We got in 20 or 30 gallons of honeysuckle flower honey that I want to play with real bad.
I want to do a batch as usual with our standard process/yeast etc but I'm also wanting to try and cultivate wild yeast from our backyard. I think I have a handle on how it works but I'm not 100% sure.
Basically I think you just make like, a small 4 or 8 ounce starter must with some GoFerm or some kinda yeast nutrient, cover it with a loose cheesecloth and then set that puppy outside until it starts bubbling. Then basically pitch it in and see what happens. That said the brewery next door is a farmhouse style brewery so I could just buy a bottle or two and yoink the sweet yeasts from the bottom.
It would be cool to have an actual wild mead, especially since I think honeysuckle is gonna be a much more mild flavoured honey than the raspberry or orange blossom mix we use.
I think it works like a sourdough starter
You have to keep discarding then feeding more sugar to the starter to keep it active with those.
Those asking about gin: I drink my gin neat, with fizzy water, or in the occasional cocktail, and these perform well regardless. Roku and The Botanist are both good enough they are my go-to, with the Roku preferred for sipping. If you can readily obtain New Zealand spirits, there are many excellent gins, but I bought repeat bottles from Imagination (several varieties) and The Bond Store.
Those who should be asking about tequila: Casamigos Silver/Blanco. Mixing it would be a waste, but at MSRP, you could conceivably do so, if you don't have room for two bottles of tequila. ...what-- George Clooney?!
Also I have like half a bottle of buffalo trace bourbon left but I've found I don't have much constitution for spirits these days so even an old fashioned with two oz kinda kicks my entire ass immediately.
I think I wanna try something else with it that might call for less bourbon or dilute it better than my ice seems to.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
I've never had a gin that tasted like perfume. If that's what the botanicals in gin taste like to you it might just not be for you, and that's fine.
You could maybe try Hendrick's some time, it has a stronger cucumber element that a lot of people note.
And yeah the only gin I've ever tried is Bombay Sapphire that my ex used to buy in the like liter sized bottles ever week or two. And I drank one serving the way she did just a straight shot.
It put me off of trying any other gin
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
I'm not a fan of neat gin myself, but I love it in cocktails. Even just a bit of tonic and fresh lime juice goes a long way to make it more interesting to me.
I wanna try making a whisky sour but I don't even own a cocktail shaker
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
You can shake a cocktail in any airtight container. Shake it in some tupperware with a nice tight lid - anything like that where you can be sure that liquid won't come spraying out when you shake it.
Bombay Sapphire has its uses, but mostly as a cocktail gin, imo. It's a been awhile since I've had it, but I want to say it's got a more muculent/mucilaginous feel on the palate. So, kind of slick & heavy for a gin, syrup like -- something I enjoy in warming, cold-weather spirits. I don't remember the profile, so clearly it wasn't anything that wowed.
For me, I would describe a good sipping gin as 'refreshing', if anything. Light, herbal & citrus. The lemonade of liquors. (I default to gin & lemonade when I'm unsure of a bar.)
But this might be my new favorite cocktail it's so good
I used two oz of buffalo trace, 3/4 oz of lemon juice (next time I'll try fresh because the bottled stuff I got was a little too strong I'm sure) 1/2 oz of egg white and simple syrup.
Dry shook in a mason jar then added a bit of ice and shook until it was super cold and strained it into the rocks glass and garnished with some angostura.
It tastes too my palette like a frothy complex spiced lemon soda. With bonus booze.
Got one I'm pretty proud of that I'm calling the 100th Meridian.
1 ½ oz Mezcal
¾ oz Maraschino
1 oz cinnamon simple syrup
3/4 oz meyer lemon juice
½ oz acid-adjusted pineapple juice
~1-2 dashes sarsaparilla bitters
Shake and Strain
If one doesn't have acid-adjusted juice I'd sub in lime juice in place.
The drink is smooth, smoky, fruity, warm and finishes tart. It's dead center in my preferred palate.
Edit: I made one more, I'll call it Friend Juice:
1 ½ oz Midori
¾ oz Maraschino
1 oz cinnamon simple syrup
1 oz acid-adjusted pineapple
2 dashes orange bitters
I love Midori as a base or accent in cocktails. The combination of color and flavor is something I can't get any other way.
Edit Edit: Really hard to not make more posts, if there's not much activity.
Picked up Monkey 47 Gin and Empress Indigo Gin. Both are really good! Empress being blue means there's lots of fun room to play with color.
Edit Edit Edit: Yup Yup. Both Monkey 47 Gin and Empress Indigo Gin make absolutely amazing dirty martini's. Monkey 47 is the better gin of the two, just slightly. Empress makes the far more striking, being practically iridescent when used as the only gin in a martini.
(please someone else post in this thread so I'm not just editing this post day after day. This is day three now. That or react to my posts here so I can have some evidence that I'm not just throwing my thoughts into the etheric trashbin.)
Edit Edit Edit Edit: Cinnamon Simple Syrup is the ur-ingredient for my palate, it just works so well in any cocktail application.
Grabbed a bottle of 10 year Glenmorangie which I will probably dip into tonight.
In mead news this fucking pineapple cider keeps re fermenting. I'm so sick of this asshole yeast or whatever. It's dry as fuck and requiring tons of babying but I think we're maybe getting close. Gonna make sure we kill the yeast (again, for like the 3rd time) and then back sweeten and I think it'll be good to go. We're gonna pull off maybe 5 to 10 gallons and add jalapeños and try a jalapeño pineapple mead.
Also we're trying to rework our coffee mead until we can get some actual Ethiopian grounds. The roaster we're collating with didn't have any so I think we tried Congolese...? Grounds? Not super happy with them honestly so I dropped in some Madagascar vanilla bean to see if we can't do like, a vanilla latte mead we can just put on tap.
Took a trip to the Bourbon trail with my family and my GF and I have picked up the Bourbon trail passport so we can keep filling it out whenever a trip takes us through the area. Didn't plan ahead enough to realize that a bunch of the places were in that demand that you can't walk in for tours and tastings necessarily, and they told us at Bardstown Bourbon that everybody gives you something free with a stamp that hasn't proven true at a couple of places.
Oddly our favorite place so far has been Copper & King which is a Brandy distillery that also makes gin, liqueuers, and absinthe. We got a bottle of their white absinthe and a bottle of the bourbon the age in their grape brandy barrels and my sisters boyfriend got their orange curacao which was really nice. The gin I tried there was nice as well.
Bardstown Bourbon had a flight with their bourbons which was a pretty decent price for a tasting flight and then it turned out the bourbons on there were $65, $130, and $200 respectively and I liked the $130 the best of them.
Angel's Envy needed you to book in advance for a tasting, but they gave us a pin for everybody in the group when we got the book stamped which was cool and we picked up a port syrup for their cocktail that's in the passport as well as a to go small bottle for that cocktail as well.
Looking forward to Tuesday when we'll hit up Woodford Reserve and then get a tour at Bluegrass Distilling which is a smaller company which should be fun.
Lexington Brewing Company does a combined brewery/distillery tour, they have a really neat facility. You may want to check them out while you're in town.
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DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
I drank some whiskey the other day, I ordered it by the finger and the bartender was like "do people still do that?" and I was like "I mean, I did."
I drank some whiskey the other day, I ordered it by the finger and the bartender was like "do people still do that?" and I was like "I mean, I did."
How many fingers tho
just two, enough for me to chill on while I waited for my friend to arrive in a few minutes, and still have a some left to slam and be like "alright let's go."
How did I not know about this thread?! I was even thinking we needed a spirits thread! Glad I didn't make one and embarrass myself.
Anywho. I'm currently out of liquors. I typically try to stock a whisky of some sort, a gin, and a vodka. I'm not much of a cocktail person, usually preferring a neat whisky/bourbon/what have you, or an easy gin & tonic, vodka tonic, or vodka added to a juice or something. Martinis are a very occasional thing, but tasty when I do them right.
I have found that gins are very hit or miss for me. When they're good, they're very good. I hate to be that hipster guy, but I find that the big brands don't do it. I think it's the need to make something for everyone rather than just trying to make a few specific flavors, so I tend to stick with the smaller local distillers
Got home from my trip to Kentucky and we brought home a good haul of stuff with two bottles of lower priced stuff, two middle priced bottles, and one really nice bottle of bourbon and a bunch of other drink accoutrements that I'm excited to play with. I'm going to work on a more detailed overview of how my trip was and doing a trip yourself, but in general even if the bourbon isn't good at places the atmosphere and hospitality generally makes up for it and there are tons of great places to visit.
For some quick advice if you want to go to the Bourbon trail yourself I'd plan for Wednesday-Saturday and 9-6 and plan ahead for quite a few. We only did one tour from a craft distillery and I think adding a tour at one of the large places would have been good as well. Some places you need to get a planned tasting or a reservation for the bar, but largely you can drop in to a place and get a flight sample and guide yourself through what you like and spend a bunch of time in the gift shops.
I made some habanero and jalapeno simple syrup the other day for cocktails. The Jalapeno doesn't have much of the heat in it, but it has the grassy flavor of the jalapeno which was interesting in a pineapple daiquiri, but I'm not sure a real hit. The Habanero has a lot of the flavor and some heat and was a bigger hit in a Mango Daiquiri so that might be an ingredient I make regularly and try with some other flavors and cocktails.
We got one of these and I almost don't care how it tastes because everything else about it is so excellent but I guess I do hope it tastes good.
edit: if you haven't seen it before, it has edible gold leaf in it and the base of the bottle lights up so when you swirl it it's very pretty and nice.
I have never heard of gin liqueur before, but a quick lookup has me curious.
Unfortunately, I've bought way too much beer for the holiday season, so I'm probably off spirits for a month or two. But, especially if someone reminds me, I'll pick some up.
I've put too much cinnamon in it. It tastes like a good reimagining of Fireball. >.>
I'm not displeased with it, but it's a sipper for sure. Learnings for next time, which I will do. If I can nail it, it'll be super delicious.
Update: let the infusion sit for longer, a total of 10 days. I've just repoured it back into the original bottle. It really mellowed out with the extra time and some additional gin and honey to balance out the cinnamon.
It's still cinnamon forward but not as harsh and it melds with the gin botanicals and honey nicely.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
TL;DW - Some Texas distillers sourced 15 year old MGP. Three barrels of the MGP were off, so they re-distilled it. And got... something different? Also, if you do watch the video, ignore the bit about 'you can actually get this,' it's sold out already.
In vaguely cocktail related baking my gf gets food and wine magazine and this issue had a bunch of cocktail inspired cookies. I made the margarita shortbread ones and they are amazing. I'm making more batches to give to coworkers tomorrow and I'll have to try some of the other recipes soon.
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You have to keep discarding then feeding more sugar to the starter to keep it active with those.
I know you can use the gunk at the bottom of a carboy to bake with
Those who should be asking about tequila: Casamigos Silver/Blanco. Mixing it would be a waste, but at MSRP, you could conceivably do so, if you don't have room for two bottles of tequila. ...what-- George Clooney?!
Does it all taste like perfume
Also I have like half a bottle of buffalo trace bourbon left but I've found I don't have much constitution for spirits these days so even an old fashioned with two oz kinda kicks my entire ass immediately.
I think I wanna try something else with it that might call for less bourbon or dilute it better than my ice seems to.
You could maybe try Hendrick's some time, it has a stronger cucumber element that a lot of people note.
And yeah the only gin I've ever tried is Bombay Sapphire that my ex used to buy in the like liter sized bottles ever week or two. And I drank one serving the way she did just a straight shot.
It put me off of trying any other gin
Do you have a mason jar? Anything you can put liquid in and close will do in a pinch. Tupperware works too.
I need to get a lemon on this time on a Sunday!
For me, I would describe a good sipping gin as 'refreshing', if anything. Light, herbal & citrus. The lemonade of liquors. (I default to gin & lemonade when I'm unsure of a bar.)
I accidentally added a bit too much bitters
But this might be my new favorite cocktail it's so good
I used two oz of buffalo trace, 3/4 oz of lemon juice (next time I'll try fresh because the bottled stuff I got was a little too strong I'm sure) 1/2 oz of egg white and simple syrup.
Dry shook in a mason jar then added a bit of ice and shook until it was super cold and strained it into the rocks glass and garnished with some angostura.
It tastes too my palette like a frothy complex spiced lemon soda. With bonus booze.
I love it
oooh Talisker. I've had them before.
How is it?
Delicious.
Exactly what is says on the box basically.
It tastes too me like a really good burger honestly? Grilled over coals.
Got one I'm pretty proud of that I'm calling the 100th Meridian.
¾ oz Maraschino
1 oz cinnamon simple syrup
3/4 oz meyer lemon juice
½ oz acid-adjusted pineapple juice
~1-2 dashes sarsaparilla bitters
Shake and Strain
If one doesn't have acid-adjusted juice I'd sub in lime juice in place.
The drink is smooth, smoky, fruity, warm and finishes tart. It's dead center in my preferred palate.
Edit: I made one more, I'll call it Friend Juice:
¾ oz Maraschino
1 oz cinnamon simple syrup
1 oz acid-adjusted pineapple
2 dashes orange bitters
Edit Edit: Really hard to not make more posts, if there's not much activity.
Picked up Monkey 47 Gin and Empress Indigo Gin. Both are really good! Empress being blue means there's lots of fun room to play with color.
Edit Edit Edit: Yup Yup. Both Monkey 47 Gin and Empress Indigo Gin make absolutely amazing dirty martini's. Monkey 47 is the better gin of the two, just slightly. Empress makes the far more striking, being practically iridescent when used as the only gin in a martini.
(please someone else post in this thread so I'm not just editing this post day after day. This is day three now. That or react to my posts here so I can have some evidence that I'm not just throwing my thoughts into the etheric trashbin.)
Edit Edit Edit Edit: Cinnamon Simple Syrup is the ur-ingredient for my palate, it just works so well in any cocktail application.
In mead news this fucking pineapple cider keeps re fermenting. I'm so sick of this asshole yeast or whatever. It's dry as fuck and requiring tons of babying but I think we're maybe getting close. Gonna make sure we kill the yeast (again, for like the 3rd time) and then back sweeten and I think it'll be good to go. We're gonna pull off maybe 5 to 10 gallons and add jalapeños and try a jalapeño pineapple mead.
Also we're trying to rework our coffee mead until we can get some actual Ethiopian grounds. The roaster we're collating with didn't have any so I think we tried Congolese...? Grounds? Not super happy with them honestly so I dropped in some Madagascar vanilla bean to see if we can't do like, a vanilla latte mead we can just put on tap.
Oddly our favorite place so far has been Copper & King which is a Brandy distillery that also makes gin, liqueuers, and absinthe. We got a bottle of their white absinthe and a bottle of the bourbon the age in their grape brandy barrels and my sisters boyfriend got their orange curacao which was really nice. The gin I tried there was nice as well.
Bardstown Bourbon had a flight with their bourbons which was a pretty decent price for a tasting flight and then it turned out the bourbons on there were $65, $130, and $200 respectively and I liked the $130 the best of them.
Angel's Envy needed you to book in advance for a tasting, but they gave us a pin for everybody in the group when we got the book stamped which was cool and we picked up a port syrup for their cocktail that's in the passport as well as a to go small bottle for that cocktail as well.
Looking forward to Tuesday when we'll hit up Woodford Reserve and then get a tour at Bluegrass Distilling which is a smaller company which should be fun.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
How many fingers tho
just two, enough for me to chill on while I waited for my friend to arrive in a few minutes, and still have a some left to slam and be like "alright let's go."
Anywho. I'm currently out of liquors. I typically try to stock a whisky of some sort, a gin, and a vodka. I'm not much of a cocktail person, usually preferring a neat whisky/bourbon/what have you, or an easy gin & tonic, vodka tonic, or vodka added to a juice or something. Martinis are a very occasional thing, but tasty when I do them right.
I have found that gins are very hit or miss for me. When they're good, they're very good. I hate to be that hipster guy, but I find that the big brands don't do it. I think it's the need to make something for everyone rather than just trying to make a few specific flavors, so I tend to stick with the smaller local distillers
Sorry, I got distracted. Booze. It's expensive!
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
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I bet it's going to be very hot though
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I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the normal bottle.
When that’s done, I picked up a bottle of Buffalo Trace today to try.
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I've put too much cinnamon in it. It tastes like a good reimagining of Fireball. >.>
I'm not displeased with it, but it's a sipper for sure. Learnings for next time, which I will do. If I can nail it, it'll be super delicious.
edit: if you haven't seen it before, it has edible gold leaf in it and the base of the bottle lights up so when you swirl it it's very pretty and nice.
Unfortunately, I've bought way too much beer for the holiday season, so I'm probably off spirits for a month or two. But, especially if someone reminds me, I'll pick some up.
Update: let the infusion sit for longer, a total of 10 days. I've just repoured it back into the original bottle. It really mellowed out with the extra time and some additional gin and honey to balance out the cinnamon.
It's still cinnamon forward but not as harsh and it melds with the gin botanicals and honey nicely.
Ho, ho, etc.
TL;DW - Some Texas distillers sourced 15 year old MGP. Three barrels of the MGP were off, so they re-distilled it. And got... something different? Also, if you do watch the video, ignore the bit about 'you can actually get this,' it's sold out already.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}