Author: Camper English
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On FineCooking.com: Homemade Grenadine and the Jack Rose Cocktail
Please check out my latest blog entry on FineCooking.com. It's about making your own grenadine and the Jack Rose cocktail. Read it here, and feel free to comment (over there) on your own grenadine or Jack Rose recipe improvements.
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Cognac Cocktails in the Los Angeles Times Magazine
My first story for the LA Times Magazine is now online. It is in the Sunday, December 7, 2010 print edition. (Photo by Bartholomew Cooke) The story is a brief airing of a pet peeve: Why are there so few cognac cocktails being served when we're supposedly in the midst of a classic cocktail renaissance? The…
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Does Refreezing Clear Air-Free Ice Result In a Large Clear Block?
This is an experiment in my ongoing project to make clear ice. I've figured out a way to do it using an Igloo cooler. This experiment is an attempt to make clear ice without one. A long time ago, I tested the theory that freezing, thawing, and refreezing water makes clear ice blocks. After 13…
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Cutting Blocks of Ice with an Icepick
update 2021 Better ice cutting pictures are on this post. To cut the large blocks of clear ice that I make at home using and Igloo cooler (methodology here), I have always busted out the saw I bought for that reason. However, last week I gave a talk on ice at Portland Cocktail Week with Evan…
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More Fun with Ice: The Time Bomb
The fun with ice continues! In ongoing experiments freezing things in ice, I decided to try freezing food coloring in the middle of an ice cube. Then when the ice melts, the coloring will release and change the drink. Click on the link below to see how I did it and what happened.
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Using Salt Walter as an Insulator to Make Clear Ice
This blog post is a continuation of this experiment. In this experiment, I wanted to test out another way to insulate an ice cube tray to make clear ice. Inspired by a comment from another blog entry by a reader named Gael, I decided to try salt water as an insulator rather than just plain…
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Welcome Back, Harvey Wallbanger
With the new formula of Galliano and a renewed interest in the fern bar, the Harvey Wallbanger is about due for a comeback. In my latest post for Fine Cooking, I investigate the cocktail. Have a look, and remember that comments make me happy and keep me employed.
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Making Clear Ice Without a Cooler
In a set of experiments, I showed that you can make clear ice by controling the direction of freezing. The container I've been using for this is an Igloo cooler. When using it, the ice freezes from the top-down and all the cloudiness in the ice forms at the bottom of the container rather than…
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Germany, Ensslin, Aviation, and Blue Cocktails
My latest post on FineCooking.com is up. It's typical of my thought process: I was going to write about my time in Germany and ended up talking about a German bartender who wrote an American cocktail book in which the Aviation cocktail was first mentioned and later forgotten. Read it here. (I took this picture-…
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The Tequila-Sherry Connection
Every time I look for sherry I find tequila there too. What is it with the tequila people and the sherry people being the same people? Steven Olson aka Wine Geek is both a tequila and mezcal ambassador and also a sherry ambassador. Jacques Bezuidenhout, Partida tequila brand ambassador and sometimes sherry ambassador, also created…