On the Making of Vintage Glassware: Bert Haanstra's 1958 'Glas'

You may be tough, but are you roll-your-own-cigarette-
and-light-it-on-a-blazing-hot-jar tough?

Craft bartenders around the country pour vintage cocktails in vintage glassware as a matter of pride. Stemware, tumblers, and other barware from the 1930's-50's are easy enough to find even now that pikers know to check out thrift shops for great finds. We cocktail geeks like these glasses. Empirically true or not, a Champagne cocktail served in an elegant, hollow-stemmed 1915 coup tastes better than the same drink served in an Ikea coffee mug. Even delicate, small vintage glassware has a heft of historicity. They are mute witnesses to much of the liquid history we try to recreate (or surpass).

But we rarely see how such things were made. A nearly wordless documentary gives us a look inside micentury glassmaking, both hand-blown and industrial. Distorted VHS pirate copies of Bert Haanstra's 1958 Glas used to make the rounds among glassblowing students. The tape I saw in the 1980's was a copy of a copy of a copy, going back untold generations. I was very much into the glass sculptures of Dale Chihuly, but that old bootleg of Glas was nearly unwatchable.

The short industrial film is on YouTube now, however, in a much cleaner copy. Set to a light jazz score, it follows craftsmen and factory workers as they blow, turn, smash, and form glass into bottles, stemware, candlesticks, pitchers, and jars. Some of the men try to inject a little dramatic interpretation in their scenes, but most just roll and blow, roll and blow.



Goes well with:

• Predating Glas by only a few years, Hans Fischerkoesen's nightmarish Durch Nacht zum Licht ("Through Night to Light") pitches Underberg Bitters. I enjoy Underberg, but I'm pretty sure this wet-sheet nightmare of a campaign would not get greenlighted today.

An Old Distiller's Trick Revived in Oregon

In Hillsboro, Oregon, west of Portland, the Imbrie family erected a granary barn around 1855, a few years before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. With a handful of repairs here and there and a new concrete floor, it remains standing today. Inside, distiller Bart Hance makes whiskey and brandy on a still that's almost as old as the building itself.

Look closely: that's a metal can dangling in the middle.

The still is a French model, known in Cognac as an alambic Chartentais, typically used to make brandy and popular on the American west coast. This one was found in an old barn in France and shipped to Oregon where it stayed boxed for years before being installed in the granary. Other than a few brass fittings, the pot still is entirely copper and has a graceful, curving neck through which alcohol-rich vapor rises on its way to the condenser. At 160 gallons, it's not the biggest still one will find in the United States, but it is one of the more venerable. Unlike some modern stills, it has no sight glasses, no thermometers, no computerized reports indicating what's happening inside. On an old still like this, to know what's happening on the other side of the copper at any given moment, one must relies on sight, smell...and sound.

Sure, there's the sound of the gas fire. The intensity of that sound will indicate broadly how much heat is directed at the bottom of the pot. If the sound of the fire dies away unexpectedly, trouble — dangerous trouble — may be brewing. But attendees of a brandy distilling workshop sponsored by the American Distilling Institute learned from Hance to listen for another sound: the jarring clang of falling metal.

See, it takes a long time for wine or beer to heat up in the boiler of a pot still, especially if it's at the frosty room temperature of an old wooden barn. A distiller can't just sit there like a plate of biscuits waiting for the wash inside the pot to warm. There are forms to be completed, barrels to move, and a dozen other tasks involved in running a distillery. So, lacking readouts and internal thermometers common in some modern stills, Hance deploys an old French trick well-known to Cognac makers that allows him to do those other jobs while the still heats. He attaches a large, empty metal can to a string, then loosely wraps the string around the still's neck. With a dab of wax, the string stays in place.

And then the distiller walks away.

As the wash heats and vapor begins to rise, the copper (an excellent heat conductor) grows warm. Eventually, the neck grows warm enough to melt that dab of wax and — CLANG — the can drops and clatters onto the bricks below, sounds loud enough to be heard anywhere in the barn. That's the signal that Hance has perhaps ten minutes before liquids start trickling from the condenser and to wrap up whatever he's doing; there are cuts to be made.

Hats off, Hance; that right there is some old school merde.

Goes well with:

• A visit to Cornelius Pass Roadhouse and Imbrie Hall. The former Imbrie homestead is now owned by McMenimins who were instrumental in getting the property listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The whiskeys, brandies, and other spirits made at Cornelius Pass and at the company's Edgefield distillery are not for sale in liquor stores, but are entirely for internal use at the various bars, hotels, and restaurants under the McMenamins banner. Imbrie Hall, however, offers a selection of bottles for take out.

Replacing that Worn Out Still — Every Ding and Dent?

Since the nineteenth century, the Forsyth family has made stills. By some estimates, they have fabricated nearly half of Scotland’s whisky stills. Their firm, Forsyths, specializes in larger distillery systems, but builds each model to order and has made some as small as 50 liters. I recently spoke with Richard Forsyth Sr., chairman of the company, about Forsyths’ presence in the North American market. Although their footprint in the US is modest, it covers some noteworthy distilleries, including Balcones Distilling, Distillery 209, Kings County Distillery, Philadelphia Distilling, and Woodford Reserve. Building stills, however, is not the firm’s bread and butter. Repairing them is.

Old copper stills wear out. Or is that a Dalek?

Most American distilleries were founded in the last decade and are simply too new to have to contend with worn-out stills. In Scotland, however, aging equipment is an ongoing concern. “Our main business,” reports Forsyth, “is replacement of worn stills. Distilleries can run 24/7 and run down pot stills quite quickly. We check the copper’s thicknesses on an annual basis in Scotland and home in on wear areas. We write reports and then sit down with each client to agree on a replacement program.” The traditional two-still process in Scotland is particularly hard on the equipment. A preliminary run on the first still produces low wines, a relatively low-alcohol liquid. These low wines are then run through a second still, often called a spirit still, which concentrates ethanol further yielding white dog or new make which, when aged, cut, and blended (or not), becomes the Scotch whisky we know.

The wear patterns on those stills are exactly opposite. Harsh low wines, explains Forsyth, corrode the upper parts of a still within 10-12 years, while the pot may last 30-40. On the second distillation, it’s the other way around. Low wines and feints corrode the boiler, but the spirits rising through the upper parts are much more refined, so upper parts like such as the Lyne arm and swan’s neck may last 30-40 years, but the pot only 10-12 years.

Rather than replacing the entire still — an expensive proposition — Forsyths craftsman cut away worn areas and replace them with new materials. Those apocryphal stories about Scotch distillers replacing old stills with brand new ones that exactly replicate every dump and dent so that distillers can faithfully reproduce whisky that is exactly the same every single time? Turns out that’s just a good story for gullible drinkers.

 “Replacing old stills down to the last ding, bump, and patch?” chuckled the chairman. “That’s not quite true; those old stills may have a dent or two. Rather than replace the entire still, we only replace the parts that require it. If we cut out a patch or replace a part, we will replicate angles and shapes religiously, so that the contours of the boiler or Lyne arm, for example, are exact duplicates. After all, if we built it, we still have the original plans. But every ding and bump? No, we don’t do that.”

So pour that in your glass and drink it.

Goes well with:

• The Purpose of Good Liquor, a tale of old Scotch whisky put to good use. 
• Ernie Button's Vanishing Single Malt Scotch, in which Mr. Button turns his eye (and camera) on unwashed whiskey tumblers.

Nutella-Filled Chocolate Death Star

We at the Whiskey Forge are familiar with Kotobukiya's Death Star silicone tray. Ostensibly for making Death Star-shaped ice, its appeal is twofold. Whiskey geeks understand that large, spherical pieces of ice keep our whiskey cocktails cool without undue melting (hence dilution) while Star Wars obsessives get to make all the groaners, in-jokes, and puns a bartender could stand. But its uses don't stop with simple ice spheres.

Don't try to frighten us with your confectioner's ways, Lord Vader.

Now, you could go all super-cocktologist by freezing fresh flower buds or petals in the space station-shaped ice ball and floating the finished spheres in a bowl of punch. Or take the blogger mom approach and freeze fresh, healthy orange juice for your kid's birthday breakfast. Give it a swirl of Angostura bitters for extra tastiness. Maybe even go full Ferran Adrià and spike the pre-frozen water with squid ink to create a darker, more realistic-seeming Death Star...and then make a drink recipe incorporating that flavor. Call it, oh I dunno, Headed for that Small Moon.

Or you could ditch the drinks concept entirely as Imgurian echoflight did recently and make Nutella-filled chocolate Death Stars. It's true that earlier this Autumn photos of Bombom de Death Star, a maraschino cherry-filled chocolate Death Star from Brazilian company ZeeK Confeitaria began circulating, but they don't ship to Southern California. Besides, who wants cherries when delicious chocolate-and-hazelnut spread is as close as your grocery store?

Eat with care, however; the more you tighten your grip, the more Nutella will slip through your fingers.

Goes well with:

• For echoflight's easy step-by-step directions, check out the post on Imgur. 
• Didn't get a silicone Death Star mold for Christmas? Well, bucko, that's easy to fix. Online vendors sell them. 
• I like silicone molds a lot. I use them for ice, forming flavored pats of butter, baking and other things around the Forge. But sometimes an odd white film appears on the surface of those I use exclusively for ice. The details on that (with plenty of reader comments) are at What is that White Film on My Silicone Ice Trays? 

KABOOM! Ryan Chetiyawardana on High-Temperature Distillation

I do not own a rotary evaporator. Three possible reasons for this spring immediately to mind. To wit:

1. Rotary evaporators are effete affectations of so-called molecular gastronomists and have no place in a traditional kitchen such as my own.
2. Rotovaps are dangerous and those who would use them foolhardy.
3. They cost a lot of money

Rotary evaporators are ingenious industrial stills that have been around since the 1950's, no more dangerous than any other piece of kitchen gear. The sole reason I don't have one is the cost. Even a small, one-liter countertop model can run into thousands of dollars.

But not everyone is dissuaded by the cost. They've been showing up in forward-looking professional kitchens and the backrooms of bars that play host to experimental bartenders. In a nutshell, they allow low-temperature distillation of alcohol in very low atmospheric pressure. Delicate and ephemeral tastes and scents that perhaps could have been captured laboriously only en fleurage in past centuries can be, with a rotovap, cranked out on one's kitchen counter.

Rotovap: click to enlarge

In the latest issue of CLASS magazine, London bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana discusses his rotary evaporator. Specifically, he writes about the traditional low-temperature/low pressure technique for which the high-tech still is known and then, pulling a Father William, he turns it on its head, inverting the process to become high-pressure/high-temperature distillation.

Chetiyawardana writes:

One of the main culprits for this thinking was black pepper. I've always found it a very complex spice and found notes ranging from red berries all the way through to wood, tobacco and coffee. When run through a low pressure distillation, the delicate floral notes shine through. On trying pot still distillations, this yields some of the spice, but it wasn't until I ran a high pressure distillation that I finally achieved the wonderfully fragrant, oily and earthy distillate I wanted.

The still — for that's what a rotary evaporator is — has been dubbed Chetiyawardana's "Kaboom Still." Hats off to him for pushing distillation into new directions.

Goes well with:

• Chetiyawardana's article, The 'Kaboom' Still - High Pressure Distillation.
• Tap That CLASS, my take on Simon Difford's lushly photographed alcoholist magazine

That's MY Hammer

Two years ago, I wrote about wanting a bung starter, the wooden mallet Paul M. Angle called "the barkeeper's favorite weapon." Several people emailed or commented on the post with suggestions of where to get a big ass ice crushing mallet.

My father just cut to the chase and made one.

A US quarter placed for perspective

In his basement workshop, he cut and sanded down a massive wooden mallet then mailed it to me to assemble. The hammer's head measures 4" high and is a whopping 6" square. A 1" square hole in the center accommodates the handle that's held in place by a wooden crosspin.

It was one of the best gifts I could have gotten.

The idea with a maul of this size is to fill a canvas bag — called a Lewis bag — with ice and smack it with the hammer to crush the ice within. I actually blew out the seams of the first Lewis bag I used it on until I learned not to put my all into it. The ice can be merely cracked into several pieces or pounded into snow-like consistency, depending on how hard and how much it's smacked.

I'm back in business with new Lewis bags. Although it's not the only option we have around the house for crushing ice, gripping the handle of that enormous maul and bringing its head down on a bag of ice remains my favorite.

Thanks, Dad.

What is that White Film on My Silicone Ice Trays?

Talk to enough cocktail types and eventually the name Tovolo comes up. Not, it’s not the name of a pre-Prohibition bartending genius or an obscure Italian amaro. Tovolo is the international housewares division of ICI USA and it makes, among other things, a nifty silicone ice cube tray that makes dense cubes — actual cubes with equal sides — of ice.

Talk to enough people who use those trays, though, and a common complaint arises. After some time in the freezer, the trays may develop a persistent white surface film.

 The film forms on the interior and exterior surfaces of the trays, is transferred to the ice, and gives an off taste and smell to drinks as the ice melts. There’s even a waxy residue on my tongue after getting Tovolo ice cubes from trays that have the film.

What the hell is this stuff? And how to you get rid of it?

It doesn’t seem to be caused by mineral-heavy hard water (otherwise, we’d likely see it only on the side of the trays, but see below for a contrary finding). It seems, rather, to be some reaction of the silicone itself. One thing that makes me think this is that of all my kitchen utensils, the silicone spatulas — and only the silicone spatulas — develop a different, almost greasy feeling, surface coating. Now, I do keep those next to the stove, so perhaps they attract minute particles of airborne cooking grease that the wooden and metal utensils don’t. When I expand my consideration to kitchen gear more broadly, the Silpat silicone baking sheets acquire that same slightly greasy feel if I haven’t used them some time and I keep those in a closet away from the stove. Both of those films wash off easily with a soap and hot water.

This is not the same film the ice cube trays develop; that all of my silicone eventually behaves oddly is the only connection I’m making. I’m not a chemist and don’t know what’s going on.

So I threw out a question to members of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writing Group: anyone else notice off-tastes from these cubes and, more to the point, have luck restoring these trays?

Yes, writers noticed the film as well. Not everyone, but several had. There was no consensus on what caused it. Suggestions for restoring the trays ranged from using toilet bowl cleaner (um, pass) and boiling the trays in water to scrubbing them with vodka or vinegar and running them in the dishwasher.

I have tried all those suggestions (well, not the toilet bowl cleaner) and am here to tell you that none of them works. At least, not for very long.

Soaking and rubbing the silicone ice cube trays with vinegar and vodka (separately) initially eradicated all traces of the white film, but it bloomed on each test tray again within a week. I boiled a tray for five minute: no dice. Ten. Same. A twenty-minute boil did nothing to remove or reduce this persistent film.

Finally, I wrote to cookware doyenne Mariella Esposito of Fante’s kitchen supply shop in Philadelphia. She got in touch with a silicone tray manufacturer who wrote this:

We have heard this type of feedback before on the ice trays and have tested them extensively. We test both the original raw material, the catalyst, as well as samples of trays that have been used and been returned to us by customers.

We actually did a chemical breakdown test on this white residue from a tray that we rec’d back from a customer and the result of that test is below. The compound associated with the residue is Calcium Sulfate – meaning basically the residue is associated with the chemicals in hard water. Like a mineral deposit. The minerals from the water calcify and adhere to the walls of the silicone and are then transferred to the surface of the next ice cube to be made.. etc.. etc.. etc..

We have found a dilute solution of vinegar and water to be a great solution. Simply soak the trays in this for about 20 minutes, rinse them and you should be ready to go. Most soap based cleaners can also leave trace amounts of milky residue on the ice trays. You ‘ve seen those old dishwasher detergent commercials where they take the glass out of the washer and it has a white residue on it… viola.

So, there you go. A suggestion that calcium sulfate is at play on at least one tray tested and may be cleaned with vinegar. My guess is that probably does work with some trays. But not mine.

Any chemists out there have recommendations on what else this stuff may be and how to eradicate it?

Otherwise, I’m left with the words of Nathan Lutchansky, a cocktail enthusiast in Pittsburgh:

Yeah, that happens after a while with those Tovolo trays. At that point they're worn out enough that we just throw 'em out and buy new ones. They're pretty cheap.

Goes well with:

• Tovolo sells their trays on Amazon. Despite my questions and frustrations, I do still like their trays. You can find some of their selection here.
• If you'd like to reach out to members of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writing Group yourself, check out the group's website here and drop in the Mixoloseum chat room on Thursdays for themed nights of drinking, mutual heckling, and frequent visits by brand reps, authors, bartenders, and distillers.
• Fante's Kitchen Wares Shop, one of my all-time favorite cookery stores in the entire United States — and, yes, that's exactly the sort of place I visit when traveling. A sprawling warren of rooms filled with knives, copper pans, mixers, juicers, pepper mills, cake pans, bread baskets, pickle grabbers, meat mallets, food coloring gels, and, yes, ice cube trays.

The Barkeeper’s Favorite Weapon

Incidentally, in my youth the bung starter was the barkeeper’s favorite weapon. Most whiskey was sold from barrels, so at least one was to be found behind every bar. Time after time, when the unmistakable sounds of riot came from the saloon next door, I have looked on the scene from the safety of the rear entrance—our store and the saloon shared a back porch—and watched one of the Wolf brothers in magnificent action, conquering the field with a bung starter. By the time the police arrived, only an ambulance was needed.

~ Paul M. Angle
"My Father’s Grocery Store "

By and large, I’m content with my bar gear—copper pans, strainers, funnels, a fancy-ass mandolin, zesters, shakers, two-liter jars for infusions, and an array German, French, and American knives deck the kitchen walls and cabinets. As the collection metastasizes into the living room, there are julep cups, brandy snifters, bottles for homemade bitters, cordials, and ratafias, and several shelves of cocktail books. Honestly, it’s more than anyone truly needs at home.

But I’m missing one tool: a bung starter.

You heard me: a bung starter. Before aluminum beer kegs, barkeeps kept an oversized wooden hammer for removing the wooden bung that plugged the, um, bunghole. Quit your sniggering. With a barrel on its side and facing up, this little maul would be tapped on the outside around the bung to drive it, bit by bit, up out of the round hole so a spigot could be inserted to dispense the precious liquids within. Sometimes bungs eased out peaceably. Other times, they blew off explosively with a spray of beer. Eyes were probably lost, maybe even widows created. Whiskey and vinegar barrels got the same treatment.

I want one.

It’s not that I have any wooden barrels around the place needing their bungs popped. Nah, it’s more mundane than that. Because mint juleps are nearly our house drink, we go through a fair amount of crushed ice. And if it’s not for a julep, crushed ice comes in handy for a variety of other drinks, not least of which is the Painkiller, a rum and fruit juice concoction that likely has caused as much pain as it supposedly relieved.

As it stands, I’ll put whole ice cubes in a canvas bag not unlike a small pillowcase. Fold over the top. Wail on it with a rolling pin. Some folks use the gripping end of a big muddler (I’m looking at you, Thomas Waugh). Others use a household hammer, though I find too much risk of its edges ripping the bag. A rolling pin is—meh—an ok workaround. A fleischklobber for flattening meats could work, but I'm trying to avoid meat/cocktail cross-contamination these days.

Both David Wondrich and New Orleanian Chris McMillian have ice mauls that would make Thor flush with envy. While McMillian may wax lyrical over a mint julep as he reduces his ice to submissive little shards (see below), I’ve seen Wondrich thunderously hammer away, shattering ice into into submission as he worked into a maniacal sweat to keep up with demands of thirsty revelers.

That’s what I need: a broad surface to avoid inadvertently ripping the bag, wood with a touch of malleability to it, and enough weight that the whole thing swings like a dream.

Chris tells me that his source has dried up. Any woodworkers out there up for the task of a custom order?