The Spicy Alcohol Burn

It's always entertaining to learn some brand new linguistic content.

Historically, the Japanese adjective for spicy -- karai (辛い) -- didn't mean spicy as we understand it now.

It referred to the burn of raw alcohol as it went down your throat. By extension to pain in general and hence to the relatively modern concept of spicy.

Both mustard and horseradish are 辛い because they have that "burn".

A smooth alcohol without that raw burn wouldn't be characterized as such.

Such linguistic terms are interesting. The CC referred to the conceptual category of "smooth" which only makes sense in English but in Japanese it would be "sweet".

Tomato Bomb

The CC loves savory cocktails particularly when they involve tomatoes.

The first time the CC had this particular beer cocktail at a Mexican restaurant, he knew he was tasting something other than the salt on the rim. The liquid had an intense umami flavor which was from something other than the tomatoes.

The answer which the CC observed by watching the bartender is sure to shock the "gourmandistas". He was using Maggi seasoning which has an intense umami flavor. The alternative from reading recipes online is Worcestershire sauce which has a similar umami flavor. Vegetable bouillon cubes, crushed and dissolved in hot water would work too.

The umami synergy is created by the salt, the tomatoes and the seasoning which are amplifying the taste beyond the sum of its parts.

Michelada

Ingredients

(makes one cocktail - scale as necessary)

1 lager
2 tbsp. tomato purée
1 tsp hot sauce (Tapatío works great)
dash of Maggi seasoning
1 lime

fine sea salt
finely ground chili powder

1 lime (for the glass rims)

Recipe

Squeeze the lime into a flat bowl. This is to rim the glasses with the salt and chilli seasoning.

In a separate flat bowl or plate, mix the fine sea salt and chili powder and set aside.

First, dip the glass rim into the lime above. Then rotate it in the second mixture till the rim is coated.

Add the tomato purée, juice of 1 line, hot sauce, and seasoning into the glass. Top with the lager and stir briefly.

Tomato-Flavored What Now?

We haven't had a good rant around these parts in a while so presenting ... tomato-flavored vodka.

The CC couldn't think past the obvious "bloody mary" but supposedly, it will "inspire" ideas.

Inspire away in the comments section!

Ol' School Beer Pong

Think fratboy drinking games are something new? Think again, kiddo!

This is a wine/mead game c. 1570.

You get to blow into the pipe which makes the sails of the windmill churn, fill the glass, and chug, chug, chug. Behind the windmill is a "timer" with numbers. If you can't finish before the sails of the windmill stop, you get to drink as many glasses as indicated on the timer.

(Source: V&A Museum, London.)

Cooking Myths (Part 1)

Welcome to a new series on pervasive cooking myths.

One of the biggest ones is that since alcohol has a lower boiling point (78.4°C) than water (100°C), all the alcohol must evaporate first when added to a dish.

Sorry, folks, it doesn't quite behave that way as every physicist and chemist possibly knows.

Firstly, in general, you need multiple distillations to separate two liquids. This is just a consequence of how molecules behave. Energy transfer and evaporation are statistical in nature not deterministic.

Secondly, ethanol and water form an azeotrope so you can never truly separate them using just distillation.

So while the rate of evaporation of alcohol is higher than that of water at 100°C (cooking temperature), there's always going to be alcohol left behind in the mixture even after extended cooking. Particularly in a closed vessel where you have both evaporation and condensation taking place.

Method	Percentage alcohol remaining
Added to boiling liquid + removed from heat	85%
Alcohol flamed	75%
Alcohol simmered 15 minutes	40%
Alcohol simmered 30 minutes	35%
Alcohol simmered 1 hour	25%
Alcohol simmered 1.5 hours	20%
Alcohol simmered 2 hours	10%
Alcohol simmered 2.5 hours	5%

(Source: US Dept. of Agriculture Nutrient Data Lab.)

Note that we're talking miniscule amounts because generally only a small amount of alcohol is added to the dish but the myth that there is none left behind is just that.

Kingsley Amis on Tipple

Amis, who was always seriously committed to the fine art of bibbering (a.k.a. topering), gives us a set of general principles on drink.

As we might expect from the author of the wondrous hangover scene in Lucky Jim, there is more to these aphorisms than meets the ear. They range from the tippling staple ("quantity over quality") to the wickedly acidic (see G.P.5.) Above all, they express a coherent world view (see G.P.7) that distinguish him from the average columnist.

His three pamphlets on the art of the piss-up ("food is the curse of the drinking classes") are well worth checking out.

G.P.1: Up to a point (i.e. short of offering your guests one of those Balkan plonks marketed as wine, Cyprus sherry, poteen and the like), go for quantity rather than quality. Most people would rather have two glasses of ordinary decent port than one of a rare vintage. On the same reasoning, give them big drinks rather than small -- with exceptions to be noted later. Serious drinkers will be pleased and reassured, unserious ones will not be offended, and you will use up less chatting time going around to recharge glasses.

G.P.2: Any drink traditionally accompanied by a bit of fruit or vegetable is worth trying with a spot of the juice thrown in as well.

G.P.3: It is more important that a cold drink be as cold as possible than that it should be as concentrated as possible.

G.P.4: For any liquor that is going to be mixed with fruit juices, vegetable juices, etc., sweetening, strongly flavored cordials and the like, go for the cheapest reliable article. Do not waste your Russian or Polish vodka, etc.

G.P.5: The alcohol in any bubbly drink will reach you faster than in its still version. Hence, or partly hence, the popularity of champagne at weddings and other festivities.

G.P.6: With drinks containing fruit (other than the decorative or olfactory slice of lemon, orange, etc.) it is really worthwhile to soak the fruit in some of the liquor for at least three hours beforehand.

G.P.7: Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naïve -- or worse.

G.P.8: Careful preparation will render a poor wine just tolerable and a fine wine excellent. Skimping it will diminish a pretty fair wine to all right and a superb wine to merely bloody good. That is about as much difference as it will make. Much more important is price, which is normally a very reliable indicator of quality.

G.P.9: He who truly believes he has a hangover has no hangover.

G.P.10: Everything fattens you.

Down and Across : The Solution

The crossword was published here.

Down and Across : A Wobbly Old Time

Copyright © 2001, James T. Ehler (published with permission.)

Across

1. Popular carbonated beverage.
4. A polite drink.
7. French syrup.
8. Robust red "masculine" Bordeaux.
15. Important red Bordeaux.
17. Hot or cold alcoholic drink containing beaten egg.
18. Aromatic blackcurrant liqueur.
19. "The milk of our Lady."
22. Liquor and water with sugar and spices served hot.
23. Greek wine flavored with resin.
24. Partly fermented grape juice.

Down

1. Tea.
2. City southeast of Turin noted for its sparkling wines.
3. Found in combination with:: water, oil, attar, hips.
5. Turkish brandy.
6. Fermented alcoholic beverage similar to but heavier than beer.
9. Part of Poe tale title.
10. Wine, spiced with sugar, lemons and nutmeg, named for an English army officer.
11. Spanish city, grape, wine, and raisin.
12. Original version of a British citrus drink.
13. Whiskey, bitters and sugar with fruit slices.
14. Sweet liqueur made from wine and brandy flavored with plum, peach or apricot kernels and/or almonds.
16. Distilled French wine.
20. Chief ingredient of black bread.
21. Booze slang adapted from small Alaskan Tlingit tribe, the Hutsnuwu.
22. High, Irish or breakfast.
23. Popular Caribbean alcoholic beverage.

Special-ized Equipment

A martini maker.

Now the CC has seen everything.

It's "special" alright, just like the Special Olympics!

A martini is not exactly hard to make as the recipe here points out. Of course, we've seen our share of silly ideas like here.

Buñuel's Martini

Anyone who knows the CC knows that he loves his martinis, and anybody who knows the CC knows that the CC loves the movies of the surrealist, Buñuel.

This then is Luis Buñuel's martini. The CC is convinced that Buñuel wasn't just a perfectionist in his movies.

To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role in my life played by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen "like a ray of sunlight through a window-leaving it unbroken."

Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won't melt, since nothing's worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients -- glasses, gin, and shaker -- in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve.