DRINK MORE
Apr. 3rd, 2016 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1qpeJ9g:
That is the solution to everything.
So for anyone new, I worked professionally as a bartender for most of my late twenties. Mostly, I worked in an airport bar, and there was not a lot of creativity. But I took a class, and from the textbook for the class and the disposable income working in a bar gave me (it was a union job, my only union job to date, and I had to work 40 hours, which is more than you should work a job of that nature, as it was exhausting on many levels, so no, I am Too Old For That Shit now), I developed a really solid working knowledge of cocktails.
recipes and ruminations to follow, because it’s nicer than worrying about goddamn computers
My aesthetic is that I like complicated things, I’m so old I don’t mind the taste of anything, I’ve sort of worked at not developing a really refined palate because I like to do this relatively inexpensively, but I’m not indiscriminate. My overriding concern when drinking is that I hate being hung-over, and am so damnably old now that I can get hung-over without having been drunk in the first place, so especially when I am serving people I do not know, I tend to make very strongly-flavorful drinks that do NOT hide any kind of punch. If you’re drinking something really strong, it is going to taste strong. I never strain the ice out of things and I factor in ice dilution to most of my recipes. I want to be hydrated. I want to enjoy my whole evening, not just the parts before it gets blurry. So, that’s how I make drinks.
I do not know the official names of many things, but basically all drinks fall into like, four or five basic formulas. So keep that in mind as you stare in befuddlement at your liquor cabinet. There are organized, formal names for all of these things, and I can’t remember them.
Instead, today, I am going to tell you about the Margarita.
(FIRST: the lightning round of technical knowledge. A SPIRIT is usually 80 PROOF. This means that it is a standard distillate of something specific prepared in a specific way, and is a consistent 40% alcohol by volume. “Proof” = % alcohol x 2. I don’t know why. The highest you can feasibly get to is usually 190 proof = 95%, just because of the physical properties of the distilling process. A LIQUEUR is normally about 30 proof but can vary significantly, and is prepared by the addition of ingredients usually including sugar to a SPIRIT. It is for flavoring, but strength varies very significantly and you need to note this. When mixing, ALWAYS KNOW HOW STRONG THE DRINK IS, it is very hard to keep track of what you’re doing otherwise and as you’ve consumed alcohol, it numbs your tongue and you don’t realize how strong things are and that way much pain lies, take it from an old lady who has DONE ALL OF THAT.)
The Margarita is descended from a very basic lineage. It is two shots of a hard liquor (~80 proof), and one shot of a liqueur, which is sweet and flavored and usually 40 proof but sometimes also 80 proof. (Keep that in mind with your menu planning.
The lineage of the Margarita is from the Sidecar, which used brandy and lemon instead of tequila and lime. But what they had in common was that the liqueur was Grand Marnier or Cointreau: an orange-flavored, full-strength (close to 80 proof) liqueur.
Two shots of tequila, some lime or sweetened lime juice, and one shot of orange liqueur.
I like to use this as the basis for basically anything I have, and go from there. I am currently drinking a Cherry Sidecar, because I had cherry brandy (from a microdistillery that sells at the farmer’s market. I also have a jar of exquisite and ridiculous amaretto-marinated artisanal cherries I got on sale somewhere. So.
2 shots cherry brandy
1 shot applejack
1 tsp simple syrup because I had some
1 tsp sloeberry vodka because I had some (approximately strawberry flavored)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Stirred, then added ice cubes
(SIMPLE SYRUP: you should just always have this, if you mix cocktails. It’s one part water to one part sugar; boil the water then stir the sugar in until it goes clear. this is very strong, you can dilute with more water, or I leave it strong and let the ice dilute it, it keeps the ice from making the drink instantly weak.)
There is no harm in adding bitters and any arcane shit you have, as long as you know the taste is compatible (to find out, put a little of the drink in a shotglass and add a drop of the thing you’re thinking of trying, and drink a big swallow of water between taste tests so you know you actually know what you’re tasting), and when in doubt, add some sugar syrup and some lemon juice to almost any drink to stretch it out a little. The sugar makes it more pleasant, the lemon keeps it from being too sweet. I invariably do this if I’m using a very high-proof liqueur, because it won’t taste strong when consumed, and then you’ve finished the drink and go make yourself another one and then you’re fucked-up. Nope! Stretch that baby out a little with some more mixer. Sugar + lemon, and a lot of ice cubes, and if you blow through it anyway, refill the same cup with water and drink it until the ice cubes are gone before you get another round. That is how you survive to enjoy your booze properly.
In a bar, I made things with a minimum of ingredients. But at home, I like to put in all kinds of weird shit because it’s for me and I enjoy that. Be aware of who you’re serving. If you have guests, maybe don’t put a lot of weird shit in, because you have no idea if they’re sensitive to ingredients or whatever. But for yourself, do whatever you like.
I grew up in a family where we had alcoholics, but most of them made it into their 80s before it killed them. (As an adult I got less lucky, so I know more now.) So I was aware that it was possible to have problems, but my immediate family was all people who enjoyed drinking for the flavor, and were rarely if ever visibly intoxicated, so that’s the kind of drinking I like to do. I wish it were like that for more people; my deskmate at work had a family absolutely ravaged by substance abuse, so he doesn’t drink, and finds my stories of it quaint. His perspective has been fascinating.
If Problems run in your family, my sympathy is with you. (As I said, in my adult years, I did lose some family prematurely.) You can choose to imbibe or not, but I’ve found it helpful to make little rules like, if you don’t like the taste throw it away, and don’t drink alone, and make some of your signature cocktails low-or-no alcohol. (Frequently-pregnant friends also made the latter a good skill to have.)
I have some great low-to-no-alcohol recipes too; maybe if I can get xkit properly installed I’ll write some of them. I always meant to write a book about cocktails someday. We’ll see if I do.
That is the solution to everything.
So for anyone new, I worked professionally as a bartender for most of my late twenties. Mostly, I worked in an airport bar, and there was not a lot of creativity. But I took a class, and from the textbook for the class and the disposable income working in a bar gave me (it was a union job, my only union job to date, and I had to work 40 hours, which is more than you should work a job of that nature, as it was exhausting on many levels, so no, I am Too Old For That Shit now), I developed a really solid working knowledge of cocktails.
recipes and ruminations to follow, because it’s nicer than worrying about goddamn computers
My aesthetic is that I like complicated things, I’m so old I don’t mind the taste of anything, I’ve sort of worked at not developing a really refined palate because I like to do this relatively inexpensively, but I’m not indiscriminate. My overriding concern when drinking is that I hate being hung-over, and am so damnably old now that I can get hung-over without having been drunk in the first place, so especially when I am serving people I do not know, I tend to make very strongly-flavorful drinks that do NOT hide any kind of punch. If you’re drinking something really strong, it is going to taste strong. I never strain the ice out of things and I factor in ice dilution to most of my recipes. I want to be hydrated. I want to enjoy my whole evening, not just the parts before it gets blurry. So, that’s how I make drinks.
I do not know the official names of many things, but basically all drinks fall into like, four or five basic formulas. So keep that in mind as you stare in befuddlement at your liquor cabinet. There are organized, formal names for all of these things, and I can’t remember them.
Instead, today, I am going to tell you about the Margarita.
(FIRST: the lightning round of technical knowledge. A SPIRIT is usually 80 PROOF. This means that it is a standard distillate of something specific prepared in a specific way, and is a consistent 40% alcohol by volume. “Proof” = % alcohol x 2. I don’t know why. The highest you can feasibly get to is usually 190 proof = 95%, just because of the physical properties of the distilling process. A LIQUEUR is normally about 30 proof but can vary significantly, and is prepared by the addition of ingredients usually including sugar to a SPIRIT. It is for flavoring, but strength varies very significantly and you need to note this. When mixing, ALWAYS KNOW HOW STRONG THE DRINK IS, it is very hard to keep track of what you’re doing otherwise and as you’ve consumed alcohol, it numbs your tongue and you don’t realize how strong things are and that way much pain lies, take it from an old lady who has DONE ALL OF THAT.)
The Margarita is descended from a very basic lineage. It is two shots of a hard liquor (~80 proof), and one shot of a liqueur, which is sweet and flavored and usually 40 proof but sometimes also 80 proof. (Keep that in mind with your menu planning.
The lineage of the Margarita is from the Sidecar, which used brandy and lemon instead of tequila and lime. But what they had in common was that the liqueur was Grand Marnier or Cointreau: an orange-flavored, full-strength (close to 80 proof) liqueur.
Two shots of tequila, some lime or sweetened lime juice, and one shot of orange liqueur.
I like to use this as the basis for basically anything I have, and go from there. I am currently drinking a Cherry Sidecar, because I had cherry brandy (from a microdistillery that sells at the farmer’s market. I also have a jar of exquisite and ridiculous amaretto-marinated artisanal cherries I got on sale somewhere. So.
2 shots cherry brandy
1 shot applejack
1 tsp simple syrup because I had some
1 tsp sloeberry vodka because I had some (approximately strawberry flavored)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Stirred, then added ice cubes
(SIMPLE SYRUP: you should just always have this, if you mix cocktails. It’s one part water to one part sugar; boil the water then stir the sugar in until it goes clear. this is very strong, you can dilute with more water, or I leave it strong and let the ice dilute it, it keeps the ice from making the drink instantly weak.)
There is no harm in adding bitters and any arcane shit you have, as long as you know the taste is compatible (to find out, put a little of the drink in a shotglass and add a drop of the thing you’re thinking of trying, and drink a big swallow of water between taste tests so you know you actually know what you’re tasting), and when in doubt, add some sugar syrup and some lemon juice to almost any drink to stretch it out a little. The sugar makes it more pleasant, the lemon keeps it from being too sweet. I invariably do this if I’m using a very high-proof liqueur, because it won’t taste strong when consumed, and then you’ve finished the drink and go make yourself another one and then you’re fucked-up. Nope! Stretch that baby out a little with some more mixer. Sugar + lemon, and a lot of ice cubes, and if you blow through it anyway, refill the same cup with water and drink it until the ice cubes are gone before you get another round. That is how you survive to enjoy your booze properly.
In a bar, I made things with a minimum of ingredients. But at home, I like to put in all kinds of weird shit because it’s for me and I enjoy that. Be aware of who you’re serving. If you have guests, maybe don’t put a lot of weird shit in, because you have no idea if they’re sensitive to ingredients or whatever. But for yourself, do whatever you like.
I grew up in a family where we had alcoholics, but most of them made it into their 80s before it killed them. (As an adult I got less lucky, so I know more now.) So I was aware that it was possible to have problems, but my immediate family was all people who enjoyed drinking for the flavor, and were rarely if ever visibly intoxicated, so that’s the kind of drinking I like to do. I wish it were like that for more people; my deskmate at work had a family absolutely ravaged by substance abuse, so he doesn’t drink, and finds my stories of it quaint. His perspective has been fascinating.
If Problems run in your family, my sympathy is with you. (As I said, in my adult years, I did lose some family prematurely.) You can choose to imbibe or not, but I’ve found it helpful to make little rules like, if you don’t like the taste throw it away, and don’t drink alone, and make some of your signature cocktails low-or-no alcohol. (Frequently-pregnant friends also made the latter a good skill to have.)
I have some great low-to-no-alcohol recipes too; maybe if I can get xkit properly installed I’ll write some of them. I always meant to write a book about cocktails someday. We’ll see if I do.
