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Showing posts from April, 2013

Pouring technique

Just a short post about technique. It is not really pouring technique, it is just the task, of pouring the ingredients together, before you are shaking. Sometimes I am a classicist - or just stubborn. I never liked to pour drink ingredients into the "dry" shaker or Boston glass and after that add ice. It feels not natural to me [maybe because I learned it a different way].  But I also believe [and tests still has to be done], that you have more dilution, as especially the glass part of the shaker can hold quite a lot of thermal energy. Now - I was always a fan of pouring ingredients directly onto the ice. Well - off course you have to strain out the melted water before you do it.  However a couple of days, I tried another technique - which feels… quite great! I used small tumbler, to pre-pour my drinks. My Boston glass was filled with ice and had more time to chill - also I could do different drinks the same time, without the fear of over-dilution. Th

The "perfect" Martini Extra Dry Cocktail

The Martini cocktail is one of the most disputed drink of all times - and one of the drink, which dramatically changed through the times - I would say, not to its disadvantage. I shied from this topic a long time. It is just a mammoth of a topic with a lot of controversy. But what has to be done, has to be done! Lets first of all understand, about what we are talking about: We talking about the original Martini cocktail - which is gin based! We are also touching the topic of Vodka Martinis - and maybe throw some understanding of the Vesper Martini in it. We are not  talking about things , which have only the glass in common to this substantial cocktail: French martini Diverse fruit martinis [melon, strawberry, apple, raspberry or any other audacity] Espresso martini Breakfast martini Chocolate martini Cosmopolitan [sometimes impudently called Cosmo martini] Marteanis [or however you like to call it. Any other B*S* martini, showing up on some cocktail menus t

Guinness close to expiry… makes fantastic liqueur!

Recycling the recycled. Today I found that our Guinness is almost expired. And I have also quite some bottles of Jameson laying around, which are not moving fast. As in this link , I did it already before - and now I will do it again - making an Irish Stout Liqueur. My bartender looked at the Guinness reduction [not yet finished the whole thing] and said: gonna make Irish Coffee with it? Eureka! A malty, sweet, wonderful Irish Stout Coffee… I will let you know, how it is...

Another vodka_flavor_audacity: Wedding_Cake_Flavored_Vodka

Yes- the vodka industry doesn't stop. Ever. After: lemon, lime, wild berries, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, grapefruit, any kind of lemon, vanilla, pear, peach, mango, açai berries, guarana, espresso, chocolate, caramel, toffee, pepper, ginger, apple, cinnamon, whipped cream, bubble gum, marshmallows, pomegranate, cherry, grape, popcorn, glazed donuts, PB&J, pineapple… [did I forgot a flavor???] - Pearl vodka is now offering a wedding cake flavored vodka! Check out the video, of the partly funny and informative youtube channel TASTED and subscribe, if you like it…

Is it possible to get more irresponsible? Vodka infused whipped cream!

Just when we thought, that the industry could not sink deeper - to market alcohol to target groups, which are far below the legal drinking age… +support irresponsible alcohol consume… Yes - it all started with fruit and spice flavored vodkas - which is quite a tradition in "vodka countries" like Poland and Russia… then it got "more creative" - untraditional fruits, vanilla, chocolate vodka, you name it. Just in the couple of last years, it went to ridiculous [especially, if you think about the effect on our youth]: PB&J, popcorn, sugared donut, whipped cream, marshmallows or s'mores! You also should not forget the development of alcopops aka RTD [ready to drink] - like Smirnoff Ice or Bacardi Breezer - easy to drink and easy to abuse. Hey - the industry just found a new way - lets call it the deepest deep, to get people abuse alcohol: enriching whip cream cans with vodka. And hey, there are at least two producer, who found a way to express the

Guess what? Alcohol makes you smarter...

Check out this video of the youtube channel tasted. It is funny - and well: take it with a grain of salt. Don't forget to subscribe to their channel, if you like it.

Skycrane dinners and what we can learn of them

I just read the article " Dessert in the Sky " in TimeOut Abu Dhabi. It is interesting, that a quite simple culinary experience can capture guests [and journalist], and not only impress people - but also lure them serious money out of their pockets. A three-course menu for AED 1,220.00 ain't cheep. Please read the details in the link above - just to give you a short synopsis: Dinners are strapped into chairs around one big table. The structure with the chairs and tables are lifted by a crane to 50m height. You will have a 3 course menu [obviously it is rather simple, as the chefs don't really have a lot of equipment - they can more or less just arrange the food - but not cook it]. You have a breathtaking and slightly freighting view around you and subsequently you are a big pile of money lighter after the experience… Nice. I usually like to have it less flashy. But we can definitely learn out of this concept: The experience is all about the perception of gues

Espuma: maybe not versawhip but xanthan gum?

I questioned in a post before, if versawhip is the answer, for most espumas without egg-white. Egg white is the perfect ingredient, resulting a stable but still pliable foam, it is accessible to all of us… the only problem is the often cited "wet dog smell" which always happens, when egg white is oxidising. Well I read a bit about versawhip [before I spend a lot of money in getting it by mail order here to the ME. Apparently a lot of people complaining about a sharp metallic aroma. So it is also not great for delicate foams for cocktails. Today it stroke me - I looked for a foam recipe and seen xanthan gum. Well, this ingredient I am already using, as thickener and stabilizer. However it is strange: I never had the idea to use it without anything else. So I opted to use it in a mixture of cranberry concentrate, fresh apple juice and sugar - in a concentration of 2%. The foam was very good; pliable, perfectly stable and floating. It is a bit less airy [but I used o

Is VersaWhip the answer against wet-dog smell in espumas

I have mentioned it before- while using egg white in cocktails, you end up with oxidization of the egg white, which results: a wet dog directly in your nostrils. This smell is recognizable only of a small share of people - but I still think, that it is not an option to have, if 10-15% off guests would find a cocktail repulsive [it is not a matter of taste]. I would not use any powders etc. directly in a cocktail - rather I would accept the lack of the beautiful foamy head, which comes through egg white. However espumas [culinary foams] can be applied, with a little bit "chemical" magic. Before I tried to use different stabilizers with different results. I thought that Metil has the biggest resemblance to egg white. Unfortunately it has a quite strong artificial "powdery" smell and aroma. Agar-Agar and gelatine are also two options - problem is, that both are solidifying, when getting cold [and the surface of a cocktail is pretty cold] and the perfect me

An update to the article about Google Glass

I just posted a couple of days ago my thoughts about the future of hospitality on my personal website dominikschachtsiek.wordpress.com . And I just posted an update regarding privacy concerns. Hope you like it and read the full article on my sister site: Google Glass + Face Recognition * (Hospitality Industry) = Privacy Concerns? I have just finished my last post about innovation in the hospitality industry through google glass and face recognition, when I researched how far we are with FR. In my researches about face recognition, one point came regularly up: privacy concerns! And Google Glass would even worsen this points, because they are clearly much more mobile than any CCTV camera installed… anywhere. Hence: would it be really that bad? I think it would be quite useless, if you are closing on this topic on a philosophical way. However we have to understand, what we are doing for the moment: A lot of bars [definitely in the UAE] have CCTV cameras installed. Gue