opinionated alchemist

First of all for all people who are confused about soda versus lemonade a simple bullet point characterization: Soda Quite sweet Can have basically any flavor Carbonated Usually clear The overall characterizing aroma comes from the original "flavor" which is augmented from the sugar and balanced by citric acid or another flavorless acid. Lemonade Medium sweetness - more on the tart side Basic flavor is... lemon (because of LEMONade) Normally not carbonated Cloudy The overall characteristic comes from the lemons (and sometimes other fruits) which are balanced with sugar. Acid comes part or mainly from the lemon. I quite enjoy both - more often soda, but lemonade is also refreshing. But then there are drinks like Pellegrino Limonata, which has the refreshing fizz of soda, but also includes lemon juice, which taste more natural. Off course, all commercial products taste a bit off, due to the fact, that most juices are degrading (that's why sod...

I have introduced a vacuum pump in the bar. No - not for pleasure... just for vacuum canning jars, which are then a) not floating when I put them into the immersion circulated water bath and b) keep ingredients far longer fresh. In my absence from the bar - and my weird quarantine thoughts (let's face it - weird bar thoughts aren't really deriving from the social distancing, I just have naturally weird thoughts)  I had suddenly the question, what happens if you shake without air in the shaker. Now, very few bartender could now say, that as soon as you shake, the air pressure anyway goes very much down (due to the retraction of air at lower temperature) - but a close vacuum is far different than a reduced air pressure.  And I remembered how weird (word of the day??) it is, to shake a jar when the air is removed. It should have an impact. So I extremely exactly measured all ingredients: I used Rye, fresh lemon juice and fermented water kefir rich syrup - I used two...

We are living in a time, in which soft drinks are in steep decline, as scientists learn more and more about the harmful effects of the over-dose of sugar. While I am a big fan of drinks like coke (soon, there will be a review of the new Coke mixers yay!), I am also aware, that these beverages are detrimental - not so much due to the sugar for one drink, but for our habit to drink far too much of it instead of water (people who know me, will point now a finger in my direction).  Now people are very quick of pointing out, that juices are an alternative. They are not!   Most juices (even if these are juices and not nectars and juice cocktails / beverages, which do not even have 100% juice content) are (almost?) as bad as sodas. They contain pretty much the same amount of sugar - which is the main culprit here!  People would argue, that it is healthy to eat an apple - how can it be unhealthy to drink the juice of an apple? Well - it is not that difficult to a...