Sunday 31 July 2011

The Low-down: 10 Reasons your cocktail tastes awful

After an exceedingly benevolent and tolerant post on Martinis, it seems only fair to redress the balance with a counterpart full of scowling reprimand and unabashed cantankery. In this vein, here are the 10 favourite blunders, committed by the professional and home bartender alike, that ruin liquors that have been loving crafted over months years or even decades and reduce them to lifeless faux-alcopops. (Note that I'm not certain that there are exactly 10 reasons, but 10 is a nice round number, so if they start to get a little weak towards the end, I'm afraid it means reason had to bow to rhetoric)

1) Under-iced drinks. Good cocktails demand good ice and plenty of it. If the drink is shaken or stirred, fill up the shaker tin. Then add a few more cubes for luck. If the drink is served with ice, fill up the glass past the rim. Paradoxically (at least, for the very, very stupid), more ice means less dilution and more chill. Always shake with large, 'dry' ice cubes and serve with the same if on the rocks. Except for certain drinks (a shaken caipirinha, original recipe Mai Tai), strain the shaken drink onto fresh ice in the glass. Some have even taken to hand carving huge blocks of perfect ice into spheres, but only attempt this if in serious deficit of a life. (I did).

2) Under-shaken drinks. Perhaps the most unforgivable sin on the list. Whereas every other mistake can be down to honest ignorance, this is always down to laziness and disregard for both the drink and the customer.  Go on, scout around Youtube for a couple of minutes to find the kind of spineless, floozy-flirting, work-shirking, pretentiously-tattooed, shaven-headed fucking weasel cunt bartender who thinks that a couple of seconds lamely waggling their wrist around constitutes shaking a cocktail. And if that sounds excessive, think on this. At a bar, you purchase your drinks for many, many times their retail price point. If it's a cocktail, the price gap is even higher. So, if you see a bartender under-shaking feel perfectly free to speak your mind. Seriously, that's the one time, you are entirely in the right. An under-shaken drink is harsh, badly mixed and under-chilled. Shake very hard for about 10 seconds. A little longer for drinks with egg white or cream and a little less if shaking with crushed ice. A vigorous vertical shake, in which the contents move up and down through the shaker, will aerate the drink more, while a side shake will (in my experience) generate more intense chill.

3) Stale vermouth. If you wander into a bar with opened, dusty bottles of vermouth on the shelves, tread very carefully indeed when composing your drink order. While those venerable old bottles of pungent aperitif may lend a bar a sense of shabby character, the contents will have deteriorated significantly over the years. In fact, one of the key reasons for the slow striptease of the Martini to naked dry gin was the presence of sub-par, poorly stored vermouth. Unless the bar can be expected to go through a bottle pretty damn quickly (lots of Manhattans ordered or a vermouth-heavy house cocktail list are good signs), then eschew a shelved bottle. The actual use-by advice for vermouth varies greatly, depending upon whom you ask, although it's generally agreed that dry is more volatile than sweet. As a rule, if you can, keep both in the fridge, taste them straight now and again and use the former within two months, the latter within three to four. Past a year, it'll be drinkable but you'll wonder why you bothered.

4) Fresh ingredients. The rationale behind this is obvious and yet the lack of uptake is still startling. Sour mix, the bane of good drinks, is luckily far less prevalent in Britain than elsewhere, but if you do see almost anywhere on the list, stick to a beer. Sour mix has a chalky, one note flavour that renders a cocktail made with otherwise good ingredients into spiked lemonade. Which is less pleasant than it sounds.
However, even without the crutch of sour mix, British bartenders still have to answer for desiccated lime wedges and days old "fresh" juices. Some tests have suggested that four hour old lime juice is preferable to just squeezed; good news for most high volume, high quality cocktail bars, which squeeze mountains of citrus at the start of each evening. In a perfect world, these would be refrigerated throughout service and then discarded. Having tasted cocktails made with fresh juice and two-four hour old juice, my personal preference is for the former, but the second is still good and the only achievable option for some very busy bars. Juice beyond a few hours old will start to taste brackish and bitter, discernibly ruining the drink.

5) No blue curacao. Somewhere in this wonderful, endlessly surprising world of ours, there probably is a boutique brand of quality blue curacao, distilled with the finest orange peels and infused with Keatsian azure, but I'm fairly sure that no actual human has ever acquired a bottle.

6) Use simple syrup. Amazingly, sugar does not dissolve in iced up rum as readily as it does in, say, tea. Thus a drink made with sugar will be unevenly sweetened. This is particularly galling in unshaken drinks. A mojito with clumps of grain sugar resting in its unhappy depths to be sucked up by a straw is a truly depressing experience. So, just use simple. One to one syrup will go off faster than two to one, but will pour much more fluidly. The one advantage to using undissolved sugar is abrading citrus peel in drinks such as the Old Fashioned or the Caipirinha. Even then, my advice would be to use syrup, but if you really want to get all the oils out of your twist, at least use caster which will dissolve far more easily.

7) Poor pouring. There are a few bartenders in the world who might be able to free pour exactly 5ml every time. Nine times out of ten, the guy who's serving you is unlikely to be one of them. Neither are you, unless you're willing to practice everyday. Adding to the inherent, human inaccuracy, some liqueurs pour slower than others and pour spouts can be clogged. For the sake of fun and adaptability, I've learnt to free pour well, but I am, at heart, a jiggerer and, time allowing, strongly advise others to follow this path. Some drinks can survive or even thrive with variation more than others, but even then it's better to know exactly how you're varying the drink.

8) Bad liquor. You get out what you put in and a cocktail is no hiding place for inferior spirits. This doesn't necessarily mean pouring 18 year old scotch or rum (though in the right, spirit-focused drink, even these esteemed liquors could shine). Good gin and to a lesser extent good rum are readily available at fair prices - expensive does not always mean better, but very cheap almost inevitably means worse. It's not only quality that's of importance: the characteristics of some very good products are simply unsuitable for certain drinks. A gin that works beautifully in a Martini may be terrible in a sour or a G&T. Of course a drink like a Manhattan will more noticeably rise or fall on the quality of its base, but even a Pina Colada, with its heavy mixers of pineapple and coconut, can be perfected with the right blend of good rums. Ironically, one of the most commonly 'called'  liquor choices (specifying a superior brand) at a bar is vodka, which past the 'Smirnoff point' is unlikely to improve a mixed drink.

9) No bitters. Bitters are rather akin to the seasoning in a drink. They bring out the inherent flavours of the drink, adding depth and complexity. The original cocktail was simply spirit, sugar, water and bitters. In the nineteenth century, a great many American bars would manufacture their own house bitters - this may have been a golden age of variety and excellence, or one of inconsistency, which was ended by the success of superior industrial bitters (Bokers, Angostura) produced by specialists. In any case, a couple of decades ago Angostura, Peychaud's and Fee's were the only major bitters available. Currently, however there is a renaissance in bitters production with from spiced chocolate and dandelion and burdock to cinnamon and walnut. One could easily acquire an exotic repertoire of twenty or thirty bitters, but, in truth, even just a few dashes of good old Angostura can be all one needs to radically improve a cocktail.

10) Warm glasses. In all fairness, this one applies mostly to straight up drinks served without ice. Ideally even rocks drinks would have pre-chilled glasses, but unless the bar is willing to install 10 freezers, this is next to impossible. Coupettes, however, should always be chilled, hopefully in the freezer.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Perfect Martinis

The modern cocktail cognoscenti can be a lovably cantankerous bunch. Approach an online beverage board with news of obscure amari or a lesser known application of fernet branca and the members will embrace you with open arms; ask them about vodka cocktails or how to use up your amaretto and even the most polite respondents will struggle to omit a dash of condescension from their reply. Perhaps the most noticeable symptom of this elitism (which, by the way, I find in no way improper) is the treatment of the Martini.
In the words of HL Mencken,  "the only American invention as the perfect as the sonnet", the Martini is fittingly approached by cocktail purists with the reverence usually reserved for national poets. Their list of foibles extends from the bastardisation of its title to every drink under the sun (strawberry martini, espresso martini etc.) to the improper preparation of the original (shaken, a molecule of vermouth, drowned in olive brine). Mention the phrases, "dirty", "extra dry", or, worst of all, "chocolate" and, in certain circles, you'll get unbelievably short shrift.
Ironically, however, this barrage of disdain that inevitably appears in a discussion can sometimes cloud the appreciation of the drink itself. The focus on 'how not to do it' tends to draw attention from the issue of 'how to do it best'. In an attempt to redress the balance, let's take a look at a few variations on the Martini. Just gin, just vermouth, stirred with ice and elegantly garnished. This leaves more wiggle room than one would think.

First off, my favourite Martini

2 and 1/2 shots plymouth gin
1 shot lillet blanc
2 dash orange bitters
Lemon twist

Unfortunately, I find myself bending the rules on the first example - lillet ain't really vermouth, it's aperitif wine. Only the most bitter pedant would begrudge classing this as a martini though, because its properties, the interaction of the flavours, its style are entirely in keeping with the martini ideal. Plymouth gin is a wonderful product - abounding with juniper character, smooth with a citrus undertone. The orange notes in the lillet play beautifully with the gin. This martini is not particularly dry in either sense - the slightly sweeter Plymouth gin and the large measure of lillet conspire to keep the flavours a little softer - but the use of orange bitters provides just enough edge to pucker the mouth and leave you wanting more. The lemon twist brightens and sharpens the orange. Everything works well and there's a bit more going on than in the traditional martini.

A very traditional Dry Martini

2 and 1/2 shots London dry gin (Tanqueray export is perhaps the all time classic, but sipsmith, a gin deeply informed by traditional distilling techniques, is an excellent choice)
3/4 shot Noilly Prat
1 dash orange bitters
Olive garnish

Ask for a good Martini recipe from a good bartender and 9 times out of 10, you'll get something like this. Good gin, a decent glug of Noilly Prat (no fucking "whisper of vermouth here"), this was the staple of the three-martini lunch. The dry gin combines excellently with vermouth. Noilly prat, full of herbal flavour and fruitful bitterness, may be a standard choice, but there's a good reason: it does the job better than almost any other. The orange bitters make a cameo, lending a hint of delicate spice. My personal preference is for a twist, but tradition and elegance demand an olive. One, mind. It's a cocktail, not a buffet.

The Fiddy Fiddy Martini (Pegu Club)

1 and 1/2 shots London Dry gin (Tanqueray again)
1 and 1/2 shots dry vermouth (Noilly Prat or Dolin Dry)
2 dash orange bitters
Lemon twist

The Fiddy Fiddy, straight from Pegu Club's hall of fame, is a sterling riposte to the oversized basins of frozen gin that characterise the bungler's approach to a Martini. Equal gin and vermouth, this Martini is the perfect illustration of the wondrous properties of vermouth. Stale, cheap vermouth has no place to hide here, but a good fresh. Regarding vermouth, Noilly prat works well, but the subtleties of the lighter Dolin come through extremely well in this ratio.


Extra Dry Martini

Beefeater Gin
Martini Extra Dry Vermouth
Dry Essence
Olive

"Extra Dry" - sacrilege! Luckily, the moniker for 69 Colebrooke Row's signature Martini here refers to the use of a few drops of potent mouth-drying agent to encourage salivation and consequently taste sensitivity. No measures for this one, unfortunately, though given the likelihood of many people actually producing the dry essence for themselves, this is probably a non-issue.


The 'ever so slightly stretching the criteria' Martini

2 and a 1/2 shots Beefeater 24
1 shot Earl Grey infused vermouth (Noilly Prat infused over an hour with tea)
2 dash grapefruit bitters
Grapefruit twist

A highly tweaked Martini making best use of Beefeater 24's unique portfolio of flavours. Richly endowed with bittersweet citrus notes and with the herbal backbone of the vermouth accentuated by the tea infusion, this Martini certainly justifies the innovation.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Fairydust: The Absinthe dash

There are few competing liquors approached with as much trepidation and respect as the green fairy. Indeed centuries ago, when making my first tentative steps into the wondrous world of alcohol, absinthe was very much the final taboo - mysterious, overpowering and pretty much instantly nauseating. Nowadays, the venerable anise spirit seems far less intimidating - an absinthe drip or suissesse holds no terrors - but, for me, its potent qualities are best employed in minute doses as a dashed modifier.

With its strong fennel notes and complex herbal aromatics, a few drops absinthe shine through in even the toughest surroundings. Perhaps the most celebrated and effective example of this technique is found in one of the earliest cocktails - the sazerac. Originally a cognac old fashioned showcasing Antoine Peychaud's classic bitters, the phylloxera crisis that decimated France's vineyards led to the partial and eventually full substitution of rye whiskey in the drink. Presumably somewhere along the line, some bright spark utilised the absinthe rinse to complement the anise flavour of the bitters, and one of the world's great, great cocktails was perfected.

Sazerac


2 shots rye (or cognac, or a mix thereof) - I like Rittenhouse bonded for the rye or Hine for the cognac
1/4 shot 2:1 gomme syrup
3 dash peychaud's bitters
1 dash angostura bitters
3/4 shot absinthe

Fill a rocks glass with the absinthe, some water and crushed ice to chill. In a seperate glass, stir the other ingredients well over ice. Discard the absinthe from the first glass (into your sink, your mouth etc) and strain the contents of the second into the now-cold, absinthe rinsed rocks glass. Twist a lemon peel over the glass and discard. Feel appropriately smug.

In the case of the sazerac, the absinthe makes perfect sense, providing an aromatic partner to the lemon oils, intensifying the anise of the Peychaud's and adding a complex, herbal finish to the spicy rye or rich cognac. However, another great use of absinthe in a small package is a little less intuitive. The corpse reviver no.2, one of the best Harry Craddock creations, soars or sinks on the handling of the green liquor. A glorious quartet of gin, lillet (or cocchi americano), cointreau and lemon juice, the corpse reviver is harmonised and enlivened by the merest drop of absinthe. It is a tremendously clever balancing act. In a properly made corpse reviver, each sip is an intriguing march of flavours - first citrus, both the deep bitter sweetness of orange liqueur and lillet and the sharpness of fresh lemon juice; then the lillet's tannic consistency bridging to the astringent juniper of dry gin; finally, the absinthe dancing madly between them all, never clearly detectable in itself but always apparent in effect... Got a little carried away - time for a drink, I think.

The Corpse Reviver No.2


1 shot gin (I like tanqueray for its dryness and strong juniper flavour, plymouth is also popular)
1 shot lillet blanc or cocchi americano
1 shot lemon juice
1 shot cointreau
1-2 drops absinthe

About this point, I would post my original absinthe rinsed creation, a sort of gin sazerac with elderflower liqueur. Unfortunately I learnt about a month after coming up with the drink that Jamie Boudreau, a great blogger and even better bartender, had come up with almost exactly the same thing before me - called l'amour en fouite. It's a good drink - which you can find here http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/lamour-en-fuite-cocktails-2009 - but it leaves me in somewhat of a bind. In its place, I offer The name of the rose, a very aromatic martinez variation.

The name of the rose


2 shots hendrick's gin
1 shot martini rosato
1/4 shot rosemary infused maraschino
2 dash peychaud's bitters
1 drop rosewater
Absinthe rinse

Stir first five ingredients over ice, strain into absinthe rinsed coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

A Rum Diary, Mai Tai's Appleton rum tasting and comparison

It will come as no surprise to rum lovers that a good Vic's Mai Tai is one of the my favourite standbys for the summer. Or indeed the spring. One can make a good case for drinking the odd one in winter too. However, save for a half-dozen jealously guarded bottles in the back of collectors' cabinets and, ahem, The Merchant Hotel, the venerable 17 year Wray Nephew rum, the drink's original base, has long been exhausted. The writer of one of my favourite blogs,  A Mountain of Crushed Ice,  (http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=1692) nobly charted his way across 14 Mai Tai's with 14 different rum combinations in order to find a perfect replacement for the lost Wray Nephew, a feat which my own rum collection is unfortunately not quite wide enough to match. Therefore I've tended to turn to the Appleton Estate range whenever I've craved the tropical hit of a good Mai Tai.

The Appleton Estate in Jamaica has been producing rum since the seventeenth century, but was purchased by Wray Nephew in 1916. They, the parent company, eventually introduced a full range of Appleton rums as a replacement for their old eponymous flagship brand, of which the only current survivor is the popular Wray Nephew Overproof (apparently too tough to kill off). Nowadays, these rums are the closest approximation to the original 17 year Wray Nephew, to which anyone without a spare ten grand and a sugarcane obsession will have access. I've compared a few of these rums both mixed in a Mai Tai and straight, but beforehand let's take a long at that famous old recipe.

Vic's Mai Tai


2 ounces Wray Nephew 17 year rum
Juice of one lime (about 3/4-1 ounce)
1/2 ounce De Kuyper orange curacao
1/2 ounce French orgeat (almond syrup)
1/4 ounce rock candy syrup (rich sugar syrup)

Shake with crushed ice and one of the spent lime halves and pour unstrained into a rocks glass. Garnish with a fresh mint sprig.

For this tasting, I've replaced the Wray Nephew with each Appleton rum, the curacao with cointreau, the commercial orgeat with homemade and added a dash of Angostura orange bitters to add a little spicy depth.


Appleton V/X


Affordable and reliable, Appleton V/X is the brand's benchmark mixing spirit, a blend of rums aged from 5 years to 10 years.
Straight: A bold nose of candied fruitcake. Fairly pungent flavour with plenty of spice and hints of citrus peel. Benefits from an ice cube or two.
In a Mai Tai: The rum comes through on first sip and the fruity notes combine harmoniously with the almond and orange sweetness. This is a good classic Mai Tai. Easy drinking and silky smooth with homemade orgeat.

Appleton 8 Year
A blend of rums aged for at least 8 years his rum is a definite step up from the V/X.
Straight: A more intense, seductive nose reminiscent with a hint of wood and burnt caramel. Delicious, spicy and full-flavoured in the mouth, with more oak and a sweet, lingering finish. The citrus of the V/X is replaced by moreish dried fruit.
In a Mai Tai: An excellent Mai Tai. A really excellent Mai Tai. Well worth making the upgrade, the flavours all seem a little richer and smoother without losing the refreshing, tropical hit. I actually tried this twice, once with a dash of Haitian Barbancourt rhum agricole to up the pungency, which worked extremely well.

Appleton 12 Year

An esteemed sipping rum, spirit purists may abhor the use of such a well-aged product in a mixed drink, particularly one with as many strong modifiers as the Mai Tai. However, the original recipe was designed around the flavours already present in an even more eminent rum and so it seemed churlish not to try.
Straight: Oak and molasses on the nose. Deep and rich on the tongue with dancing Christmas spices and honey. Delicious.
In a Mai Tai: Qualitatively distinct from but not necessarily better than the other two. Definitely richer and not quite as fruity, this felt less like a strong tiki punch and a bit more like a very dark, quirky daiquiri. Plenty of caramel and nuttiness. I slightly decreased the measures of lime juice and cointreau and left out the extra sugar syrup and bitters for this rendition, in order to really allow the rum to shine. Certainly tasty and a fine choice ; the older rum adds to the drink but it also imperceptibly detracts a little too.

Having sampled most of the Appleton range (apart from the 21 year, which I've not yet mustered up the will to buy), the Appleton 8 stood out as my favourite. This may go against the grain of Mai Tai lovers, who might argue that the drink merits the inclusion of as distinguished and complex a rum as possible, but the fresher flavour of a slightly younger rum appealed to me more. Unless cash or availability is a factor, go for the 8 yr. If either is however, the V/X is still a very good choice.

Finally, I ought to note that, unless you're planning to drink a lot of Mai Tai's, it can be fairly difficult to use up Appleton in drinks which truly make good use of its distinctive flavours. While it's definitely good straight and works pretty well in standard cocktails, I've included one of my own recipes here for a little mixing variation. This is a tweak of Dale DeGroff's Caipirissima D'Uva, a Caipirissima with grapes.

Caipirissima Pasa

2 shots Appleton V/X or 8 Yr
20 raisins
1/4 shot falernum syrup
1/2 shot cinnamon sugar syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters
3/4 lime cut into wedges
1/4 shot dark rum

If you've got time, you could infuse the rum with raisins by pouring a healthy glug of rum (500ml or so) over a jar of raisins and leaving for a couple of weeks. Otherwise: Muddle raisins and then the lime wedges in the base of a shaker and add the Appleton, syrups and bitters. Shake with crushed ice for about ten seconds and pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass. Garnish with a lime wedge and float dark rum on the top of the drink.

Mojito: The Julep that hit it big

There is perhaps no concoction that better defines the mass cocktail experience than the mojito. The Cuban classic, adored by Hemingway and, according to the good folks at The Lonsdale, Francis Drake, is now a mainstay of near-every bar. In the UK, even the most unambitious pubs will frequently muddle one up and, in the US, hearsay reliably informs me that restaurants often devote whole pages to dozens of uninspired variations, of which I'm willing to bet about half feature passion-fruit. There may be a couple of particularly cautious voles left who haven't yet encountered one, but not by the end of the year they will have tentatively sipped a few drops out of a discarded straw and declared them their new favourite  At 'The Hawksmoor' in London (an excellent steakhouse, an even better bar) their chronologically structured menu rather cockily places their own Shaky Pete's Ginger Brew as the tipple of the 21st century, consciously eschewing the identikit drinks (the mojito, the cosmopolitan) that really dominate the scene.
There are good reasons for its success. The mojito is easy to serve: it doesn't require any shaking, its ingredients are readily available and even a ham-fisted version (muddled lime wedges, grainy sugar, pulverised  mint etc) will be just about drinkable. It's easy to drink too: in fact, it's one of the most consumable drinks imaginable. Packed with crushed ice and fragrant mint, attractive in both sight and scent, moreishly sweet, with the piquant hint of lime, a perfect co-partner to the fruity, grassy rum. What's not like? You probably want one right now. In fact, in deference to your weakness, here's a damn good recipe.

The Mojito


50ml or 2 shots Havana Club 3yr/ Havana Club anejo blanco
White rum is the base for any great mojito - aged rum and mint are not necessarily ill-matched but the classic mojito flavour is centred on white rum - and Havana Club rums are the gold standard in this case. It's not even about authenticity or 'drinking what the Cubans drink', the drink just works best with the fresh, slightly vegetal, sweet flavours of this rum. I've done a lot of sampling.


12.5ml or 1/2 shot fresh lime juice + 6.25ml or 1/4 shot fresh lemon juice/ 20ml lime juice
The use of both lemon and lime juice apes the slightly softer taste of Cuban lime juice. Fresh squeezed juice is clearly necessary. Lemon and lime wedges are not: the peel of citrus contains a lot of bitter flavour that have no place in a mojito. The combination of lemon and lime juice is a minor tweak unlikely to be used in even very good bars for reasons of time and simplicity, but if at home, it does noticeably improve the drink.


12.5ml 2:1 cane syrup or gomme

10-15 fresh spearmint leaves


Gently muddle the mint in the base of a highball, add the other ingredients and a scoop of crushed ice and swizzle. Add more crushed ice and cap with the merest dash of soda. Deck with fresh mint and flick it to release the aroma.

If you're going to have a mojito, that's pretty much as good as they come.

In truth, it's not even that the mojito craze has lead to a dearth in quality (though many examples are undoubtedly poor), but that its overwhelming popularity and the ensuing omnipresence have inevitably eroded their pedigree, even when well-made.. Let me be clear: the mojito, when well-made, is a great cocktail and a good drink does not become a bad drink, simply because it has become well-known, but drink (or worse, serve) ten thousand mojitos and them alone, and what ought to be a luscious, vibrant union of perfectly harmonious ingredients starts to become 'the usual'. It's a shame to see a drink of such inherent quality shorn of its exoticism and excitement, but that's the ironic paradox of success. So next time you're at the bar, maybe think about ordering something a little less familiar, something you haven't seen before; after all, it could be the next mojito.

First things first

The classic bartending tome, The Savoy Cocktail Book, famously commences with the confident salvo "Hereinafter learn all that is known about cocktails". That's a tall order. If it were 1930 and you were Harry Craddock, you could just about get away with it, but these days, even the most talented, well-versed bartender can stumble across a blogpost or a video and realise that for thirty years, they've been making an ever-so-slightly worse mint julep than they should have been. Or that some guy in New Zealand with way too much time on his hands has worked out how to create a manhattan made of sand or a vermouth-scented hair conditioner. So, this blog will have to adopt a slightly more conservative aim: "Hereinafter learn about one percent of all that is known about cocktails". There'll also be posts about various bars, bartenders, techniques trends and spirits. There could even well be some beer and wine, both of which are fine beverages in their way and don't even require a pretentious spoon. Though,in my view, that's a slight disadvantage. In any case, who's up for a drink?