RBWells

Show off your collection, or organizational skills, or decorating prowess! This is my wall o' booze. I am lucky to have a little nook off the kitchen, and a glass cabinet from my grandmother.

What are you drinking? I had a whiskey sour with Jameson at a bar, as part of our "world's slowest bar crawl" we've been doing, trying all the bars at a local shopping and dining center. Pretty good. The place had a very good playlist though, when we walked in they were playing Joy Division, then Vampire Weekend, then Boz Scaggs! It was all over the place but good.

2 oz bourbon

1 oz heirloom pineapple amaro

1/2 oz roasted pineapple syrup

1 oz fresh lemon

Shake shake shake!

This was a delightful article and the drink sounds great.

I want to see the winning entry!

My husband's work friend gave him 2 ripe homegrown ripe guava this week, so Guava margaritas. This is:

2 oz Tequila Ocho claro.

1 oz lime

1/2 oz orange liqueur (passion fruit would be better but I'm out)

About 1/4 cup guava flesh muddled with quite a bit of sugar, maybe 1.5 TBSP? Guava has lovely flavor but is not very sweet.

Shake all together and double strain over ice, splash of Topo Chico.

It's really good!

Has anyone here tried aloe liqueur? The rest of this I have, but aloe juice is so yucky, like the idea of mezcal and raspberry.

The 1600 cocktail. The website hosting the recipe seems to be offline but it's from East Imperial Tonic Water.

50ml / 1 ¾ oz Premium Aged Rum.

5ml / ⅙ oz Orgeat.

15ml / ½ oz Cold Brew Coffee.

150ml / 5 oz East Imperial Grapefruit Tonic.

Fresh Orange Slice.

Stirred everything but the soda (I used a spoonful of tonic syrup and 150ml of Fever Tree grapefruit soda) and no I can't measure 5ml of orgeat, just poured as little as I could.

It's a lot better than it sounds, honestly. The coffee makes it. And hello to the 1,600 of you!

I bake exclusively with sourdough starter for any bread but this is the simple one my kids call "the sourdough". For two loaves:

300 grams whole wheat flour

700 grams strong white flour

700 grams water

200 grams refreshed starter at about 100% hydration

20 grams nice sel gris

I don't knead it, just stretch and fold 4 times over 2 hours, bulk rise another 2-3 hours, split and bench rest half an hour, shape and refrigerate it overnight in bannetons covered with plastic bags. In the morning (or whenever you are ready the next day) heat oven to 475 F (about 245 for you civilized folk) with the two big cast iron dutch ovens inside, so that they get really hot. Remove dough from fridge, tip it onto parchment (so the bottom is now the top) and score, cold dough is so easy to score! Carefully move into pans, close them up and bake 25 minutes closed then 20-25 minutes open.

So it doesn't look well risen in the morning but putting cold dough into a hot closed cast iron pot generates steam, which is pretty much a slam dunk for good looking bread.

Absolute magic, I still don't understand how something so delicious is created from literally just flour, water, and a little salt.

This is a weird one. I was feeling experimental today, made one drink that went straight down the drain (fresh OJ & lemon, vodka, absinthe, St. Germaine, don't ask) but this I am enjoying, tart, smoky, bitter. Sort of a margarita variation.

1.5oz blanco tequila

.5 each of

Tawny port

Mezcal

Aperol

Lemon juice

Shaken with not too much ice, served over big ice. I think next time no lemon (port tart enough), stir not shake and crushed ice, but the flavors are working.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, the cat says hi!

And does anyone have a good absinthe orange flavor cocktail? I don't think the fresh juice works with it.

I'm having a margarita with Gonzales Reposado. Yum.