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In Reply to: RE: The Old Fashioned posted by Sibelius on March 02, 2025 at 09:26:11
Thanks for the cherry recommendation! I've been gifted Luxardo twice by my wife. Enjoyed them, but not something we keep on hand. Wife gave me Amarena cherries last Christmas. They work extremely well in the Manhattan I shared in an earlier post.
I experienced a change of taste/preference after a major surgery in Sept '23. I used to prefer sipping whiskey neat. I'd use mid or lower shelf whiskey in the occasional cocktail. I've done a 180 since recovering from surgery. I prefer a good cocktail to sipping neat and I'm not afraid to use my top shelf whiskey. I've added the paper plane and the boulevardier to my arsenal and I've tweaked my negroni, Manhattan and Old Fashioned to the next level. My ultimate challenge is the Sazerac. Two of the best cocktails I've had while at a bar were Sazeracs - one at the Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans and the other at a prohibition-themed bar in Philadelphia. I haven't reached "superior". I shoot for making the cocktail an experience. It has to be good.
Snacks! I'm experimenting with cocktail/food pairings. In reference to my earlier post about the Manhattan, I worked with puff pastry for the first time. The puff pastry cheese sticks and the Iberico ham we ordered for the holidays but didn't get to enjoy until Super Bowl Sunday paired perfectly with the Manhattan. But, yeah. I've been thinking about sweet, savory, salty snacks and which go with which cocktails. I'll check out the Dot's.
We enjoyed yesterday's Old Fashioneds on the deck while I had a pork tenderloin on the grill. I seared it then cradled it in foil with seasoned onions and bell peppers and moved it to the cool side. Made cocktails while it slow cooked/smoked over a mix of charcoal, hickory and apple wood chips.
Follow Ups:
+1 on this. Unless you are mixing some kind of fruity sugary thing, it really does matter if you use a good, smooth liquor in your cocktails.
I am more of a bourbon guy, but that is a personal preference. Like Mr. Sibelius, I remember when choices of rye were limited and not great. There was Old Overholt and a couple of Canadian brands that were like paint thinner. But nowadays I am aware that there are high-end ryes available, even though I haven't really explored them. A few years ago I received a bottle of Basil Hayden rye as a gift and quite enjoyed it. But my taste is for bourbon, either straight up or in a simple cocktail.
. . . in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, they are different . . .
Yeah, bourbon was my serious entry into whisk(e)y in '07 and is still my favorite spirit but I lean to ryes in old fashioneds and manhattans because to my palate rye is not quite as sweet as bourbon, generally. BTW, exploring different whiskies was easier during the "glut". Prices were reasonable, too. All of a sudden, collectors and flippers jumped in, prices went up, some of the better offerings became "allocated", and you had to enter "lotteries" for the privilege of overpaying for bourbon/rye.
I use Four Roses Small Batch Select bourbon in boulevardier and paper plane cocktails. I've experimented with vermouths as well. At the moment, the sweet vermouth of choice is Dolin for both bourbon and gin cocktails that call for sweet/red vermouth.
Before I discovered rye I would stop by this gigantic warehouse of boozin' on my walk home from The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. They had it all. I'd go for Elijah Craig, Basil Hayden or Knobb Creek. Vermouth was always the cheap stuff until my wife got me a bottle of Dolin for anniversary cocktails one year. After that I discovered rye and Vya sweet and dry for martinis.
Never understood, or really cared to, the "allocation" and lottery b.s., just more rich people ruining the finer things with their unlimited cash. I'm fine with my middlin' choices. I'll splurge occasionally, and have been known to buy a pricey bottle of Grand Cru Champagne, no, not that one, I'll leave that to the poseurs. There are some superb choices out there for way less than that kind of money.
Enjoy your spirits tonight gentleman.
I'm a neat whisky drinker, note the spelling, not whiskey. But I love whiskey cocktails by far my favorite of any sort. Especially rye, which when I started you couldn't find hardly anything other than Wild Turkey, now zoom, it's taken off. Gin and tonic's during the summer months, but I can't drink the real tonics (0 sugar for me) and the sugar free ones don't taste the same. Oh, I'll drink them, just not as satisfying. I used to mix up a Bijou (Chartreuse, gin and vermouth) every once in awhile for my wife, the lightweight, and they were good, but Chartreuse is impossible to find anymore, monks decided on getting back to their "higher calling" phhhtt!
Sounds like a wonderful life at your house. I'm hoping for a return to that post surgeries. Wonder if my tastes will change. Nah, too embedded in the Islay life.
Another interesting autocorrect, Islay AC'd to Islam...I don't think those two are at all compatible!
Dude, I like a good Islay on a fall/winter night. Smoke and peat can't be beat! I was surprised the wife likes Ardbeg 10.
Oh, I had to switch to tea after surgery. I was a big coffee guy but now I can't finish a cup. Don't know why. Anyhow, I switched to an Irish breakfast tea for mornings and enjoy a Vietnamese Red tea and a Japanese smoked tea in the afternoon/evening.
And, yeah, it's nice at home on the weekends cuz the work week is sink or swim.
My wife is the tea drinker. We have a dozen or more loose leaf black teas on the counter at any one time. Coffee for me, but less and less all the time. There was a time if I didn't have my two cuppa's id be bonkers, now it's meh, take it or leave it. Of course, now that my figure skating daughter drives herself to the rink at 5:00 a.m. (after ten years of my chauffeuring) it's less urgent. So, a cup a day or less is ok by me.
Meantime, while waiting for those old fashioned's and puff pastries and ham, a handful of Dot's will do nicely. Slainte!
Where does you daughter practice? Initially, my kids learned to skate at Fremont Ice.
But then, in early 2015, my daughter (#18, in yellow) switched to Oakland Ice, because the hockey lessons were at a better time.
When the pucks are put away, they can work on skating and defense. Above, the coach was instructing them to make themselves bigger, by sweeping the stick (while not committing a tripping penalty).
And on this afternoon, my daughter got out of the hockey gear (well, most of it), and donned the figure skates.
Shark's Ice, San Jose. 6 days a week. Well, until she was injured. Currently sidelined with severe torn ankle ligaments. Driving us all up the wall.
Oakland could be such a wonderful facility, except for "the elements". Absolutely world class coaches there who can't get to SJ enough.
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