Mindscape 307 | Kevin Peterson on the Theory of Cocktails
I've checked and closing/reopening works (of course locally only, no incognito tabs, etc...)
bonus if garnished with a green olive
Damn, now I want a Last Word.
Still make the drink with absinthe and see how it goes though - it'll taste totally different but it might still be good, and the ABV and (lack of) sweetness of chartreuse and absinthe are at least fairly close.
But definitely not absinthe.
Chartreuse got very popular in the last few years, and the monks started to produce more, but now they are at a point where they feel they a) earn enough money for the monastery and b) they claim scaling further hurts the sustainability.
So instead of producing more, they allocate the existing stock mostly to the hospitality business instead of the private consumer.
Gin took me the longest to “get” and subtle cocktails that play to its strengths seem to have had the most lasting appeal.
Whiskey drinks are great but I’d usually just rather have a nice whiskey straight, versus diluted with sugar. Whiskey+wine has some good combos.
Likewise with tequila.
Rum/rhum I still don’t get the sipping side, so cocktails is still the go-to there. A splash of nice white wine+rum has been a recent successful experiment.
Vodka… well what’s the point?
One of the things that I've found is various advent calendars of a given type or theme of spirit. I've had three different ones for gin (several different ways to approach it) and I've found great variety in them while maintaining an amount of "yep, that's gin."
There are subtle gins and not so subtle gins. The one that was the least subtle was Hepple Gin ( https://theginisin.com/gin-reviews/hepple-gin/ ) which if you notice on that chart has a very high juniper flavor profile.
> The nose is delicately spicy with lots of juniper. Green, piney-juniper, fir branch, with a bit of citrus tinged herbal notes beneath it.
https://hepplespirits.com/products/hepple-gin - note the equipment for the process.
I also had a South American gin... which was "ok, instead of old world botanicals and base, new world." It was gin... but it certainly wasn't London gin.
If I had to have a gin gin, moonshot was my favorite.
If you're curious about it... in September start looking for them.
There's a vast variety and some is great, some not so much. There are very sweet, delicious rums like Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva, which is tasty but a little bit on the syrupy side. Then there are delicious but less sweet rums like Appleton Estate, Flor de Cana, Havana Club, Mount Gay, El Dorado etc. Ron Zacapa is very sippable too, and very approachable, and I think their solera 23 makes a really good entry point to the 'genre'.
As with whisky, the older the rum, the more complex and in general 'better' they tend to be, and the various 'XO' versions of Zacapa etc are more refined again.
I prefer to stick to the bigger names like those above, which is not to say there aren't good rums from newer or smaller places, but if you're just starting out these are some good, solid makers to begin to develop your palate. I guess a bit like recommending someone start an exploration of Scotch with a taste of Ardbeg, Highland Park, Macallan etc - get to know the big names a little before you experiment.
Spiced rums can be delicious sipped, but the cheaper end of the market often use their flavouring to mask a poor underlying spirit. See Sailor Jerry, Kraken, and other highly-flavoured rums like Pink Pigeon. Bumbu is good though and (surprisingly?) so is Captain Morgans Private Stock. I generally stay away from anything else labelled Captain Morgan. Purists will argue that any/all spiced rums are not really rum, because they are flavoured and almost all are heavily sweetened and so should be called 'rum liqueur'. It's not an argument I'd like to partake in particularly.
Avoid white rums unless mixing, IMHO. Anything claiming to be Navy rum is probably a bit rough (I'm not a fan of Pussers). And stay away from "Stroh 80", that stuff tastes like burning tyres.
I don't really drink rum any more, but when I did ... I drank all the rums!
I would bet there are some DIY infusions out there which nail it though.
but if this really interests you it seems like an obvious opportunity for something like “the 102 impossible drinks” or something. figure out the DIY recipes and go to YT
Are you referring to "every" cocktail meaning "every IBA" cocktail? No complaints there, that's just headline writing.
But there's a reason I called out the Vesper -- it's on the list! And I'd argue it's the cocktail on the list that, most obviously, no one can make today. It's not a cocktail that allows creativity or substitution in its ingredients -- it's specifically a showcase of Kina Lillet -- and its key ingredient isn't available today. The correct response to someone ordering a Vesper should be "I can't make you that, but maybe you'd like a <something related>." (Or, honestly, "meh, we can do better than that" -- it's a mediocre cocktail at best, but that's not the point.)
And some happy folks figure this earlier.
I'm curious the opinion of those here on this.
Are you able to be classified as "having a problem with alcohol" if you "only have 2 drinks a night" a lot?
Skip a night, sure.
Skip it for 3 months... probably not.
Is that how addiction starts?
> It’s rare that I have more than a drink or two in one night.
I don't drink that often any more, but 2-3 drinks in a night, done occasionally is not a problem. I've had weeks where I drink a beer (or two!) every night, and also don't struggle with any alcohol problems.
2 drinks every single night? Leaning that way - and not great for you just from a health/caloric perspective.
Do they not think people will notice? Or do they not notice that they've even done it?
I've also discovered that brown liquors are twice as bad for me in this regard so I now try to stick to wine, sake, or gin. I'm not mad at this as I've grown rather tired of what bourbon culture has seemingly become... the capitalization, enshittification and marketing games have largely put me off from the category.
Anyway, I think this list of cocktails will be my next long term goal
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_H...
The syrup they're in is also incredible.
Or so I claim.
- Avoid the big brands for Tequila and Rum (Cuervo and Bacardi). There are exceptions, but it’s easier to skip.
- Cheap gin can be good or bad. Gordon’s is a reasonable entry. The step up is Beefeater or Tanqueray. There are a bajillion craft gins and you can skip them until you’re ready to go deep.
- Tequila should always say 100% puro de agave on the bottle. If it does not say this, do not buy it.
- Anything that says “straight bourbon” on the bottle is probably fine.
- For scotch, look for single malt (best) or blended malt (acceptable) if you plan on sipping it. For mixers, I like Bank Note or Famous Grouse. Avoid the lower tiers of the big blends (Johnny Walker, Dewars, etc) - they are mostly grain alcohol.
- I don’t have an opinion on Vodka. If you do for some reason want it, Polish brands seem to be the best value (Sobieski, Luksusowa, etc).
- For “rye” look for something bottled in bond. Don’t pick up a Canadian rye unless you know what you’re doing. They are not the same, and most Canadian rye is not good.
- Rum is kind of hard. There are actually very different styles appropriate for different things, and tons of brands at similar price points that can be great or awful. For funk, look for Hamilton pot still, Rum Bar, Wray and Nephew, Doctor Bird, or Smith and Cross. For a cleaner style, look at Plantation 3 star as an entry level.
- always squeeze your own citrus juice (lemon/lime/orange). Orange should not be squeezed ahead of time. Lemon/Lime can be done a few hours before or to order, depending on personal preference.
- skip Rose’s anything (grenadine, cordial, etc).
- Angostura is a great all-around bitter. Add Regan’s Orange bitters and you’re all set unless you want to go deep on the hobby.
I have spent a lot of time in this rabbit hole, happy to answer specific questions.
And the only counterpoint is pineapple juice, which you should just buy in the can -- it doesn't hold long at all once in air.
Honey syrup is even easier to make, just mix 50/50 honey and hot water. Subbing for simple syrup gives interesting results in most drinks.
Grenadine is also super easy - buy a bottle of POM and mix juice 50:50 with sugar. I like to add a little pomegranate molasses (get at a middle-east specialty market) to kick up the flavor, but not necessary.
Re: pineapple. If you are able to press your own pineapple juice you absolutely should, but agree that most people do not have the necessary equipment. Trader Joe’s sells bottles of fresh pressed pineapple juice that is excellent, if you’re fortunate enough to live by one. Otherwise yeah, canned is the way to go.
There are many great Canadian Ryes. But if you’re new to cocktails, odds are against you finding them at your local liquor store, and you probably don’t need them for the drink you’re trying to make. I didn’t mean to disparage the category. Lot 40 and Alberta Dark Horse/Dark Batch have earned their accolades.
You did disparage the category, but it still seems based off not understanding what it is. The listed Canadian whiskeys are great and meet the US definition of Rye, but Canadian Rye is a bigger category with lots of great stuff to explore. Just don't substitute it into the wrong drink and blame the bottle.
Tequila is fine as long as you grab a bottle that says 100% Puro De Agave. Compliance requires it be all blue agave with no sugars or additives. It might have lost a lot of character to an autoclave, but it won’t be gross.
It is hard to go wrong grabbing a bottle of straight bourbon. By law to be bourbon there are assurances about the contents - no sugar/flavor/color added, aged in new charred barrels, minimum 51% corn, etc. Straight rye (or better yet BiB) has similar guarantees.
Canadian Rye does not have these requirements. It could be 5% rye and 95% wheat in fourth-fill barrels. It could have sugar added. It could have weird flavors added. You should know what you’re doing if you’re shopping Canadian Rye. I can’t give you a one liner on how to avoid the traps.
But most importantly, this is a thread about cocktails, and you have to get pretty deep into craft cocktails before you find any that call for Canadian rye. I am trying to give rules of thumbs for newbies to avoid common pitfalls, one of which is seeing a drink that calls for “rye” and grabbing a bottle of Canadian rye.
On that note, if you have some great recipes calling for Canadian rye, I’d love to hear them. I’ve got a bottle each of Forty Creek Copper Pot and Crown Northern harvest that are languishing on my shelf.
Personally, I strongly prefer vodkas made of wheat, they tend to be smoother and sit better (and the hangover is anegdotically less of a problem).
Also, people who think vodka quality doesn't matter clearly never drank a lot of vodka.
From Polish brands, black Żubrówka, Ostoya and Chopin are good. Normal Żubrówka (the one with grass) is nice as well, but it's not neutral vodka (recommend with apple juice).
And obviously Belvedere is the fancy brand.
For the floral styles then there's all kinds out there. Leopold Brothers is very intersting if you can find it. Also Monkey 47... pricey though.
For mixing, definitely. If you're drinking it straight, the subtle complexity of a good vodka is nice.
Maybe there is a vodka that would be different.
High-grade vodka is about producing a product free of impurities for the cleanest possible flavour. High-grade whisky is about capturing as many impurities as possible (particularly wood and peat) for a more complex flavour.
Also people experience the morning after differently I guess. As I get older whisky and red wine tend to hit harder.
Shaking or stirring a cocktail doesn’t just make it colder, it dilutes it as well. Getting this right is very often the difference between a good and bad drink.
I demonstrated this once when a friend complained that it was so hard to get a good cocktail, especially getting good ingredients. All they had in their kitchen was some gin and some other slightly floral novelty liqueur. I just took a spoon and a glass and stirred them something based on the ratios for a martini and they said it was one of the best cocktails they have had!
Balancing chill and dilution, even in more complex drinks, is essential.
A good way to experiment is to make batch chilled cocktails in which case you need to explicitly measure out the water you’re adding.
Like bad and maybe salty?
Takes a minute before they track it down. They'd mixed up the salted ice cubes they used to keep champagne cold with the ones they use for drinks.
That one was rough. I had politely worked through my drink before we launched the investigation. Good party though and I did get a new drink which tasted fine.
I'm sure a tiny pinch can do wonders. Salted cubes, not recommended.
That being said, IMHO sweet vermouths vary a lot. Enough that I'd pick one over another depending on the cocktail.
Some recipes call for 1:2 ratio, but the 1:1 works well! Give it a try
The gin, on the other hand: just get the cheapest stuff you can find. Our go-to was Aldi's store brand.
Campari, of course, has the middle ingredient all stitched up.
But Martini & Rossi is fine. It does the job well enough to understand the drinks, and you can start trying the pricier stuff once you decide if you even like them.
Also, hard disagree on “buy the cheapest gin.” Gordon’s is better than everything else on the bottom shelf at a regular liquor store, but often costs a buck or two more. Way better than Seagrams, or something like New Amsterdam that isn’t even a London Dry. I don’t have an Aldi to compare to. Kirkland Signature is fine if we’re doing store brands.
No argument on Campari. That’s just truth.
Very good point. The first time I had a Gin and Tonic with a fresh squeezed lime half and a good tonic water was mind blowing. I had thought that sour mix was just as good as a fresh lime and that all tonic water was the same, but man I was wrong.
What would have been hilarious is if he had said "my 14th birthday was quickly approaching" at this point in the post
Is this breadth of topics common for the American higher educational system or did the author go to a special university?
This breadth is typical of the very largest universities in the U.S.
The number is further reduced by the fact that many of them are the same class with special qualifications to ensure placements. For example intro classes for designated transfer students. So you have the same class but 10 seats or something are only available to certain transfer program students.
The real number looks like somewhere in the ~400-600 range. Which is still very impressive but 3500 different intro subjects would be wildly excessive.
Related to the broader catalogue, I had fun in my Riflery and Table Tennis classes in college.
It requires all the following courses:
CEM 482 Science and Technology of Wine Production 3
CHE 483 Brewing and Distilled Beverage Technology 3
FSC 481 Fermented BeveragesWhile the value of some of these courses is somewhat questionable on their own (hence the old joke about majoring in "Underwater Basket Weaving"), they make a bit more sense as part of a broader program and/or a double-major.
For instance, you might double major in Chemistry, plus Food Science and Nutrition, if you intend to do some work in that industry - or perhaps Business plus Food Science and Nutrition.
Someone with less ambitious college plans might major in Food Science and Nutrition alone and aim for a job as a nutritionist, or a restaurant manager, etc.?
It's also common for people to register for courses like this as a fun or lightweight diversion from "more serious" majors. For instance, MIT offers a course on glassblowing, which counts toward the humanities & arts part of the general curriculum requirements.
If you guys like reading about this kind of thing I recommend Cocktail Codex from the people behind Death & Co (referenced in the article). It's a great way to think about cocktails as a remixable grammar and the purpose behind all the mixing, muddling, and stirring.
For instance, tons of cocktails fall into the "sour" category. They usually have proportions of 2:1:1 or 3:1:1 of a liquor, a sour, and a syrup. If you have rum, lime juice, and simple syrup it's a daiquiri. Swap out the lime juice for lemon juice and the rum for whiskey and you get a whiskey sour. Swap out the simple syrup for honey syrup and you get a Gold Rush. Use tequila, lime juice, and a blend of agave syrup and Cointreau and you have a margarita. Gin, lime, and simple syrup is a gimlet. And so on.
Also, as others have mentioned, the quality of the ingredients and the brands often matter a lot. A Manhattan calls for whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters, but the choice of whiskey and vermouth makes a big difference in the character of the drink. (And if you are using old vermouth that has been sitting out on the counter for a few years, or making a drink with bottled lime juice, it's just not going to turn out all that good.)
$$$$$$$$$
RIP all Norwegian drinkers
[typo correction and conversion likely: 4 cl = 40 ml ≈ 1.35 fl oz]
Of course I would love to see Norway lower some of it's sin taxes - these mostly only hurt poor people.
And the selection is great. In Denmark for instance, every store has a selection of alcohol, but it's quite limited and always the same everywhere. You have to hunt for specialty stores. But the monopoly has everything even in smaller cities.
For someone who drinks moderately and enjoys variety and access to obscure alcohol products it's likely a very good deal, as it is in Sweden. If I want a single bottle of lebanese Ksarak it'll cost me roughly fifty euros and I'll walk across the street to pick it up after a week or so. Unless I'm misunderstanding something the danish have to get it from german suppliers, though it'll be a bit cheaper (~33 euros), probably due to taxes.
Sometimes I've engaged in tentative planning of imports, e.g. ukrainian bubbly wine and whatnot, but it typically falls through because people don't actually want to put in the effort to organise a drive or getting someone to mail a package, even if there would be a bit of money in it. On the other hand it's trivial to get into contact with people running rather large scale imports of cheap beer and wine from Germany that sell for less than the monopoly takes.
I don't think there is actually any improvement to gain from getting rid of the monopoly, it would quickly turn our local alcohol availability into something similar to what I've seen in Russia and Bulgaria, fifty shades of Flirt vodka, sour wine and useless lager. The rest I'd have to import myself.
It is a really reasonable deal to buy from there though often. Selection is pretty good and the taxes on beer and wine are less and as a result due to the flat markup you can get really good deals on fine wines and the like.
In my area it's also trivial to find both illegal vodka and legal beer people make at home, which is common outside the larger cities in Sweden. This compensates for the lack of greyzone importers from Germany and Denmark.
Wine Monopoly is by definition a specialty store. It's state subsidised, operating and capital expenses are almost irrelevant so that's why you have everything in smaller cities as well. This comes at a financial cost of course.
The tacit advice is to drink faster than the ice melts (and if there is no ice, enjoy quickly)
Anecdotally at home and out, I've found I agree. But it could be a mental trick
Also, I HATE when bartenders add too little ice to shaken drinks and end up shaking it to oblivion. Makes me not want to order drinks from that particular bar.
Also please God pour out that old vermouth, get a new one and put it in your fridge.
Don't pour it out, but deglaze your pan the next time you cook.
Which still sounds super fake to me. It takes a host of modern drugs to prevent rejection when doing human-to-human transplants. I have long odds that monkey tissue would result in anything but a painful, septic death.
As a medical benchmark, penicillin was discovered in 1928.
Edit: I was ignoring the obvious - sham surgery! Just leave a bit of a scar, maybe inject them with some cocaine, and everyone comes out smiling.
I think that's a disservice, and it's worth standardizing; just like many of these, it can be surprisingly hard to get just right.
As a college student the premise of screening through the cocktail menu would have sounded like a great project.
As a 30 something I am more interested of drinking my way through the mocktail menu.
Would that (a redecorated bloody mary ) get in the list?
How can I excuse such a pretentious mission? Well someone told me that "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" [2] was The Cocktail Bible and a Jack Rose was the thing I'd never heard of. Turns out no one else has either, at least since Hemingway was drinking them in Paris in the 1920s. Funny how things change in 100 years.
But it's actually pretty good: applejack pretty much died out in the US with the prohibition and cheaper liquors, but if you can find cider or calvados it's worth a shot.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rose_(cocktail)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fine_Art_of_Mixing_Drinks
99 Red Balloons is also a great one
The other thing I loved about this write-up was the photo of the "best cocktail bar in the world" being the skeeziest, most dangerous looking flat-top you've ever seen. Having known a few bartenders in my life, I am absolutely not surprised that a "bartenders' bar" would look like that.
The Bar Americain which he mentions but doesn't show a picture of, on the other hand, is excellent, slap bang in the middle of Picadilly, and quite opulent. That's great to combine with a meal at the surprisingly cheap (given the location) brasserie Zedel.
Bar Americain is probably my favourite cocktail bar in central London, though I'm not much of a cocktail drinker so that's not saying much. The Connaught is good for a special occasion (very opulent, also very expensive).
There are a lot more good addresses in London than the ones he listed, it's clearly a hot spot worldwide for this kind of thing.
In NYC there are a few good ones as well, but I feel it's below London. It's also a bit too busy.
Discount Suit Company has a cool vibe, a bit more party-like, I remember dancing a few times there (despite it being tiny).
Waltz is a new one that's a bit different, Japanese-style, their creations are quite unique and masterfully delivered.
Shapes is also very popular for some reason, though I don't really see the point of places that only do bottled cocktails.
In Shoreditch and adjacent areas there are many other ones.
But of course I swapped the vodka for Limoncello.
Who did all kinds of cocaine and cannabis and wants to share that? Those seem to be safer than alcohol.
It's not, at first glance, a complex drink - but has somehow become surprisingly popular the past few years.
Experimenting with variations on the original brand-name elements is doubtless a big part of the fun - Campari is a very sweet bitters, and Rosso Antico is a competent but not spectacular vermouth. The third component is gin, of course.
Here in Australia there's some delightful local options for each of those three ingredients.
(Switching out the bitters for Fernet-Branca turns it from a Negroni into a Hanky Panky -- which is worth knowing about, but perhaps not worth the experience of drinking.)
TFA mentions in passing a 'rusty nail' which is even simpler - barely worth the moniker of cocktail - a blend of whisky and Drambuie (itself a blend of whisky and honey, herbs, spices).
I recall my first fondly, even if my liver does not -- a generous pour, foisted into my hands by the spitting image of John Cleese (along with his partner - an American version of Patsy-from-ab-fab) at a bed and breakfast, somewhere near Loch Ness, and sometime towards the end of the last century.
The internet is terrible for cocktail recipes. Discovery is terrible, recipes are badly listed most of the time, and the blogs don't curate well.
Youtube is not that bad if you can find a good channel with someone that has actually worked in a bar, but even then, they tend to go downhill after a while. It's a time limited gig.
The best way to grow your repertoire is to go to Goodwill and browse the book section there. The dollar bin section at any bookseller is good too. Used bookstores too. I have no idea why this is, but these crummy non-seller books have the best recipes and the best curation; it's bonkers. Sure, grab Smugglers Cove and the other hits, actually read them. But I have found that the best cocktail recipes are in the books no one wants anymore.
Plus I figured the HN crowd would enjoy that it's managed by Robert Hess, longtime Microsoft employee.
- Steve the bartender - How to drink - Cocktail time with Kevin Koz - The educated barfly - Anders Erickson
Good recipes, sometimes adding new things, but usually tasteful.
But maybe they're better to search for than to strictly follow regularly; there's so many cocktails that is impossible to buy all ingredients or try all of them.
Back then the drinks of choice were Aftershock and Goldschläger, looks like the first was discontinued?! Obviously alcohol poisoning had nothing to do with it. Ice 101 was huge, Everclear (my roommate did a shot which turned to plastic foam in his mouth), and home-brewed wine made of frozen grape juice, sugar and bread yeast which tasted like ham and had to be thrown out if one substituted orange juice instead. Not that I condone such research.
My first cocktail was an Amaretto Stone Sour at Joe's (still there too it looks like?), which didn't make the IBA list:
https://www.liquor.com/amaretto-stone-sour-cocktail-recipe-5...
Midwest beer stunk so our first binges were on MGD (notes of corn), the Beast - Milwaukee's Best (notes of grass clippings) and if we were desperate Miller High Life (notes of hay). Keystone Light was considered too crude due to the specially lined can which tasted of washed charcoal. The best we could get was a Black and Tan (Guinness and Bass) which was $4, ordinary beer like Bud was always $2 or less. A case of Coke was $4, Old Milwaukee $8, imagine the possibilities. Minimum wage was $4.25 but went up to $5.15 in 97, and a night out was $20, which none of us had because we lacked jobs or even cars, but saved by crashing events for free pizza and buying ramen.
I fondly remember the first time I rolled around on the ground after 3 free beers at the frat next door where there were actual girls and ended the night dancing in a circle, arms locked shoulder to shoulder with other drunks singing American Pie. That began a 4 year quest to get into a party every weekend or bust. The weeks consisted of pre-partying in the dorms, bar crawls, basement parties and after-hours parties until 4 am, with some studying mixed in. We often made our 8 am lectures.
One time I was in Chicago and an unhoused man (back during the politically correct era we still said homeless) was selling good booze out of a shopping cart for a newspaper promotion. I bought a bottle of Drambuie for $4 and began my excursion into "mixed drinks". I had no idea what I was doing, so crafted my own, my favorite of which was The Boot (whiskey and Diet Dr Pepper), but during the summers while camping I drank The Meagerita (tequila and Squirt). One can hardly call it a cocktail with 2 ingredients, but it is what it is.
The air today feels uncannily like 1995. There's a palpable feel that everything is wrong. Making fun of it all once again becomes our civic duty. AI just landed, which will disrupt established rich people as surely as the internet did then. There seems to be a 30 year generational cycle. So in the 90s we dressed like the 60s like kids today dress like the 90s. The counterculture is so overdue that it's already here. It hurts to dance as the world burns but history demands it for our own salvation.
Jeremy1026•1d ago
aaaronson•1d ago