Evan Zimmerman and Banana Consomme

I was recently in Portland for a the Great American Distillers Festival where the highlight was clearly the Oregon Bartender's Guild's cocktail competition...and not just because I was judging.

This was a massive undertaking over the course of 2 days with some incredible work by all involved (with the exception of the alcohol control Nazis.) My new friend Evan Zimmerman (the winner by the way) really blew me away with a banana consomme that he brought as a homemade ingredient. I asked him to share his technique and here is what he sent back. I think you will agree, he is one cool cat.

It's actually become a pretty common technique with chefs and shit. It's called freeze filtering and it involves adding a very small amount of gelatin to a cloudy liquid, freezing it, and then thawing it slowly in a fridge so the gelatin doesn't melt but the clear flavorful liquid can drip through. If you google freeze filtering you can probably find a great article written by Harold McGee for the New York Times from a few years ago. So basically what I did was purée a half dozen bananas with about 3 cups of water. I added a tiny amount of citric acid to preserve color and pushed everything through a chinois. I ended up with a liter of liquid and added to that .5% gelatin by volume (5 grams, 2 bloomed sheets of gelatin) by heating up about a cup of the banana liquid and melting the gelatin into it then stirring that liquid back into the rest of the mixture. Then I poured the whole business into a 6 pan and froze it overnight. The next day I took it out of the pan, wrapped the block in cheesecloth and put it in a perf pan over another 6 pan to collect the consommé. Put that whole thing in the walk-in and let it thaw for a day or two and the liquid slowly dripped out as the gelatin trapped all the particulates in the cheeseloth. It takes some time and the yeild isn't great, but you end up with a hunk of gelatin banana goo up top and clear banana consommé below. Recipe was 1.5 oz. Rye, 1.5 oz. Banana consommé and 4 drops of clove tincture. I've used the technique for all sorts of stuff as it allows you to make stirred drunks that contain traditionally opaque ingredients. Lime juice was a lot of fun for stirred Gimlets and Last Words as it creates a more lush and elegant texture in drinks that are usually shaken.

Old Shrub Recipes

Look what I found.

Drinking and Driving

Boudreau found this Bacardi ad and I think it is great.

Bols Contest

Lucas Bols is hosting another cocktail contest and I can attest that the prize is well worth the homework they ask of you.

Enter.

Today.

Sherry Invasion

Yesterday was clearly Sherry Day in San Francisco with Cesar Saldana, The Consejo Regulador (aka Head Sherry Guy), Steve Olson and Crew and the Sherry Council in town. We hosted an educational seminar during the day and I helped Tablehopper out with an underground supperclub style dinner at night.

James Stolich and his crew made a fabulous meal with some great tapas to start and Sherry in every course that followed. I made a batch of Sherry Shrubs to start which was cool, but I was quite proud of the closing cocktail, Barrel to Barrel.

It is a drink I developed for a wine barrel/whisky seminar I did at the Great American Distillers Festival in Portland a few weeks ago. The idea was to draw on the traditional relationship between Jerez and Scotland and the influence Sherry has had on the flavor profile of Scotch.

I think it's just dandy.

Barrel to Barrel

1 oz. Islay Single Malt

1 oz. Oloroso Sherry

1/4 oz. Nocino

1/4 oz. PX Sherry

cinnamon bitter (or Angostura)

orange peel garnish

James took a nifty video of me finishing the drinks and I promptly lifted it from his site. Thanks dude.

Derek Brown Speaks Truth

Great piece in the Atlantic.

Testify brother!

A Distillery Grows in Kentucky!

How did we all get scooped by NPR on this one?

A Distillery Grows in Kentucky!

Funky Pot Still Jamaican Rum

By Confucius' pointy beard, I love this bottle!

About a year ago I think, the intrepid Mr. Seed pulled a couple of rum samples of his legendary black bag (seriously, anyone who knows the man respects the hell out of that bag.) They were Jamaican pot still spirits that I had never heard of, each was pretty out-there. Full of tropical fruits and odd spices and above all else, funky. I really wasn't quite sure what to make of them. A few months later, on another visit, Mr. Seed , M. Cate and myself met for dinner and a new sample came out of the black bag of myth and fables, this time it was a blend and it blew us away.

We didn't have enough to make a drink, but we both saw and smelled truth in that little bottle. Well I just got a chance to make a drink with it tonight...and wow. I simple rum sidecar with it yielded incredible tropical fruits like mango, papaya and pineapple with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. The three of us that were tending bar were stunned.

GO GET A BOTTLE NOW.

Dealing with the Angostura shortage.

How a certain whiskey bar in San Francisco is dealing with the Angostura shortage.

Angostura Bitters Shortage

I have been off the blog for way too long as a result of some travel and a tech meltdown. Rather than try to catch up all at once, I am going to ease back into it at the regular pace.

So for today, lets talk Angostura bitters. I am quite surprised there is so little chatter about the what is going on in Trinidad and how it is effecting us. The short version is that the global financial crisis forced Trinidad & Tobago to bail out CL Financial, the parent company of Angostura, and it's bank in January of this year. This is after a few years of some aggressive dealing including the investment in the company that owns Appleton in Jamaica and a defunct distillery in Kentucky. My understanding is that the company was spending money it planned on making before the economy lowed and credit dried up. Apparently the books were so bad that the company had to be pulled from the stock market and has been in limbo.

What this means to us is that the one ingredient that is present in every bar that mixes drinks, Angostura bitters, has not been in production for almost a year. This clearly a very selfish view of things and in realty, I am pretty disgusted that the worker class folk that are responsible for our beloved cocktail bitters are suffering because of greed and mismanagement. The good news is that we might be moving towards resolution. An article last week in Newsday Trinidad says things might get straightened out soon.

This is a good thing. Major distributors on both costs have been out for awhile now and bartenders have been cleaning out corner liquor stores to keep the Manhattans flowing. Cocktail Kingdom has secured a good supply and I have it on good authority that BevMo (in California at least) has a solid source for the 4 oz. size as well. I believe I have about a year's worth stashed, but am still feeling a little nervous about it so I started a huge batch of homemade just in case. Here is the recipe that I based it on.

Islay Gears up to use Local Barley

The Laddie Blog based out of Bruichladdich shared some of their strategy for the future today. I have talked before about the importance they place on keeping every stage of the production on Islay (they are the only Islay distiller that bottles on the island and will remain so until Kilchomen comes on-line.) While it is undeniably cool, it is actually an important and integral part of their mission. It is important to me because their world view as it pertains to spirit jives right along with mine as it pertains to bar. When one talks to Mark Reynier, Jim McEwan or Duncan McGillvray, the team that heads production at Bruichladdich, about their whisky, you always end up talking about Islay. Just as when I talk about drinks, I focus on the people behind the spirits. They understand that they are creating more than bottles of booze, but that they are bottling the essence of their home for the world to share. The water (most bottles are 53% water), the air (as the spirit ages it takes on elements of the atmosphere), and now the earth are in there. For those skeptics and naysayers out there, just think about wine. Could you imagine a Burgundy wine-house buying it's grapes from Greece? Sure they could make wine out of those grapes, and probably some interesting stuff at that, but it certainly wouldn't be Burgundy. Well, most of the Scotch industry rely on foreign grain for their production. I find this a little disturbing when considering how much they charge for some of their juice.

But is it Good for The Vegans?

There was a question on Jeopardy last night about weasel processed coffee beans. My girl B did some research and came up with this.

Nope, no thank you.

Make-Your-Own-Old-Fashioned Bar

I participated again last in SFChefs.Food.Wine in Union Square where I set up an Old-Fashioned bar. Rather than committing to one spirit, I decided to call upon my favorite producers and gather as big an array of whisk(e)y as the bar could hold. In the end I had a full 30 brands.

To compliment all the spirits, I went a little over on the bitters and sugar. In addition to Angostura, Peychaud's and Regan's, I brought 8 homemade bitters and tinctures. For sugar I had traditional cubes, Muscavodo, Rapadura, Agave Nectar, Lavender Honey and beautiful Japanese sugar that was light like confectioners sugar but tasted like cane.

I had this selection out front so guests would come up, I would hand them a glass and muddle and coach them through making and old-fashioned. We talked about the options and then I would cut ice chunks while they muddled and mixed. I went over pretty well if i do say so myself.

Keep Walking...

Rowley's Whisky Forge pointed me to a extremely well done short on the history of Johnnie Walker. The style is undeniably perfect as an ad, but I think it is more than a little ironic that Robert Carlyle seems to be walking out in the middle of nowhere at the end, much like the 400 former Johnnie Walker employee who were just laid off from the historic facility in Kilmarnock where the brand began.

Martin Muthagrabbin Cate!

I found the following in my inbox this morning. I hope this tingly feeling lasts all day.


SAN FRANCISCO, CA- Smuggler’s Cove, San Francisco’s forthcoming destination for rum and exotic cocktails, proudly announces Eurydice, a new rum crafted exclusively for Smuggler’s Cove. Handcrafted by the artisan distillers of St. George Spirits in consultation with Smuggler’s Cove owner Martin Cate, Eurydice (yur-id-ih-see) is a completely unique rum. Eurydice starts with the fresh-pressed cane juice of 100% California-grown sugar cane. The cane, grown in Southern California, is harvested and crushed at St George Spirits’ Alameda facility where it is fermented with two strains of wine yeast designed to accent the fruit and floral notes of the cane. Eurydice is then distilled in an alembic pot still and aged in two different barrels: a re-toasted French wine cask, followed by a used bourbon barrel to develop subtle vanilla, brown sugar, and butter notes. The final product marries these characteristics to the light, dry, floral qualities of an agricole-style rhum for a unique rum experience.

Eurydice is a 100% California grown and produced artisan product. The name derives from Zerene Eurydice, the California state butterfly. Eurydice was produced in extremely limited quantities and will be available exclusively at Smuggler’s Cove when it opens to the public this fall.

SFChefs.Food.Wine or What 4 Gallons of Shrub Looks Like

San Francisco is throwing quite a party this weekend and I am tending bar 2 or the 3 nights. I figured since I have been evangelizing the beauty of Shrub so much recently (the house the vinegar built?) that I had to bring some sweet, sweet burn.

What you are looking at is what happens when the forces of nature get busy with:
2 flats of beautiful Strawberries from Capay (I mean friggen BEAUTIFUL)
5 pounds of evaporated cane sugar
1 pound rapadura sugar (funky!)
2 gallons cider vinegar
black pepper
white pepper
cloves
Jamaican Sarsaparilla
ginger
salt

New-Make

I have been having a little bout of fascination with an oddball bottle recently. Death's Door came to my market with their white whisky. My feeling is that this started as a lark. They were putting spirit in barrel, but wanted to see if they could sell some in the new-state (immediate gratification through immediate compensation.) I kind of like this lark though.

This bottle has caused quite a bit of confusion amongst my staff and guests which I really don't understand. When I introduce it, I say that it is whisky that has never gone into a barrel. Invariably the response I get back is, "Oh, like moonshine." For the life of me, I cannot see why unaged spirit is immediately associated with back-country contraband, but there you have it.

Here is the long story:

It is incredibly expensive to start a whiskey operation in America. Say you are really well organized and have a solid design and building team, it will take you a year to build facility. Say you are a genius and experienced at distilling and it only takes you 6 months to get consistent spirit flowing. Say now, you want to be traditional with your aging and release a very young expression at just 2 years old (which is generally not the best use of spirit). That's 3 and 1/2 years of spending money before you can even taste you stuff, let alone sell any. A tough business model by most standards. Even tougher when you consider that the US government essentially taxes the juice as it comes off the still.

So there are 2 routes the new American distiller can go to be viable. They can work out some way to speed up aging, like Tuthiltown (small barrels and sound waves) and Wasmund's (fruitwood chips.) Or they can sell unaged spirit in some form while their whisky ages. Until now this has given us just a wide selection of vodkas (yawn) and gins (yippee.) Death's Door has opened up what I think might be a new, emerging category.

Bring on the New Make Spirits! Christian Krogstad of House Spirits (one of the most knowledgeable distillers we have and an all-around nice guy) gifted me with some of his un-cut 'barley eau de vie' along with a smaller sample of some very young aged stuff a few months ago. The new-make is as grassy as it is grainy and reminds me quite a bit of Rhum Agricole. The slightly-aged is, well, pretty much the same with some color and and vanilla starting to show. Rick Wasmund has started selling his new-make Rye Spirit and even has a DIY age-at-home scheme which is pretty outstanding. There are also a few unaged corn-whiskies out there as well which tend to lean a little more towards the moonshine side of things than the eau de vie of grain side that these rest on. Sounds almost like a 'movement' doesn't it.

As I was writing this, I started to think about Scotland and the Bruichladdich X4. My week at the now-defunct Whisky Academy on Islay revolved around the somewhat dodgy quadruple distillation of this spirit and my class each went home with a flask of it (same sort of grassiness as the House Spirits flask.) I have seen that they are selling the X4 both as new make and as a very young spirit (not old enough to be called Single Malt Whisky yet) in Europe. As it turns out, their neighbors at the new distillery Kilchomen are starting to sell some new make as well. as well Glenglassaugh and Abhainn Dearg.

So now that's 4 from Scotland and 3 from the US with more definitely on the way. I am gonna go ahead and call it, the New-Make category is born.

OBC: Other Blog's Content

This is the best Bottle Review I have read this year.

Sloshed just kills me sometimes.

Great Peruvian Pisco Ads.

The Pisco industry is poised to break bad in the US in the coming years. Here are some pretty great ads. Scroll down to the 'Not for Beginners' parts.