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I've been meaning to pick up a bottle of this for months, and finally did this past week: Indonesian arrack, not to be confused with the anise-flavoured araks of the Middle East, or Ceylonese palm arrack. Indonesian arrack is based on sugarcane molasses, with cakes of red rice chucked in for fermentation. I'm not totally clear on all the technicals, but it's not a "true rum", though that's the closest major category for it. It mostly reminds me of Brazilian cachaça, similar smoky/olive-y/nutty kind of note, and seems to mix mellower than cachaça. Not that it's its intended purpose, but I don't care for it neat, has a bit of an aftertaste, but it's historically the basis for all kinds of East Indies punches. I haven't tried any of the fancier punches with it yet, but have mostly just been having it over sparkling mineral water with splashes of grape and cherry juice and sometimes some Angostura bitters. It's been awfully good with those, even when mixed pretty strong. I'm not as excited about making the punch/punsch recipes which mix this with multiple other liquours, or large amounts of spices, since I want to get a better feel for the basic spirit, so the plan thus far is to make some into a classic five-ingredient punch (per the old Hindi word itself): liquor, sugar, water, lemon, tea. At least a couple recipes involve macerating the citrus in the liqour, mixing the ingredients together with the water boiling, and then cooling/chilling to serve. I'm fixing to get either some limes or some blood orange and do so. This was apparently a massively popular spirit for centuries, and pretty much dropped off the face of America with prohibition, and decent size importation only resumed in recent years. If you like cachaça, New World aguardientes (not to be confused with Spanish grappa), or are interested in Asian liquors, this is worth a try. In DC they have it in the good shop in Chinatown, and I think in the Nepalese-run shop in Dupont, and I paid $29 for a bottle, which I think is a bit pricey, but it's uncommon and only carried in a few local shops.
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Nov 27, 2011 18:19
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Vegetable Melange posted:Or, and I suggest this highly, you can pound the poo poo out of it and take cell phone pictures of everyone's reactions. It's like drinking Orgeat, only no one pukes after three hits. I'm not totally clear how chugging a non-alcoholic sugary mixer compares to chugging a rum-(like) product. What's special about chugging arrack vice any other kind of ethanol?
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Nov 28, 2011 04:42
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Kenning posted:It's got that funk. That deep, intoxicating, somewhat sulfurous twang is not for everyone. Ah, right. I agree, that's the "aftertaste" I mention where I tried drinking arrack neat. I'm not a big one for neat drinks, but arrack is a little inaccessible there. Works great with mixers though, I think it's edging out cachaca as my favourite rum-type drink, though I need to get a bottle of rhum agricole to try it against. I'm also filling a small flask with arrack to take to a foodie coworker to get her read on it. I hadn't thought of it as "sulfurous" until you mentioned it, but I can see that now, and "funky" does fit. On the positive side, definitely smokey, I've heard "nutty" and can vaguely concur, and for some reason with both arrack and cachaca I think of olives, maybe a little briny in nose though not salty in taste. Overally, really worth trying out if you're exploring the rum-type family. Next planned drinks: hit up Jack Rose bar in DC which offer micro-servings of 950 whiskeys, and exploit that to figure out what ryes I like. Further, I've only had Alborg aquavit, but at least one local shop has Krogstadt, and I have some friends who have an extra bottle of "Black Death" brännvin they brought back from Iceland. FAKE EDIT: Dammit, I was going to quote that one Simpsons line from the episode where the Scandinavian "illegal immigrants" from Shelbyville take their jobs, but I can't find it quoted anywhere online. There's a scene where Moe's Tavern is overrun by Nordic Shelbyville immigrants, and it's something like: Homer: Moe, I'll have a Duff! Moe: Gee Homer, we don't serve Duff no more. Now we serve aquavit, it's the caraway-flavored liqueur of Sweden! 
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Dec 1, 2011 05:35
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They're going to let us have alcohol for our office Christmas party, so I was thinking to have some full-classic 5-ingredient "punch". Doing it old-school Raj-style with the five ingredients: liquor, water, lemon (or lime), sugar, tea. I was looking to use Batavia-arrack for the liquor, just to get that smokiness and bring them some more business. Anyone have a preferred recipe for the proportions for the other ingredients? Any 6th/7th ingredients which add a lot of character but don't mess up the basis "panj"/punch concept?
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Dec 5, 2011 03:29
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Kenning posted:Okay so I haven't made United Service Punch before myself, but I have made many dozens of gallons of punch in the last year and I reckon I can read a punch fairly well on the page. Wow, great answer, and that does look quite classic. A couple quick questions: - For the raw sugar, any particular recommendations? Should I get a hunk of jaggery and smash that up? - So lemon is the classic, but for Christmas might it work to go seasonal and try either ruby grapefruit, or blood orange, or is that just a bridge too far? - Any particular type of black tea that you've used in other punches and would recommend? Should I try and get clever and do most of it with some typical black tea but then add a little bit of one of the smoky black teas?
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Dec 6, 2011 05:15
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UPDATE: On United Service Punch (arrack-based) for an office party. I whipped up a batch tonight, and the instructions given above about perfectly filled my 1.9 liter carafe. I have a second carafe, so depending on how this batch ages overnight will make another for Friday's party. I did the recipe about as described; for tea I did four cups assam and two lapsang (smokier). I wasn't sure if you meant 6oz teacups or 8oz cups, so I think I ended up about 40oz of tea or so. I backed off slightly on the lemon juice (7 lemons' worth) and it seems about right. At first it seemed a little too sweet, but I waited perhaps a bit long on fishing out the lemon peels (just 15m or so), and they rather swiftly added some bitterness that about correctly balanced the taste out. Being a little bit light on lemon, a bit strong on lemon peel, and the tea maybe brewed a bit dark (not used to brewing 40oz in one go), it's a little bit astringent, so maybe a bit "adult". I grated up one whole, small nutmeg, and it did a lot for the flavour. Unfortunately it gave a somewhat sawdusty particulate fluff to the mix, so I'm going to strain it through cheescloth once it's had time to macerate. I didn't strain the lemon juice either (I just wasn't convinced it was necessary), so some overall straining will be good for this slightly murky beverage. I did go rather light on the arrack, maybe 1.5 cups, since it's an office party and technically they're letting us bring wine or beer, so I wanted something a little weaker so that it's in the general 9%ish ballpark. Though you can certainly tell it has alcohol in it; further, even at that reduced ratio, the arrack taste/funk comes through quite strong. I would almost say that the combination of flavours has, itself, many of the characteristics of arrack, so maintains a similar overall palate while being sippable, but perhaps that's the point. I'm letting one batch age overnight, making another tomorrow, and depending what comes out they'll be indentical, or one drier carafe and one sweeter, or one will be better than the other and I'll blend. In the meantime, I found myself with a bunch of squeezed-out lemons and liquor-soaked spare lemon peel. Life having given me lemons, like a good Maghrebi I've got them in a glass jar and coated down with salt as we speak. I'll let them bleed a few days, and since they're already squeezed I'm sure they won't fill the jar with self-juice, but I'll top them off with some pickling vinegar and leave them over Christmas, then feast on pickled lemon rind with some mashed fava and harissa. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Dec 15, 2011 |
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Dec 15, 2011 06:00
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CONCLUSION: re United Service Punch (Batavia arrack) I ended up making 2x 1.9L carafes of United Service Punch for a Christmas party at our office in DC. Being a gov't office we can't usually have alcohol, but for the occasional party we get official waivers from on-high, and to my great pleasure the waiver explicitly said "wine, beer, and punch". Overall reception of the punch was positive, in that I had people coming up to me unsolicited to talk about it, overhead other people telling folks to try it, etc. The carafe at one party went fast, but at a different sub-office they had just so much booze (including a desk-bar specialising in lychee martinis) that it went slower, so I took the carafe to a party of total strangers at the next sub-office, and after I gave a pitch for folks trying it out the room emptied my other carafe in short order. I used more of less the recipe recommended in the thread, but I ended up using a little less lemon and sugar than recommended, used some lapsang tea for smoke, and mixed it a fair bit weaker (9%) to be more sippable for folks that aren't big into booze. A handful of folks had some negative comments, most of which dealt with the somewhat off-putting smell of the drink. They described the drink as smelling "strong", which a couple specified that it smelled very strongly "of alcohol" despite being quite weak, and a couple others I think it was just the smokiness of the lapsang and the funkiness of the arrack that made it smell a bit odd, or at least unlike most sweet drinks Americans like. So of those stating an opinion, the vast majority really liked it, so I'd call this an overall success. Batavia arrack is a little on the pricey side around here ($26/750ml), so if I were making this more frequently I'd sub in something else. I think cachaça would serve admirably, being not quite as funky as arrack but having that nutty/olive-y taste. I haven't tried but would guess that some of your basic Latin American cane-liquors would be fine (Central American aguardiente, etc). For kicks I might try making one batch of the cheapest/easiest ingredients and see how palatable it is: cheap white rum, grocery store brown sugar, lemons, and Lipton or whatever shite teabags. Made as a I made it, rough costs for a 1.9L carafe were about : $5 for (8) lemons, $2 sugar (they didn't have bulk turbinado so I had to buy a sealed yuppie bag), $2 tea, 50c nutmeg, $13 liquor = $22.50 for about (12) teacup-sized servings. Overall a success, so I'll plan to make this in the future, but if I'm making it for any audience that's not discerning foodies, or not a particularly special occasion, I'll use a cheaper liquor to cut the cost almost in half.
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Dec 17, 2011 19:49
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Choom Gangster posted:We make our own Cherry Bounce at work. It's pretty simple and very tasty. So basically you just soak tart cherries in bourbon with sugar for a 2-6 months? Is it necessary for the sugar to be in the vessel during the aging process, or could I just soak cherries in bourbon for a while, and then add sugar to taste before serving? I'd just be concerned about it being too sticky-sweet. Does the benefit of prolonged maceration max out after six months or so?
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Dec 19, 2011 03:18
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I still haven't bought the recommended Punch! book, but since I'm visiting family for the holidays I reckoned I'd whip something up based on internet recipes. I also didn't want to go out and buy extra ingredients (other liquors, exotic flavourings, etc) for a one-shot recipe, so I read a few things and made just a really basic mix for practice. I had some Bulleit rye I used part of to make a jar of dried cherry infusion for a gift, and I vaguely thought it would go well with red grapefruit. I ran across a recipe for Kentucky River Fish Kill punch and decided it was at least an endorsement of the flavour concept, though I skipped most of the secondary ingredients in the interest of making in unobjectionable for people who don't like Aperol and the like. I just made a basic oleosaccharum muddling the red grapefruit peels in brown sugar for a few hours. Made a nice gooey blackish oily stuff that smelled lovely. Dumped in the Bulleit rye and let sit longer, and then added red grapefruit juice and let age overnight. The end result I've tried both straight (not as sugary/liqueury as I'd expected, actually drinkable on its own) and over soda. Straight it's pretty fragrant and not too boozy. Over soda it's really mellow and accessible; my mom's not much of a drinker and even she likes it. The main surprise to me is that it doesn't have any of the sharp bright citrusy taste I was expecting; it bears almost no resemblance to, say, dumping whiskey into store-bought Ocean Spray Ruby Red Grapefruit juice. It tastes slightly of grapefruit, but a whole lot of peel flavour; not bitter/pithy, but in an almost cologne-like kind of way. Overall, the flavour is more subtle and more "adult" (in terms of being deep vice bright and spiky) than I at all expected. The minor downside to that is that it's not a drink where you can really separate flavour from strength: you either drink it at 40 proof with a lot of flavour, or your drink it at 15 proof as an lightly-flavoured spritzer. All in all, it's a decent mix and we'll certainly drink it up today. Flavours mixed well, I think rye/grapefruit/brown-sugar worked out. Any guesses though on why I got less bright fruity flavour? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Dec 24, 2011 |
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Dec 24, 2011 19:12
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I imagine that most folks in this thread are well past this point, but for anyone else just feeling these things out: making oleosaccharum is easy and fun. Basically it's just letting sugar wick out the oils in citrus peels, and it brings out a ton of interesting flavour. The best quick writeup I've seen is this one: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/09/cocktail-101-how-to-make-oleo-saccharum-lemon-oli-for-punch-wondrich.html Not really much to it, you just slice some citrus peels off (leaving as little white stuff on the peel as possible), and set it in a vessel layered with sugar. Within 20m or so the peels will start sweating, and you'll see glisteny oil and the sugar getting damp. When I did it recently (brown sugar and red grapefruit peels) it formed a black and fragrant ooze. The blog post mentions that this is also a kick-rear end way to make lemonade, so I'll definitely be trying that this summer. As mentioned in my earlier punch post: with my juiced lemon corpses, and peels after removing them from the mix, I've made them pull double-duty by packing them into a jar with sea salt, so in a few weeks I'll have North African-style pickled lemons, which will go great on a mezze platter with some hummus and olives, or in couscous. I had expected that there would be so little juice left in the lemons after squeezing that I'd have to top them off with fresh lemon juice or pickling vinegar, but to my surprise they still oozed enough juice that, with a little packing down from above, the liquid/salt level completely covers the fruit. Pickled lemons rock, and in Texas where they're $1 for a dozen, pickled key limes are even better. I may set some of them aside to try to make some kind of Vietnamese-fusion cocktail based on chanh muối, "salty lemonade" which I love dearly. FAKE EDIT: the Wikipedia illustration is making me salivate: 
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Jan 2, 2012 21:35
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Another Christmas, and yet again out making United Service Punch. Sugar, tea, lemons, nutmeg, and Batavia arrack. I was going to post asking if jaggery would work for the sugar, but then realised I asked that Kenning answered that when I asked last year. I ended up using turbinado (demerara) sugar as advised, and it worked great. This year I have just a little demerara, plenty of evaporated cane juice sugar, and a block of panela (more or less Latin American jaggery cake). Kenning, do you think it might work if I muddle the lemon peels in a half-amount of the loose sugar, and on the side make a syrup of an equivalent amount of jaggery, in order to get the funkier flavour of the latter, but the more convenient oleosaccharum of the first? Looking at USP recipes online, some don't appear to have an oleosaccharum step; being when you put the lemon peels (white pith removed) into sugar and they ooze out their oil over a few hours. I think the oleosaccharum makes a big difference, so the alternate method of just soaking lemon slices in the liquor sounds less flavourful. Good article on oleo-saccharum here: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/09/cocktail-101-how-to-make-oleo-saccharum-lemon-oli-for-punch-wondrich.html This party will have lots of foodies so I'm fine spending $30 on actual Batavia arrack, but I need to find a decent $15 bottle of rhum agricole for things like office parties and whatnot where folks aren't as hipster about it.
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Nov 30, 2012 23:02
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Whoops, wrong thread. Moving my post about how to make a fermented cherries and cherrystone liqueur without dying of mold toxins or cyanide to the thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3440248&pagenumber=13#lastpost
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 19:51 on May 26, 2013 |
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May 26, 2013 19:38
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Yoshifan823 posted:I've discovered that the perfect hot toddy contains not whiskey and water, but apple cider and its good friend Applejack. Make sure you heat the cider up with some cloves, cinnamon and lemon like a proper warm cider, then just add to a glass (or mason jar, for that down home feel) with a coating of honey on the bottom topped by a couple oz of the Applejack. I prefer the tea-based toddies (English style?) instead of just hot water but I agree with you on the apple booze. An ex and I used to put away a lot of toddy made of Earl Gray, a little honey, and then Calvados. I haven't Pepsi Challenge'd it against Laird's, but since Laird's is notably cheaper than Calvados in DC I'll have to try it for a change. quote:How bad of an idea would it be to make some applejack myself, the old fashioned way? Unlike a lot of folks in this forum I'm not a brewing expert, but in the past I've read up on just what you're pondering, and there are a lot of cautions online about how amateur jacking can leave you some nasty stuff in the distillate, whether methyl alcohol or just other things that'll make you feel lovely in high concentration. So I'd read really carefully on the issue before proceeding.
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Dec 14, 2013 21:40
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Dangit, that's almost a reply to what I was going to ask, since Admiral Russel punch is: 6 lemons 1 cup raw sugar 1 750-ml bottle VSOP-grade Cognac 1 cup lightly sweet oloroso or amontillado Sherry (such as Dry Sack 15-year-old or Sandeman Character) Freshly grated nutmeg I was going to ask "what's a good brandy-based punch?" since I've made United Service Punch too many times in a row, plus not enough of my friends appreciate Batavia arrack. The most interesting brandy punches I see have the basic lemons turned into oleosaccharum, and then either some wine product, some sherry product, or both. I'm torn between: - Admiral Russel (above) any of several punches at http://www.jsonline.com/features/food/punch-happy-m03hf18-136236738.html - Hi-Hat Alfonso Punch: Dubonnet Rouge (an apertif wine), brandy, Angostura bitters, lemons/sugar, and cava to give it sparkle - Regents Punch: green tea, sherry, brandy, champagne, sugar with less lemon As much as I like exposing more people to sherry, the chance to force people to drink Dubonnet has me inclined to the Hi-Hat, plus I love cava. Anyone got any swaying vote?  Whichever one I make, I'm doing a double-batch since on Thursday I have a work party at noon, and a friend's party in the evening, and I'm lazy.
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Dec 17, 2013 07:33
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Probably a fucktardedly simple question, but I'll ask for me and all the duffers: Is there a significant difference between: a) Solution X, cold, and I dump sugar and cold water into it b) Solution X, and I take the separate sugar and water, boil the water and melt the sugar into it, let it totally cool into "simple syrup" and after its cool pour it into the solution I'm a dumbass, and so tended to just dump sugar into mixes to sweeten them, but then I just get it somewhat sweeter and a sludge of granular sugar congealed at the bottom of the jug. If I do the whole "simple syrup" process prior to mixing, is it less likely to precipitate into solid sugar and sludge out at the bottom of my jug rather than mixing in?
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Dec 19, 2013 08:29
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The Maestro posted:The point of simple syrup is that the sugar is already dissolved, precisely to eliminate the problems you're having. I've never seen simple syrup revert to sugar sludge. Cool, now I feel dumb for the several years I made mixes but didn't bother making simple syrups. For two Christmases in a row for office and social parties I've laid lemon zest down on a bed of jaggery/panela for hours to "sweat" out the citrus oil and then just dumped said oleo saccharum into cold punch and stirred it in. This time I made the "Hi-Hat Alfonso" punch mentioned above, but sweated the lemon peels into panela and then dissolved the results into boiling water. I'll find out in the morning if I have a huge sludge of sugar at the bottom as per usual, or whether the magic of boiling has properly suspended both the sugar and the citrus oils in my solution. My initial taste-sampling at 3am indicates it's totally boss, in either case.
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Dec 19, 2013 09:30
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Bringing post over from the "infuse" thread: This weekend a friend is having a Valentine's Day party, and we're supposed to bring food/drinks that are either red or pink, or love/sex related. I've been soaking dried cherries in cachaça to make this sticky-sweet cordial, and though honestly it's a bit over-sweet on its own (while still being 80proof and a bit rough to sip), I was thinking to do maybe a 1:3 with the cordial and seltzer, and label it as "cherry cordial fizz" or something. Sound workable? Are there any flavors I should add into that to make it more complex (soak a tiny bit of anise, or allspice, or Sichuan peppercorn in the mix?), or best to just leave well enough alone?
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Feb 15, 2014 20:12
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I still have a little pomelocello left as well, so I might pour a little bit of that in there for the bitterness to help provide a little contrast to the cherry sweetness, plus some citric brightness. I want to work in some anise flavor, but my homemade anisette isn't quite what I was going for, but I have some Turkish rakı that should work. I'll mix up a tiny sample on the side to play with the proportions a bit, and serve it tonight. I am finding it surprisingly hard to find a kitchen funnel at an actual brick-and-mortar store, even Target (albeit our tiny urban version). Need to add that to the Amazon list, but tonight have a stick mess trying to jury rig a funnel to get this all into a classy bottle.
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Feb 15, 2014 23:04
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Coming home from a hard day of canvassing for legalized weed in DC, I stopped at the Pearl Dive and then Saint Ex on 14th St, and was exposed to two liquors I've never had before: - Byyrh, a pretty tasty vin apertif, in a long-drink with vermouth, triple sec, cocchi, fernet, and soda and lime - Malort, apparently a Chicago version of wormwood brannvin, tasted similar to aquavit, in a mixed drink with grapefruit syrup and lager. As a tangential "first time trying liquor X", for a while I'd pressed a girly female friend to try sloe gin, and teased her with the old line "sloe gin makes a girl fast". Then one night she texted me "i finally tried sloe gin in a cocktail at [bar], and last night I had a really vivid dream where I was dead. never trying it again."
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May 5, 2014 05:44
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Any goon-recommended summer punches? For winter I've been making United Service Punch; I love Batavia arrack despite its spendiness. A few times I've made punches based on the same 5-ingredient classic idea, like last year for this same rooftop party I think I used limes as my citrus, green tea, Guatemalan cane liquor (basically a plain white rum), raw cane sugar, and iirc allspice for the spice. I'd like to do something else pretty similar to the classic 5-ingredient punch, and something decently summery, but want to mix it up a little. Maybe some kind of tissane (like hibiscus "tea"?), oranges, cheap brandy, cane sugar.... and I don't know what for the spice. Both allspice and nutmeg are so heavily associated with Christmas in the US, they seem incongruous at a summer party. I once used allspice in a spring punch in the past, going for a Caribbean feel, but though everyone loved it I still got a lot of "smells like Christmas cookies!" comments. Any other permutations around the Basic 5 that I should consider? I also debated mellowing it down a little and using a vin apertif (like Dubbonet Blanc or Lillet) in place of the hard liquor, but do a heavier pour of the weaker spirit into the mix. I suppose I could just suck it up and use more than 5 ingredients, but I like the challenge of sticking to a classic format.
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Jun 6, 2014 04:08
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Okay, here's what I'm going with for a summer 5-ingredient punch for a roof-deck party in DC: - Clementines (juiced, and shaved peels muddled in cane sugar to make oleo saccharum) - Turbinado sugar - E&J VSOP brandy (cheap but drinkable in punch) - Hibiscus tea, with some gum arabic for smoothness - Galangal (Thai spice, tastes somewhat like ginger) Thus far it seems to be turning out okay, but I'm not sure 750ml of brandy in 3 litres of punch is enough, but I don't want to just dump more brandy in, so I'll semi-cheat and get a bottle of Dubbonet Rouge and add that to-taste into the mix. For the hibiscus tea, I want sparkle but don't want to water-down the mix, so I'm thinking to brew strong hibiscus tea, then reduce it down to a thicker semi-syrup and pour it into seltzer water. That way I'll get flavor but also sparkle but not too watery. Thoughts? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 06:33
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Going to a friend's rooftop party to make fireworks. I've made punches for all his parties I've been to, and am under standing request to bring a punch to any his parties. I try to make something a little different each time, and a few have been great (mainly classics like United Service) and a few were just okay (clementine/tea/Dubonnet Rouge/galangal) but the crowd has loved them and killed two carafes every time. Today I'm deviating slightly from "پنج (panj) means five, punch has five ingredients" rule, going with following: - Pineapple juice (bottled, meh) - Dry sherry - Small bits of homemade lime-cello that was too bitter to serve straight - Rooibos tea reduction (so as not to add too much wateriness) with gum arabic for mouth-feel - Basil leaves steeping in pineapple juice for hours - Sugar to taste - Depending on space left in carafe, sparkling water - Shaved cucumbers over top shortly before serving. I debated trying to make homemade orgeat to add to it, but a) it turns out it takes hours to let the ingredients process b) I need to leave well enough alone and not "guild the lily". TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 20:16
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Now that it's punch season again, I'm trying to use up the contents of my girlfriend's liquor cabinet before she moves to Berlin. Cumulatively, she has about 750ml of whiskies, including Jameson, Maker's, and some Stagg Cherry Bourbon, so I'm looking at a whiskey punch and chose the "Old Reliable" out of the Searing recipe book. Basically just whiskey, grapefruit peels and juice, sugar, and sparkling water. I was a bit disappointed that the book doesn't really buy into the whole oloesaccharum thing, which I'm a huge fan of, so I've got my zested peels sitting on a bed of sugar right now to leach out the citrus oils. It calls for adding grapefruit juice, but has anyone else found that grapefruit can make a really watery punch? I tried a red grapefruit and bourbon punch a few years back, and it felt like the grapefruit just didn't have a dense enough flavor. This time I'm going to try simmering the water out of the juice to get a reduction/syrup, and also have some store-bought juice to add in a pinch, since it seems less-watery than fresh squeezed.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:59
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Made a few punches for parties in the last few months. Among the odder was a "clean out the cabinets" mix that I think came out surprisingly well: pomegranate vodka, Japanase shochu, yuzu liqueur, apricot schnaps, with a good oleo saccharum made of cane sugar and blood-orange peels, and diluted with raspberry Earl Grey tea and a dash of orange bitters. In any case, separate issue. I was doing a "Dry January" and promised myself I'd get a neat bottle of something after I succeeded. I really had my heart set on calvados, since I'm a cider fan overall (serious Continental stuff, not Rhino/Woodchuck). I went to a higher-end bottleshop in DC, and the guy there convinced me that all the calvados they had wasn't strongly apple-y, tasted more like brandy in general, so I bought a bottle of Leopold Bros. apple-flavored whiskey. It's pretty good and really apple-y, but I still feel a punk that I copped out and didn't get a proper apple-based spirit. Thing is, other than Laird's I haven't seen many US-made apple-based spirits in DC, so I checked out this list http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/...ndy-to-buy.html and might need to bug some family on the West Coast to pick up a bottle for me and set it aside for next Christmas. God drat America and these ludicrous restrictions on inter-state hard liquour. Fuckin' Puritans and their turkeys and genocide and all...
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Feb 3, 2015 09:54
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I've been using United Service Punch as a go-to for taking along to parties, for several years now since learning about that drink in this thread. For some baffling reason I moved to Liberia, and there's probably nowhere to buy Batavia Arrack anywhere in West Africa, so since there's a party this evening I decided to make USP but using rhum agricole instead, and though it's not quite the same, I think it has some of that funkiness that regular white rum doesn't, so under the circumstances a workable substitute. I brought about 2.5 liters of punch to a party of 150 or so people (I wasn't a featured drink, I iust brought punch instead of a six-pack or bottle of plonk). It was gone in under an hour, multiple people asked for the recipe, etc. so chalk up another win for United Service Punch. That's also the recipe where I learned to make oleo saccharum, which was pretty much my Red Pill moment so far as my understanding of citrus goes.
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Aug 14, 2015 00:38
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cbirdsong posted:I am making Regent's Punch, as posted by Kenning, and am having trouble finding Batavia Arrack. What's a good substitute? As mentIoned last page, I recently used rhum agricole as a substitute for BA since the booze selection in West Africa is limited, and I was pretty happy with how it came out. It's not the exact same, but way closer than just generic rum is, has that kind of slightly sulphurous funkiness to it that so characterizes BA. I once gave a buddy a jigger of BA to try (I bought a case of glass test-tubes to be able to give friends little taste-samples of things) and he got all upset at me because it was horrible. Despite my explicitly telling him to mix it, he drank it neat. I love BA in fruity mixed drinks, but I think it's ghastly on its own.
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Aug 17, 2015 02:46
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trauma llama posted:I had very little interest in Batavia Arrack until you described it as licking a mossy Rock. I have now decided I must acquire some. But then again lovely the peatiest Islay scotches one can find. So I may be broken. That taste come from moldy rice cakes. Not kidding. So ymmv. Great mixing spirit though, lot of character.
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Aug 17, 2015 11:06
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angor posted:Recently I've been grabbing a can of soda water out of the fridge, taking a couple swigs from it, and topping it up with Campari. It's lovely. Along those lines, if you want an easy Campari, just make an Aperol Spritz but with Campari instead: Campari, soda water, prosecco. Great hot-weather drink.
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Aug 29, 2015 19:41
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Invoices we're desperately waiting on are further delayed at our West Africa startup, so we're scrounging up loose change and eating rice and beans for a few days until multiple tens of thousands get paid out to us. We'd already downgraded from Martinique rhum agricole to generic white rum two weeks ago when petty cash started getting tight, but as of today I'm reduced to mixing this stuff in my homemade limeade: I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, and I've had people shoot at me.
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Sep 18, 2015 21:27
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Magog posted:Same, what the gently caress? A gin from Liberia seems pretty out of place. I live in Monrovia. Anyway, iirc a lot of the local/regional dirt-cheap liquors have more Western screw-top caps, but for some reason a lot of brands of gin are capped. Aside from gin there's a variety of cheap African made whiskies mostly, and rarely a rum or brandy, but a lot of local shops don't even know what rum or vodka are. Larger/nicer stores have an okay selection, just a slightly odd one by U.S. standards: really heavy on scotch, good variety of gin, very little bourbon and no rye, moderate selection of the big-name vodkas, limited selection of rums that's light on generic American stuff (no Bacardi or Capt) but lots of odder little things like cachaça, rhum agricole and pisco (which is technically a brandy iirc). Limited but slightly high-end selection of cognac, and liqueurs are really hit-or-miss: they'll have a lot of overpriced lovely Bols-type wacky flavors, but amidst all that some good German apricot schnapps, Slovakian bilberry liquor, really good selection of Anisettes (see below) and of course lots of Amarula. Re the arak chat earlier on the page (and btw arak is one of the liquors that *is* widely available at the nicer shops in Monrovia since lots of Lebanese merchants here). A few years back I was at a birthday party in DC, and one of the guests had just been on a business trip to Ankara, so on her way out had asked a guy at the liquor store for a really good brand of Turkish vodka to gift the birthday boy. She presents the bottle, they start mixing drinks, and my ears perk up at their loud exclamations about how Turkey makes the shittiest vodka ever. I mosey over and of course it turns out she'd bought a bottle of high-end rakī (my phone lacks the right final letter). So I show them the right way to mix it with cold water; most of them still didn't like it, but a few became believers.
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Sep 19, 2015 10:18
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Reiterpallasch posted:Kenning/anyone else with punching experience, do you mind if I pick your brains for a sec? I'm no punchmeister, but I've made a dozen or so in the last few years and they've all been at least good, and a number of them went over extremely well. I don't have the magic punch book, but just as some general comments: - when I need an earthy and inexpensive champagne substitute, I use basic Spanish cava. It's not the most refined stuff, but it's hearty enough to hold up against other ingredients and doesn't taste "cheap" in the same way as bad bubbly. - for the oleosaccharum, what did your sugar look like after you rested the peels in it? Was it just slightly wet/scented or did it turn into a gooey mess? How many hours did you leave the peels in the sugar? Usually in the U.S. with lemons (and I usually use panela/jaggery, those bricks of dark cane sugar) the sugar goes full on oozy and just reeks of citrus oil, and it makes a huge impact on the final flavor. I don't know if a darker sugar would throw the palette off for your recipe, but I tend to make heavy punches. - for the ice, are you making one huge block to drop in, vice smaller cubes, so it doesn't water down too fast? Just some initial thoughts.
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Sep 27, 2015 13:25
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Our new housemate here in West Africa is an ex-Peace Corps gal, and she wanted to contribute to the household stash since we're nearly flat-broke while waiting on this NGO to pay us the $37,000 they owe us. Like "dinner is plantains and salt pork by candlelight" poor this week. So trying to be helpful she bought us a bottle of that execrable Liberian gin, so we choked that down with some Schwepps Bitter Lemon. She felt bad about that and wanted to buy something cheap but less-lovely, so we figured "how hard is it not to gently caress up whiskey"? Behold:  I'll be goony nerdy and paraphrase Hitchhiker's Guide: "a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike whiskey". As in, if you gave it to me blindfolded and asked me what spirit it was, "whiskey" would not be in my top three guesses. This was some serious paint-thinner poo poo. We don't have a lot of stuff on-hand to mix it with and it's completely undrinkable on its own (like "refused by hoboes" undrinkable) but it was standable when mixed into mango generic kool-aid or into black tea with tinned milk. Somehow Liberians find the stuff palatable enough to keep the company, and many like it, in business. The housemate lived in a neighboring country and said the common hard booze there was little soft plastic tear-open sachets of potable ethanol and water, so apparently a lower bar can indeed be found in the region.
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Sep 28, 2015 15:28
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goferchan posted:Dude please keep posting about weird lovely African liquor , I've been fascinated by this. Also I will totally PayPal you some money to send me some if that's inside the realm of possibility What country are you in? Liquor can't be mailed the U.S. afaik; I don't know about the EU, but also I don't know how cost-effective it would be to package some securely enough and mail it. But I can definitely post any interesting alcohol stuff I run across here. Ralith posted:Is there just not enough of a market for imports yet? Oh, there are imports, just we've been poo poo-poor for three weeks while waiting on an NGO to pay our invoices they owe us. Now that we have thousands I'm going to swing by one of the big supermarkets that caters to local elites and the expats, and get some decent stuff. Though we got a lot of cash in today finally, boss is edgy about blowing through it all like drunken sailors on shore leave. So to keep it reasonable I'll probably just aim to get a $20 bottle of Martinique rhum agricole and maybe a $15 of blended Scotch (DeWars?). I have a post a page back or so explaining what imports are available here if you're curious. I don't plan on regularly drinking local commercial spirits because they're ghastly, though I do plan to try out more traditional local drinks like palm wine, etc. I had some really good bottled commercial palm wine from Togo at a bar in Berlin, was kind of like a more vegetal dry cider, could definitely do more of that. Also our expat neighbors who run a honey collective are coming back to town so I plan to make mead. Also rainy season is ending so pineapples are coming into season, so fixing to brew up some big jugs of tepache. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 14:03
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Okay the Liberia startup has *some* money now, so we don't have to live on 75-cent local gin, but we're still not stable enough that the boss won't be annoyed if I bring back a $50 bottle of tequila from a grocery run. So I'm in a compromise middle area, so stand by for a report on Indian-made "Napoleon D'Or" brandy I bought for $6.50 from a local Lebanese-run grocery.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:24
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slut chan posted:Anyone in this thread tried Malört? Local wormwood spirit in Chicago. Most people treat it like a joke, but I un-ironically enjoy it, and just wanted to know if I'm insane. I had a really great Malort drink at Sainte X in DC, lemme take a look at my camera files to see the menu description I took a snap of. I'm pretty sure it was with grapefruit and I want to say a lighter Belgian beer, but I don't want to confuse it with the really tasty drink mixed with Byrrh aperitif I also had that night. Man I had some great drinks on 14th St that night, I miss that. Liberia's cocktail culture is emphatically lacking. I do keep running across weird offering at shops though, and getting ever closer to having enough budget to get some good stuff. What's the closest analogue to Gammel Dansk that I might already know? Multiple groceries carry it here for some reason.
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Oct 10, 2015 18:07
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There are some interesting bitter liquors floating around Liberia, so I do intend to sample several of them. There's a Galician brand called Nuevas Rias that I intend to try out, a few Italian ones I've never heard of, and for $7 there's a brand of bitter aperitif popular in Ghana called Joy Dadi that I'll definitely be trying. Campari and Aperol are pricey here, so I want to experiment. There's a triple sec called Orange Duck that I can't find anything about online other than just inventory listings, may try that one out. I'm kind of in a sticky place since I'm in charge of food for the company HQ staff, and while they love me as a cook and mixologist, the other folks don't have very refined drinking palates so it's hard to get them to give me extra funds to get decent liquor instead of just what's cheapest. I may take the angle of pointing out that we entertain clients and business partners, and at least some of those folks are the types that have strong opinions as to how Emirates Airlines has the absolute best executive lounge at Heathrow, are about to go to Rio for Carnival, etc so we want to be able to roll in style for those kind of colleagues. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Oct 11, 2015 |
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Oct 11, 2015 16:09
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I continue my ill-advised forays into locally produced West African liquors:
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Dec 2, 2015 17:09
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Oh yeah, this "rhum" I bought yesterday (I assume "RCI" means "République de Côte d'Ivoire") full on appears to be grain alcohol with caramel coloring and pretty much tutti-frutti flavoring, basically tasting like bubblegum. I've pretty much given up any expectation of WA liquor being properly drinkable, so I'm mostly buying these for like a buck a pop just to try out for the experience. One of my coworkers has been buying WA vodka from the corner shop on a more regular basis and hasn't gone blind yet, but then again she used to routinely buy local liquor in Sierra Leone (one of the few places in the world less developed than Liberia, which is saying something), and there they just sell grain alcohol in little sealed plastic baggies as though it were Canadian milk. On the other hand, every Indian liquor I've tried here has been pretty drinkable; the bottle of $7 Napoleon brandy was serviceable. But yeah, now that we're actually generating some cashflow here, now that I'm back in town visiting I really want to get a bottle of proper Martinique rhum agricole from one of the top-end grocery stores here. I've been up in the bush the last month, and the bosses were kind enough to send me a small bottle of Johnny Walker, but other than that I've just been drinking palm wine (same stuff the Indians call "palm toddy", basically fermented tree juice). I've had professional/commercial/bottled palm wine before and it was quite good, the amateur/bush stuff is a little more hit-or-miss with some of it being a little off-tasting or sulfurous. You also have to gauge the strength by how sweet or dry it is (how much of its sugars have converted), so getting a really dry batch can get you stumbling far faster than expected. quote:someone who spent 3 years in WA My condolences! I've been here not quite half a year, and while it's certainly been educational and I've had some good times, I've been pretty clear to my bosses that I will happily bounce to Southern Africa, South Asia, Oceania, or South America, wherever they feel like branching out to next, since I have no intent to spend more than a year in West Africa. Which is probably "famous last words"... TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 09:49
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DontAskKant posted:Never had hot buttered rum before. Followed the serious eats version here. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/01/time-for-a-drink-hot-buttered-rum-recipe.html I've been advised by some serious foodies that this is one of the best uses for cannabutter. Kenning posted:The French 75 is the cruelest cocktail. breeding Elderflowers out of the dead glass, mixing Memory and amnesia, stirring Dull liquids with springing bubbles. Every time I order a French 75 in a new place, I ask the bartender if they know where the name comes from, and none ever have that I've asked so far. They generally seem to find it interesting, or are at least humoring me. Supposedly it's named after this, and I feel nerdy that I knew about the namesake before I knew about the cocktail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_de_75_mod%E8le_1897
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Jan 13, 2016 00:52
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