Category: history
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When Pot Distilled Whiskey Is Not Pot Still Whiskey
What is pot still whiskey? The obvious answer is "whiskey that's made in a pot still," but apparently that's not true if you're in Ireland. I was on a trip recently with whiskey writer/expert/class clown/author Dominic Roskrow and was showing off my sexy Irish whiskey distillery diagram, when he called me out on it. He…
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Modern Day Pond and Lake Ice Harvests in America
I got it into my head that I want to see a pond or lake ice harvest, despite my contempt for winter. Commercial ice harvests changed the cocktail landscape in America in the early-mid 1800s, allowing for the creation of juleps and cobblers and the popularization of the drinking straw and the cocktail shaker. Today…
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A Visit to the Cointreau Distillery in Angers, France
This October I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. Angers is located southwest of Paris, about equidistant from Paris and Bordeaux. I hadn't realized, but Cointreau was not originally famous for orange liqueur, but for Guignolet, a cherry liqueur. Cherries were brought the region by King Rene', who lived at the Chateau D'Angers. We…
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Happy 60th Birthday, Golden Cadillac Cocktail
Poor Red's BBQ in the California gold country is famous for the Golden Cadillac, a cocktail created in 1952. Next year will be the drink's 60th birthday. It's a combination of Galliano, creme de cacao, and cream, thrown into a blender. Poor Red's sells them by the thousands. (They don't look this fancy at Poor…
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Sugarcane and Slavery
Boy is this ever a topic I'd rather avoid! However there is no denying the historic link between sugarcane production. We were tracing the spread of sugarcane and the sugar industry from the Old World to the new. But slave labor used to harvest and process sugarcane began long before sugarcane was brought to the…
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The Spread of Sugarcane in the New World
When we last left off looking at sugarcane's spread from India/Indonesia to the rest of the world, the sugar industry had shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic islands of Spain and Portugal, including Madeira and the Canary islands. During this time, the powers in Europe were developing a taste for sugar. Sugar was only…
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The Spread of Sugarcane in the Old World
In the last post we looked at what sugarcane is. Now we'll see where it came from and how it traveled around the world. Sugarcane is a tall grass native to the region of the India and Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated in New Guinea, perhaps independently in Indonesia. In 325 BC Alexander…
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What’s the Difference Between Orange Curacao and Triple Sec?
There are no legal differences between triple sec and Curacao, only a few practical and many historical differences. In summary: Both triple sec and Curacao are orange-flavored liqueurs, and today’s triple secs are typically clear, while curacao is either clear or sold in a variety of colors, including blue. Curacao liqueur is not required to…
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Germany, Ensslin, Aviation, and Blue Cocktails
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. Read it here. (I took this picture-…
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History of the El Diablo Cocktail in Trader Vic’s Books
I was trying to find the first reference to the El Diablo cocktail recently. Mexican El Diablo 1/2 lime 1 ounce tequila 1/2 crème de cassis Ginger Ale Squeeze lime juice into a 10-ounce glass; drop in spent shell. Add ice cubes, tequila, and crème de cassis. Fill glass with ginger ale. Searching the web,…