{"id":922,"date":"2008-01-20T17:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-20T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2008\/01\/not-just-stiff.html"},"modified":"2008-01-20T17:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-20T17:15:00","slug":"not-just-stiff-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"Not Just Stiff Drinks &#8212; Steep Ones, Too."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hmmmph.&nbsp; The new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.astorcenternyc.com\/\">Astor Center<\/a> culinary education complex looks fab indeed&#8230;but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.astorcenternyc.com\/class-seasonal-mixology-greenmarket-cocktails-for-the-enthusiast.ac\">charging <strong>$95<\/strong> for a two-hour cocktail demonstration<\/a> &#8212; even when they&#8217;re demonstrated by a true luminary like <a href=\"http:\/\/starchefs.com\/chefs\/rising_stars\/2007\/new_york\/html\/bio_j_meehan.shtml\">Jim Meehan<\/a> &#8212; is a bit rich for my blood.<\/p>\n<p>After all, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsu.newschool.edu\/culinary\/01b_currcourse.htm#Events\">New School&#8217;s demonstrations and tastings<\/a> start at $55, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.iceculinary.com\/icereg\/category.asp?category=SPIRITS+AND+COCKTAILS&amp;frmMode=submitted\">Institute for Culinary Education&#8217;s classes<\/a> are $75.&nbsp; (Heck, for only thirty bucks more than what Astor Center&#8217;s charging, you can go to a member&#8217;s dinner at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesbeard.org\/\">James Beard House<\/a> &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesbeard.org\/events\/2008\/01\/025.shtml\">this one with single-malt Scotch pairings<\/a> looks good.)<\/p>\n<p>And one of the great things about cocktails is that they&#8217;re made with consistent ingredients:&nbsp; Aside from minor things like the varying acidity of lemon juice, you know that if you are working from a good recipe and use the ingredients it calls for, the cocktail you produce is going to be pretty darn close to what the recipe intended; Cointreau tastes the same all over the world.&nbsp; I&#8217;d invest that $95 in a liquor-store run and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0609608843\/telescreenorg-20\">good cocktail book<\/a>, and get a-shakin&#8217;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hmmmph.&nbsp; The new Astor Center culinary education complex looks fab indeed&#8230;but charging $95 for a two-hour cocktail demonstration &#8212; even when they&#8217;re demonstrated by a true luminary like Jim Meehan &#8212; is a bit rich for my blood. After all, the New School&#8217;s demonstrations and tastings start at $55, and the Institute for Culinary Education&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seen-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}