about this, is that a sure way to totally destroy an Old Fashioned, and turn it into something horrid, is to top it off with soda water. Essentially, topping off a Suburban isn't too far from that, because both are "booze forward" drinks. Drinks like a Manhattan or a Martini would fall into the same category. But you also have to consider something like a gin and tonic, or an Americano, which do work well with soda/tonic, so its hard to find clear rules here.
Glad you enjoyed it! Gin is a spirit that has sort of gotten a bad rap over the years. Most folks think of it as only being used in the Martini, but in fact there are hundreds of other cocktails in which it struts it stuff even better. I've done a LOT of gin cocktails on my show. For some drinks which illustrate some of the different faces of gin, I might recommend one of the following: Aviation, Clipper Ship, Cloister, Jasmine, Last Word, Pegu, and Petruchio as a start.
Caught in the act. It's not specifically intentional when I over-ice in the mixing glass, and frankly it's something I should probably pay more attention to. The key is to make sure you get "enough" ice that the ice isn't "struggling" to impart its chill into the drink. In this particular case, I don't think I used quite enough ice. -Robert
There is definately something to be said for having drinks which don't "take you out". Which is one of the reasons I am a BIG fan of the smaller portions, like they used to serve. When you see cocktail glasses from the pre-prohibition days which were 3 to 5 ounces in size, compared to glasses which rarely go below 7 ounces today, you can' help but realize that things were a little different back then. -Robert
Old Tom... now that's opening what could be considered a big can of worms. "Exactly" what "Old Tom" is almost as debatable as "The right way to make a Martini". Most of us, when we first encountered "Old Tom" references, it was in old recipe books, and weren't quite sure what it was. A little light digging, would bring up various comments that it was basically gin with a little sugar in it which was used to mask the poor distilling that was being used in the 1800's. However, digging a little further, and it appears as though this isn't the full story. It is important to remember that while today we might be focused on strict and specific definitions (for example, "Bourbon Whiskey" needs to be made with 51% or more corn), such was not always the case. In some of the old bartender manuals, they would even describe how bartenders could "make" scotch, rum, whiskey, etc by mixing grain alcohol and various flavoring components. So it appears that the label "Old Tom" was not a specific definition of a product, just a broad generalization. I suppose you could think of it as a more "rustic" gin then the "London Dry" style which followed. Old Tom would have been made in a pot still most likely, which would have resulted in a base distilate which would have still had some character to it, perhaps more like what a blended Irish Whisky is like today (ok, maybe mix it 50/50 with vodka, and that might give you a better idea). This was then macerated with the various botonicals and such they would use, which would include juniper of course. "Some" manufactureres might add sugar, because there weren't any regulations preventing it, to hide imperfections if they felt they needed to, but other's wouldn't. It is also believed that in the 1800's, if a recipe called simply for "gin", they were probably meaning Dutch Gin, or "genever", which is also a different beast. So by saying "old tom" gin, the recipes may have been essentially saying "don't use genever". Of course, all of this is still debateable, with various old stashes of Old Tom showing up periodically and folks comparing one to another, in order to really understand what the people back in those days were thinking about, and drinking. So, I wouldn't get too caught up in "Old Tom" gin, although it is a very interesting topic. -Robert
It can get very tricky with some of these smaller measures, and often difficult to get really good control over. Even with a dasher bottle, it can vary quite a bit, not just from bottle to bottle, but even from full bottle to almost empty bottle. If I need to measure a "dash" from a bottle without a dasher top, I'll hold my thumb over the opening, and then allow just the barest amount out. If I need to measure ~1/8 ounce, I will often pour straight from the bottle and only pour the smallest amount I possibly can, which is usually pretty close. Holding a barspoon under the pour can be a little insurance, just in case.
Thanks David! Great to have a little extra insight from the expert here. As I recall, you also had a hand at helping craft Ransom's Old Tom Gin recipe?
Ginty, the ingredients for the Caprice and the Ford are the same, which will of course provide some simularities, but the key difference is a few dashes of Benedictine in the Ford, versus a full half ounc here in the Caprice, which is going to make the Caprice a lot sweeter and give it a heavy dose of character. -Robert
I always find it interesting that "Boadas" in Barcelona is always the place people refer to as where they first saw a bartender "Throwing" a drink... first place I saw it too. I wonder if they were truly the only folks doing for a long time and it is just now getting noticed? Blair... Brusing Gin... I firmly believe that this originated simply as a "cute turn of phrase", without any real expectation that it referred to something actually happening to the gin... can't you just see it, some guy sitting at a bar, and watching his bartender shake his Martini hard... "Don't shake it so hard! You're bruising the gin!" And the guy probably thought he was pretty funny. It wouldn't be until later, once the novelty of the term wore off and folks who took their tasks far too seriously, would feel there was a meaning behind it and try to determine what it was. So they will look at whatever they feel the inappropriate effect that shaking does to a drink, and use that as the definition of what "bruising" means. -Robert
In looking through the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, it is a little suprising at how similar some of the recipes are. The same can be said of many of the drinks from the era. Gin, Vermouth, Bitters are repeated over and over again. Often with very, very, little difference from one to the other. For me, the thing that makes the Bridal different from a Martinez, is that the Martinez should have sweet vermouth as the primary ingredient, and the Bridal switches it to gin. I suppose you could call the Bridal an upsidedown Martinez? -Robert
These days, I think we sometimes focus too hard on what the exact and specific recipe is for a particular cocktail (but I can argue the opposite point as well! :->). When cocktails first came about, people would ask for simply a "gin cocktail", there was no other name, and the bartender would apply the "pattern" of a cocktail (spirit, sugar, water, bitters) and produce something for the customer. Sort of like somebody asking for a grilled cheese sandwhich. What type of cheese, how much, what type of bread, how is it sliced, is it grilled with butter or oil. Is it pressed to flatten or left unmolested. etc. So lots of bars in the day had "their" way to make particular drink. The named recipes, when they first came about, would still be generalized templates, providing details on the core ingredients and their general ratios, but bartenders, used to adding litle touches and such, would add a dash of curaco here, or a few drops of absinthe there, and not think anything of it. There also weren't mass-market published tomes of "authentic" recipes which were being widely distributed. The bar down the street comes up with a cocktail and calls it the "Martine" (or was that Martinez? Martini? Something like that) and a customer comes in and asks for it, and the bartender does his best to come close. So you see how it goes. "Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can't believe it..." Back to the point... Take another look at the Waldof-Astoria, and look up its recipe for the Martini. You'll note it is obviously different from the recipe they publish for the Astoria. So at the Waldof-Astoria, they are two noticeably different drinks. Even though perhaps the core concept, if not the pattern, is fairly similar between them. For those of you who don't have the Waldof-Astoria, here are the recipes: Astoria Two Dashes Orange Bitters One-Third Tom Gin Two-Thirds French Vermouth (Stir) "After the big annex to the old Waldorf, which at its opening in 1897, became the main part of the establishment." Martini Dash of Orange Bitters One-half Tom Gin One-half Italian Vermouth (Stir) Serve with a green Olive Twist piece of Lemon Peel on top -Robert
Johnathan, This is a "Yari" mixing glass that I got from CocktailKingdom.com. Here is a link to it: http://www.cocktailkingdom.com/product-p/mxg_yaraimixix_0000_jap.htm