Many a great dish has been founded by experimentation, and I’m as big a supporter as any of seeing where new ingredients and combinations take you.

Recently I bought some brown sugar, and I’ve been substituting it for granulated in a number of dishes — pancakes, steel-cut oats, cookies — mostly with good results. There was, however, one instance disastrous enough that I must warn you never to try yourself: Brown Sugar Kettle Corn.

I’ve made kettle corn with maple syrup according to the recipe described before, and it was fine, though the liquid sputtered a bit when I added it to the hot pan. With brown sugar, however, this is what happened:

The sugar immediately melted together and stuck to the bottom of the pan. With vigorous shaking it still did not spread and coat the kernels, but rather congealed and started to smoke. Meanwhile, the kernels weren’t popping. They took an inordinately long time to start — two to three minutes on medium-high heat — and by the time the popping was done, the popped corn and the sugar were completely burned, the room smoky, and the bottom of the pan scorched. Rather than a rusticated take on the classic treat, the corn tasted like it was scraped from the bottom of a tar well.

So take this lesson and don’t try this at home.

(At least, don’t try it the way I did. After the debacle I did some research and found a recipe with brown sugar, but you melt the sugar, butter and salt into a syrup first, and pour that over already popped corn. But that’s not true kettle corn in my book…)

I think it’s only appropriate that the first cocktail posting be about that King of Cocktails, The Martini. Gin, vermouth, and garnish. So simple and yet so elusive.

Of course the correct proportions is highly debated, but I’ve found a large part of the difficulty lies in the ever-unstated fourth ingredient: water. How much the ice melts into the cocktail really makes a difference. On consecutive days I’ve made a martini to the same measured proportions and had one be delicate and complex, the other harsh. With so few ingredients the water plays a big role, and I hadn’t paid attention to it until then.

Shaking generally adds more water to the cocktail than stirring, due to the vigor with which the cocktail rubs against the ice. There is, however, some debate as to whether shaking “bruises” the gin, giving it a sharper taste. I haven’t noticed a difference myself, but some people swear by it. The classic rule of thumb is to stir a gin martini and shake a vodka martini.

What I’ve come to do–and this is blasphemy to a meticulous martini preparer–is let the drink sit on the ice. If I’m shaking, I shake vigorously, let it sit for 30 sec, then shake again and pour. When stirring, I either stir more or just wait with the drink on the rocks. I’ve found that the increased amount of water smooths out the taste, especially in a vodka martini where you occasionally get that rubbing alcohol flavor. It’s a slightly less potent cocktail but it’s far more pleasant. You almost forget you’re drinking straight alcohol.
Gin Martini:

3 oz Gin (Hendrick’s, Plymouth, Bombay are good)
1/2 oz Noilly Prat dry vermouth
Olive, twist, or cocktail onion garnish
Ice

Combine all ingredients in cocktail shaker, shake or stir, let ice melt into drink, pour and enjoy!