18 holes in the kitchen.

By 18 holes i mean "playing a round"

So as I am having some free time at the pub, gastropub, I am getting to have access to some really fun stuff.

Today I melted down a half cup of white chocolate chips and added it to 2 cups of half and half then blended it wit a small amount of xantham gum. (On an aside I am happy to be working for someone I can call Chef Tough who helped me figure out most of these ideas tonight.) So I took that mix and loaded it into an ISI canister and applied a CO2 charge. I'll say it was delicious and the staff ended up just making espresso and topping it with the white cocoa whip. I'm trying to make up an espresso cocktail to use it with.

Later on I tackled our grenadine recipe and used one jar of pomegranate juice and simmered it with a half cup of sugar then added a small amount of sodium alginate and blended it down. The next step was some of the coolest shit I've seen. There is a contraption that we use to vacuum pack that if we put liquid in we can extract all of the air out of said liquid. The grenadine had the body to sink like I wanted and is very nice, If I do say so myself.

I'm supposed to enjoy mondays......

I'm really happy that I've built mondays into the night that its become. The fact I can have a full house at 10pm on monday is rad, but when its a room full of people I don't really know, that kinda scares me. When complete strangers are saying "I heard this, and this, and this." its kinda throws me off. Tonight was also a night where as I'm taking an order, two people wanted to close out and each split their tabs three ways, as the bottle I'm pouring from goes empty. This scenario happened more than once.

Whatever... I'm complaining about people spending money as the economy is crashing. I'm jaded to the worst of points.

The highlights were starting my day at 12:30 with a booze tasting and having some of the Dewar's Signature before work while my boss was there. Awesomeness. From there onto staff meeting and house cleaning. After that the entire staff went out for mexican food. rad.

So the low-lights were serving vodka hot toddies; take the common way to serve vodka, chilled and neat, and do a complete 180 and serve it warm with lemon and citrus............................ ya.
Also played around with 42 below honey vodka to no avail.

Early in the night some @$$ hole ended up breaking the wood on our 300 year old antique woodwork near the entrance and that was not a fun ordeal. He's gonna hate that bill.

We had plumbing issues earlier in the month and had a re-occurance tonight where I had to stay til 4am to find out we have a pour spout somehow lodged in the plumbing.



I have a meeting in a few hours where I am gonna have to fill the boss in on this and talk about website stuff for the WSBG.

This week in bartending.

T.W.I.B. #6

Honey do me.
Had a guy that ordered a vodka redbull and after explaining that we didnt have energy drink he moved onto a stoli raz press. I kept my snickers to myself and was totally fine with his over average tipping. He was ordering rounds and was obviously a nightclub bafrtender. This speculation was confirmed when he asked if he could explain a drink to me.I am always down to learn new recipes so I didnt shudder as it was explained to be 1/3 Midori, 1/3 Barenjager, and 1/3 pineapple. I actually ordered a round of these and the jury is still out.

T.W.I.B. #7
Chocolate "Martini" vs. The worst dirty martini EVAR!
So we were busy and me and the bar manager were both making drinks behind the bar when we got a ticked for "vodka Martini, dirty, see server" Fortunately i didnt make it but they wanted half water, half vodka and as dirty as we could make it. Later in the night I got an order for a chocolate martini.

I've talked about this in the past but still cant explain why I have an affinity for making this drink really well.
I did equal parts vodka, tuaca, kuhlua, an frangelico topped with Cool Whip, ok not really but some cool fresh whipped cream from an isi canister along with chocolate shavings on top.

So in having fun I asked which would win in a steel cage death match, that dirty martini or that chocolate "martini" The explanation I got was priceless. One took 30 seconds and wasn't that great, one took five minutes and wasn't much better.

Touche'

Closing aside: I just threw together some 43, some St., Gin and bitters and I think there's something there.

A tale of two cocktails.

So this MxMo post is going to offer up two things.

My current favourite of he classics has been the Sangaree which I've been playing around with variations consists of any base spirit plus lemon, sugar and water. According to Imbibe a Sangaree is a cocktail consisting of a wine, a spoonful of sugar and water. I was described this drink containing lemon as well and want that considered into the mix. My favourite drink of this summer is a cooler which is basically an Applejack Sangaree.

Served in a tall collins glass:
1.5 oz. Applejack
Juice of half a lemon
.5 oz. simple syrup
Top with water.

Wiki says...

Applejack is a strong alcoholic beverage produced from apples, originating from the American colonial period. It is made by concentrating hard cider, either by the traditional method of freeze distillation, or by true evaporative distillation. The term "applejack" derives from "jacking", a term for freeze distillation.
Known as "Jersey Lightning", applejack's long history in New Jersey includes once being used as currency to pay road construction crews during the colonial period.
Around 1760, George Washington discovered this unique beverage, asked for and received the Laird family recipe and soon introduced Applejack to the Virginia Colony.[1]
From the fermented juice, with an alcohol content of less than ten percent, the concentrated result contains thirty to forty percent alcohol, is slightly sweet, and usually tastes and smells of apples. Freeze distilling concentrates all of the alcohol by-products of fermentation including ethanol, methanol and fusel alcohols. Distillation by evaporation can separate these as they have different boiling points. Due to the relatively higher cost and lower yield of alcohol produced from fruit fermentation, commercially produced applejack may be composed of apple brandy diluted with grain spirits until the drink reaches the desired alcohol content.
The oldest distillery in America is Scobeyville, New Jersey's Laird & Co.,[2] a producer of applejack (This is the same Laird family from which George Washington received his recipe). The "Apple Jack" that Laird & Company produces is an apple brandy, produced by distillation by evaporation and blended with neutral spirits.

Applejack is honestly one of my favourite spirits and I'm curious if one of my Applejack recipes is known under another name. If you can find my Newjack known under another name i'll give you a night of drinking on me.

The Newjack
3.5 parts Applejack
.5 part Maraschino Liquor
2-3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

WSBG day 2 / I have been busy

Today was the 2nd meeting and had some new faces and outlined some more structure to the Guild. Things are going amazingly well for bringing together so many strong minded individuals and we are all putting our teammate hands in there. I'm happy to say i am on the treasury alongside Casey. Still a ton of work for everyone but things are rolling along well.

So I have been settling into my new schedule and having 3 days off and still need to write about my Oregon trip two weeks ago as well as Vegas and not sleeping for 48+ hours and the hilarity that ensued. This week I am staying home and will spin those yarns a little later this week. I'm still tired and recovering.

also, Spur got a write-up in the PI and Dave looks pretty bad ass.

WSBG day 1 / Bowling!

We actually did it!

Yesterday was the first meting of the WSBG The founding members of the Washington State Bartenders Guild were: Andrew B., Andrew F., Anu, Casey, Charles, David, Erik, ,Keith, Kevin, Will, & Zane. The eleven (if you say it fast enough it sounds like Elvaan {I feel like a total geek and i'm playing ffxi} sat down and had a great discussion about what the objectives and hopes were for this group and there is a solid group the wants this to happen.

Eric Witsoe turned 40 and had an awesome rooftop BBQ where I had some delicious Champagne courtesy of someone named Dr. Hurt. After that the crew went bowling. I've ben bowling since i was 13 and damnit if I'm gonna bowl I wanted my gear. Put on the ol' wednesday night league shirt and grabbed my ball and shoes and met up with everyone at the Garage. My game is hella rusty but I did finish the first game with 4 strikes. It felt great to have a Turkey tenth again.