Go to the Recipe: The Bitter End Cocktail
At first, I was glad to see the use of Benedictine since I have a bottle seating in my cabinet but I'm not really looking to try this recipe. Do you have any other drink options using Benedictine?
I would presume that the measures are fluid ounces us.fl.oz
(30ml by volume) or the number of shots (measured with a jigger)
And for continuity what is the weight of the coffee?
For a home bar I prefer working by weight since there's no pressure to produce at speed or in volume (usually), but speed is higher by volume so it's easier in some instances especially under pressure. I don't work by ratio like mentioned above though that may change things.
It depends on many factors. Water, brewing method etc. So it's easier to measure coffee by volume.
I use the volume method at home and for single served drink at the job, but I use weight for larger orders, isn't work for the bitter end cocktail!
I do cocktails by volume or weight, but metric (ml.'s)
The Artistic Clouds
By Frankie Zhou formerly of The Temple Restaurant, Beijing
1 oz Scotch (pref peatey like Langavulin)
1/2 oz Benedictine
1/2 oz Blackberry liquor
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 oz Lemon Juice
Shake with ice and pour into a coupe rimmed with sugar and dryed rose petals
Slante!
Awesome!!
Made this last night! Tullamore Dew whiskey—only 80 proof, but I set it aflame anyway. I had issues getting all three layers in any given sip; when I tipped the glass, the top layer floated back, and all I got was coffee and whiskey. Could this be due to glass shape? not enough whipped cream?
Could be that you need to whip the cream just a bit more, It does also depend on the glass shape, I liked using the "bucket glass" shape for this one, or something wider and short.
I totally have as well for certain recipes, especially with making punches or batching drinks for events, scales are the way to go in that case!
Absolutely, I think that was the point many of my professional bartender friends made as well. Measuring by weight when making cocktails at home, or when batching cocktails or punches for events, is the way to go. Measuring by weight working in a cocktail bar in say, Capital Hill in Seattle, or Market Street in SF makes that much more difficult when speed is necessary in my experience. But, what do I know, I bet there are a bunch of bartenders out there that get down with scales!
So, I LOVE this website for coming up with ideas when I am stuck, or need some inspiration: http://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/advanced-search
Just enter in a spirit you want to base your cocktail around, and it can show you many recipes to get you started.
I really like looking up cocktails in general, paying attention to the ratios of the drink, and then creating a new one based off spirits I may like.
It's all about ratios, so when you see .5 of one spirit, and .25 of another spirit in a single recipe, in a good drink you know those are directly related to each other, either with complimentary flavors, or are completely divergent.
I hope that help, nothing is ever set in stone, the trick is to keep playing!
niiiice, Love this. I could totally see some laphroaig with that one as well. This is almost a play on a Blood And Sand with a bit more citrus bite from the lemon I bet. Cheers.
I use weight to make ingredients such as syrups because it's much more consistent. For actual bartending I use volume, it's simply too impractical to use weight. Good jigger technique is part of the show of bartending too, customers don't want to see you weighing their drinks on a scale
I made a great fall hot toddy (basically apple cider mulled with cinnamon, angostura and brown butter-washed dark rum) and topped it with a caramel foam. The problem I found was that if you didn't drink it fast enough, the foam (basically caramel, gelatin, and cream forced through an ISI) melted and left an unappealing layer of fat floating on top. Did you guys experience this with your whipped cream?
I wrote into Cooking Issues and Dave gave me the idea to instead try an agar fluid gel, since agar's better at higher temps. I'm going to try that next year.
Thanks for the response, Hans! I'll give the cream a bit more whipping action and see if that helps. I've also got to get a set of bucket glasses (which the internet tells me are just slightly larger rocks glasses? straight edge, 10-12oz?). The glasses I have have an hourglass form to them, so the middle is thinner than the top or bottom.
Drink was delicious....I love the cool Benedictine whipped cream layered above the Noahs Mill and the slightly sweetened coffee.....two issues though.....I don't know what a "bucket glass" is.....and since no information is given about how long to keep the whiskey ignited in order to "create the mild smoky flavor", I ruined about 4 different types of glasses and mugs....they couldn't take but so much heat and all chipped or exploded. My only experience with igniting whiskey has been in sauces and the like where it's in a pan and you let it burn until the flames die out. Didn't work out so well here...do I have the wrong equipment, or is there a count involved?
Hans, I'm curious about the recipe's volume amounts versus the listed weight/mass. 1 fluid oz is about 29.5 ml (let's assume 30ml to make the math easier). If water has a density of 1 (and it is very close to that), then it looks to me that something is not correct when comparing the recipe volumes and the associated weights. Maple Syrup has a density that is typically greater than 1.3, so 0.5 fluid oz of Maple syrup should be closer to 20 grams. Most whiskeys I've measured have a density between 0.92 and 0.94, so 1.5 fluid ounces of whisky should be around 42 grams. The density for coffee is very close to that of water, so three fluid oz should be 90 grams. I actually make all my cocktails by weight, but you can see that converting them back to a volume recipe is not straightforward. This is a major hurdle with getting bartenders to adopt measuring drinks by weight. What's great about measuring by weight is that the recipes can far more nuanced because they aren't in 1/4 oz increments (smallest unit measured by most jiggers and measuring cups).
Damn it, all my jiggers are metric. Pls use weights instead.
Weight measurements, in grams, are on the right of the ingredients.
Metric volume or grams - oz' really confuses the European bunch
The comments about what else you can do with Benedictine brought back a great childhood memory for me. On Sundays after dinner dessert was often a dish of vanilla ice cream. Sometimes my Dad would pull all the liqueurs out of the cabinet and let us choose one to be poured onto our ice cream. Benedictine was in the mix along with B&B, Tia Maria, Creme de Menthe (green, of course) and Franjelico among others more obscure. As a kid Benedictine was not to my taste. Us kids always went for the sweeter options. Now, I think I need a dish of vanilla ice cream with a splash of Benedictine.
