According to the What's Health Got to Do With It? podcast on WJCT news, Doctors and Distillers is one of the best medical books of 2022.
Listen to the podcast in which I'm a guest in the second segment.
Blog
-
The Cool New Ice Trend In London, 1873
I was searching for some information on Wenham Lake Ice and stumbled across this article in The Food Journal, published in London in 1873. Wenham is a lake in Massachusetts and its ice was famous and exported to London (I have some interesting info about that in Doctors and Distillers), but by the time this article was written, the Norwegians had renamed one of their lakes Wenham Lake in order to sell it by that name. Pretty sneaky!
Information about that is in the story below, but mostly I'm intrigued by how ice is described as this new material and the writer describes possible uses for it.
I highlighted the fun stuff in bold.
The use of ice has gradually increased among our population in the last twenty years, at an ever-accelerating rate, although it is as yet by no means as necessary an article in our domestic economy as among our American cousins. Boston is said to consume double the quantity of ice that contents London; yet, wherever we go, "Iced" heads the advertisement of drinks in our places of refreshment, and refrigerators and various contrivances for the application of ice are advertised extensively. In such an unprecedentedly hot season as the present, the British public slowly but surely wakes up to the necessity of utilising the wintry cold products to balance the summer heat. Ice not long ago was accounted a luxury; it is not yet, but we hope soon will be, esteemed in the household, as well as in places of public entertainment, a necessity; economy advises it, health and taste demand it, but so long as we depended on the uncertain home supply, expense forbade it. The hardest English winter, moreover, though it might fill private ice-houses and the ice-wells of our dealers, would not yield ice of a reliable purity, or of a durable degree of congelation. The importation of Wenham Lake Ice from America was the first step in the process of bringing within reach of every one ice of a strength, if we may use the term, which would bear transit and keeping, and a purity which would allow a lump to be dropped in to cool, as sugar to sweeten, any beverage. Various attempts have been made to manufacture ice on a large scale; the use of steam-power has enabled enormous quantities to be produced by one process ; but the London market — and, by the northern ports, the various English markets—are now altogether supplied with ice from Norway. The amount is influenced by the severity or mildness of our winter, and varies from 30,000 to 50,000 tons; the ice from the rivers and ponds in the environs of London is by no means neglected, for it is gathered and stored, and, as rough ice, is preferred for all exterior purposes. The various trades— fishmongers, brewers, confectioners, butchers, and poulterers— prefer the English ice, if procurable, not only as cheaper, but because it yields more readily to the liquefying powers of the salt mixed with it (usually 3 lbs. of salt to 10 lbs. of ice), and thus cools or freezes more rapidly than the hard, smooth blocks of foreign ice; it has, as a leading ice merchant remarked, " more gravy in it.*' Thus the patriotic mind need not fear that the Norwegian ice, like the carpentry and firewood, will supersede our home production. It must be borne in mind that ice which is mixed with our food or drink must be pure, and all ice that looks clear is not necessarily pure; for our analysts tell us that, as clear sparkling water may hold in solution poisonous matter, so crystalline ice may, when dissolved, actually prove putrescent, and by smell betray the foulness of the water whence it came; or else it may contain unsuspected unwholesome mineral salts. The mountain tarns and lakes of Norway, fed by the melted snows, and uncontaminated by drainage, yield a pure wholesome ice, and the Norwegian bonders have found a new source of industry and profit in the ice harvest. The Oppegaard Lake, now re-christened the ** Wenham Lake," and the property of the company of that name, is but one of many which rival, though do not surpass it, in the undoubted purity of its waters. The process of ice-ploughing and storing need not be described. The ports of Drobak, Drammen and Christiania, Lauwig and Kragero, Wiburg and Brockstadt, are the chief emporia, where the huge crystalline blocks, weighing from 2 to 4 cwt., are stored, waiting for the opening of the navigation and the demands of heated London. By sailing ship and steamer, sometimes in advance of the demand, sometimes in answer to a hurried telegram, the supplies of solid coolness and refreshment come. The king of the ice trade is Mr. Stevenson, whose trade thirty years ago was but 300 tons annually, and now reaches 600 tons per week; next come Messrs. Leftwich, and Carlo Gatti, who deserve the praise of having brought ice within reach of even the humblest. We have visited the ice stores of Messrs. Stevenson ; the wells consist of enclosed brick chambers of 50 cubic feet, with double doors, in thick double brick walls, excluding all light-; each chamber contains 1,000 tons. A steam lift hoists the cartloads of ice to the top, and it is then shot down just as coals are loaded into a collier. The cold, dark atmosphere, with the sfeam rising from the icy floor, might suggest a dream of one of Dante's circles. Near the principal wells in Cambridge Street, Hackney Road, are others of an older construction, built underground, and of less capacity. Above the roof of the wells is a loft with open sides, for storing and drying sawdust, of which 200/. to 300/. worth is used annually in the packing of the ice sent out. The huge blocks come over in the vessel's hold without any packing, and are handled like blocks of marble. But many a one who has vexed his soul with trying to break a lump of ice will be surprised to learn that to split them into manageable pieces it is only required to take a sharp-pointed "ice-dibber" like a large brad-awl, and with this to stab the surface, making several slight holes in a line, when the block splits without any further trouble; to divide a small piece of the hardest ice, you need only take a bodkin and sharply prick it, and it will break up without flying into your face or your neighbour's lap—wit herein surpassing strength.
The ice as imported can be sold at prices var}'ing from 30J. to 40X. per ton; but, of course, the waste and fluctuations in demand, and the difference in the rate of supply to large and small consumers do not allow it to reach the general public at that rate; but the supply is always equal to the demand; and the hardy Norseman, by the beneficent intervention of Messrs. Stevenson, Leftwich, Gatti, Kent, the Wenhan\ Lake Company, or Messrs. Duus and Brown, of Fenchurch Street, can furnish us all with this cheap luxury, whenever that happy time comes in which Londoners are as wise as the Americans in the use of ice. We have already enumerated the trades in which ice is used: the fishmongers and daitymen long monopolised it as a preservative; now the butchers and poulterers employ it extensively; the brewers use rough ice to cool their wort, or even throw the Norwegian blocks into the vats; bacon, too, is cured by its help. The public more directly appreciates the luxury of ices and iced drinks, and, in the household, the benefit of refrigerators ensuring cool water, solid instead of oleaginous butter, and joints kept long enough to be tender, without disappointing the mistress and destroying the equanimity of the master. We will not attempt to enlarge upon the different varieties of ice pudding, dessert ices, etc. Next to their richness and flavour, the great secret of their preparation lies in the care with which they are whipped or churned during congelation. Most machines for this purpose are constructed on the rotary principle. Kent's Paragon Freezer appears adapted to save labour, and the Imperial of the Wenham Company is also a good one for the purpose. Ash's Piston Freezer, as its name imports, is worked up and down, and an advantage is obtained of being able to ice wine, make, block ice, and freeze dessert ices in one operation: in all these either ice and salt is used, or else freezing powders. A very simple one can be made Sy mixing i lb. nitrate of ammonia, i lb. carbonate of soda, and pint of water; or a more intense freezing mixture, with 2 lbs. pounded ice and 3 lbs. crystallised chloride of calcium or salt of lime. It may not be amiss to remark that a quantity of ice after meals is injurious, by stopping the secretion of gastric juice, and interfering with the process of digestion. A gastronomic process may also be made against the somewhat senseless fashion of following up iced pudding with post-prandial dessert ices—^that is to say, if you relish your wine. The palate is demoralised. Far better to keep the ices for the drawing-room, for both the digestion of the dinner and the enjoyment of the wine will be improved by the postponement. We will not venture on praise or dispraise of the various ices of the numerous confectioners; we only wonder at the badness of some, and rejoice to see the custom of mixed, or *' Neapolitan," ices becoming general, the water ice, by the harmonious discord of quality and flavour, improving the cream. It is a cause of wonder why, in some confectioners' shops and in theatres, is, should be charged for ices neither so 'good nor so plentiful as Carlo Gatti, for instance, serves in that beautifully decorated caf6 near the Hungerford Pier.
The mention of Mr. Gatti reminds us that the enjoyment of ices is now by no means a luxury confined to the possessor of 6d., for he was the first introducer of penny ices. He himself assured us that in 1851 he sold no less than 3,000,000; and now, though they are not as popular, partly owing to the carelessness of the vendors, there are two hundred shops in London where penny ices are procurable; but besides these we have seen little gamins, such as thrust iht Echo, Sun, and ** box o' lights" in the faces of passengers, standing round a street ice-stall, each with his glass of bi-coloured ice, licking it up, spoons being despised, with great enjoyment, and paying id. only for it. An itinerant vendor, whose stall was in Seven Dials, informed us that on a fairly hot day his average earnings were 71.; his ices, of one colour, were composed of eggs, milk, arrowroot and sugar, and he could sell 5J. worth for 12j. The ice necessary for freezing he bought for 2j. id, per cwt.—English ice. Whit-Monday, with its blazing heat, was a great day for him, for he sold halfpenny ices at Hampstead Heath to the amount of 3/. 15 j. ! At all events they were innocuous, which is more than we can say of all cheap popular refreshments.
We hope it will not be deemed an impertinence to suggest to the reader that wine is very often spoiled by being iced instead of merely cooled. If the wine be bad, especially " sparkling," ice it well by all means, and drink it while effervescing, and you will not notice its quality so much, till afterwards. If good, let it be first cooled, not in ice, but water with some ice in it, so as to avoid excess of cold; for the colder the wine the less its flavour, and you can, if-you choose, sacrifice the flavour to the luxuty of a cool drink. Champagne frappi is a specialiii. The water is frozen, and the delighted but extravagant palate is rejoiced with the spirit and the liqueur. It is to bB remembered that it is needful to wrap a wet cloth round the bottle when removed from the cooler. As for iced cups and mixtures, their name is legion, as may be said of the many refrigerators of all sorts and sizes. Norway, not content with supplying ice, has recently sent over very cheap refrigerators, which certainly seem adapted for simple use, and are decidedly so for households of small incomes. The danger, so often incurred, of the various meats, fruits, etc., being contaminated by any ill-odour, or even by the closeness of the vessel, is admirably obviated by Kent's ventilating refrigerator. The same ingenious inventor has supplied our licensed victuallers with a bottle refrigerator, or ice wine bin, and has met the requirements of small families by a miniature contrivance which can stand on the sideboard, or even ensure a comforting coolness of drink for the sick patient. A very complete and elaborate affair is the '* Duplex '* of the Wenham Company, which can be used either for rough or block ice, and is furnished with a tank for iced water. We would not advise the possessors to use this water for their matutinal tub, however grateful the chill of the water may be. No one over twenty-five, or under, if wise, will subject himself to the injurious and depressing influence upon the system exercised by a really cold sponge bath. We can only briefly touch on the use of ice as a hygienic agent. Not only are iced drinks grateful to the fevered palate, but the sick craving for them may be safely gratified; and we must here mention a fact creditable to the charitable donor, that any sick person, at any hour of "day or night, is supplied with ice gratis at Mr. Gatti’s ice stores, on production of a medical certificate. Ice is the best remedy in coup de soleil, or any headache brought on by exposure to the sun, as its application produces constriction or contraction of the minute blood-vessels, which are relaxed by the heat. For hemorrhage and irritability of the stomach, ice is largely used as a remedial agent. We do not know whether its application is a remedy for sea sickness, but we are sure that the increased employment of it in our hospitals would be of great advantage, and we heartily commend the example of Mr. Gatti's benevolence in ice to our other ice importers.
-
Five Summer 2022 Drink Books Reviewed
I reviewed 5 books for Alcohol Professor. The reviews are here. I've also pasted the post below, which originally appeared on AlcoholProfessor.com.
The books are (links are to Amazon)
- The Bartender's Cure
- The Little Book of Whiskey Cocktails
- Cocktails, A Still Life
- Cocktails of Asia
- Black Mixcellence
Boozy Book Reviews: Late Summer 2022
New cocktail books are hitting the market at a faster rate than any normal person can review them, and yet we persist! Here is the latest round of new books to stimulate your brain about whetting your whistle.Cocktails of Asia: Regional Recipes and the Spirited Stories Behind Them by Holly Graham
This book comes from editor of DRiNK Magazine Asia Holly Graham, who is based in Hong Kong but travels extensively, as is evident from her Instagram account @hollygrahamdrinks. Much like that snapshot of her life, the book is a snapshot of the most important cocktails, bars, and bartenders in Asia. The book features recipes of course, and they tend to be the type of drinks found at hotel bars on the World’s 50 Best Bars list with unique regional ingredients and molecular mixology techniques used to prepare them. The first ingredient in the first cocktail in the book, A Moveable Feast by Agung Prabowo of Hong Kong bar Penicillin, is vodka distilled with clams and seawater.
While many of the cocktails may serve more as inspiration rather than direct instruction to the home bartender, the drinks provide a window into both the theory and techniques of modern mixology in Asia. Before each recipe, Graham introduces the bar and bartender from whence it came, putting into perspective the city’s bar scene and the bartender’s history and role within it. Several photos of each bar accompany each recipe, providing a helpful visual image of where we’d be enjoying that cocktail; not just what is in it.
In addition to the cocktails attached to specific bars, included are several classics of Asia (including the Bamboo and Pegu Club). Other short sections include the aromas in baijiu, the history of Batavia arrack, and information about Japanese bartending beyond what we know about the hard shake and ice diamond carving. Cocktails of Asia provides a great deal of information about the best bars in a large part of the world; after all, a snapshot is worth a thousand words.
Black Mixcellence by Tamika Hall with Colin Asare-Appiah
This recipe collection comes from Kingston Imperial, the publisher that issued T-Pain’s Can I Mix You a Drink? book in 2021, featuring the same dramatic style of drink photography of bright drinks set against dark backgrounds. It is a collection of 70 recipes, mostly originals, from Black bartenders. A majority of those recipes come from Asare-Appiah, a globally known long-time brand advocate at Bacardi. The recipes are all relatively easy to execute at home, with a few infused syrups and other homemade ingredients, but nothing that requires a centrifuge.
The book is introduced with some brief but interesting history of Black mixology and traditions, including the history of Caribbean rum, the tradition of “pouring one out” for lost friends and family, the tale of Nearest Green who taught Jack Daniel to distill, and the Black Mixologists Club dating to 1898. Other featured players in Black drink history introduced in the book include bartenders Cato Alexander of New York and Dick Francis of DC, moonshiner Bertie “Birdie” Brown, and three mixologists of old famous for their Mint Juleps.
The Bartender’s Cure: A Novel by Wesley Straton
As the narrator Samantha learns about craft cocktail bartending in this novel, so too will you, down to the tiny details. You’ll learn about cocktail history, shaking versus stirring, how bartenders live and behave and talk about their regulars, building rounds and the order of adding ingredients to the shaker, the “bartender’s handshake,” and so much more. The Bartender’s Cure will give the reader a crash course in mixology without ever having to get sticky in the process.
This backseat bartending is wrapped inside a plot of a young woman killing a year in New York before starting grad school but falling in love with the profession and a fellow bartender. The book is categorized as fiction but it’s the true-life story of so many mixologists who abandoned their well-made plans and followed their passions.
The Little Book of Whiskey Cocktails by Bryan Paiement
As advertised, this is a little book containing whiskey cocktails: 40 vintage and modern cocktails (drinks like the Paper Plane, Penicillin, and Kentucky Buck along with the Mint Julep and Irish Coffee), plus ten originals from the author that all sound good too. Each cocktail is introduced with a paragraph or two on its history (for the classics) or inspiration (for the originals). The front of the book is filled out with a brief introduction to whiskey history and global whiskey styles. It is all pretty simple, and all packaged in a cute little book with a silver shaker on the cover, and it should fulfill its role perfectly as a second item in the gift bag when buying someone a bottle of whiskey as a present.
Cocktails, A Still Life by Todd M. Casey, Christine Sismondo, and James Waller
In the last couple of years there have been a slew of cocktail books paired with a concept: witchcraft, fashion design, puns, Star Wars, movies, books, and more. The problem with many of them is that the author may succeed in coming up with great drink names to pair with the concept in their area of expertise but fail at coming up with good-tasting drinks; or the drink descriptions are filled with since-disproven cocktail myths rather than accurate facts. In Cocktails, A Still Life, the text of the book was mostly written by noted cocktail and spirits author/journalist Christine Sismondo, so the text is of equal quality to the concept.
As for the drinks, the sixty cocktails are all classics or modern classics, organized into occasions for drinking like aperitivo hour and after dinner. It’s a solid selection with few surprises. But this is a cocktail book of art; the oil paintings that accompany each drink are the focus. They seem very well done (to this cocktail writer) and as noted by coauthor James Waller, artist Todd M. Casey is, “especially adept at painting the transparent glass and shiny surfaces that appear in any realistically rendered picture of cocktails, wine, or beer.” It is a celebration of art in the glass and on the canvas.
-
Stars and Other Colored Shapes in Clear Ice Cubes
I did a new ice thing.
I found online these Roks Silicone Ice Cube Tray Inserts, which press shapes, numbers, letters, etc into ice cubes. However, the trays they sell with them make cloudy ice. [note: looks like they're no longer on Amazon but here's their homepage.]
So I put them on top of my IceOlogy trays facing down so that it would press the pattern into the top of the clear cubes using directional freezing.
This would probably also work with trays like the Ghost Ice System and Clearly Frozen tray.
This left a nice deep impression.
Then to fill the impression, I put some cranberry juice in the freezer for about 20 minutes until it was nearly freezing. I tried this once before with fridge-temperature juice and it melted the shape, so it's important for it to be super cold.
After it had frozen, I found it had barely overfilled the top of the cube so I melted it off by pressing it against a thaw plate.
It came out very nice, don't you think?
The index of all the work on ice on Alcademics is here.
-
Improving the W&P Ice Cube Trays
I recently bought some ice cube trays from W&P Design. They have some funky new ones in blingy cubes and a star shape:
But of course if you just fill them with water and freeze them normally they'll come out all cloudy and ugly: 
So I had planned to freeze them atop a Thermos Funtainer like I do spheres, as I show in this post.
So I did that, but on top of my IceOlogy tray:
But I was thwarted, by a design feature – They have tiny holes near the top of the trays. This would be a feature when freezing regularly so that when the water expands into ice it doesn't push the mold apart.
But when you place these upside-down atop a thermos, the water runs out the holes.
The resulting cubes were less than half full. So I taped over it in the square mold.
In the star mold, I was able to push the tray down to the level of the hold in my thermos. I used a Yeti thermos for the square mold this time.
They're not perfect but the round one is MUCH better – see a video of it here. The square one is hard to get out of its tray in any case.
For the index of ice work here on Alcademics, follow this link.
-
The New York Times Recommends Doctors and Distillers
Along with the review, the New York Times put Doctors and Distillers on their list of book recommendations for the week. Awesome!
-
Washington Examiner Review of Doctors and Distillers
For the Washington Examiner, Jacob Grier reviews Doctors and Distillers:
The recipes are a welcome addition, since, as befits the subject matter, Doctors and Distillers is not a dry text. The history is lively, told without getting too bogged down in details of medieval medicine, fermentation, and distillation. Mix the drinks as one goes and you may end up not only with a new favorite cocktail but also a fun story of its medicinal roots to accompany it.
-
A Review of Doctors and Distillers in Falstaff International Magazine
The UK title of Doctors and Distillers is A Perfect Tonic. It's the same book otherwise.
A Perfect Tonic was reviewed in Susan Low's The Kitchen Bookshelf column in Falstaff International.
She writes:
Drinks writer Camper English’s deep interest in science fuels The Perfect Tonic. The book explores the history of fermented and distilled beverages, from the Indian Vedic period (2500-200 BCE) to the modern day, via the Ancient Greeks, and venturing into China, Persia and beyond.
…
It’s an intoxicating book, combining equal parts medicinal lore and history, and fizzing with factual oddities. An entertaining read that deserves to be savoured slowly over a Negroni or two.
I'm very pleased with that review!
agave alcademics Angostura bartenders bitters bodega bourbon bowmore Campari Camper English chartreuse clear clear ice cocktail cocktail powder cocktails cognac curacao curing olives dehydrated dehydrated liqueurs dehydration directional freezing distillery distillery tour distillery visit fernet france freezing objects in ice hakushu harvest history how to make clear ice ice ice balls ice carving ice cubes ice experiments jerez karlsson's liqueur makepage making clear ice mexico midori orange orange liqueur pisco potato powder production recipe Recipes rum san francisco scotch scotch whisky sherry spain spirits sugar sugarcane sweden tales of the cocktail tequila tiki tour triple sec visit vodka whisky