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If you should feel the need to cry over your beer (or vieux carre, as the case may be), you might want to check out the lounge at Graham Elliot Bistro (aka GEB). That’s the domain of Dave Michalowski, the barkeep featured in this week’s Cocktail Challenge, who’s well qualified to lend an ear. As a matter of fact, he’s a licensed clinical professional counselor (LCPC)—just one with a real love of libations.
“Around 9 days,” he replied by e-mail. “I had to shake it a lot ’cause the powder would settle. I probably would have preferred for it to sit another week, but it was really close.” He says Craig Schoettler, the opening executive chef at the Aviary, taught him that “you can tell a tincture is done when you can’t smell the alcohol anymore.” In this case, the curry became much more pronounced, not to mention “exponentially spicier,” Michalowski told me, explaining “this is not too surprising since curry is a mixture of spices and each spice has a different level of alcohol solubility which could cause a hot spice to come through more.”
