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.
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 water as in the last experiment. If it worked, this would be a way to make clear ice at home without taking up too much freezer space.
I took a small food container and put it into a slightly larger one. The smaller container held only water. The outer container held water with table salt. The theory is that the salt water would not freeze, so it would act as an insulator for the ice, and control the direction of freezing so that it would only freeze from the top-down (as with the cooler method).
I didn't use a ton of salt. As you can see, the outer container's water did freeze lightly,though it was soft. The bottom did not completely freeze, as you can sort of see here.
The inner container did seem to freeze toward the bottom.
In better-insulated containers, the cloudy part is only on the bottom of the container. Here, it is concentrated but raised slightly above the bottom of the container.
In this case the inner container sat directly on the bottom of the outer container, so it wasn't greatly insulated on the bottom. My theory is that this is why the cloudy part of the ice is raised above the bottom.
To improve this experiment, I would put raise the inner container off the bottom of the outer container, and probably use a greater amount of salt in the salt water.
As the outer container here is only slightly larger than the inner container, this system is more space-efficient than the Igloo cooler for many people without large freezers.
There's more work to do on this…
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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.
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 in the middle of the block.
I wanted to show that you can do this without a cooler as long as you have some sort of insultation that accomplishes the same thing as the cooler. In this case, I chose a bigger pool of water as an insulator.
As a control I froze a plastic take-out container of water in the freezer.
As usual, it is cloudy over a large area, mostly in the center. This is because the water freezes from the outside-in. The last part of the ice to freeze contains air and any impurities, and is cloudy.
So then I took the same container and put it into a larger container. The smaller container sits on cubes to keep it off the bottom of the larger container.
Both containers were filled with water to about the same level. The purpose of this is to use the outer container of water as an insulator. The water inside the smaller container would then freeze only from the top-down instead of outside-in, because the water surrounding it would freeze later (because it is so big).
The results show that this worked- the cloudy part of the ice was the last part to freeze at the bottom of the container.
What this means:
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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.
(I took this picture- not bad for me!)
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 of the La Perla cocktail with both tequila and sherry.
George Sandeman of the Sandeman sherry and port family is a huge tequila fan.
On a recent trip to Spain with Steve Olsen were Phil Ward and Katie Stipe of Mayahuel, the tequila-and-mezcal bar in New York.
Gitane restaurant in San Francisco has a drink with tequila, PX, lime, and ginger beer.
And just the other day I got a recipe pitch from Espolon tequila with this recipe from H. Ehrmann of Elixir:
Ashes to Ashes
1.5 oz. Espolón Tequila Reposado
.5 oz. Pedro Ximenez Sherry
1 oz. Lemon Juice
1 tsp. Sweetened Cocoa Mix
.25 oz. Agave Nectar
1 pinch Ground CinnamonPlace all ingredients in a mixing glass, fill with ice, cover and shake well for 10 seconds. Strain up into a cocktail glass. Garnish with cinnamon dust.
I also love both sherry and tequila, but I don't know what they have to do with each other.
What gives?
I'm in Berlin, Germany blogging for the bar show Bar Convent Berlin. I had a few extra hours today, so I decided to see some of the city. I visited a remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, passed by some sausage stands, had a beer, and saw the sign for the famous cocktail snakes.
The cocktail snakes have a rich history dating back to Second Reich, but were largely unknown outside of the Eastern part of Berlin until after Reunification in 1957.
Today they are some of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Germany, with signs on many street corners directing enthusiasts to the nearest snake bar, known as Snackbarleichten. (American tourists are often confused by the name, expecting to find a snack bar but receiving a poisonous bite instead. Because of the resulting lawsuits, German parliament passed a resolution in 2003 requiring all snake bars to stock plenty of antidote and have nurses on staff.)
In the traditional Snackbarleichten, the snakes are kept in a glass aquarium with an open top at the same level as the bar counter. The bartender ("snackfrau") pours cocktails in oversized glasses; typically a blend of the local schnapps with sugar and a drop of fresh mouse blood. She puts the drink on the bar and then the wait begins.
Eventually one of the snakes will coil itself around the cocktail glass and reach its forked tongue in for a sip of the drink. The snake will take only a few slurps, becoming instantly intoxicated and passing out coiled around the stem of the glass. (Cold-blooded animals have no livers, so alcohol goes directly to the brain.) Only after the snake has fallen asleep do you get your turn to drink- with a straw so you don't wake the snake.
Recently some modern snake bars have opened to cater to the younger generation. These venues (called "ultrasnackbarleichten") house only specially-bred albino snakes that glow in the nightclub-style black light. There, the mouse blood is replaced with Red Bull and the snakes do not sleep, but jitter in a rhythmic motion to the industrial dance music piped in over loudspeakers.
Anyway, that's what I was imagining on my walk following the cocktail snake sign to see what could possibly be at the end of it. Turns out, it's a pharmacy.
I didn't ask if they carried anti-venom kits.
My weekly recipe is up on FineCooking.com, a quick introduction to the Negroni cocktail. Perhaps you have heard of such a thing?
Check it out, and if you have a preferred way of making the Negroni different that the typical equal parts, stirried, up method, feel free to comment over there on FineCooking. Comments make me look good, like a deliciously sticky Negroni.
As you know I've been making clear ice at home. I've got a lot more experimenting to do, but for now I thought I'd try freezing a bottle inside a block.
I started with a mini bottle of Chambord, since it's the flashiest one I own. I tied a piece of fishing line around the neck of the bottle and suspended it in my ice-making cooler. I tied the top around a ruler to hold it above the cooler.
Happily it stayed in place while freezing. I popped out the block.
This block was cloudier than usual. I'm not sure if that's because of the object in the ice or not.
It looks a little better close up, so I cut the ice closer to the bottle.
It's not perfect, but it would make a great chunk of ice for a punch bowl.
Sherry is a wine, albeit a fortified one, that does spoil after a certain time being open. It also typically doesn't improve once it is put into the bottle so here's how long to keep it around.
According to the Consejo Regulador of Sherry, the wine should be stored for the following times:
Fino or Manzanilla: in a sealed bottle it will last for 12 to 18 months. If the bottle is opened and stored in the refrigerator, it will last one week.
Amontillado and Medium Sweet Sherries in a sealed bottle will last for 18 to 36 months. If the bottle is open they will last 2 -3 weeks.
Oloroso and Cream Sherries in a sealed bottle will last for 24 to 36 months. If the bottle is open they will last 4 -6 weeks.
Pedro Ximenez in a sealed bottle will last for 24 to 48 months. If the bottle is open it will last 1 -2 months.
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