Barrel Aged Cocktails

I sometimes laugh when I ask myself things like "Why am I the last to know about these things?" or "Why didn't anyone ever tell me about this?" And there are times when I just don't care, if its about fashion/style, you'll probably never get my attention, or even something like photography it might not even phase me that I don't know. But if its about food and drink then I have a problem!

All of that being said, why did I not know about "Barrel Aged Cocktails?" Or that they could be homemade?

One of my best friends gave me a Hudson River Barrel Aged Cocktail Kit (the kit from here on), and the results have been pretty cool. Not only that but it has given me some interesting ideas. The kit is an empty 375 ml bottle, a cork stopper and a honeycomb oak stave that has been charred. For $12.50 and shipping its a great gift. As the recipient I can say it's an awesome gift.

Now for the recipe, I use water for reasons I will disclose later, keep in mind the bottle is about 12 oz so you have space for the recipe below times 4 if each part is 1 oz. The recipe follows and I'll write more about the hooch later.

Barrel Aged Manhattan

1 part White Dog Mash #1
1 part water
1 part Cinzano white vermouth
4 dashes Fee Brothers barrel aged bitters
After thoroughly mixing the ingredients you pour the mix into the kit. Then comes the wait.
I noticed an amber hue after about three days, and the aroma began to resemble a "regular" Manhattan.

After about a week I poured the mix into my flask and have nipped at on occasion. 

To make my Barrel Aged Manhattan I decided to use Buffalo Trace White Dog Mash #1. It is a mouthful in more ways than one. At 125 proof I decided that water was needed to cut the proof of the White Dog.  Along with the "white whiskey" I decided that Cinzano White Vermouth was appropriate, too many times the sweetness of sweet vermouth overpowers the oak flavor of any bourbon. I just wanted a little sweetness to see how the charred oak would taste. Finally I used the Fee Brothers Barrel Aged bitters just for the heck of it.

That is basically it for the cocktail, but the whole process did give me other ideas.

I'm a sucker for a good cocktail but also for a good hot sauce. In the past couple of months I have been making different batches of hot sauce. Since I got the kit I thought, what would a barrel aged hot sauce taste like, should I use a fresh oak stave? Or should re-use a "white Manhattan" stave? What kind of peppers would work to make that taste good.

More cocktails came to mind, what about an oak aged martini, the earliest examples of jenever (the predecessor to modern gin) were aged in oak before being bottled. The only thing you shouldn't do is use acid or citrus to soak in the oak as it were. Another idea that came to mind was re-using an oak stave from the "white Manhattan" to flavor some tawny port or Marsala.

In any case, there are plenty of other ideas and I plan to buy some more oak  honeycomb staves to use in future projects. Please let me know if you decide to try this product and how you feel about the results in the comments area below.

Duck Prosciutto

 This was an experience!!!

Making duck prosciutto was an exercise in patience! In the end totally worth it. I have to thank my buddy Brennan for being my sounding board about all of my home cooking/curing experiences.

After experimenting with homemade bacon and brining my own Canadian bacon I decided to try my hand at duck prosciutto. After looking online for some Muscovy duck breast I settled on the duck breast from the Bristol Farms. It was kind of thin but the dark rich duck meat looked good. I won't go into details about the process today (but I will in a future blog)

I seasoned the salt with herbs before I buried the duck breast in it. So in the strictest sense what you will see here isn't really prosciutto. I let that stay in the fridge for 2 days waiting for the salt to dry out the outside of the breast.

After that 2 days I wrapped, trussed, and hung the breast in my fridge for about 7 days.

 Around the 5th day I could feel the edges harden just a bit and the squishyness of the center started to 
go away.

I didn't just go off the "feel" of the duck to decide to open up the cheesecloth. I used a scale to weigh the duck each day. When it lost about 30% of it's weight I decided to try some duck prosciutto!

Just like a week ago!

I cut the trussing and unwrapped the cheesecloth. Honestly I wasn't expecting it to look almost exactly the same as when I put it in the wrapping. But it did!

I grabbed my sharpest slicing knife to try and cut the thinnest slices possible. The skin side of the breast sliced very easily and as you sliced into the breast the harder dryer parts of the underside of the breast were a little tough to cut.

All in all I really enjoyed the experience. I definitely am going to do this again! 

Homegrown Mushrooms Part 1

That kinda sounds like a Pink Floyd song!

I found this at the store!

It doesn't look like much at first.

This is my first post, now that I have stated the obvious, I'm just going to get into why I decided to write a blog. I love to share what I find with the people I know! Especially when it comes to food. 


I was walking through the produce department at the Von's in MDR and I found this display. For $16.99 you can grow up to 1 1/2 pounds of oyster mushrooms. While it doesn't seem to be economical it did look like fun!

As soon as I got it home I opened the box and found the little spray bottle... This is probably for the "kid factor" that was part of the display. What is harder to see is the perforations on the cardboard. The instructions on the side of the box kind of allude to "opening the front panel" I pulled the panels off after finally finding the perforations and followed the directions. So far so good, this looked like an easy project so far. A lot easier than the lime tree that was a gift from one of my best friends (no offense B) . Easier than the pepper sprouts in a can (from my wife) that are finally starting to get bigger, but not yet blooming!

Its made with coffee grounds,
my favorite coffee grounds, Peet's.

Inside the box I found a coupon for Peet's. Cool mushrooms and $1 off my next bag of coffee! I'm really liking this project.

If you have a problem with the written directions on the outside of the box the inside of the perforated panel has pictures. I like pictures too. The pictures made it easier to understand that I was going to cut into the plastic bag that held the used coffee grounds.

After opening the cardboard.

I know this sounds redundant! But I'll say it anyway, find a sharp knife! Dull knives are dangerous, you stand a better chance of cutting yourself with a dull knife you have to fight with than that sharp knife that does it's job the first time.

Once that was done I had to find a container that would hold the entire plastic bag. I tried some of the smaller pots I own but I had to use my enormous stock pot. See the bag needs to soak for 12 hours. The biggest problem was the bag wants to float...

The instructions make it look easy to 
put it under water to soak but it's not!

Ultimately my solution was to weigh down the whole this with a gallon jug of water. Even after an hour the bag o' mulch wanted to float.

Tuesday morning I'll pull the bag out of my stockpot and continue to follow the directions and place the box in out of direct sunlight.

I'll keep you posted!