November 3rd, 2011
We were lucky enough to have Seb Lee Delisle join us at MediaCityUK to run his two-day CreativeJS course. It was great to have a few days to just play with three.js and html5 canvas sans the pressures of tight deadlines and the constraints that a project bring.
I tried out the three.js library for the first time and tried experimenting with the simplest of primitives – the plane. I wanted to do something interesting with it by running through the vertices and changing their positions to make some nice animated effects.
Here’s my first example (webgl):
http://brettjephsondesign.net/plane/plane1/plane.html
This example simply runs through the vertices and changes the z position of each based on a multiplication of the sine of the x and sine of the y positions.
More to follow.
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October 26th, 2011
Only a couple of years ago I though American Whisky amounted to Jack Daniels or Jim Beam. Both of which seemed barely acceptable when drowned in Coke.
I’ve since learnt a bit about classic cocktails and have been craving some straight rye whisky and quality bourbon to test in my Old-fashioneds, Manhattans and Sazeracs. They seem to be lacking on the shelves of UK stores. So I have resorted to the internet.
Having picked up my first bottle of straight rye whisky (Rittenhouse Straight Rye 80%), I thought I’d go back through SavoyStomp’s series of posts on Sazerac to gather some recommendations. Over a month of blog posts, Eric Ellestad experiments with whiskies, gins, rums, brandys and different bars and bartenders in search of a perfect classic Sazerac.
To aid my own remembering, here are a few notes I took:
George T Stagg Bourbon – http://savoystomp.com/2010/02/11/staggerac-hazmat-2006/ – good Bourbon not necessarily a good Sazerac.
Sazerac 18 – seemed to be Eric Ellestad’s favourite from the 30 (or so) variations.
Wild Turkey – another good rye for a Sazerac.
Bols Genever Gin makes an interesting and successful variation.
The 18th Century style Old Portero also sounds like a good Sazerac spirit. I don’t think I’ll be able to test this one any time soon.
Tags: Bourbon, Cocktail, Gin, Rye Whisky, Sazerac
Posted in Cocktail | 2 Comments »
September 3rd, 2011
I’ve tried mixing Martinis a few times now with little success but today I got a lot closer to the result I’m after.
This was my first attempt at a Vesper – the Ian Fleming/James Bond recipe – and my first use of Cocchi Americano in a cocktail (here as a substitute for the defunct Kina Lillet).
Both firsts worked out well but I quickly realised that there were two missing ingredients from my other Martini attempts and they were Arctic temperatures and a little dilution.
The ingredients I used were:
3 parts Tanqueray gin;
1 part Zubrowka vodka;
1/2 part Cocchi Americano.
Add to a mixing glass with lots of ice and stir (or shake). Lemon peel to garnish.
I split the Bond portions into two drinks. Smaller portions means colder drinks from first to last and cold is the main ingredient here.
Also, I’m ignoring the modern idea of rinsing the glass with vermouth as I think that is just a cold gin rather than a cocktail.
When it comes to the shake or stir question, I understand that the classic gin Martini should be clear and shaking muddies that classic look. I’ve also heard that vodka Martinis should be shaken. As both vodka and gin are present in the Vesper, I will try both techniques and see which I prefer. This time I shook the drink.
I thought the interesting herbal and bitter tints of the vodka and vermouth really worked quite well.
I smashed the rather large ice cubes we generally have into small bits and I think this helped make a good Martini as both the dilution and temperature were close to right. I also put the cocktail glasses in the freezer.
When mixing the Martini the container in which you shake it or stir it must get cold, not just cold but frost forming icy cold. I’d always had it cold to the touch but realise now that that wasn’t cold enough.
Tags: Cocktail, Martini
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September 1st, 2011
Now that we are settled in the new house and I’m trying to build up the contents of our home bar quicker than we can finish ingredients, we have finally got hold of a bottle of Cocchi Americano.
Supposedly, this interesting tasting vermouth – with its slight quinine bitterness – makes a passable substitute for Kina Lillet in some classic cocktails.
I’m trying it with a bit of soda tonight to get an idea of the flavour.
I bought it to try the Bond Martini derivative – the alcohol-heavy Vesper – and, of greater interest, the Corpse Reviver No. 2 (I seem to be all out of Cointreau or any other orange liqueur and so this one will have to wait) and Jaberwock Cocktail – the literary reference in The Savoy Cocktail Book peaked my interest.
I’ll probably try a Negroni with it as well but does anyone have any other suggestions for vintage/classic cocktails that are improved by the taste of Cocchi Americano?
Tags: Cocchi Americano
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July 23rd, 2011
Trying the Old Pal cocktail with Bourbon instead of Canadian Club Whisky. It’s very dry. I’m not sure Noilly Prat works in cocktails. I find its taste very distinctive and, for me, it over powers other flavours.
As Savoy Stomp explains, using an Italian vermouth and mixing a Boulevardier is probably the way to go if you want this to taste ok.
Tags: Campari, Cocktail, Noilly Prat, Whisky
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July 9th, 2011
The Old-fashioned is now the drink of choice in our house but we have two variations:
1. Aquavit (Norwegian Gilde – 12 years old). I’m sure this would be sacrilege to some Norwegian aquavit evangelists but I’ve had the stuff sitting on my shelf, slowly evaporating, for about a year.
2. Jim Beam Black – no one can be upset by that.
I tend to follow this recipe pretty closely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEr7ym4-r5I
I like both, as long as the alcohol shows through they have a character all their own. The aquavit is a little smoother, the Jim Beam has more after taste, both work with the lovely bitters and orange mix that makes old-fashioned my very favourite drink.
Old-fashioned is one of a few drinks that I can make very well without the assistance of a book. Nothing else I’ve tried from The Savoy Cocktail Book has got close yet.
Tags: Angostura Bitters, Aquavit, Cocktail, Orange peel, Whisky
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August 29th, 2010
For those who are looking forward to Flash on the Beach this year, I’d like to heartily recommend the session by Jon Howard. He took the Elevator Pitch by storm last year and this time around he’s going to take the world by storm (and quite probably blow it up): http://www.flashonthebeach.com/sessions/index.php?pageid=2218.
As I work with him, I’ve seen a few of the things he’s brewing for the session and some of them look cool as. So get along to it. After all, who has even heard of these Branden Hall and Mike Chambers characters that he’s up against?
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August 29th, 2010
I’m back from three weeks of holidays and the travel bug is still at a feverish high but the older I get the more the home sick bug counters and yangs to the travel bug ying.
Three weeks of taking it easy and I’m ill suited to the tasks that lay ahead over the next three days before I get back to work.
First off, I have to download some four hundred photos of weddings, lakes, food, cathedrals, statues, paintings, people I vaguely know, gondalas, canals, etc and work out where they were taken and why. At the same time, I’ll have to sort wheat from chaff and, because some will be passed on to the wedding party we were out there with, I will have to kick start good ol’ Photoshop and make a little better those pictures worth tampering with.
Nice to know then, that Windows 7 doesn’t even recognise my Canon EOS 350 camera. I know, it is at least 3 years old and thererfore should be resigned to the scrap heap of modern digital consumerism, but I’m perfectly happy with it and I’m a hoarder like that.
For those who suffer from the same lack of acknowledgement between said popular camera and said popular operating system (oh, that evil corporations would have better communication with one another), a handy tip, gleemed from Google:
Press Menu > select the last menu > set Communication to Print/PTP.
Then plug in the camera and the two items act as if they were childhood sweethearts reunited after many years.
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May 22nd, 2010
This blog post from Unity caught my attention:
http://bit.ly/bUd9XF
I had already started looking at this Native Client technology announced by Google and trying to work out what it could be used for – what the advantages were – but the possibility of playing Unity games without a plugin and directly through a browser (admittedly just a Chromium build at the moment) seems pretty cool.
Now, if all the other browsers were to take up Native Client then we’d have a truly 3d game-friendly web and with Unity 3 right around the corner things would get exciting!
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October 29th, 2009
If you haven’t already tried the Unity game engine, then there is no better time than the present. One of the big announcements that has come out of Unite 09 is a change to Unity Indie: it is now free and it is just called Unity. For more details see this article: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25840.
This makes it even easier for indie and hobbyist game developers to get into Unity and I think it is a good move by the Unity team. They are obviously getting enough progression from Indie to Pro to make this model viable. At the same time, I’m a bit disgruntled as I forked out for an Indie licence in the dark old days when these things cost money.
Unity 2.6 comes with some good features added: http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-2.6. There aren’t many better IDEs around and all the features – particularly better performance, source control compatibility and the profiler – seem useful and should boost productivity. I think Adobe could take some pointers – especially for integrating the 3D features of flash player 10 into the IDE. How about, rather than gimmicky additions like the iPhone stuff concentrate on making the IDE a better experience to work with (faster, less buggy) and adding features that will be used day-in, day-out.
Unity 2.6 ftw.
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