opinionated alchemist

A lot of classic craft bars don't have a high power blender (or sometimes, they don't have any blender). And it makes perfectly sense. An electrical blender takes a lot of bar real estate (if it is "silenced" even more). It costs a lot. And if you have got one, people are insisting into frozen drinks all the time.

And it is really noisy!

But they are also useful. Fresh (but pressed before the shift) juices can be "whipped up" and guests appreciating the "freshness" (small trick out of my toolbox). Or you have got some foams, purees and so on to do - which need to be thoroughly blended.

So for years I have been consistently struggling between the justifications for and against a blender - until a friend whined for a Piña Colada at home and I agreed one and used my inversion blender in my kitchen. This has been a Eureka moment - because it has been working really good.

Not even longer than a week after, I have been buying an inversion blender for m…

Some of my dear readers know me quite well - I am pretty suspect to marketing. This is not 100% true - marketing is one part of everyones "corporate life" - but there is marketing of a product, which has been produced (and crafted) and then have to be communicated to consumers - and then there are companies, which have no true "roots" in the respective industry and try to "just" sell a product via more or less fancy marketing. I really dislike the second group (and well - there are a lot of shades of grey also - and depending on the shade, the products get also more or less "hate" from my side).

There is another level to it: a company which is not in the respective industry, can liaise with a company with a lot of history and a lot of expertise - this is absolutely decent as long as there are no "empty" marketing stories created for it. An example in the cigar business is Prometheus, which are producing humidors, cutters and other cig…

This post is inspired by a post on Diffords Guide online. But even though, I have never really thought about calling a distillate "Botanical Spirit", I always thought, that there have to be a new category of spirits.

It all began with the Sub Rosa Saffron and Tarragon vodka - sometime in 2011. I directly felt, that there is something "off" of calling those distillates vodka. Yes - there is flavored vodka - and mostly they are pretty simple and straight forward. However they already differ greatly from your classical pure vodka. However the Sub Rosa products were an even farther departure.

Since then, there have been a lot of new products, which mostly go under the vodka moniker, but are more complex... there are also "quite old products" like the flavored Absolut vodkas. Some, like Citron or Mandrin can be easily called vodka - there is a reasonable delicate aroma of the respective aroma. Some others are so strongly aromatized, that vodka seems not to fi…

There is an article on cookinglight.com which lists drinks per calorie content.

I am sorry to be again so opinionated - however this is utterly nonsense.
Besides of the fact, that I would rather have one proper craft beer (like a IPA) instead of 3 or 4 American macro lagers (or even worse: light beer) - but also the caloric values are misleading:

The issue is, that calories are calculated by burning the respective "material" and measure the energy (heat), which comes out of it. While this works quite well with simple and complex sugars and with fats, it doesn't necessarily work with ethanol (drinking alcohol). Why? Due to the fact, that our body cannot metabolize alcohol, as he metabolizes sugar. Hence if you are drinking a Martini cocktail (with proper vodka or gin which are theoretically only ethanol and water), you probably won't put some (additional) weight on, despite the fact, that it shows quite a "horrific calorie number".

This doesn't work wel…

Masafi is a UAE based drinking water supplier. There has been another brand (Al Ain) which has started the "zero sodium trend".  But what I have to give to Al Ain is, that they just advertised their water what it is: zero sodium. They didn't implied any health benefits or anything else. I found that pretty smart - as a lot of people are concerned about their sodium intake - hence they are "playing with the perception" that the water "can help" to reduce the sodium intake, without being misleading.

Masafi though is definitely misleading. They suggesting, that their water actively helps to maintain a healthy sodium intake. Why is it misleading? Because it all depends on ratio. Look - the recommended sodium intake of a normal adult is 1,500 mg (1.5 grams). The sodium content of "normal" mineral water is about 3mg to 33mg (latter is already pretty extreme- it is Badoit sparkling water with one of the highest sodium content of all commercial min…

The pink wave is approaching us and probably will overrun us all... at least this is my current feeling, when I see, what kind of new products are approaching and which products are hitting the trend-lists.

First there was the Cosmopolitan - then after a long hiatus of pink highly popular beverages, rosé wine started its incredible victory run. The frozé has been a wine based drink, which really pushed pink further. And now we are at pink gin. This is an obvious combination of "pink" and another current hyper trend: gin.

Gordon's, one of the biggest volume producer of gin (but in my eyes, maybe not one of the outstanding ones),  didn't wanted to stay behind - and also developed a pinkish gin.

How is it?
It is sweet, it is pink, it smells like strawberries and taste like a berry-fruit bouquet. There are for sure some juniper and other spice notes, which are coming through. Yet the beverage is not very complex. Which might be ok, for the target clientele?!

My issue: i…