I was hoping he would describe the work needed to make it shelf—stable. After all, anyone can mix cream, sugar, whisky and chocolate powder but that concoction will soon turn sour, clot, separate, etc.
Also I seem to remember hearing an earlier version of this origin story where a can of condensed milk was used in the first experiment instead of cream.
Is the solution as simple as basing it on ultra pasteurized cream further preserved by the alcohol and sugar, all bonded forever by some mechanical homogenization process?
Once you go over 16% or so alcohol, no cell will grow in it. That’s why alcohol above that is distilled: the alcohol starts inactivating the yeast. Just make sure it’s pasteurized to begin with (or good source control) and it’ll stay clean.
Something acts like the surfactant to keep it from separating. Probably not mustard like in a salad dressing :).
Putting on my pedantic home brewer cap: The 16% number seems a bit low. I believe there are champagne yeasts that will ferment up to 18%, and specialized "turbo" yeasts designed for fermenting high-abv washes for distilling will go up to 20%.
I've definitely seen (or felt) a separated bottle of Bailey's before. My uncle had one that sat in his liquor cabinet for over a year. When I tried to pour it, the liquid that came out was a thin, disgusting color, and the bottle itself felt like a carton of milk that had turned to cottage cheese (e.g. there was definitely a solid mass in the center of it, floating inside the thinner liquid).
Veg oil seems like a bad call for shelf-stability. Sure you can boil off any dissolved O2 and N2 sparge the bottle before sealing it, but that only helps you until you open the bottle.
Always took a perverse pleasure in reminding my proud Irish relations that Baileys Irish Cream was invented by some "Brit" out of a lab in Essex, England in the 1970s.
They just loved that one. :P
I'd still pay the premium for Baileys. It's like buying off brand "Pringles"; you might save a small bit and the tin might look pretty similar but they taste is never taste quite right.
> I, on the other hand, was most definitely an arriviste, having fled South Africa in 1961 aboard the Cape Town Castle to occupy a mattress on a floor in a shared room in Earl’s Court.
He was South African though ;)
I'd agree though, off brand baileys just doesn't taste the same. I think it was Aldi I bought a similar one from before, and It was fine, but it's kind of similar to Pepsi vs Coke. I like pepsi, but if I order Coke, and I get pepsi, I'm disappointed as I was expecting Coke, even though to me both taste similar and I like both.
I used to frequent an Indian restaurant which gave a free shot of ‘fake Baileys’ at the end of your meal. We actually came to prefer it to real Baileys - partly because it was a bit less thick and sweet, and probably partly from the positive association with a satisfying meal of very good Indian food.
I dunno, you say "save a small bit" but the off-brand Baileys here costs €5 while the real stuff is closer to €20 (it varies by shop and depends on promotions a lot)
Nearly off-topic aside: if you like Bailey's, try Dooley's. It's like a toffee/praline version of Bailey's, and pretty darned tasty (and I generally don't have much of a sweet tooth).
Pringles are not chips. They are mathematically precise reifications of idealized perfection. It has nothing to do with potatoes and binders, those are only incidental. It's all about the libidinal act of destroying perfect objects with your mouth.
I quite like Baileys but find it a bit too light and sweet on it's own. It's great in a BMW (Baileys Malibu & Whiskey), or just with a splash of Southern Comfort.
> We took it to the technical group in the Gilbeys building that housed their factory offices, distillery, research laboratories and warehouse in Harlow, Essex,
I think I always associated it with Harlow but I wouldn't let the truth get in the way when winding up my family relations. :D
This is wonderful how this has ended up on the front page of Hacker News. It's one of my favourite pieces I've read in the last few years - I bought the book arising from it - I don't even like Bailey's! It's just a very neat story of product development, branding, etc.
> My dinner-party party piece for many years was to say, “Well, actually, I invented Baileys. You know, Baileys Irish Cream. I did that back in 1973.”
> Hugh looked at me with an almost earnest stare. “What would happen if we mixed Irish whiskey and cream?” he said. “That might be interesting.” He sat back and waited for a response.
Sounds to me like it was actually Hugh who invented Baileys.
Accidently did this, when we were creating dirty drinks.
Four people had to blind buy drinks where the other didn't know what it was, two alcohol, and two soft drinks and we would mix them together to create a blind cocktail.
The mass-market alcohol industry is almost entirely based on branding and bulk ingredents. (A considerable fraction of the so-called top-shelf market is as well.)
I'd had some exposure to that through a former life, though this classic comment of Animats drilled home just how sordid the whole thing is, through Frank-Lin distillers, who buy bulk grain alcohol by the tankerful, delivered to their own private railroad siding, and service over 3,500 accounts.[1]
Baily's Irish Cream has virtually all of the standard addictive food / consumption elements: booze, sugar, fat, and chocolate. If they could work out how to add salt, heroin, and cocaine, they'd have the full package.
Some years back I looked into just when various well-known alcoholic beveridges or other branded concepts came into being. Virtualy all are from after the beginning of the broadcast-based mass-advertising era, with the exception of Captain Morgan's Rum (which dates from US Prohibition).
You can trace this with startling clarity through Google's Ngram viewer. Smirnoff Vodka in particular stands out, it appeared out of nowhere in 1950:
Yes, the label dates to the 19th century. And yes, it had circulation in Russia earlier. But as following the Google Books links will show, a series of submarines (many in Life Magazine) appeared in print in 1950 to popularise the brand.
I'd researched a number of other brands at some point (probably in a Reddit comment, not readily searchable), but you can do this yourself. There's a notable influx of new brands in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and aughts. And many apparently "venerable" brands are far younger (at least in general market presence) than their marketing would have you believe.
The whole notion of the "Irish pub" is mostly a post-1980s marketing gimmick (inspired strongly by the US TV series "Cheers" AFAIU).
Amazing. One of their brands' websites, Black Saddle Whisky, even says "handcrafted here in the US by Master Craftsmen" [1]. I'm surprised that is legal.
Uhm, what about Guinness? The guinness brewery has been around a lot longer than 1950. Also, are you claiming there was no such thing as an Irish pub before 1980? Again, uhm, no.
I draw your attention to the word "almost" in my comment, and its neighbour "entirely", which it modifies.
The brewery may date to the 1850s. As a widely-known name, popularity trailed the records book published by the same concern, largely beginning in the 1960s:
That's pretty crazy. So I wonder, do Frank-Lin put any flavors in their vodkas? Or is it just water + alcohol, and any perceived differences in flavor are down to the labels?
Edit: Nevermind, just read the Skyy link. Indeed, they add flavoring to the vodka. Huh!
It wasn’t that long ago teachers in France could buy a pticher of wine with their lunch at the school cafeteria until ~2000. For a while after they could bring their own bottle. That stopped around 2005.
Readit News
Is the solution as simple as basing it on ultra pasteurized cream further preserved by the alcohol and sugar, all bonded forever by some mechanical homogenization process?
Something acts like the surfactant to keep it from separating. Probably not mustard like in a salad dressing :).
Gum arabic or Xantham gum?
> Ingredients: Fresh Dairy Cream, Sugar, Alcohol, Maltodextrin, Milk Products, Cocoa extracts and flavours, Irish Whiskey, Colouring: 150b, Emulsifier: E471, Acidity regulator: E331
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono-_and_diglycerides_of_fatt...
They just loved that one. :P
I'd still pay the premium for Baileys. It's like buying off brand "Pringles"; you might save a small bit and the tin might look pretty similar but they taste is never taste quite right.
He was South African though ;)
I'd agree though, off brand baileys just doesn't taste the same. I think it was Aldi I bought a similar one from before, and It was fine, but it's kind of similar to Pepsi vs Coke. I like pepsi, but if I order Coke, and I get pepsi, I'm disappointed as I was expecting Coke, even though to me both taste similar and I like both.
Coke is bland and awful to me. I only drink Pepsi max, yet they are all fairly similar and cola's, Pepsi max is far better than anything else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooley%27s
In the fine tradition of Bailey's Irish name but British birth, Dooley's is German.
Does anyone make worse chips than Pringles?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_stage
Deleted Comment
I think I always associated it with Harlow but I wouldn't let the truth get in the way when winding up my family relations. :D
> Hugh looked at me with an almost earnest stare. “What would happen if we mixed Irish whiskey and cream?” he said. “That might be interesting.” He sat back and waited for a response.
Sounds to me like it was actually Hugh who invented Baileys.
Absolutely love this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_mixer_(drink)
Four people had to blind buy drinks where the other didn't know what it was, two alcohol, and two soft drinks and we would mix them together to create a blind cocktail.
Ended up discovering this the hard way!
I'd had some exposure to that through a former life, though this classic comment of Animats drilled home just how sordid the whole thing is, through Frank-Lin distillers, who buy bulk grain alcohol by the tankerful, delivered to their own private railroad siding, and service over 3,500 accounts.[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9059821
Baily's Irish Cream has virtually all of the standard addictive food / consumption elements: booze, sugar, fat, and chocolate. If they could work out how to add salt, heroin, and cocaine, they'd have the full package.
Some years back I looked into just when various well-known alcoholic beveridges or other branded concepts came into being. Virtualy all are from after the beginning of the broadcast-based mass-advertising era, with the exception of Captain Morgan's Rum (which dates from US Prohibition).
You can trace this with startling clarity through Google's Ngram viewer. Smirnoff Vodka in particular stands out, it appeared out of nowhere in 1950:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Smirnoff+Vodka...
Yes, the label dates to the 19th century. And yes, it had circulation in Russia earlier. But as following the Google Books links will show, a series of submarines (many in Life Magazine) appeared in print in 1950 to popularise the brand.
I'd researched a number of other brands at some point (probably in a Reddit comment, not readily searchable), but you can do this yourself. There's a notable influx of new brands in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and aughts. And many apparently "venerable" brands are far younger (at least in general market presence) than their marketing would have you believe.
The whole notion of the "Irish pub" is mostly a post-1980s marketing gimmick (inspired strongly by the US TV series "Cheers" AFAIU).
Mostly, though, you're just paying for the label.
________________________________
Notes:
1. I've written my own brief here: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/bztu6ot3xumpeiiiygdzaa Further background at http://www.frank-lin.com/ https://www.webcitation.org/5jjmHRr9C http://web.archive.org/web/20061018134019/http://www.packagi... https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/top-st... and http://web.archive.org/web/20150907040248/http://sourmashed....
http://www.frank-lin.com/pdf/Black_Saddle_sell_sheet.pdf
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-america-fell-in-lo...
“Pub in a Box”: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/12/523653040/epis...
The brewery may date to the 1850s. As a widely-known name, popularity trailed the records book published by the same concern, largely beginning in the 1960s:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Guiness+%2A&ye...
Edit: Nevermind, just read the Skyy link. Indeed, they add flavoring to the vodka. Huh!
I am just old enough to have caught the tail end of this world (Ahhh, Harlow, thy beauteous roundabouts call out to me ...)
My dad assured me liver damage was the only way to get a job in the 60s.