Boozehound - Jason Wilson [101]
Remove from the heat; let cool to room temperature, then stir in the rose water, orange flower water, and almond extract. Use a funnel to transfer the syrup to a bottle with a tight-fitting lid. Refrigerate for up to 1 month.
Adapted from a recipe by Rick Stutz, who blogs at www.kaiserpenguin.com
Essential Barware
You don’t need to spend a fortune on fancy bar supplies, but you’ll definitely need the following six tools:
Boston shaker. This consists of two parts: a 16-ounce mixing glass and a slightly larger metal shaker that fits over the glass. It’s a versatile tool, since it can be used for shaking or stirring in the mixing glass.
Strainer. This fits over the shaker to keep solids (ice, fruit pulp) out of the cocktail glass. The most widely used is the familiar Hawthorne strainer, with its wire coil. But many bartenders also use a julep strainer, which looks like a big perforated spoon.
Jigger. A small, hourglass-shaped, double-sided cup used to measure ingredients, with different volumes on either side (for example, 1½ ounces and ¾ ounce, or 1 ounce and ½ ounce). You’ll need this since now you’ll be carefully measuring your cocktail ingredients.
Bar spoon. A long-handled spoon used to stir cocktails.
Juicer. For all your fresh citrus juice, since you won’t be using premade mixes anymore.
Channel knife or zester. Used to make citrus peel twists, a garnish that many recipes call for. A vegetable peeler works equally well.
A Word on Citrus Peel Garnishes
When using the zester or peeler, be sure to work over the glass so that the oils are expressed into the drink as you peel. Make sure to avoid the bitter white pith that lies just under the colored outside of the citrus peel. When you’ve got your twist, squeeze it over the drink, rub the rim with it, then drop it into the cocktail.
Finally, a Little Rant about Glassware
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names—so says an ancient Chinese proverb. So let us begin: A martini is served in what is correctly called a cocktail glass. A cocktail glass traditionally holds about 3 to 5 ounces of liquid. Nearly every martini recipe in nearly every cocktail guide ever published calls for about 3 ounces of spirits, diluted by a bit of stirring over ice, and served freezing cold with a garnish.
Wisdom therefore dictates that no martini needs to be poured into a glass larger than 5 ounces. Of course, that is not what the wise people at stores like Crate and Barrel say. I once found myself there, wandering the “drinkware” section, looking at rows of what they call “martini” glasses: the 9-ounce Roz, the 10-ounce Temptation, the 12-ounce Inga, even a 13-ounce stemless model. The smallest I could find was a 7-ouncer. I stared at all those lovely glasses and imagined how long it would take the average person to drink 12 ounces of gin and vermouth. That caused me to wince, and it led to two conclusions: First, wisdom does not begin in the drinkware section of Crate and Barrel. Second, the only reason to use a 12-ounce glass for a martini would be to accommodate one very, very large olive.
We are facing an epidemic of cocktails served in inappropriately large glasses. Anyone who’s recently spent time at the local bar knows that cocktails are growing, often simply to justify a double-digit price tag.
“It’s the mentality that bigger is better,” said Charlotte Voisey, who visits bars all over the United States promoting Hendrick’s gin. “But three sips in, the drink gets too warm.”
A spokeswoman for Crate and Barrel told me that “martini” glasses in the 11- to 13-ounce range are the store’s best sellers. When I asked why cocktail glasses have gotten so big, she retorted, “You know how they’ve supersized the McDonald’s hamburger?”
When I suggested that the traditional way to drink a martini is in a glass of 4½ ounces or smaller, the spokeswoman asked, “Why would anyone drink a 4½-ounce martini?” Crate and Barrel considers 7 ounces to be the standard size.
Voisey blames the large-cocktail trend on ignorance and a false sense of