In my latest post for FineCooking.com, I cover the history of the cocktail- the original one. I'm sure you've heard of it: spirit, sugar, water, bitters.
Blog
-
Tequila Distillery Visit: Don Julio
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Don Julio distillery in the town of Atotonilco.
(Cutting up the pinas before baking.)
(Now when I see pinas, I get thirsty.)
(Fermenting agave.)
(Stainless steel pot stills.)
(We had a cocktail contest after the distillery visit. My team of writers won, of course.)- Don Julio uses all estate-grown agaves
- Has a widerspacing between agaves than average
- They have 18 furnaces, each of which holds 25 tons
- Fermentation takes 24-30 hours
- Their agave is larger than industry standards, with a higher sugar content
- Inside the stainless steel stills is a copper coil
-
Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Williams & Humbert
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Williams & Humbert.
(The bodega is absolutely enormous.)
(There's a horse show inside the bodega for visitors.)
(For barrel tasting, the venenciador (in this case, the chief oenologist) inserts the venencia into the barrel to pull out a cup of liquid, then pours above a glass to aerate.)
(From a high perch in the bodega, you can see nearly the whole thing. Center in the picture is a tour group.)- They make Dry Sack – actually a medium sweetness sherry
- Huge tourist visitor center- enter through the bodega and go to the horse show
- Brandy de Jerez is very popular in the Philippines
- Bowmore 1964 was aged in their casks
- Macallan new casks prepared here
- New wood with aged sherry added to them
- The sherry is not sold afterward- too woody
- Fino was first developed in an industrial way in the 1920’s and 30’s
- Dry sack is the top selling medium sweet sherry in the world.
- Tio Pepe is top selling fino. (Not made here.)
- Harvey’s Bristol Cream is the top cream. (Not made here.)
- Dry sack is blended with PX right at the beginning before it enters the solera system
- 15 year oloroso is very yummy.
- I also liked Gran Dulque de Alba XO
- They make the Dos Maderas rums
- Liked the VORS amontillado, VOS Palo Cortado
-
Spicy Mary
A bunch of years ago I tried to sell a book on infusions, because there weren't any at the time. In some ways I'm glad it didn't sell, because my cocktail knowledge and abilities are so much better now that I would have been embarrassed by many of the cocktail recipes you were supposed to use after the infusions were done. But I did do enough recipe development that I learned the timing for a lot of infusions. In my latest post for FineCooking.com, I list the quantities of spicy things like pepperonchini, peppercorn, chili peppers, and horseradish to make a 1-day infusion.
Then you can add those to tomorrow's Bloody Mary.
When I was working on the book, I had all the different infusions sitting around and decided to dump them all into the drink at the same time. It was pretty amazing how you could clearly taste each infusion separately, rather than them being all muddled together into one new flavor.
-
The Martini Does Not Exist
The word 'Martini' has very little meaning.
Two versions of the cocktail may have completely different ingredients and be served in different formats: A bone-dry-and-dirty Grey Goose Martini on the rocks with extra olives has nothing in common with a Fifty-Fifty gin Martini with orange bitters and a twist. They're not even close to the same drink – in ingredients, in format, or in purpose.
More than that, the Martini no longer exists even as a drink concept. It means different things to different people: strength, dryness, elegance, simplicity, an aperitif, glassware, crispness, an era in time, an intellectual challenge, etc.. Some of its concepts are mutually exclusive.
This conundrum surfaced when in New Zealand last year for the 42Below Vodka Cocktail World Cup, in which they had a Modern Martini challenge. The problem was that nobody agreed on what the Martini was, so everyone updated it in a different way. Most of those ways differed from the judges' concept of the drink.
The Martini is as amorphous a concept as morality.
In this Sunday's Los Angeles Times Magazine, I wrote a story about how the Martini Does Not Exist, except in the mind of the individual.
I'm pretty happy with how it came out. After going through the issues involved with the concept of the drink (and revealing how that cocktail contest turned out), the story lists the Martini recipe as a moving target throughout the years.
Please give it a read.
-
Tequila Distillery Visit: Sauza
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Sauza distillery in the town of Tequila.
(First we visited the agave nursery. Sauza is unique in that they propagate their agave not by using baby plants but by… fancier scientific means.)
(This is what an agave looks like if allowed to propagate.)
(You can see close-up that instead of producing seeds, the mother plant produces little baby plants.)
(We had a lecture about plant propagation.)
(I just like this picture from the distillery.)
(This is the diffuser. Super clean at Sauza.)- The blue color of agave comes from a wax on the plant. This wax covers the pores of the plant to protect it from drying out in the dry season.
- Unlike most tequila distilleries, at Sauza they shred agave and use the diffuser before they cook the agave juice in autoclaves.
- Then they only cook the juice for 3-4 hours.
- They ferment in covered fermentation tanks
- The first distillation is in a column still, second in a stainless steel pot still
- The Tres Generaciones line has a third distillation in a copper pot still
-
Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Sanchez Romate
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Sanchez Romate.
(Our guide used a barrel as a chalkboard.)
(Our host.)
(The bodega is relatively small and sort of goth.)
(We signed a barrel.)- Not a touristy bodega- don’t do tours
- Fino has more oxidation than manzanilla because the flor dies in winter and summer in Jerez.
- Delicious amontillado 5 years under flor
- Muscatel was like blueberry pie filling with curry
- Brandy Cardenal Mendoza top selling brandy de Jerez in US
-
Cheers to Rudolph, Not the Reindeer
(Image courtesy of Cherry Heering.)
In my latest blog post at FineCooking.com, I introduce the Blood and Sand. The cocktail was almost certainly created in honor of the 1922 silent movie of the same name, staring Rudolph Valentino.
I've also written a long story about all the different ways bartenders are changing this drink, but that's going in an upcoming issue of Mixology Magazine so unless you read German you're out of luck on that one.
I will say, though, that should you decide to watch the movie on which the drink is based, the 1941 version with Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power is much more entertaining than the original. Unless you want to watch Rudolph on a silent night.
The blog post is here.
-
Tequila Distillery Visit: Herradura
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to theHerradura distillery in the town of Amatitan.
(Here they split the agave in two before baking.)
(The magic of Herradura is that it ferments naturally- no yeast is added.)
(Sleeping tequila.)- Agave grows for 7-10 years before harvesting
- Jimadors work for 6 hours a day and harvest about 120 plants
- They use clay/brick ovens, each one holding about 48 tons
- Agave cooks for 26 hours then cools for 24
- They use a rollermill to shred the agave after cooking, then a diffuser to get out the last bits of sugar
- The fermentation takes about 4 days
- The first distillation takes 3 hours, the second 6
- They use stainless steel stills
- They don't move the barrels around, refill them where they are. Use same barrels for about 10 years before replacing
- Between Herradura, El Jimador, and Antiguo, all of which are 100% agave products, they say the only difference is the amount of aging and the percent of alcohol. [That's not quite true, here is a chart that spells out the differences.]
- They age in all new American oak barrels.
- The reposado is aged for 11 months
-
Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Osborne
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Osborne.
(The logo for Osborne is the silhouette of a bull. You see it all around.)
(This is barrel with a clear end so you can see how flor (a layer of yeast) lives on top of the sherry. The yeast consumes nutrients in the alcohol, and also protects it from oxidation in fino and manzanilla sherries.)
(Aging sherry.)
(After the Osborne bodega visit, some local food to soak up the sherry.)- Huge company with biggest selling products port, water, ham, etc.
- Their fino has a five level solera, fairly unique
- Have a “Fino-Amontillado” with a lot of time under flor. It’s their signature product.
- Want more humidity in bodegas where fino is aged
agave alcademics alcohol Angostura bartenders bitters bodega bourbon bowmore Campari Camper English chartreuse clear clear ice cocktail cocktail powder cocktails cognac colored ice curacao dehydrated dehydrated liqueurs dehydration directional freezing distillery distillery tour distillery visit france freezing objects in ice gin hakushu harvest history how to make clear ice ice ice balls ice carving ice cubes ice experiments jerez 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 tour triple sec visit vodka whiskey whisky