opinionated alchemist

The opinionated "shots" is a new category on www.opinionated.alchemist.com, which will just capture new ideas, new concepts. But they are only "tickers" - short notices... and might be picked up in future posts. Fat Washing I think the technique of fat washing is great and it incorporates a surprising amount of flavour. Yesterday I have cooked spinach tamale stuffed chicken roll and used coconut oil for the tamale mix. I was pretty stumped, that the coconut aroma is so noticeable [especially, as I am not that fond of coconut]. But that let me think of doing homemade coconut infused rum or coconut rum liqueur [maybe the liqueur could be actually sweetened with coconut-sugar]. Another amazing flavour is happening to be cocoa butter. It really taste like chocolate [maybe less pronounced and the texture is different]. Hence making a cocoa butter washed whisky [or rum, or tequila, or you name it], might be very interesting. Indian "eating vessels...

Only due to the fact, that I am for the moment exploring the possibilities of tea infused beers, I stumbled over this issue... If you are buying a fancy green [or black] tea, you have most of the time small blossoms and flower petals, pieces of fruit rind, dried fruits and other interesting things laying among the tea leaves. This is all decoy! This "botanicals" won't give a lot of additional aroma to the tea. But stop - why is aromatized tea tasting so fruity, zesty, spicy...? Because the producers are bathing the tea leaves in essences and oils from the fruit. Or even not from the fruit. See - one pretty well known example is, that you can produce a strong strawberry aroma, if you are manipulate wood splints. The essence out of it, you will find quite in everything, which says, that it contains "strawberry flavor". But hold on - now comes the bummer: as wood chips are a natural source, producer can say: natural strawberry flavors! I am not totally...