How to make a gin and tonic, if you have a lot of time and chemical equipment on your hands

Tonight I stopped into the Martin Miller's Gin & Tonic competition at Beretta. The winner of the event was Jennifer Colliau of Slanted Door, who had some sort of bitters frozen into ice that slowly changed the flavor of the drink as it melted. Clever. But the most interesting drink was designed by Joe Parrilli who works at Bacar. To make his drink, all you need to do is: 1. Make some dehydrated lime slices 2. Create spheres of tonic with gold cake decoration using molecular mixology techniques 3. Make some gelatin gin and tonic 4. Carbonate some gin 5. Assemble the drink and enjoy So go ahead, it's easy!

Reading material

- The LA Times story reporting on the closing of some of SF's old-time watering holes was reprinted in the Baltimore Sun. I'm so glad word on the street is we don't have any good old bars left. That's not entirely true, of course. Katy St. Clair, who was quoted in the LA Times story, writes about them in the SF Weekly all the time. - Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal taste tests mass-market bourbons and finds Evan Williams his favorite. As usual, he has some great cultural anecdotes in the story as well. - The NYTimes has a story on a $10,000 home still that efficiently converts sugar into ethanol. Unfortunately, it's for car fuel. - Jeff Mortgenthaler (Morty) gives a simple recipe for ginger beer. Marleigh at Sloshed! reviews some commercial brands without high-fructose corn syrup. - Jamie Boudreau describes his individual component method for making any type of bitters. And I thought I was crafty for using my Chia herb garden to make tinctures. - Alder at Vinography has the complete list of wine blogs- in several languages! - Esquire's molecular Whiskyburger's recipe is now online.

Naked Cocktails

The March issue of Playboy features molecular mixology starring Todd Thrasher, Cameron Bogue, Jamie Boudreau, Eben Klemm, Eben Freeman, and Antoine Biccherai with sexy pictures... of their drink creations. As a bonus, online there's a recipe for Eben Klemm's Earth cocktail, which isn't molecular until you add the dehydrated Dark 'N Stormy cocktail rim using a few funky ingredients and a food dehydrator.

Cocktail Sushi

The Liquid Muse posted a picture of Cameron Bogue's molecular cocktail sushi on her site and I'm stealing it. I talked about Cameron here. Click the picture to expand it- the rice, the seaweed, the ginger, the wasabi- all molecular mixology tricks. So cool.