opinionated alchemist

Not so long time ago, I had a loose get together with some drink industry friends. As the conversation went along, I dropped, that I actually like Old Monk rum [to the great shock of the others]. For my uninitiated friends in the US and Europe: Old Monk 7 years old is a dark rum from India - and it is dirt cheap here in the Middle East [not to speak of India - where it can be procured for a fraction of it]. It is also No.3 selling rum world wide [but only, because the Indians are drinking it like water ;-) ]. If normal "imported" [yeah - everything is imported] rum will be around AED 80 [which is around $20] Old Monk cost you a cool AED 20 [$5.50]. And you know what - in my opinion it beats the more expensive Caribbean cousins hands down. But lets face it - it is not as good as Gosling [which is here even more expensive, though], but against Myers, Captain Morgan or Coruba it is not only keeping up - it displaces the competition! It has very strong dark roast aroma...

I have heard it not the first time - fine dining is dead. Well - Ferran Adrià closed El Bulli some time ago - not because it was not successful [we might consider, that El Bulli was the most successful fine dining restaurant, which was not in a metropolitan area]. I guess Ferran had still 20 to 50 people on the waiting list, for any diner he was accommodating. But he is also a person, who is strangely connected to trends [yes he is also a culinary trend setter, but to be a trend setter, you have to have a feeling for the overall crowd psychology]. In the current economical climate a fine dining establishment has a hard time: the US is not completely out of the crisis - still struggling - but Europe is even worse, with their Euro crisis - and Asia doesn't see the growth rate as previous years. A lot of people just don't want to expend that much for a single dining experience, when the times are unsafe - others don't want to show off, that they still have it and "are...