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Follow up - experimentation with temperature and chlorophyl extraction

Today - I just further explored the “green extraction” in infusions:

This time I have heated up water and gin up to 65ºC.
To the gin I have added basil - to the water tarragon.

After an hour or so, the gin (slowly) turned green. Not the green I expected (like before) - and I had to shake it... Hence I guess, the best way is to start with a room temperature liquid (but a hot, preheated sous vide bath).

The water didn’t really become green at all (very pale yellow). I still have to try this with room temperature water - but I guess, the extraction doesn’t work with water as medium.

The interesting point was, that both infusions gained coloration, when they chilled down in a water bath!

I will experiment further with those changes:


Starting with room temperature (or maybe even slightly chilled) liquid.Bringing it up to 65ºC and holding it for 2 hours.Chill down again under room temperature (and holding it at this temperature for an extended time).Probably it also would need more herbs! I…
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The Best Waiters' Knife To Date - Joseph Joseph

Usually I am more into education and more into R&D when it comes to my blog. However every now and then, a product lands in my hands, which is remarkable (or the opposite) - and there it certainly calls for a review.

Today it is a waiter’s knife. First off all let’s determine what it is: a waiter’s knife, waiter’s key, waiter’s friend - you can call it also just bottle opener (used in professional environments - usually the home bottle openers are designed differently).

I have owned and bought in my career dozens if not 100’s of openers. Just like pens (in hospitality), you need them, but also quickly “loose” them. Colleagues (and at times guests) are “borrowing them” and don’t return them. You are forgetting them in your laundry and they get lost there, or they drop just out of your pocket on a very busy and tiresome day.

Hence if you are not a sommelier in a high profile fine dining environment - where you can consistently take 100% care of your stuff - or if you are just not a…
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Temperature & Chlorophyl

Creativity in beverage development is sometimes a strange thing: at times you are researching for something specific and it just doesn’t want to “come your way”.

Other times a new “thing" just falls into your lap - by accident. I could tell you, that I have researched a lot the temperature chlorophyl is transferring into a liquid... but this would be just a lie...
I have been doctoring with a hot infusion of gin. I used different infusions in different bottles (and combined them afterwards). As mint is quite dominant in the Middle East, I have also made a lemon mint (vodka) infusion. Usually I would infuse herbs at a lower temperature, but as my Anova immersion circulator resided on work, and as I have been sous vide'ing already a juniper infusion at a higher temperature, I decided just to go along and add all infusions at one temperature (about 65ºC).
After a couple of hours, I had a look and thought, that somebody played a prank on me: the mint infusion turned into a lovel…
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Camacho Corojo - small review...

It has been a while, since I have had a cigar. It has been even a longer time that I had a cigar I have never had - or a cigar which I have reviewed.

Enter the Camacho Corojo.

I don’t need to repeat here the marketing story of Camacho. You can read it here.
If you are too lazy (or resistant to marketing stuff), the important info is: it is a puro - the cigar is made out of 100% Honduras tobacco. It is a long filler. It is made 100% out of corojo tobacco.







Corojo tobacco you might ask? Well, the tobacco is made out of Cuban seed - however this hybrid produces rather wrapper (and binder) tobacco. However in this cigar, it is used to make the full cigar.

You don’t get it yet? Well, in a coffee comparison, corojo is basically Arabica coffee - while criollo tobacco is like Robusta coffee.

The question is - how is it?

There are a ton of cigar reviews, which praises the Camacho Corojo (I had the Robusto today).
Yes - the vitola / banderole is big and quite unsubtle. I would say, it is a matter…
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Irish Whiskey - a small guide

So I went over my feeds on feedly, which are obviously quite beverage heavy - and an article off Bevvy caught my eyes: Best Irish Whiskey under $50.

Well - there hasn’t been any news for me (well - it is an average selection - though with mentionably a deserved first place: Red Breast 12 years old) - however in the descriptions, several issues (read: mistakes) caught my attention.

I don’t want to call Bevvy.com out here - however I thought, it would make sense, to repeat the respective categories of Irish whiskey and explain a bit!?


So here we are - the “ultimate” Irish Whiskey Style Guide:

Irish Blended Whiskey Irish blended whiskey is almost the same as Scotch blended whisky - with 2 differences: a) there is an ‘e’ in the whiskey, and b) one more category of whiskey is allowed in the BLEND: Irish Grain WhiskeyIrish (Single) Malt WhiskeyIrish Pot Still Whiskey(and as non whiskey only water is also allowed)While Irish Blended Whiskey hasn’t been the original (authentic?) Irish whiskey…
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AirStill

In the last weeks, I have looked into the concept of simple distillation apparatuses. Not the decorative ones (which are nice and maybe even functioning- but not really made for real use) - but for hobbyist stills like the AirStill.
 Let’s have a look at following video:


There is a lot, what you can learn out of the video... first and foremost: if you can make vodka in small scale, out of dextrose and special ingredients- which results in such a clean and pure product (given that it is true), and the bottle cost in the UK (where you have rather high overall prices) less than £1.00... what does the production of a commercial vodka cost??? A fraction of £1?? (Ok - plus tax... but still!!!).
Anyway- the video also gave me a lot of question marks: if you are going to the pain, of doing your own distilled alcohol, why are you using flavorings? I pretty much believe, that the spirit flavorings will be anyway useless. At this point there are a lot people, who want to tell you, that it is po…
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Vinturi Cocktails?

Xmas 2017 - one more time an awkward Secret Santa event with work colleagues (it is not that I
don’t like to have Xmas parties with my colleagues or any F&B party - but Secret Santa or anything similar is just too much for me to swallow).

Anyway - I got from my lovely no more so Secret Santa a Vinturi wine aerator.
This device is just a shortcut of decanting wine. I think the problem with these devices is, that you still need to know wine. It doesn’t make “every wine” better - it just makes wine better, which fits into specific categories ( • red wine • rather young • close/unbalanced/harsh tannins etc.).

Check out this video, which explains better what it is:


Well - let me break the news for my colleagues first: I am not a wine drinker (in fact, I got a wine connoisseur set in my previous year’s Secret Santa as well...).

However the Vinturi wine aerator was actually a pretty cool gift - as it sparked an idea:

What if aerated cocktails are changing in taste?

I got the original ide…
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