Tag: drinking

酒 Saké

~ Meg ~ 30 Comments

Week 13 in the Year of Drinking Adventurously.  Saké.

Saké, the traditional potent potable of Japan, is not a spirit, not a wine -like many believe (the term rice wine is a misnomer) and not exactly a beer either.  It is made from rice in a brewing process better described by Jeff’s book (which I hope you have all purchased by now!):

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I will try to synopsize:  Rice is polished to remove the bran, the rice is used to make the fermentable mash from which the saké is distilled.  The amount of polishing of the rice determines the type of saké that results.  This is a ridiculous oversimplification.

The finished product is a clear beverage weighing in at about 15% alcohol.  So here’s my saké story…  I invested in a premium bottle, a Japanese import.  Drank a glass with a lovely Asian dish prepared at home, on Saturday evening.  I was not impressed.  I didn’t think it tasted… well, like anything, actually.  It was very mild -so much so that I couldn’t even pick up any of the subtleties one might taste in a wine or beer, for example.  Just to make sure I wasn’t missing something, I actually contacted Jeff about it.  He told me the flavors are often delicate.  But, he also informed me the brand I bought sucks!  Ha!  My bad!  Should’ve asked before I spent $45. C’est la vie…

I went back to the liquor store for another go, this time, armed with a recommendation from the author.  Turns out about $15 will buy a nice domestic sakè:  Momokawa Organic Sakè made in Oregon.  Man, what a difference!  It actually tasted like stuff!  I’m still having a hard time describing it.  It’s more like wine (maybe sherry, but lighter) than anything else, but not quite.  I drank it slightly cooler than room temperature, not cold.  Because I literally came home, unscrewed the cap and drank it straight from the bottle.  Yeah, I know….  But in my defense, I was pressed for time.  It warms on the way down!  Sakè may be served heated, too.  That did not appeal.  I am pleasantly surprised.  I am so glad I went back and tried again.  Or else I would have been left with the wrong impression.  And since it might be easy to forget you’re drinking a potent potable because of the light and delicate flavor, I’ve included some Japanese wisdom –  don’t be the nail that sticks out! 😀

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Oh, and Godzilla’s excited for you to try it.  (You really didn’t think I could go to Japan and not include Godzilla, now did you?)  Go visit Lula to see how she drank her sakè!72mZjUk.gif

 

Loose Cannon

~ Meg ~ 21 Comments

Week 12 in the Year of Drinking Adventurously!  Cask conditioned Ales.

For my adventure this week, I drank Heavy Seas Brewing Company’sheavyseas_banner Loose Cannon on cask.  This is not a beer you find at the supermarket or the beer distributor.  A cask conditioned ale is only found on tap at a pub or restaurant.  This is a very cool thing, people!  Imagine having fresh beer, full of flavor, not force carbonated, poured from a wooden cask via gravity, the way a pub owner would have served you in the days before mass-produced beer.  Oh, and it’s not ice cold, either.  Say what, now?

First of all, the casks:

Remember the post about bourbon barrel aged beer?  How brewers are using discarded bourbon barrels to age a Belgian Tripel, for example?  The barrel actually adds flavor to the brew.  Heavy Seas uses not just one type of barrel to condition the ale.  From their website:  “In our collection of casks, we possess 11 wooden barrels. These barrels vary in age and make: American or European oak, toasted or untoasted wood, converted from wine or whiskey barrels. Wooden casks like these bring history and flavor nuances to the beer.”

The way it’s conditioned:

Before the ale has been filtered, carbonated, or kegged, it gets siphoned into a cask.  The casks are stored in a ‘cellar’ for a time, allowing the yeast to settle to the bottom.

The way it’s served:

At cellar temperature, which is maybe in the 50-degree range, cool but not cold.  But serving at that temperature doesn’t numb your taste buds and all the flavors can come through. Speaking of flavors, the Loose Cannon is an IPA (India Pale Ale).   It isn’t really bitter like some IPAs but has a little hint of grapefruit and pine that ease up the hoppy-ness.

I would love to tell you that I sat at a several hundred-year-old public house having an Imperial Pint with a crowd of rowdy patrons, cheering for the local football club (and by football, I mean soccer my American friends…) but alas I sat in an anonymous sports bar that just happens to have an incredible beer selection.  So I sipped my Loose Cannon while watching multiple athletic competitions on 60 TVs.  And it wasn’t even basketball.  Sigh…

Oh, and in case you were wondering?  Of my five brackets, two of them are still ranked in the top half of all brackets in the challenges I entered!  Not too shabby!  Go Villanova!!!

Make sure to visit Lula and see what she drank this week!

Sláinte! Uisce Beatha na Éireann

~ Meg ~ 35 Comments

Week 11 in the Year Of Drinking Adventurously!  Irish Whiskey. (I hope I got my Irish translation right!)

That’s me waving to you from the cliffs of Dun Aengus on Innis More, one of The Aran Islands off the West Coast of Ireland. I’ve been to Ireland three times and I’m sure we’ll go again.  I’m trying to figure out how to move there permanently, that’s how much I love it.

So Irish Whiskey… It’s a permanent fixture in my liquor cabinet.  Most  of the time I have a bottle of regular old Jameson’s in my stash.

 Sometimes I splurge and buy the Red Breast, which is a “single pot still” style.  A pot still is like a huge kettle where the batch is boiled, the vapors rise, are collected and cooled to produce the whiskey.   Since the pot has to be cleaned after each use, only one batch of whiskey is produced  from the single pot.

My imbibition of Irish whiskey generally involves a glass and some ice.  Sometimes not even the ice.  Occasionally not even the glass!  (Just kidding!)  However, I have a fun, terribly-named, politically incorrect cocktail for you to try.  Actually, I’m not sure this qualifies as a cocktail.  If you go to Ireland, do not ask for this drink.  You will be deported.  And for Paddy’s sake, don’t tell anyone you learned it from me or they’ll never let me back in.

The Irish Car Bomb:  (Don’t say I didn’t warn you…)

Fill a shot glass with a half shot each, Jameson’s Irish whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream
Drop the shot glass into a pint glass of Guinness and watch it “explode”
Chug the whole thing in one fell swoop so you don’t lose a drop!
Enjoy responsibly!  Oh wait, too late for that…

When we travel to Ireland, it’s primarily for my husband’s work.  His company has a facility in Galway.  I get to tag along, but that means that for most of the time, I’m off traipsing around by myself.  That’s not a recipe for disaster, no.  The girl who fancies herself a writer wandering around the gorgeous countryside, listening to fairy tales and visiting the pubs on her own?  Not to mention the lovely men people and some of the best whiskey on the planet.  What could possibly go wrong?

There are pubs that cater to the foreign visitors and there are those that are more for the locals.  In Galway, I like to go to this place called Garavan’s – definitely more of a local hangout than a tourist place – where they pretend to want your business but they really don’t.  And they haven’t forgiven England for… well, everything.  Even stuff that’s not their fault.

So anyway, it’s dark inside, the tables are all close together with little stools crowded around.  They still have a small room at the front where ladies used to have to sit separately from the main part of the pub.  I think sometimes the bartender wants me to go have a seat in there.  But then I can’t see the hurling match on TV.  And ask him lots of questions while he tries to ignore me.

Garavan’s has a collection of 125 different whiskeys and a whiskey tasting menu.  The last time I was there I tried the Irish writer’s collection – a sampler of 5 different whiskeys from a few of Ireland’s most famous writers like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats.  I forget what all I tried.  But I definitely remember that the one I liked best was The Yellow Spot 12-year-old single pot still whiskey.  And I remember something about the Women’s Rugby World Cup – Ireland versus England.  And that they turned the TV off during “God Save the Queen.”  Things got ugly when Ireland started to lose.  And I made the mistake of asking for an Irish Car Bomb…

Go visit Lula and see if she found the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow!