Eats. Drinks. Blogs.
Need I say more?

Congregation’s “Bloody Mary”

Out for public consumption on 25 April 2012.

Pasadena's Congregation's "Bloody Mary"

Congregation. What a wonderful place. It’s a fine addition to Pasadena’s already halfway decent collection of drinkin’ joints. They specialize in beer — the rotating menu of beers on tap is made up of at least 40 different examples from all over the world, and the school-size binder of their bottled offerings is awe-inspiring — but they also have a full bar and there’s a respectable collection of specialty cocktails hanging out with the bottled beers in the that binder as well.

Did I mention that the food is great? There’s nothing terribly complicated or sophisticated — we’re still talking burgers, pizzas, and sausages — but, in terms of value, it’s a step above the usual pub-grub. The portions are just perfect, the food is delicious, and it’s reasonably priced to boot.

And they also make a mean Bloody Mary. Mix made in-house. Delicious and, as you can see by the picture, wholly respectable in dimensions. It’s like a roasted tomato V8 with a hint of vodka, the perfect amount of tangy celery salt, and a bit of a spicy kick.

On Sundays, for brunch, they offer it in pitchers.

Whose in?

A limited carnivorous mind

Out for public consumption on 4 April 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & & .

I feel like people think that when you’re vegetarian you’re really limited in what you eat but, really your just limited in your mind

— Danielle Clay

Chile peanuts…

Out for public consumption on 26 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including .

20120326-144404.jpg

…are my new favorite snack.

There are all sorts of spicy, tangy, nuclear red-orange snack bags out there. The ingredients lists, though—they scare me. Biblical in length. And just as frightening in scope and subject matter, with a greater number of ingredients that I don’t recognize than those I do. I feel like I’m either taking a day off of my life with every bag or threatening the health of my future babies. Or both.

These? Roasted peanuts, salt, citric acid, chile powder, chili peppers, paprika and soy bean oil.

Simple.

And when it says chili peppers, it means whole and dried swimming around in the bag with the roasted peanuts. I like to snip the whole dried chilies into little pieces for little surprise bits of extra spice every now and again as I make my way through the bag.

PBS Food’s sandwich bracket

Out for public consumption on 20 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & .

Vote for your favorites in PBS Food’s sandwich bracket, ‘Sandwich Madness 2012’.

Today’s matchup was between the Banh Mi and The Cuban (I voted Cuban, if you must know).

The ‘Darjeeling Unlimited’ tea cocktail

Out for public consumption on 18 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & & & & & .

Updates: our first, second, and third attempts at making this cocktail are complete. Peruse the entire article for them or jump down to “Round 1”, “round 2”, or “Round 3” directly. Also, speaking of tea in cocktails, it appears that Vancouver is the leader in its use. There is also a consistently updated specific-ingredients list.

Salt, Bourbon and tea…really

First things first: I haven’t even tried this thing yet (see the above updates). I was so excited, though, at the prospect of a tea and bourbon based cocktail I just couldn’t help myself.

I received a text from a friend of mine with an image of a page torn from the latest issue of Food & Wine magazine.

“Damn. That looks tasty!”, were my exact words.

Here’s the recipe (from Food & Wine Magazine):

Ingredients

  • Ice
  • 1/2 cup cold brewed Darjeeling tea
  • 3 ounces bourbon
  • 3/4 ounce simple syrup (see Note) [sic]
  • 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
  • Pinch of salt
  • Lemon twist, for garnish

Preparation

  1. In an ice-filled shaker, combine the tea, bourbon, simple syrup, lemon juice and salt. Shake well.

  2. Strain the cocktail into a rocks glass, garnish with the lemon twist and serve.

It’s not just the use of tea that’s intriguing about this drink but also the addition of salt. Salt and tequila? Done it. Salt and cheap Mexican beer? Mm-hmm. But salt and Bourbon? … never even heard of it. Like I said: intrigued.

We moved to L.A. recently and we just found a permanent place to call home in Pasadena. This will be our inaugural drink in our new abode.

Stay tuned for a sip-by-sip…

An important note about ingredients

There are a few variations on this drink here, and there are sure to be more. Here, so far is a list of specific ingredients used (to be updated with this post)…

Whiskeys used

  • Bulleit bourbon
  • Bulliet rye

Tea used

  • Peet’s Darjeeling Fancy Organic

Other noteworthy bits & pieces

  • The lemon juice was fresh, gained from fruit off of the tree at our house.

Round 1

Before I began I illicited some advice from some trusted and knowledgable cocktail and tea pals in the Twittersphere. Specifically, I wanted advice on weather to go with the recipe as-is or, in the interest of speed (or was it impatience?), to go with a tea-infused simple syrup. The consensus was that I should do exactly as the recipe said and cold-brew some Darjeeling.

So I did.

But I also brewed a batch of Darjeeling hot, and cooled it in the fridge.

And I made the simple syrup (which, I think was successful enough to warrant [its own post][4]).

Because I’m a contrarian. And I’m curious.

So round 1.0 was the recipe above, as-is.

The result? Toooo lemony. Unbalanced.

The tea was taking a back seat. Not there at all. It was like a whiskey sour—sharp, sharp, sharp. Not at all what I wanted.

Round 2

This round was all about pulling back on the lemon and ramping up the tea. Adding a greater amount of the brewed tea seemed like a bad idea—I was afraid it would start diluting the other flavors before it added any significant flavors of it’s own—so in came the tea-infused syrup. Out went half the lemon juice.

“Round 2” recipe (modifications and/or specifications in bold type)…

  • Ice
  • 1/2 cup cold brewed Darjeeling tea
  • 3 ounces Bulleit bourbon
  • 3/4 ounce Darjeeling infused simple syrup
  • 1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
  • Pinch of salt

Aaaaand awesome. Tea? There. Sharpness? There. A little bit of sweetness? There.

The biggest change? I could taste the tea. The lemon successfully got out of the way, the tea triumphantly asserted itself, and the savory character I wanted from the use of salt—hell, that I expected from from its use—was there in all it’s glory.

It was so good we each had seconds. But with a different whiskey of course…

Round 3

The main difference between rounds 2 and 3 was the alcohol. In the first round it was Bulleit bourbon. In the second we used Bulleit’s rye.

The other difference was the tea. We were out of the cold-brewed batch. The hot-brewed batch that had been chilling in the fridge was used instead. In the spirit of thoroughness…

“Round 3” recipe (modifications from original and/or specifications in bold type)…

  • Ice
  • 1/2 cup Darjeeling tea, brewed hot and chilled overnight
  • 3 ounces Bulleit rye
  • 3/4 ounce Darjeeling infused simple syrup
  • 1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
  • Pinch of salt

What a difference—sharper, brighter, more harmoniously tangy, with a more subdued sweetness and all the wonderful Darjeeling flavor of “Round 1”. This is my favorite of the two.

Take-aways

The whiskey is important…

Switching from Bulliet’s flagship bourbon to their rye resulted in a dramatically transformed cocktail. Which was great—I really enjoy a cocktail that is the sums of all of its parts and the Darjeeling Unlimited is that.

We’re eager for another round with a lighter, less assertive bourbon—something like Four Roses, maybe—that might possibly allow the tea to shine through without using the infused syrup.

The recipe should be used only as a guide

As in all other instances, weather you’re talking cocktails or food, it’s highly recommended that. I always expect adjustments will be needed. It’s more fun that way anyway.

The Darjeeling Unlimited recipe we used is a wonderful base recipe and seems to benefit from experimentation. Modifying various ingredients even slightly gave back wonderful results.

How the tea was brewed didn’t have much of an effect on the finished product

Between the hot and cold-brewed tea preparations it seemed that this was true, but it warrants further “investigation” as, by the time the hot-brewed tea was used we had moved on to the second bourbon. All of round one used cold-brewed Darjeeling.

I suspect, given how little tea flavor was present without using the infused syrup in round 1.0, that the difference in 1.1 was due more to the bourbon used than the tea.

The tea infused simple syrup made a great difference in flavor. Possibly because of its concentration—I used the entirety of it’s liquid state as the brewing liquid, i.e. half of the ratio of “water” I used to brew the tea started as sugar. Here’s a link to the recipe.

I’m curious what a double concentrate cold-brew tea and a more delicate bourbon would taste like in this recipe without using the tea-infused simple syrup. Again, Four Roses comes to mind.

Darjeeling-tea-infused simple syrup

Out for public consumption on 17 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & .

Before I looked for recipes for tea-infused simple syrup for a cocktail I was making, I never would have imagined there would be so many different ways to make something so basic, even when modified by the addition of tea.

Much of what I found entailed simmering or boiling the tea—either the brewed extract or the tea leaves themselves—but everything I’ve ever learned about making tea has advised against subjecting it to that kind of abusive treatment. With a few important exceptions (Chai comes to mind), tea should be steeped—black tea in water that has been boiled, right off the burner; green in water about a minute off the boil—but never actively boiled.

Ingredients

Preparation

Boil the ½ cup of water in a saucepan. Add the ½ cup of sugar and stir until dissolved (only a couple minutes at most).

Take off heat, add tea leaves, cover, and steep for 5 minutes.

Using a fine metal-mesh strainer, strain tea leaves out of mixture, into a container.

If you’re using this is in a cocktail, be sure to let it cool off.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I imagine this might make some fairly tasty sweet tea.

The Pie Hole

Out for public consumption on 10 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & .

A visit to the website — a video

When I arrived home today, I made my way over to The Pie Hole’s website — behold, a gorgeous, wordless, but touchingly scored video…about making pies.

There’s a little demo-ing of the process too. Which always gets me.

Now I’m tearing up and I’m hungry. Take a look.

First contact

Wandering around the Arts District neighborhood today I happened upon this little place (map) – The Pie Hole. Taped up behind the counter Descending from large rolls hanging on the wall, hand-written on brown butcher paper, the menu lists both savory and sweet pies.

The decor is decidedly rustic and basic on the inside — metal chairs, unfinished wooden tables, mostly unadorned walls — and it does, indeed feel a bit like a hole but in the best sense. It’s small cozy and intimate. One to try for sure.

If you’ve been to The Pie Hole (has anyone in the neighborhood shortened it to “The Hole” yet?) and have a favorite there or simply have something about it you simply must say, let me know on Twitter.

Wurstküche

Out for public consumption on 10 March 2012 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & .

Pronunciation

Via @dkclay, the pronunciation goes something like this:

“vuhst-koo-huh”

The last syllable is pronounced like the beginning of the word Chanukah (the Jewish holiday) so, I suppose I could display it phonetically like…

“vuhst-koo-cha”

…if you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.

The gist

Wurstküche (map) is a spot I’ve had my eye on for some time. Not literally — this is the first time I’ve seen it close up — but figuratively with my Internet eye … and my stomach.

Sausages. That’s what this place does. And they have quite a selection.

Going on the list.

If you know something about this place — maybe a recommendation or maybe even a warning — please tweet it or senddanielmail@gmail.com.

SNDWCHD

Out for public consumption on 23 November 2011 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & .

He’s known for his professional dedication to, and high level of skill with, coffee and its preparation. He’s an aficionado of fine cocktails and a connoisseur of fine ales.

He also knows a fine sandwich when he tastes one. And he has a blog to prove it.

Introducing SNDWCHD, a sandwich blog by San Francisco food and drink professional Tom Baker.

Sugar, sugar, rah-rah-rah

Out for public consumption on 27 October 2011 and labeled with a variety of terms including & & .

The tweet by Marion Nestlé stated…

Sugar 1, HFCS 0, at least for the moment

…and linked to this article, also by Nestlé, on a court battle going on between two trade groups — the Sugar Association and the Corn Refiners.

It was tempting, going in to the article, even given the cautious optimism of the tweet, to pick a side and root for the “good guys” — the Sugar Association — but the article reveals two things.

One: the tendency toward ambiguity made possible when the most you have available to express and attract a click-through is 140 characters…

…and two: the reinforcement that siding with one business over another is often foolish at best, dangerous at worst.

The sugar association is not fighting for our health. It’s fighting for money and market-share. It’s acting in its own self-interest. We should do the same by continuing to check labels and buy with our values. That way, no matter how this sugar battle turns out, we win.

← Before

My name is Daniel Markham...

I live, eat, drink and blog in the San Francisco Bay Area Los Angeles. I'm a gustatory flâneur, a snob about pizza, coffee, various alcoholic beverages and beans that are not from a can.

I still love a good county fair corn-dog, though.

It's the middle way.

Cheers.


© Eats. Drinks. Blogs.
Published with WordPress
Styled with a mod'd up version of DePo Skinny
& Served up by Dreamhost