opinionated alchemist

  The good news:  Alcohol-free spirits have arrived. The bad news: The average quality is still very questionable - and supply is not yet globally consistent. Living in the Middle-East since 2005 made me pretty resourceful. It is not that alcohol is banned in the UAE - but it is limited. That means, you might not get your Ancho Reyes - or other stuff.  Things became much better - until the pandemic stroke. It isn't as bad as 2005 - but it is also not great with the alcohol supply here. As distillate connoisseur this might be an issue. Except that you could do an  ∞- whisky or (at least in a bar) could experiment with finished whiskies (have done all of it), you have got to keep your eyes open, when there are a bit more interesting spirits coming ashore for a rather short time (e.g. special imports etc.).  But for cocktails - you could do a lot. I would even say, that the limitations I have been exposed to  made  me a far  better bartender* . With alcohol-free spirits it is nothing

 I have just watched "How to Drink" - the rum episode. What though came to my mind is: we are learning and categorizing wrong.  The problem is, that we are looking at the greatest common denominator. But this might confuse us or is even misleading us. For example rum: yes - mostly it is taught, that rum is made of sugar cane or  a sugar cane product. But really - most rums are made from molasses. The few exceptions are Rhum Agricole (which you could argue is a category itself and not passé a rum) and few brands which are made from sugar cane juice. Please note, that cachaça is not  considered a rum! The "Brazilian rum" moniker doesn't come from the Brazilians (because there are real  rums made in Brazil), but from the 20th century US bureaucracy, which needed to categorize cachaça and "didn't wanted" to give it its own category. The rums (except of rhum agricole) are made from countries which are not typically producing rum and don't have speci