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...
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Ok - just a quick post here. I tried Budweiser Zero. No - lets rephrase it: I drank it, because I got it as sample, but didn't expected anything. However: it is actually pretty okay. And here is the kicker: I never liked Budweiser - and really reject to drink it - but Budweiser Zero taste to me far better than its alcoholic siblings. Look - I don't want to lie- it is not a craft beer (nor an alcohol-free craft'y beer). But compared to the normal Budweiser, I didn't tasted any off-flavors. It is a very light beer, which taste like it. And to be honest, I even could not make out, that it was alcohol free. There are many alcohol free beers, which might taste better - bigger aromas and flavors - more bitterness and so on. But you mostly directly detect, that it is alcohol-free - you just taste it. But Budweiser Zero? It is tough to tell - it could be very much a light and low alcoholic beer... So... would I drink buy it for myself? Absolutely. I would probably put it into ...
Who would knew, that I am reviewing a budget vodka here - on the opinionatedalchemist.com. But this isn't a normal review. I skip the marketing perception and use this product to cut directly to the case: Vodka is a "rather" neutral, colorless, "rather" flavorless and odorless distilled beverage from any agricultural source - and depending on the country, it has a minimum of 37.5% and 40% abv. As I said time and time again before: at times it is absolutely nonsense to talk about premium and luxury, when the original product doesn't really "hold this promise". Luxury water can have luxurious marketing, luxurious packaging, can be even rare and slightly more expensive "to produce". However really it is just water. Maybe it has some nuances to normal water - however those nuances (in a blind-test) are pretty small. Vodka is extremely similar - and the chain of evidence (despite a lot of people trying to proof otherwise) makes it re...
Chivas.com I have sitting on this post since quite a while. About 6 weeks ago, I have had the opportunity to attend an impressive introduction of Chivas Ultis. Maximilian Warner, the global brand ambassador for Chivas presented a multi-sensual experience. There was music involved (with wireless ear phones, the participants had to put on and off), there were different colors of lights involved, scents in form of mister bottles, then there was taste in form of the 5 different malts (ahem 3 - we were told to only smell the last 2) and chocolate truffles. And trust me, when I say, that Pernod-Ricard (owning company of Chivas) did a very good job in the design of the bottle as well as the bespoke POS for the product (glasses, decanters etc.). This is the current highlight; blended whisky producer are very keen on the premiumisation of their products - as malt whisky is growing, and the blended market seems rather stagnant. Truth has to be told: Chivas Ultis is not a "norma...
This might be the tonic water you might not find directly. To be honest, I haven't heard of it before. When Florence from our supplier Classic Fine Foods asked me for a meeting, she made quite a mystery about the product, she wanted to let me try. We sat down and I tried - first of all neat - and than with gin [and ice]. I will spare, to bombard you with another story [which might or might not be created in a marketing department ]. But you want to know how it fares? The Presentation: This is just wow. The label coloured in a purple with silver fonts, is just beautiful. The funny thing is, that it comes also in very small bottles - 150 ml. But while the 125 ml of Fentiman's is really too short, the 150 ml seems really to work much better! Kudos to them - they really might have thought about it! However I still would prefer a bottle which is around 180 ml - I love my G&T double - and for a double, 150 ml might just be not enough! Neat: This tonic water seems dir...
Since I have had this blog (inclusive the previous installment of it), I have shied away of doing bar reviews. If you work as manager in a bar (or in my case even as beverage manager), you know, that you shouldn't question too much others, as your own courtyard might not be that clean... But then I still make exceptions - this happens specially if bars receiving awards (and/or taking themselves too serious and This apparently happened in Speakeasy in the Ramada Plaza. Let's first off all get the most obvious from my breast: the name.... It is an audacity in the light of modern speakeasies (you can't compare anyway a bar to historic speakeasies - unless it is e.g. Located in Saudi Arabia - and well, a review there wouldn't be that clever, to say at least! Anyway - the name is stupid and misleading. However please note, that this bar received the Best New Pub Award of TimeOut Dubai! So it has to be good? Well, I went with a friend and colleague to this place. I am just f...
You might already know [otherwise just read my last post ], that Fentiman's Botanical Tonic Water taste great. And I mentioned, that I am not totally convinced of the other flavours... Let me now and here explain why. First to the great ones: Rose Lemonade is really nice... however I have to come across one rose drink, which doesn't taste really good. A couple of years I have reviewed [and tried] Sence - also a drink which is based on Bulgarian roses - and it was lovely. Fentiman's Rose Lemonade is not different - maybe slightly too acidic. Anyway - it is just great [however also very simple to replicate - citric acid, sugar syrup, carbonated water and rose water is all what you need...]. The Curiousity Cola is also nice - it is a bit more standalone and unique as other cola sodas- but hit the right spots. Only problem still is: the original just taste better and - well like the original. Cherrybark Cola - is another good soda. While I've expected it to taste...
I had a couple of days ago a meeting with Craig - we will have a corporate bar workshop and Craig helps us to showcase the culinary wizary as he works for the supplier muddle-me.com. Besides of a bag full of goodies he brought the Soda plus appliance - a piece I didn't encountered yet. Well he took the mouth quite full, that it is cheaper and better as the cream whippers (e.g. iSi) or Perlini... As I have to test it, before I show it to a bunch of high profile F&B guys, which are coming from across the GCC countries, I took it today to a test. And as I shopped at Spinneys today, I thought it is a good thing to take their excellent apple elderflower squash back home; but wait, I just reviewed Darbo elderflower and I pretty we'll know the Waitrose product. So I took the gamble to buy the grape and peach variant. And who doesn't know my very dear friend Knob Creek? If it comes to extra aged and extra toasted American whiskies, this is one of the best (especially if you pu...
Seems that also somebody else isn't fully convinced about the taste of some Mol' Mixology recipes... Check out their review: http://gizmodo.com/margarita. ..
When I am shopping my usual stuff, like groceries, I always explore things, which I don't know. A couple of days ago, I found Q Ginger in one local hypermarket [LuLu]. I have to say that both, my ginger ale and ginger beer are very tasty - and I didn't expected, that this ginger ale "blows my mind". The label however is quite bold: " “It should be the aim of every bottler to bring its brand of ginger ale to the highest possible perfection, since a bottler’s products are judged for better or worse by the merit or lack of merit possessed by its ginger ale.” - WB Keller, editor of the National Bottlers Gazette. 1893. Something happened. Today, ginger ale comes in two disappointing options. A high-fructose laden soda with a slight ginger flavoring or a ginger beer that combines garish amounts of ginger with loads of sugar. Q Ginger is something different. Not too sweet, but clean and crisp with a gingery bite and real depth. We’ve used the best ingredien...
I have seen Thomas Henry sodas on the mixology.eu blog before. The company from Berlin is advertising, that it was co-created by experienced bartenders. And now it is available here in the UAE. Visual: The small 200 ml bottles look good. Its modern, but also classy. Well done. The ginger ale, is quite dark, if compared with Schweppes. The ginger beer [called Spicy Ginger] is off white medium-opaque. The bitter lemon has the same half-translucency however with a hint of green. The soda, elderflower tonic and tonic water are clear [it seems, that the tonic has a hint of blue - but I could be wrong]. Nose: The ginger ale smells quite gingery. Nice. The tonic has a quite sherbet nose [you know- the bubbly fizzy powder, you had as a kid]. Hints of citrus… pleasant. TH Bitter Lemon has a very pronounced citrus zest smell - maybe a bit on the oxidized citrus side - but overall good and much better than Schweppes. The TH Spicy Ginger surprises with a dried ginger nose - almos...
Like mentioned in the last post, I am now committing to already written posts, from my previous website. This one was pretty much the last post, because of the "death" of my previous website. So it is not an old post - but a very new one. It was all about the new NEAT nosing glass. Have fun: Hi folks, this will is very likely the last post for quite some time. Not entirely my fault: Apple is shutting down the mobileme.com servers end of this month - that means that iWeb websites are going... down. I will need to migrate to another blog-builder; thought [and made some experiments] about wordpress, Zoho, blogger and some other providers; happy as with iWeb, I was unfortunately nowhere. For suggestions please comment [better comment on my facebook [opinionated-alchemist]. Back to business: quite a while ago, I have seen on linkedin a discussion about a new glass. Clicking through to their website, the glass company made quite “outrageous” co...