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Fun with Sugarcane

Sugarcane grows in California, so it's not uncommon to see short stalks of it for sale at farmer's markets and in Latin grocery stores. I was at one of these farmer's markets recently looking for un-cured olives that I didn't find, so I picked up a three-foot long sugar cane segment for two bucks.

Sugarcane is a type of grass that was transported to the New World by Columbus on his second journey. Once the stalks are cut, the sweet juice contained within the blade begins to oxidize- sort of like how an apple turns brown as soon as you cut it- which is why we don't see sugar cane juice for sale in bottles. So when sugar cane is harvested it is transported to the factory for processing immediately. I have no idea how old the stalk I bought was.

Sugar cane juice is directly fermented and distilled to make rhum agricole (from French islands like Martinique) and cachaca (from Brazil), or it is processed to make sugar. The byproduct of sugar production is molasses, which can be fermented and distilled to make all other rum.

Seeing as how I don't have a still at home (yet), I just wanted to play with the sugar cane juice. I found the stalk to be far heavier than I expected, but as it's mostly liquid I shouldn't have been surprised. Sugarcane is very fibrous, which makes it hard to cut and squeeze out the juice. Sugar cane refineries use huge roller mills that squish the sugar cane stalks and shred the fibers.

I cut a section of stalk and sucked on one of the pieces. I expected it to taste like sweetened water, but that wasn't at all the case- sugar cane juice has a bright, delicious raw vanilla flavor. (I've identified this as "Mexican vanilla" and "Lik-M-Aid/Fun Dip stick vanilla'" in tasting notes but maybe "sugar cane vanilla" is a better descriptor.) I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Brazil where they crush sugar cane to make juices on the beach (yet), but I completely get how refreshing this juice can be now.

Having sucked the juice out of pieces of sugar cane, I wanted to see how hard it would be to extract the juice from sugarcane at home. It was hard.

You certainly can't just wring it out. I cut the sugar cane into small chunks and tried muddling. I couldn't muddle more than one or two tiny pieces at once, so this was a slow process that produced very little juice.

Then I tried using a rolling pin (in reality, an empty bottle of Purista Mojito Mix, which is surprisingly delicious) to roll over longer pieces of sugarcane and squish out the juice that way. It worked a little.

I poured the juice into a glass with soda water, and found it to be far less tasty than the juice on its own. Oh well.

So anyway, now that I've determined that sugarcane is really hard to get any juice out of, I need to figure out other ways to extract the liquid (Anyone know where I can buy an affordable sugar cane press?) or other uses for raw sugarcane. Since they sell it in stores around here, people must use it for something…

December 30, 2009
Why Can’t I Get a McDonald’s Hamburger at Chez Panisse?

In response to my recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle on high-end bars becoming more accommodating to patrons' requests, many people wrote into the comments about how snooty bartenders are who won't give you the drinks that you want.

The Chronicle's commenters are a notoriously (and often hilariously) opinionated bunch, so I don't take offense to anything they say. By and large, they were all terribly upset with Erick Castro of Rickhouse's quote:

"Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a
cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a
cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they
like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night."

Commenters were offended that a bartender is so arrogant as to think he knows better than the customer, and offended that a bartender wouldn't make the customer what he wants.

I know that in the case of Rickhouse they don't carry cranberry juice, so they actually can't make a Cosmo. I believe all of the other drinks cited by commenters cannot be made at Rickhouse either- drinks with Midori, 7UP, Malibu, etc. They do not carry these products on principle, and thus cannot make drinks with them.

So Rickhouse can't/won't make a Cosmo, and that makes people mad. But does it also infuriate them that Chez Panisse (probably) can't make a McDonald's hamburger?

Would you be surprised at Chez Panisse if you asked your waiter for a McDonald's hamburger and they steered your toward something similar and better, like a grass-fed, free-range beef burger on a fresh-baked bread roll with organic ketchup? Would you consider them arrogant? Call for the waiter to lose their job?

Only if you can't see the difference between McDonald's and Chez Panisse; between fast food and fine dining. And that is the image problem that cocktail bars have. Many people still think every bar is a McDonalds, when most bars that make the news are evolving toward something better.

The better cocktail bars are not actually suffering from this lack of understanding- there's a huge demand for them, in fact, and in my experience the places selling $10 cocktails are affected less in this recession than places selling $6 ones. So despite complaints, better cocktail bars are safe, for now.

The funny thing is that speakeasy bars were originally a theme concept,
but evolved into a practical concept: hiding the bars from people who
don't yet know that not every bar serves Bud and has sports on TV.

Some people worry that the perceived arrogance of the bartenders in these places will make this better-drinking era a trend rather than an ongoing movement. I think that's a valid concern, as fine cocktails are very trendy right now. I'd hate to see this movement lose momentum as there is so, so much further to go with it.

As was the point in my original article, bartenders are learning how to talk to patrons in a nicer way to steer them away from lesser-quality or marketing-driven drink choices and into better ones. But is there more that can be done- in the media or by bartenders/bar owners- to make a clearer break between the fast food version of bars and the ones more like fine dining?

December 29, 2009
Clear Ice Blocks at Home in an Igloo Cooler
This post describes how to make a clear block of ice using a picnic cooler. Since I first wrote it in 2009, I have figured out a lot about ice, but this was the defining post for what would become known as "directional freezing." What is Directional Freezing? (the basic theory behind clear ice).

An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here. It's also a great place to start.

Before I figured this out, I tried many other experiments.

Early experiments were:
And I had success with:
- Releasing Air Trapped in Ice
- Cutting Corners to Make Clear Ice
I also learned some ways to cut ice into big chunks.

Now I am trying to refine what I call the Pond Method, the concept that if we freeze water from the top down only (and not outside-in), all the trapped air that makes cloudy ice will be the last to freeze on the bottom of the container, rather than in the middle.

In the last attempt I used a collapsible beer cooler. I had good success in getting clear ice, but found it really hard to get the ice out of a cooler.

This time I tried freezing water in a hard-sided plastic Igloo picnic cooler. Initially I left the cover closed, but after two days it had only barely started to freeze (a good sign for its insulating abilities) so then propped the cover open.

After a few days when the water looked almost completely frozen and I could see some cloudiness forming at the bottom, I removed the cooler from the freezer. I turned the cooler upside-down and waited for the ice block to drop out of the cooler. Presto! It was ready.

There was a little unfrozen water at the bottom of the block (with only about a centimeter of ice covering it). This was easy to drain.

Then I just cut off the bottom cloudy part and had a big chunk. Easy!

Once again, the secret to cutting ice is to score it about a centimeter with a knife or saw, then chip it away with an ice pick and hammer.

Conclusions:
- I'm really surprised the cooler didn't crack after the ice expanded, but maybe it didn't because there was a little unfrozen water remaining.
- This Igloo cooler is a totally workable vessel for making clear ice blocks in my home freezer. Hooray! Luckily it is of a shape that allows for easy removal of the ice block.
Future experiments:
- In this first experiment with the cooler I set the freezer temperature on the lowest setting. I'll see if this matters for clarity or if I can use the high setting for faster freezing.
- I also want to try a disposable Styrofoam cooler (if I can find one this winter) just because there is no worry if it cracks, and this is the most reproducible vessel for other people to try at home.
- I should attempt to find a flexible insulating material that can be made into other shapes, such as a tall and skinny shape (thermos?) that would more easily fit in the freezer and can make smaller cubes.
Here are more clear pictures of the ice pulled out of the cooler with some of it unfrozen, and it after smashing off the unfrozen part.
December 28, 2009
User-Generated Cocktails

Here is my latest story in the San Francisco Chronicle, December 27th 2009 edition.

Bartenders shift from lecture to nurture

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, December 25, 2009

A common sight in the nation's speakeasy-themed bars is a list of rules about what one can and cannot do – and can and cannot order. But among a newer batch of bars, the trendiest design feature is dialogue.

"Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night," says Erick Castro, general manager at Rickhouse in San Francisco's Financial District.

Bartenders at top cocktail spots have shifted from a lecturing mode into more of a nurturing one, and Castro says the strategy has paid off.

"The same people who used to complain that we didn't have Bud Light and Grey Goose are now our biggest customers, coming in three times a week and ordering rye Manhattans," he says.

Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

Read the rest of the story here. The story centers on how bartenders are trusting consumers to trust them more, instead of focusing on lists of rules of behavior. The story namechecks Heaven's Dog, Bourbon & Branch, Rickhouse, The Alembic in San Francisco, Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica, Drink in Boston, Klee in Singapore, and door74 in Amsterdam.

Yeah, I get around.

December 26, 2009
New History on the Pisco Sour

Guillermo Toro-Lira is probably the US's leading pisco historian, devoting years' worth of study to drinks such as the Pisco Punch and Pisco Sour. The latter drink was created by Victor Morris, an American who moved to Peru with the mining trade and opened a bar. Toro-Lira got hold of the register of Morris' bar, and this revealed many truths about the history of the Pisco Sour.

For background, the Pisco Sour is a simple sour, made with pisco, lemon or lime, sugar, and often an egg white and bitters. It is no revelation, based on the traditional sour recipe, but in this case we have a good idea of its origin. Pisco is a grape brandy from Peru and traditionally distilled in pot stills and unaged, as opposed to Chilean pisco that is a latecomer, usually distilled in column stills and sometimes briefly aged.

To read Toro-Lira's recent discoveries and theories based on Morris' bar register, check out the article here.

December 22, 2009
Montego Bay, By Way of Heaven’s Dog

I can't stop thinking about the delicious drink I had during Tiki Week at Heaven's Dog. So I asked bar/general manger Erik Adkins for the recipe and he was nice enough to share.

"The Montego Bay is listed in Beachbum Berry's 'Intoxica'. He says that
it is a Don the Beachcomber Drink from the Hotel Sahara in Las Vegas
1940's."

The version they made at Heaven's Dog is this:

Montego Bay

(adapted from Beachbum Berry's Intoxica by Erik Adkins of Heaven's Dog)
1/2 oz lime
1/2 oz grapefruit
1 oz honey syrup (1 to 1 dilution with water)

2 dashes Angostura bitters
4 dashes absinthe
1/4 oz all spice dram
11/2 oz Smith & Cross Jamaican rum

Shake all ingredients and strain over crushed ice.

This is one of those drinks where Smith & Cross completely makes the drink. So funky.

December 21, 2009
Smuggler’s Cove in Pictures and Words

Smuggler's Cove, the San Francisco tiki bar by "Shoeless" Martin Cate, opens in San Francisco on Tuesday, December 8th. I got a sneak preview along with other members of the press on Thursday night. To give you an idea about the level of excitement around this bar opening, some cocktail nerds drove up from Los Angeles or flew down from Portland to witness it in person, assuming they'd see it now before it is packed for the next few months as the very enthusiastic tiki crowd swarms in.

Smuggler's Cove has a gorgeous menu featuring 80 mostly rum cocktails and will have over 200 sipping rums. There are incentives for drinking them all. Join the "Rumbustion Society" and work your way through the rum list to gain access to samples from very rare bottles. Or join the "Voyager of the Cove" club and try all the cocktails for unspecified super secret perks.

Ah, but what does it look like? Sort of like the entrance to a theme ride at Disney World. Rather than being a design theme or decor, the three-story (yet small) bar is filled with props and sets. The giant anchor that hangs menacingly over the main stairway is thankfully not made of solid metal, nor is the canon that threatens to squish the bartender. Giant rocks poke out from the walls, some sort of tribal spears adorn a wall, and rum crates are used as tables in the basement. It's like drinking on a movie set, not that I've ever done that.

It's all very unreal, except for where it's not. The bar is actually packed with historic artifacts from tiki bars around the country- the the ship's wheel and Boathouse sign above the downstairs bar, vintage tiki mugs, totem polls, and other flotsam and jetsam once adorned the walls of various Trader Vic's and other bars. The three display windows at the entry level bar are mini-museums dedicated to past San Francisco tiki bars, including one where the first tiki mug was created. There is so much history in the place I'm considering asking Martin to train me as a docent to give regular tours.

So here are the pictures.

The top floor is a bamboo hut lounge where journalists take notes about the bamboo hut lounge on the top floor.

The street level bar is small and backed by endless bottles of delicious rum.

Recent LA transplant Matty Eggleston was working there on preview night.

The ceiling in this room is tall and packed with barrels, boxes, and other stuff held up with ropes and pulleys.

In the basement, Dominic Venegas works the bar.

No wait! That was a pufferfish lamp. This is Dominic Venegas working in the basement bar.

And this is the guy who built this magic playground for us, "Shoeless" Martin Cate. Congratulations Martin!

December 5, 2009
Carving Big (and clear) Ice Cubes

After much experimentation I have found one method to make big clear chunks of ice. That method is to put water in a cooler in the freezer, then chop off the top clear layer. Now the trick was to get this into useful sized cubes for glasses.

*Update 2021: A better post on cutting up clear ice is here.

Starting with the slab of ice (this one about three inches thick),

I used a heated bread knife to score the ice just about 1/8th of an inch,

Then tapped the scratch in several places with an ice pick and found it separated really easily.

And I got the whole thing chopped into long spears.

I use these really long ones in a tall glass

and scored and cut the rest of the spears into big fat cubes.

Hooray! Time for a drink.

An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

December 2, 2009
Clear Ice Blocks from the Fridge
In my ongoing experiments trying to make clear ice in the refrigerator, I first tried:
And had success with:
- Releasing Air Trapped in Ice
- Cutting Corners to Make Clear Ice
Then theorized about the pond method.

The next step was testing this pond method (trying to freeze ice from the top-down rather than outside-in). To do this, I needed an insulated container on all sides except for the top. My first attempt was with a collapsible beer cooler:

I filled it with plain tap water and let it freeze for three or four days. The container expanded as it froze so the ice was rather difficult to remove. At the end, the block still didn't completely freeze, but as we've learned in earlier experiments the last parts to freeze are where the ice gets the cloudiest. It was also cloudy toward the center but I think that's because I gave the cooler a squeeze in the fridge before it was frozen.

The next task was to cut off the cloudy parts so that only the clear ice remained. The first time I did this with a saw. This took a long time and as I learned later was probably not necessary.

But it worked!

Part Two: Just a Bit Off the Top

Since I wasted so much of this large block I wanted to try a simpler method: Freezing it from the top down and trying to just pop off the top.

Once again I filled the cooler with water and froze it, for just a couple of days this time. When I pulled it out of the freezer the water had mostly froze from the top down, though there was a light shell of ice around the shape of the cooler. Thus to get the ice out, I smashed in the sides of the cooler and pulled off the top. It was a bit easier than the entire block to remove from the cooler, but not easy per se.

This slab was about four inches thick and wonderfully clear.

The next trick would be trying to cut it down into smaller cubes. More on than in the next post.

Conclusions:
1. To make a big slab of clear ice, start with an even bigger slab of ice and cut off the rest. At least for San Francisco water, the shape of the container matters more than anything else- boiling, filtered, or distilled water.
2. My collapsible cooler isn't heavily insulated, so the water does partially freeze from the bottom and sides and a better insulator would be ideal.
To do:
1. Find a better insulated container to maximize the "pond effect" so that water only freezes from the top down.
2. Figure out how to efficiently cut the ice into big cubes.
An index of ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
December 1, 2009
Don’t Forget the Wild Tofurkey

When you're out shopping for your liquor-loving vegetarian guests for Thanksgiving this year, don't forget to pick up some tofu and booze to make my special Wild Tofurkey dish. It's tofu marinated in a cocktail and baked. Mmm.

November 22, 2009