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Showing posts from June, 2014

Taste the best Ginger Beer - review

I am cocky, when it comes to ginger beer. When distributors or ginger beer producers are coming and presenting their product, I cannot wait, to tell them how easy it is to make homemade ginger beer and how great it taste. I've experienced commercial ginger beers as always slightly "medicinal" - even "artificial" tasting. This usually comes from the dried ginger [or ginger extract], which seems to be pretty much industry standard. Don't get me wrong - products like East Imperial Ginger Beer and Fentimans Ginger Beer are great... but yeah - house-crafted is better, much cheaper - and it seems questionable, why anyone would buy a product, which he/she easily can produce in a better version. So I thought until now. I came across Cawston Press in one supermarket [I believe it was Spinney's] and as always when I see beverages, which I don't know yet, I had to buy them and try them. Now - I bought, the "plain' sparkling apple, the lemo

The Jade Gin & Tonic

Another new drink, to be featured in Blue Jade - the amazing Pan Asian restaurant in the Ritz Carlton Dubai... The Gin 'n Tonic is one very popular drink in Dubai. Yeah - here are a lot of Brits. But it is also a really great drink - and it defies very much the heat! For Blue Jade I wanted to break with the normal highball procedure, and really wanted to shake a drink up. As I reviewed East Imperial before, and titled it "not a lazy bartender tonic", I thought it will work as ingredients far better than any other tonic. It has some medium sweetness - however no acidity, which we will anyway apply with some fresh citrus juice... There is some muddled lemongrass [yeah - I don't usually like to muddle, but lemongrass just usually taste not that great, if used differently] - but the game changer is here the house crafted pandan syrup. It just brings the whole G&T into the East! The Jade Gin 'n Tonic We didn't only called it Jade G and T because of

The Adzuki Sour

People who are following this blog - or simply know me, predict that I am not so keen on vodka. Yeah - as many other craft bartenders, I do think, that vodka is the lazy bartender spirit, - that it makes ok, but never great drinks; - that it should not have been ever invented... Sounds extreme? I know! But reality is, that guests are asking for vodka drinks and they sell. Yeah- not because vodka is convincing due to its quality - but because the producing/distribution companies are spending millions and billions into the product positioning, marketing, bribing [well... go figure]. And sometimes, you just can't fight against windmills - can you? One thing, which I really like to bring forward, was the Blue Jade beverage program. Blue Jade is the Pan Asian restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Dubai - and they have a great reputation within the Dubai dining scene. And point is: it is kinda fun to play with a specific concept, with specific constraints and expectations. In the fo