Jay Barmann from SFist.com attended my talk at SF Chefs.Food.Wine and kept the handout. Today he's posted my categorization of nearly every type of cocktail program in the city, which is good, because formatting html is a pain.
The categories I made up so don't get too hung up on them- it's just how I see them.
I've been thinking of giving that talk again, because PowerPoint is forever. Let me know if you're into it and maybe I can put something together.
In an ongoing set of experiments I've been trying to make clear ice at home. I've tried:
With some success on the last one. While what would be ideal would be to produce one giant solid block of perfectly clear ice, I haven't figured that out yet. However if the ice is going to be used to shake with or for cooling individual beverages, you don't need a giant block- just big chunks.
There is a way to accomplish this by cutting corners. And tops and bottoms. We've seen how the air bubble makes the cloudiest part of the ice in the center in vertically-frozen water, and mostly along the bottom of horizontally-frozen water.
And I've also found that horizontally-frozen water usually has an edge of very clear ice.
So with my ice pick, I just cut off the clear edges separated the top from the cloudy bottom
of the pan ice (easier than you'd expect, as the cloudy ice breaks off easily), and cut around the cloudy middle of vertically-frozen water to end up with a big bowl of clear ice.
Conclusions: You can make clear ice by cutting around cloudy ice frozen in large blocks. However, you waste about 85% of your ice, and a lot of time.
An index of ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
[update: after this post, I figured out the trick to making clear ice – check here for the solution.]
Finally, I've got a minor success in my clear ice experiment to share. So far in an attempt to make perfectly clear ice in my home freezer, I've tried:
Noting that water freezes into ice from the outside-in, leaving an air/water bubble that forms the cloudy part of ice, I sought to devise a way to either change the way ice freezes, or to release the trapped air while the ice was freezing.
First I tried laying a bar spoon diagonally through the water. The theory was that the metal of the spoon might conduct coldness into the center of the ice so that the ice would freeze more evenly. The intended result was a dispersed air throughout the ice rather than just in the bottom/center layer.
But alas, the intended result did not happen. There does appear to be more air dispersed in the ice, but still the majority of it is in a layer along the bottom.
Next I tried inserting a straw into the center of a tray of ice to see if the air would escape through the straw. The plan was flawed to begin with, as water would probably just freeze inside the straw so no air could get out.
In reality the freezing ice pushed the straw up so that it was only inserted about half an inch into the ice by the time it was fully frozen. This had no effect on the amount of cloudiness.
For something that did work, keep reading after the jump.
Today is Ice Day on Alcademics, so stay tuned for more exciting coverage of my ongoing experiments to make clear ice in my home freezer.
So far, I've tried:
So far I haven't achieved… anything, but I'm gathering information that should help in the future. In recent experiments, I found that ice freezes from the outside in, which is sort of obvious, but it's important because that's where all the air is trapped that makes the majority of cloudiness in ice. So I wanted to try some different container shapes to test how and where the air bubble forms.
In a vertical container, such as these Vietnamese take-out soup containers I've been using, the air bubble forms toward the middle-bottom. (I've set the ice upside-down in this picture.)
Whereas in a flat horizontal container such as a lasagna tray, the air bubble forms in a layer across the bottom of the pan.
The experiment continues after the jump.
This is another in my ongoing experiments to make clear ice. So far, I've tried comparing:
Someone in the comments mentioned hearing that carbonated water would freeze more clearly than still water. As most of the cloudiness in ice appears to come from trapped oxygen, this didn't make sense to me, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try.
I froze equal amounts of still water and carbonated water and this is how they came out:
The carbonated water is on the right, and it sure as heck isn't clear. It's got kind of a fun texture with lots of air bubbles in it, but that doesn't get us anywhere for the purposes of this experiment.
Conclusion: Carbonated water does not make clearer ice than still water.
An index of ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
The Associated Press released the following story on ice today, with a quote from your favorite icesperimentator Camper English. The whole story is here.
SIP: Bartending trend calls for nice ice, baby
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Erik Adkins spends a lot of time on ice.
As general manager of the Heaven's Dog bar in San Francisco he's very particular about what ice goes into his cocktails, preferring hand-carved chunks for slow-sipping drinks and oversized clear cubes for lighter concoctions.
And that's just the tip of the ice trend.
Driven by the same quest for perfection that elevated bread, cheese and wine to objects of desire, ice has entered an epicurean age, coming in new shapes and sizes.
Then I get the closing quote:
On the other hand there's Camper English, a San Francisco-based writer and cocktail expert, who has blogged about his search for clarity, melting and refreezing ice at home to see if that decreases cloudiness and experimenting with distilled water.
So far he hasn't been too successful, but that hasn't curbed his enthusiasm.
"Ice is one of the fun projects that cocktail nerds can play with at home," he says.
He'll go to some lengths for a chill thrill.
"One time I caught myself asking a bartender to see their ice when I was making my drink order," he recalls, "because it was going to matter to me."
Read the whole thing here and see the Index of Ice Experiments on Alcademics here.
I have been doing experiments at home to try to get the clearest ice possible. So far my experiments have compared:
I have not yet had success. Will the third time be the charm?
(*Update – You might want to skip to this index page to see conclusions reached after many experiments.)
This time I compared hot water to cold water to see which would freeze more clearly. The theory is that hot/boiled water has less trapped oxygen in it, and thus will freeze clearly because there will be less air bubbles.
As I previously saw no significant difference in ice clarity between using tap vs. distilled water, I began with unfiltered tap water. One batch of water I left at room temperature. The other batch I boiled for several minutes. I put them in the freezer while the hot water was still hot. Here is what happened on three separate attempts:
The cold water actually looks a little more clear, but this could be because when the center of the hot water finally froze, it burst. I can't guess why this is because it's not like I have a super refrigerator that freezes ice in ten minutes.
Another theory about why the first experiment failed is that as the hot water cools down in the freezer, it reabsorbs oxygen and acts just like cold water. To test this, I repeated the experiment, this time covering both plastic tubs with the lid before freezing.
Here the hot water ice looks slightly more clear than it did when it was uncovered. However, I'm not seeing a significant difference in hot vs. cold water, though the covered hot water may be just slightly clearer.
Conclusion: Hot water does not freeze significantly clearer than cold water, even when the vessel is covered to reduce oxygen re-absorption.
In all of these ice experiments so far, the major cloudy factor in the ice has not been cloudiness throughout the ice, but a cloudy spot in the center of the ice. This spot is assumed to form due to the order in which ice freezes, from the outside-in. The oxygen migrates to the liquid part (in the middle) until it is the last part to freeze. Kold-Draft ice machines produce wonderfully clear ice cubes in part because they freeze the ice in layers- water is sprayed in layers from the top down, so that oxygen is never trapped.
Is there a way to freeze ice in a home freezer similar to a Kold Draft machine? Can we manipulate the way water freezes or change the shape of the container? Can we vibrate the container or stir the water so that the surface stays liquid and freezes last?
We shall see, in future ice experiments.
*Update – For a solution to the ice problem, see this post for a method that works. Also, an index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
Run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up November's issue of Everyday With Rachael Ray
magazine. I have a story in the issue about how to go out drinking with your hometown friends on the night before Thanksgiving without ending up hungover when you've got to cook all the next day.
Naturally, the advice works for any long night of barhopping and when you don't have to do diddly squat the next day, and there is even a quick and tasty mocktail recipe included.
A few months back I had a very long lunch with Francisco Alcaraz, Paton Tequila's Master Distiller and Blender at the restaurant Kokkari in San Francisco. Alcaraz is not only the current master distiller, he created the recipe for Patron.
Alcaraz studied chemical engineering at the University of Guadalajara then went to work as an inspector for an organization that was sort of a precursor to the CRT, the tequila regulatory commission. After that he went to work in a distillery and as a tequila consultant.
Alcaraz developed the recipe for Patron at the distillery Siete Leguas (another brand still producing delicious tequila), where Patron was made from 1989 until 2002 before building their own distillery. Siete Leguas had both the traditional tahona (a giant grinding stone that crushes baked agave before fermentation and distillation) and a mechanical shredder (roller mill) that accomplishes the same thing, though these produce tequila with different flavors (and the topic incites long tequila nerd arguments). Patron uses a combination of tahona-crushed and shredded agave in its recipe.
Other differences from Siete Leguas' recipe include the type of yeast used and the source of the agave.
The agave for Patron all comes from the Highlands of Jalisco, but it is not estate-grown. (That would be a darn big estate!) Alcaraz says they have contracts with seven large growers, and they do buy other agave on the open market. Another brand told me that they were required to buy some agave from small producers, but Alcaraz says that there is no requirement. There is, however, an incentive: The government (not sure if local or state) subsidizes part of the price of the agave to support these smaller farms.
Furthermore, Patron has long-term contracts with their growers to ensure that they will not be susceptible to the frequent agave market shortages that take place in cycles. (Another way they're preparing for future shortages is to store extra tequila in large stainless tanks to be bottled when needed.)
After agave is delivered to the distillery, it is slow roasted in brick ovens (compared with faster autoclaves that some brands use), fermented in wood fermentation vats, and double distilled. Contrary to industry gossip, Alcaraz says that Patron distills all their own agave, and it is all made at their facilities.
Beyond the regular Patron range, they have two super-ultra-mega=-expensive premium options: Gran Patron Platinum and Gran Patron Burdeos. For the Platinum, they use agave with the highest sugar content, triple distill it, and age it in a large new, uncharred oak tank for one month. The Burdeos is made from the same raw material as the Platinum, but is aged one year in American oak, then redistilled, then aged 10 more months in French oak, then finished in an ex-Bordeau wine barrel for two more months.
Alcaraz says he doesn't drink tequila out of the Riedel Tequila Glass
not because it's not good, but because it's too good. He says it makes tequila taste better than it is. "If there is something wrong I want to taste it!" he said.
He also said something I've never heard before: that tequila improves in the bottle. That's a surprise, but one I don't think I'll ever be able to test- not only do you have to have a long and great sensory memory, I can never wait around while there's a bottle of tequila nearby.
My final visit in the Cognac region of France was to the house of Paul Giraud- quite literally his house. In my brief visit we first learned about Giraud's philsoophy: while other houses try to use blending to get a round and multi-faceted flavor profile, Giraud tries to emphasize particular flavors in each bottling.
I found a commonality in all the Giraud cognacs though, a strawberry rhubarb creaminess. The Naopleon bottling is meant to emphasize the grape flower aromas, whereas the Vielle Reseve (labeled as XO in the US) emphasizes fruitiness with flavors that change from fresh to dried plum as the spirit warms up in the glass. The Tres Rare bottling, which is delicious, 49 years old and emphasizes spice on the palate.
Paul Giraud is located in the beautiful little town of Bouteville. There the brand (it's all estate-grown grapes in their products) owns 40 hectares, and they actually harvest about half of their grapes by hand instead of machine.
Some of the aging cellars are located right next to a stream, keeping them cool and humid year-round. In this cellar like all of them in Cognac, we saw spiders all around. They love spiders in cognac cellars (surely you've seen webs in my other pictures) as they eat the bugs that otherwise may eat through the wood in the barrels.
You know, maybe I should start using that excuse not to clean my apartment- I'm just trying to protect the furniture.
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