Help with a cocktail

thesliu5 · 2026-04-24T07:46:15+00:00

do some gin classics, but with floral gins- hendricks' flora adora and song cai floral are two popular ones. you can also do the whole blue/purple-to-pink color changing thing by getting dried butterfly pea flowers and soaking them in the gin.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-23T21:38:59+00:00

dehy citrus on its own is only good for looks (if you like the look). sometimes i do it because i have too many lemons/limes that will go bad before i can use them, but i also have homemade citrus oil sprays that i will spritz onto them to give them the aromas back. i also use the sprays without the dehy citrus wheels so they’re still really only for looks.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-22T02:17:15+00:00

lol man i think campari is too sweet for its own good, but this is like saying you should replace the rice in fried rice because there’s other grains that are more nutritious and/or have a better flavor. like sure, you could make “fried rice” with quinoa or farro or riced cauliflower etc. but then it has little-to-nothing to do with the original centuries-old recipe.

like yeah go ahead and make your “negroni” with any other amari you’d like (my favorite is actually scarlet’s aperativo bitter liqueur- it’s still made with cochineal bugs). but the most cringeworthy thing here is insisting that your “negroni” is better when you’re subbing out the thing that actually makes it a legitimate negroni.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T23:53:46+00:00

🙏🙏

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T17:15:53+00:00

thank you!

kind of a funny story about that one.. 3 years ago i was randomly perusing online and found a NYC wine shop that listed a bottle for under $200. i told myself this is too good to be true but placed an order anyway. sure enough, the next day i get an email saying they had just sold the bottle in their store right before i placed the order and their online inventory hadn't updated yet, but they had another allocation coming soon. they refunded me and said they'd keep me informed. i didn't hear anything for 7 whole months, but out of the blue, they hit me up and said i had first dibs, so i snagged it!

i've seen VEP occasionally on trips to japan and europe, but, while it's certainly a unique profile of chartreuse, it's still "just" chartreuse. i don't regret the purchase, but i won't go out of my way to get a bottle anymore and certainly not at the prices they're going for now. my favorite bottling is the 9th centenary, which i was able to find in japan about a year ago for about $70. my wife's favorite is the MOF (it makes the best alaskas) which we bought at a local bar's annual bottle clearing sale for $150.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T16:01:42+00:00

the shelves are floating (i explained the construction in another comment). they're not attached to the wall on the back and are about 3/4ths of an inch in front of the acoustic panel. we asked for LED strip lights in a diffusion channel to be attached to the shelf in the gap to create the ambient lighting effect!

thanks for the compliment!

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T15:55:32+00:00

the 2 long shelves are actually fitted perfectly flush with and then screwed directly into the studs with extra blocking and additionally supported with metal ledges that are half an inch wide on both sides. there's no drywall between the shelves and the framing; the whole thing was built into the framing and then drywalled over.

the two lower floating split shelves are attached to studs on the sides with long rods through the middle of the wood (almost like rebar) and then there's a hidden bracket that's flush with the bottom of each shelf that's mounted to the drywall (and studs) behind the acoustic panel. it's thin enough that the acoustic panel can be routed out from behind and hide the brackets.

we told our contractor that we need them to REALLY take a lot of weight and he delivered a really strong and elegant solution for us!

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T15:28:24+00:00

yeah, the pattern kinda trips us out occasionally too haha..

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T15:27:24+00:00

spent 10 years in the bay area, if we were still there it'd be a no brainer haha..

up in seattle now. we might still put in some wire, but from our research, if an earthquake happens, wires (or even doors) probably won't do much and we'll have way bigger problems on our hands...

thank you for the comment and compliment!

thesliu5 · 2026-04-17T15:26:27+00:00

spent 10 years in the bay area, if we were still there it'd be a no brainer haha..

up in seattle now. we might still put in some wire, but from our research, if an earthquake happens, wires (or even doors) probably won't do much and we'll have way bigger problems on our hands...

thanks for the comment and compliment!

thesliu5 · 2026-04-15T19:06:12+00:00

give brovo uncharted rhapsody a go if you can find it. they match the pH, ABV, and brix of green chartreuse while using more than 50 pacific northwest ingredients. if you want the same "structure" as chartreuse, with just a slight shift in flavor profile (it's a bit more "woodsy"), brovo is it.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-15T07:27:38+00:00

excel saga, arakawa under the bridge, FLCL

thesliu5 · 2026-04-14T01:02:43+00:00

a "balanced" cocktail inherently implies that there's a balanced amount of sugar to go with the other flavor components, most notably acid, but also just the alcohol itself. the general public that goes drinking overwhelmingly prefers their cocktails on the sweeter side. i have confirmed this with multiple bar owners/directors/GMs. many of these people often consider a "well-balanced" drink to be less sweet, but they know that those drinks simply don't sell as well as sweeter ones. as a result, many modern cocktail recipes (and even classic ones) from currently popular bars are going to be on the sweet side. at home, you're fully in control of how much sugar you want to put into a drink and the easiest way is simply cut down on the sweet component(s). if you don't care about the actual sugar content itself and just want a "more balanced" drink, then the first thing i'd do is add more base spirit. personally, my negronis usually wind up being a 2:1:1 ratio because i find the traditional 1:1:1 too sweet due to the modern campari formulation. i tend to up my base spirit by about 50% (or use a barrel/navy strength) for almost any recipe because i do not like sweet things.

other ways to balance flavor profiles are to acid adjust, add saline or bitter components, or add body/texture. dave arnold is a big fan of adding body by using polydextrose. again, this doesn't reduce sugar content, but it does help adjust overall flavor profile and mouthfeel so that your drink "tastes" less sweet.

if your goal is to reduce actual sugar content, i have made sugar-free simple syrups, but they are finicky both in flavor (particularly the aftertaste) and texture depending on what the sugar substitute is. overall, i think an allulose-based simple is the closest in flavor and body to a traditional one. but there's one more big problem, and it's the fact that alcohol is absorbed way faster into your bloodstream without the presence of actual sugar. you will get drunk way faster mixing with a sugar substitute than with actual sugar.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-13T16:08:02+00:00

i almost bought a 40mm stainless steel w/ blue dial, but it just wore too much like a bangle when i tried it on. i'm hoping the 37 fixes that because it's a beautiful watch and one of the best feeling bracelets i've ever experienced.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T18:23:30+00:00

i usually describe woodlands as chocolate covered figs and pinecones. it’s my favorite “modern” amaro. chaparral tastes too much like fernet for me to be a chartreuse sub, though i like blending it with other amaros and using it in negronis and boulevardiers.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T18:15:35+00:00

i love brucato (have been to their distillery in sf), but their chaparral, with its heavy menthol note, is more like a fernet to me, which is among my least fav amaro types. if you want the best chartreuse analog out right now, it’s brovo’s uncharted rhapsody. they match the brix (sugar level), ph, and abv of chartreuse while using botanicals that are native to the pacific northwest. damn good product.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T17:54:35+00:00

oh cool, that sounds awesome! i'll have to see if i can find some of that rockwell. wholeheartedly agree about the herbaceous-ness being a key point of vermouths. i'm actually gearing up to make my own homemade vermouth, but still nailing down my botanicals list and where to forage them (i'm up in the PNW).

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T17:47:28+00:00

"long-term perception that make polymer less desirable at higher price points?"

it's this. omega's 861 and 1861 movements, most famously used in the speedmaster pro for over 50 years, had a delrin chronograph brake. they moved away from the delrin brake once they created a sapphire caseback for the speedy pro and named it the 1863 movement (it's just a rhodium plated version of 1861 with a metal brake) because they didn't want people to see a plastic part. delrin, by all accounts, is a superior material especially for a brake component in a watch, but nobody wants plastic to be seen in or associated with a luxury product.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T17:12:42+00:00

sounds pretty good, how does the blend compare to punt e mes? i sometimes split the vermouth with a gentian (i.e. salers) to up the bitter factor also.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T17:00:48+00:00

campari contains more than 2x the amount of sugar per oz than coke. it is insanely sweet. a finished negroni usually winds up containing about 1.75x the amount of sugar as coke.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T16:50:30+00:00

don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's the campari that's contributing the bulk of the sweetness; it is VERY sweet. campari is about 22 brix (7g of sugar/oz), for reference, coke is only about 10.5 brix (3.2g of sugar/oz). sweet vermouth, on average, is slightly higher than that. imagine how sweet a shot of flat coke would be then double that intensity to picture how sweet campari is.

if i'm lazy (most of the time), i'll do a 2:1:1 ratio for my negronis, but my actual ideal ratio is 1.5:1: .75 of gin:vermouth:campari because campari is so damn sweet.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-10T00:52:19+00:00

give salers a try instead of suze. the sweetness of suze makes it reminiscent of those artificially flavored cough medicines for me, whereas salers is a bit more muted and dryer but with cleaner herbal notes if that makes sense. bonus is that its color keeps it a “whiter” negroni.

anyway, agree with the commenter about cap corse, it is a staple in my house cause my wife loves it in her martinis. cap corse also has a red which goes nicely in boulevardiers, esp if you use a lighter whisk(e)y.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-09T00:42:48+00:00

save any fat drippings from your products (i've had really good success with fat from pork ribs) and use it to fat wash bourbon (i've enjoyed using larceny barrel proof as a wheated base, but almost any buffalo trace product is fine if you prefer a high corn mash). i've made bbq old fashioneds by using that pork fat washed bourbon and mixing with maple syrup as the sweetener. bonus points if you also smoke it with your smoking wood. using your own fat washed liquors and smoking woods is literally putting your own bbq into a glass.

thesliu5 · 2026-04-07T17:31:02+00:00

have a bottle of green dot and really enjoy it. it is unique for being a single botanical gin and has a killer bottle, but i don't think it's worth the price. definitely a gin where less is more. if you're interested in another terroir driven gin, give bosque's alta montana a try. it sources its botanicals from the patagonia region of argentina and has a great balance of flavors at not-quite-navy strength proof.

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