Amateur Liquor Hour

I have always been fascinated by making liquor. At a very young age my parents used to let me make wine under the sink at home. I made it out of whatever was handy. I made it from dandelions, sugar, whatever I could get my hands on. I remember my grandfather, who had a particular appetite for intoxicating beverages once tasted my dandelion wine, and looked appreciatively at my father and said "This is good". It had the potency of rocket fuel. It unfortunately tasted like diesel waste, but everyone in my family drank for effect, and not for gourmet tastes.

So, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you will remember when I made my coltsfoot liquor out of an emergent spring flower that is technically a weed, but not in the colloquial sense. Here is the graphic:

It was intended to compete with Jägermeister. I never did get production past the amount that you see in the above picture. I thought that the taste needed a bit of work until I came across amateur liquor in my friend Yve's collection. It is pictured below:

It is called Gentiane de Jura. Gentiane is French for gentian, a herb which is pictured on the bottle. Gentian is the basis of Angostura Bitters. It's that stuff that comes in a small bottle with an oversized label, and has more pucker power than Sour Babies dissolved in witch hazel and quinine laced tonic water. Jura is a region of the Alps in France and Switzerland.

The label on the bottle looks like it was printed on a home computer. It probably was. The concoction was made without the benefit of a formal distillery, inspection, annoying government interference in the production of alcohol and any sort of mechanization. It is truly amateur liquor.

If you translate the label, the statement is that there are 12 virtues of this stuff. It is an aperitif which stimulates your appetite. The next virtue is that it is a carminative. This is the scientific term for a medicinal fart suppressor. The third virtue is a depurative. This means that it removes impurities from your body fluids such as blood. Technically then, it should make itself disappear from your body.

Moving on, another virtue is that it is a digestive. After you eat a big meal, you take a shot of this and it aids digestion (and suppresses gas, and acts as Drano for your veins). This scientific wonder is also a febrifuge, which means that it combats fevers. Now we are definitely moving from the Pepto Bismol realm to the pharmaceutical realm.

Continuing on down the list, it says that the stuff is also a refresher. What it refreshes is not exactly clear, but presumably the liver is not part of the body parts that are refreshed. Related to the refresher, is the reconstituter. I think that this is like Geritol, a blood strengthener for old folks, except that it is 40 proof. You would think that Popeye the Sailor Man would switch from spinach to this stuff. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

The next virtue and benefit of Gentiane du Jura is that it is a salivaire or saliva inducer. This is supposed to aid digestion because saliva has enzymes to break down food. Do not order this on the first date. The last thing that the putative, future love of your life wants to see, is saliva flowing and you drooling like a Golden Retriever being shown filet mignon.

The list continues. This amateur liquor is a stimulant, stomach quieter, tonic and vermifuge. Vermifuge is the technical term for something that kills worms inside you. (Make your own joke here).

So there you have it. This amateur liquor is a boon to mankind, and if there is no false advertising, it should win the Nobel Prize in Medicine. I tried a little taste of it. It gave me a hot flash, and I thought that I was having a heart attack.

New Food Invention -- Coffee Crisp Ice Cream Pancakes

OK Kiddies, I have a new food invention for you. It is ice cream pancakes. It is Coffee Crisp chocolate bar pancakes. It is bran pancakes. It is fried ice cream in butter pancakes. It is all of that and more. It is served with real blueberries and a bucketful of real maple syrup. I concocted the above for my breakfast this morning. I am typing this from the emergency room. My arteries are clogged with cholesterol and I am have a sugar diabetes attack, but it was worth it.

Since I am headed back to the tropics, and most of the above-mentioned stuff is either unavailable or purchasing it depletes your retirement account, I decided to have one big blowout. I bought real blueberries. Up north, we live in maple syrup country, so the real stuff had to do. Before the Lovely One went to Scotland, she wanted a treat so I got her ice cream with her favourite chocolate bar mixed in -- Coffee Crisp. Can you see how the planets are coming into alignment?

I dumped about a cup of flour into the mixing bowl. To make it healthy, I dumped in a quarter of a cup of bran and a pinch of salt. The food pantry had some fair trade real vanilla in it. A generous portion went into the mixing bowl. I wanted to add some fat to the mix, so I melted a generous pat of butter to go into the bowl. Then I spied the ice cream. As the butter was melting, I dumped a huge dollop of ice cream into the butter. Once it melted I tasted the ice cream fried in butter. It was delicious. Into the bowl it went.

I needed an egg. I had a choice between an Omega 3, free range, organic egg laid by a chicken on a satin pillow, or a big honking no-name egg loaded with all sorts of hormones, steroids and insecticides. I went for the latter to add complexity to the taste. Besides, the ice cream ruined already ruined the health properties. To compensate for all of the bad stuff, I added organic milk to make the batter and then dumped in a generous teaspoon of baking powder.

I learned one thing. When you are cooking this up, use low heat. The sugar, caramel and various other health additives in the chocolate bar will caramelize and scorch. While black pancakes are visually appealing, the taste is of chimney creosote and old ashtray. Besides the kitchen gets smoky.

So after I did the appropriate temperature research, I was ready to fire up the Large Hadron Taste Collider and whip up the most delicious pancakes that I have ever tasted. I ate three -- smothered with real blueberries and maple syrup. I could feel the onset of diabetic coma, so I stopped. I cooked up the rest of the batter and look forward to an encore performance tomorrow.

Vegan Snacks -- Wave of the Future?

We went to a dinner party over the weekend, and for hors d'oeuvres, our hostess served Kale Chips. She bought them at a vegan restaurant/store. When I first saw them arranged in a bowl on a lamp table in the living room, the bowl of kale chips looked like it was an artistically arranged centerpiece of silk flower greenery. It didn't look like something one would eat.

However, the kale was delicious. Kale is a crucifer -- a family of plants to which cabbage and Brussel sprouts belong to, among other things. This kale was raw vegan food. I had thought that the kale chips had been deep fried. However the package said that it had been dehydrated at 105 degrees. Other ingredients such as red bell pepper and other natural flavours were added.

The snack was delicious, and I am betting that this is one thing that could go mainstream in the snack world. It is simply delicious and good for you.

New Food Invention -- Grape Tea

Life is a constant experiment for me. From the time that I was five years old, and stuck a screw driver into an electrical socket to see what what happen, I have engaged in experiments. (Incidentally, with the resulting shock from the socket, I was amazed to learn that something like a continuous electric shock could be possibly the most uncomfortable thing short of death in the human experience. It was a valuable lesson.)

My new invention is grape tea. I walked in from the airport last week, and I needed a drink. I mixed up some ice tea from powder. It was refreshing but it wasn't sweetened. I didn't want to add sugar, but I thought that I would sweeten it naturally with fruit sugars. I would add some juice.

The only juice that we had in the fridge was a sparkling white grape juice that came in a champagne bottle. We had a guest to dinner, and due to a medical condition, the guest couldn't drink alcohol. I diluted the iced tea 50-50 with the juice. It was delicious. Grape tea is refreshing enough to make on purpose.

Then it struck me -- this could be a whole new burgeoning field in niche drink market -- a blend of juice and teas. Remember you read it here first. If I had a bottling plant ... ... .... .... .... ... ... ... ... .... .... ..... ... ... .... .... .... ... ... ... ... .... .... .....

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never mind. If I had a bottling plant, I would be making liquor.

New Food Invention -- Sour Apple Cranberries

Over the weekend, I was whipping up some fruit salad. In a previous blog entry (that you can read here ), I told you about how I discovered that one can add zing to a fruit salad by dumping in a little sour apple schnapps.

My fruit salad was chiefly yellow and orange fruit. To add a little colour I threw in some dried cranberries and topped the whole thing off with a jigger of Sour Apple schnapps. That's when the eureka moment hit. What would happen if you soaked or pickled some dried cranberry in the sour apple schnapps. I had to try it out.

I got a little pimento jar and jammed it full of dried cranberries. I filled it to the rim with sour apple schnapps, and put it in the fridge. A few hours later I tried one.

The cranberries absorbed the schnapps and it was delicious. The taste and apple and cranberry goes together well. I could see this as a dessert topping, going into fruitcakes, and being whipped into ice cream. I am willing to bet that you will see this new food invention in the marketplace. Apples and cranberries are a natural.