The Noble Experiment

February 23, 2012

Links and Blogs and Things You Should Read

There are a few definitive places that you should be getting your information from (aside from here). I’ll include the obvious ones, like reading the NY Times restaurant reviews (this week’s review was a one-star gem about Shake Shack, btw) alongside the *slightly* more obscure places you can read about beer and cocktails.  Without further ado, here are my top four in each category…

Cocktails

Jeffrey Morgenthaler - http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/

Jacob Grier – http://www.jacobgrier.com

Rum Dood - http://rumdood.com/

Gojee - http://www.gojee.com/

Beer

Beer News - http://beernews.org/

Brookston Beer Bulletin - http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/

Lew Bryson Seen Through a Glass - http://lewbryson.blogspot.com/

A Good Beer Blog - http://beerblog.genx40.com/

Newspaper Food Sections

NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html

Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food

LA Times - http://www.latimes.com/features/food/

Chicago Tribune -http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/#&lid=Food & Dining&lpos=Sub

You have other suggestions? What are your favorite beer, cocktail, and food blogs?

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February 12, 2012

The Scotch Old Fashioned

This is an old favorite, one of my go-to cocktails when I want something approachable, yet complex. It’s a play on an old fashioned, substituting scotch for bourbon and using two kinds of bitters for complexity. I like Auchentoshan scotch with its nice balance of smokiness without an overwhelming peat fire flavor. My bitters of choice, not surprisingly, are Angostura and Regan’s Orange No 6.  Check the recipe below.

Read the rest of this entry »

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February 5, 2012

The People Behind Founders Brewing

As you all already know, Founders Brewing has announced that they will be starting to distribute in MD later this year.  That’s great news for all of us craft beer fans and it means no more trips to DC and VA to snag that highly coveted Breakfast Stout, CBS, KBS, Centennial, Dirty Bastard, etc.  I know I’m excited.

To get you excited, I thought I’d share this cool video that Founders has put together that I found over on Beernews.org.  If you’ve never been over to Beernews.org, go check them out after you watch this video.

Founders Brewing: The Story from Founders Brewing Co. on Vimeo.

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January 19, 2012

Blogger at Beer Mixology

I’ll be contributing from time to time on a new site called Beer Mixology.  It’s based out of Denver and they got some stellar bloggers to help move the beer cocktail trend forward.  It should be a fun project and hopefully there will be some good recipes as a result.  Stay tuned for my first post there in the coming weeks.  Here is their take on the scope of the site:

In its most basic definition, beer mixology is the art or skill of crafting and mixing cocktails that use beer as an ingredient.

Some purists in the beer industry might argue that beer is, in itself, a perfectly crafted cocktail of barley, hops, yeast, water, and potentially other additives. Conversely, some mixology purists might argue that flavor profile of beer is not ideal and does not, in fact, have chemistry with spirits.

Although neither views are wrong and everyone is entitled to their own opinions, our goal here at Beer Mixology is to explore the relationship between beer and spirits and share our findings and experiments with the world!

I did a little interview with them that you can check out here.

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January 17, 2012

My Conversation with BeerAdvocate on Twitter

I’m a Beer Advocate subscriber.  I pay money for their magazine and have for two years now.  I didn’t like their most recent editorial and I tweeted about how I thought it was stupid.  Then they tweeted back, then we had the following exchange.  So, I ask you, am I the asshole? Or are they?

Noblexperiment:  The opening editorial about tap takeovers from Jason and Todd in beeradvocate this month is laughable. The dumbest thing I’ve read all week

BeerAdvocate  Glad we made you laugh. Ignorance is bliss.

Noblexperiment: Nice. Stay classy, BA. RT BeerAdvocate  Glad we made you laugh. Ignorance is bliss. 9 hours ago 

BeerAdvocate:  Take your own advice, hypocrite. ;-) 9 hours ago 

Noblexperiment:  you guys want to talk about it? Id be happy to have a real conversation. 9 hours ago 

BeerAdvocate We’d love to have a real conversation about it vs. you simply blowing off our opinion w/ trashy tweets. 9 hours ago 

Noblexperiment: OK, great. Shall we start? You say that some brewers hate doing them but overzealous bars do them anyways. But you give no… 8 hours ago 

Noblexperiment:  …reasons why. What is it that brewers don’t like?You can’t shift blame to bars without reasoning as to why brewers hate them 8 hours ago 

BeerAdvocate We actually clearly listed some of the reasons why, and blame lies with all parties involved. 8 hours ago 

Noblexperiment: so the reasons listed in the article are problems that brewers have with tap takeovers? Or the problems you have with them? 8 hours ago 

BeerAdvocate Both, but bars and others in the industry have also expressed similar opinions. 8 hours ago 

Random Tweeter  i’ll drop my popcorn to jump in and say that 90% of our tap takeovers are initiated by BREWERS not us.

BeerAdvocate  We don’t doubt it, nor did we solely cast blame on bars. 8 hours ago 

Noblexperiment that is how it read to me. Mismanaged inventory, takeovers with breweries they don’t support, bad impact on customer 8 hours ago 

And then they stopped talking to me, so there you have it.  Draw your own conclusions.

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January 12, 2012

Entrepreneurship and The Art of Dodging Stupid Questions

*This picture looks like a midevil torturing machine, right? It’s not, it’s the bottling line at the old Evolution Brewery*

People ask me stupid things all the time.  And as a local business owner, I have to deal with constant questions about the state of the business and the constant stream of “I hope you’re doing ok” pity commentary.  Someone comes in on a Monday afternoon at 4pm when it’s quiet and they assume you’re going out of business.  If no one is here right now, they say to themselves, how is it possible that this place can support itself!

This is one of the dumbest assertions that you can make. A trend can’t be predicted based on a single data point.  If you have a cold day in January, it doesn’t disprove global warming. You need data to make assertions and to get good data, you need a better cross section of what’s going on, which you don’t have.

It’s never made sense to me why someone would ask a quasi stranger intimate details of something very important to them, and often do so as if they assume its not that the answer could be a good one.  If you think you’re cozy with the owner of your local watering hole and you want to ask stupid questions, let me give you a few things to keep in mind:

First, and most importantly, you’re not going to get an honest answer unless you’re an honest friend. If you are an honest friend, ask away and don’t be shy.  However, there is no incentive to tell a stranger about the state of your business, no matter how great or how poor it is doing. You, as an outsider, know very little about the business I’m in. Not because you don’t know the industry, which you may, or because you haven’t been in a similar situation, which you may have, but because you don’t know how our business is structured or how it runs or what our relationships are like with vendors or how we make decisions or who makes decisions or why decisions are made. If you ask me whether things are getting better or worse, there are 30 different answers to that question. And without more background, the answer you’ll get will be cookie cutter at best.

Additionally, it shows your lack of tact. I don’t go up to you and ask you how things are going with your significant other, or what your relationship is like with you parents, or how much your teenage daughter dislikes you, or how much you make at your current job.  Want to know why? Because it’s not my business and there isn’t anything I can do about it. Before you ask a stupid question say to yourself “what is the purpose of this and what am I going to do with this information.”  If it’s because you like to spread gossip or you just want to feel good about knowing, give it a rest.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you get it. You get these questions all the time and you’re annoyed. If you have a business that you care about, you understand the sensitive nature of the things you’re asking. As an entrepreneur, your goal is to maximize the success of your business and to protect it.  Competitive advantages only last until your neighbor starts doing the same things you are. When I meet other people who own restaurants I know that they’re not interested in my opinion unless or until they ask.  I’ll share my advice upon request.

So, there you have it.  A reasonable rant about a seemingly reasonable conversation that I find completely unreasonable.  Happy January!

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January 11, 2012

Buy These Books, Slackers

I know you don’t like to read.  Sometime after middle school you gave that up, didn’t you.  Whatever, slacker.  To bring back the glory days of your eduukation, I’ve decided to tell you what to read.  Nothing on this list will be a waste of your time and whether you choose to skim it, study it, use it, or just look at the pictures, I’m sure you’ll be quite satisfied with the results.

In no particular order…

1. PDT Cocktail Book: This book is a handy cocktail reference book to keep on hand. It houses a lot of obscure ingredients that you probably don’t have (but probably should) but it’s also chock full of delicious recipes that only use three or four ingredients, many of which you probably do have (Or definitely should have). If you buy one cocktail book, make it this one.

2.  The Oxford Companion to Beer: Why, you ask, do I need a thousand page reference book on beer? Who cares about the isomerization of alpha acids in hops and melanoidin formation in the malting process? Me, for one. And you should too. Like that guy on that show from your childhood used to say, “the more you know…”

3. Ad Hoc at Home: This should be your cookbook of choice. From the ever impressive Thomas Keller, this is a refreshingly delicious cookbook that doesn’t require an anti-griddle, liquid nitrogen or a sous vide machine to make your food taste good. If you like food and you want to cook, this is the only book you need.  You’ll impress even your harshest critic (me).

4. Momofuku Cookbook:  You’ll never cook out of this one. When was the last time you made bacon stock for your ramen? Right. But this is a great read. David Chang talks a lot about the process of opening and working in a restaurant.  He talks about his life and his path, and he does so in a way that makes it interesting.  He swears a lot and writes like a real person.

5.  Blood, Bones and Butter:  This book by Gabrielle Hamilton, is probably the most entertaining and well written thing I’ve ever read. A story of her journey through the depths of the restaurant industry to the eventual opening of her own restaurant, this is a must read. It’s a novel, or biography, or whatever that’s called. It’s not a cookbook. Read this book.

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December 30, 2011

The Year In Review – 2011

First off, let me say for the record that I think New Year’s Eve is lame.  It ranks just barely ahead of Halloween in my book as the worst holiday of the year.  I don’t feel any different when the year changes and I still have to go to work.  And you can make a resolution any day of the year if you just gave enough of a shit to do it.  And you can assess on a 12 month rolling basis at any point in time.  And those pointy hats are stupid.  And that bar is overpriced on  New Years Eve.  So if we’re making lists on New Years Eve, here is mine.  The worst holidays of the year:

1. New Year’s Eve

2. Halloween

3. Valentine’s  Day (not because I don’t like celebrating with your loved ones, only because its so artificial)

4. St. Patrick’s Day (why? tell me what you celebrate on St Pattys day…)

5. Cinco de Mayo

But that’s not the list that people want to see nor the one that they will be pumping out over the last few days of 2011.  What we’ll see is the classic “best of” list.  There are lots of things that I can think of to put on a best of list, but I think my time is better spent taking stock of the year gone by and making some bold statements for 2012.  And it seems like more fun, too.  So this isn’t a “best of” or a “top trends” or a “best meals” or “best drinks” list.  It’s internal, probably only relevant to me, and possibly completely uninteresting to you.  Deal.

So let’s start with the things that I think went well this year.

1. Found a little groove with this blog, posting some rants and recipes, and really just doing whatever the hell I want.  And I like it better. And people seem to be reading it.

2. Undertaken some more ambitious cocktail projects such as barrel aging, the japanese siphon project, hop infused gin, pineapple shrubs and many more not posted on this blog.  It feels good to be creative.

3. Studied a substantial amount for the Cicerone.  I’ve still got a way to go, but I’ve had good focus and made good progress.  The more you know…

4. Built a bar and added more draft lines at Punk’s.  Can’t really argue with that.

5. Completed Bar Smarts.

6.  Took a new approach to liqueurs, amaros and mixers and found a lot of cool new spirits which went into some cool new cocktails.

7.  Threw some stellar events that revolved around food and drink.

However, there are certainly some things that I could stand to improve upon.

1. Follow up – There are a number of projects that made it through approximately one day and then were shelved due to lack of focus. In 2012 I need to start, follow through, and finish.

2. I need to post more often.  I did ok this year, posting 34 times in 2011.  But I think I can do more.

3. I’d like to guest bartend more often.  I’ve been doing this from time to time and have talked about doing it more but I haven’t made it happen.  You can learn so much from watching someone else’s technique and how they work.

4.  I need to be less anti-social and network more.  That would help.

5.  I may have pissed some people off this year.  I”m not sure which of these two lists that belongs on, but I’ll place it here for the time being.  I suppose only time will tell on that one.

6.  Focus, focus, focus.  I need to narrow in on the things that are most productive and attack them with ferocity.

So, there you go.  The best not best-of, not best-ever, not best-anything list I could put together.   Make sure you drink well in January and happy 2012!

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December 4, 2011

The Japanese Coffee Siphon Cocktail

This one is fun.

With some help from my good friends over at Ceremony Coffee in Annapolis, I got my hands on a Japanese coffee siphon.  These siphons are pretty cool little contraptions.  When brewing coffee, you put your water in the bottom chamber and your coffee grounds in the top chamber.  The water is heated by a small bunson burner and once it reaches a certain temperature, it is sucked up into the top chamber where it mixes with the grounds. The turbulence of the liquid sloshing around extracts the flavor from the coffee.  When it’s fully infused, you cut the heat and the liquid drops back into the bottom.

I decided that it would be a fun exercise to add some botanicals to the top chamber and to add some water and booze to the bottom chamber.  As the liquid gets siphoned up into the top chamber, the turbulence acts as a rapid infuser, similar to simmering all of these ingredients together on the stove, infusing the liquid with intense flavors.

For our first cocktail, we went with gin, barenjager, and water in the bottom chamber.  I figured that since gin is so full of botanicals as is, that a few more in the mix could only do it some good.

In the top chamber I added Earl Grey tea, orange peel, lemon peel, dried cranberries, mint, sage, and a little dash of our house winter bitters blend.  After heating the siphon, the liquid looked like this.

As you can see, it picked up a lot of color.  It also picked up a lot of flavor.  There were subtle citrus notes, a nice hit of the hot tea, and a little bit of hot alcohol.  Once its all said and done, you can pull off the top part and pour directly out of the bottom chamber.  And you’re left with a delicious hot cocktail!

In case you have a Japanese siphon lying around and want to make this yourself, here’s what I did. The first four ingredients go in the bottom chamber:

1.5oz Gin

0.25 oz Barenjager

1 Dash Winter Bitters (I use a house blend, a good substitute would be 1/2 Angostura, 1/2 Fee Brothers Old Fashioned)

5 oz water

The rest of the ingredients go in the top chamber:

1 large orange peel

1 lemon peel

1 bag of Earl Grey tea

2 stalks mint (leaves only)

2 stalks sage (leaves only)

1 handful (about 25) dried cranberries

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November 30, 2011

Barkeep, there is vinegar in my cocktail!

Citrus is played out. You can only have so much fun with lemon and lime juice until you grow tired of the results. But when making drinks, you need that acidity to balance out the sweetness of liqueurs and spirits. So, you may ask, how do I find balance without using the bracing acidity of citrus fruit? Vinegar.

Vinegar on its own is a bit aggressive for most cocktails. The smell alone is enough to make someone cringe. But there are many techniques that can help to make vinegar more palatable without it losing that acidic bite to balance out your sweetener. My two favorite options are (1) soak fruit in the vinegar, or (2) rinse a glass and dump.

The rinsing technique is similar to what you might do when using Absinthe in a Sazerac. You want the essence, but you don’t want the flavors to overwhelm the drink. Given the small quantity that is being used in this technique, you’re going to get flavor and some acidity, but you’ll need to be careful with the sweet components in your drink as it probably won’t have the same effect as using a 1/2 or 3/4 oz of lime juice.

The other option, which is perhaps more interesting, is to soak the vinegar in fruit for a few days. Once the vinegar has taken on the fruit aroma and flavor, you can add a little bit of sugar and simmer it to fully combine the flavors. That will thicken it up slightly and balance it out while still leaving you the aggressive aspects of the vinegar that you were looking for. This also affords you the opportunity to add some additional aromatics such as bay leaf, rosemary, lemon verbena, lavender, etc.  What you’re left with after you simmer and strain is a sweet and tart syrup that will add complexity and intrigue to your drink.

Here’s the basic recipe that I use for my Shrub syrup:

3 Cups Fresh Fruit – this could equate to one whole pineapple, a lb of strawberries, a few stalks of rhubarb, etc.

6 Cups of Vinegar  - I usually use apple cider vinegar, but balsamic or champagne vinegar would be great too.  No white vinegar

5 oz White Sugar

A Handful of Aromatics – pair something with your fruit ie: pineapple and sage, strawberries and basil, blueberries and lemon verbena

Combine your fruit and vinegar and let it sit covered for five days, shaking once daily. After five days, strain and put it in a saucepan with sugar.  Bring to a simmer, add the aromatics and let it simmer for 8 – 10 minutes.  Remove, cool, store refrigerated and start making cocktails.

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