opinionated alchemist

As we have seen several times on this blog, alcohol free spirits are often a hit and miss. While e.g. Darcy O’Neal made a compelling argument, that there are no good alcohol-free gins (because of science!), there are several products I felt are reasonable good.  Having said this, for a long time I have made some house-crafted syrups. The infusions are quite good - and I would love to make them without sugar, however sugar is the best (and most “natural”) preservative - and a lot of products just won’t give you a good result. One of the homemade versions of a liquor was my N/A Campari clone. Honestly, it had a lot of flavor, but was pain to make. There have been so many botanicals your head would spin... Lyre’s came then on the market, and their Italian Spritz is really good. I mean it. And their Amaretti is also as good as alcohol-free beverages become. I don’t think, that anyone can make something better at home. But I always wanted to get the Lyre’s White Cane especially for virg...

I have found some new products, which let me thought over the whole concept of terroir of spirits. Belvedere released two unique vodkas which are made with rye out of two specific micro-regions. Please check the link , because I won’t run with the typical marketing b.s. The issue here is: does it make sense or is it total nonsense? We probably have first to make some important distinction, what means and what influences terroir. terroir   |  terˈwär  |  noun the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate .  •  ( also  goût de terroir  |  ɡo͞o də  |  )  the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced .  ORIGIN  French ,  ‘ land ’ , from  medieval Latin  terratorium . Terroir (as well as unique sub-varieties) in directly consumed items is a non-b...

Since quite some time there are discussions, if technology is replacing bartenders.  And some people in the industry take a clear stance against other people, who like to implement further technology in the bar industry. If you have read some of my posts here, you will know, that I am not afraid of progress, I rather like to embrace it. However it has to be done right. I think, that technology should not lower the quality. And this is exactly the purpose of this post. Please check out the background of the Somarbar Robotic Bartender on Kickstarter. It seems that some "nerdy engineering guys", put it in their mind, to produce a cocktail making machine. They don't seem to really have sought any consultancy of a bar expert, nor do they seem to be at anyway affluent with this topic. Here are my complaints:  Calling it a Robotic Bartender is a far stretch.  The machine is solely measuring and "blending" ingredients together. There is no...

Time have changed. Apple decided to double-cross me - and other users. They pulled the plug from their webhosting. They forced us, to go over to other services, to host our webpages - I am not happy about it [and I guess, others neither]! After long back and forth, I decided to use blogger - because it is free to have your customized domain. Hopefully soon this page will be again available via www.opinionated-alchemist.com - in the meanwhile "dial" opinionated-alchemist.blogspot.com . The whole design has unfortunately changed. And all the previous posts are lost [not really, but it would take me months, to re-post them - so I have decided not to. I hope, that you value the content higher than the design. And I hope, that I can go on with the more or less regular posting as before [even if I don't really like the blogger interface]. And who knows - maybe it is even positive, to go over to a 100% web compliant and 100% searchable layout... however it was nice, a...