opinionated alchemist

It has been a while, since I have had a cigar. It has been even a longer time that I had a cigar I have never had - or a cigar which I have reviewed. Enter the Camacho Corojo. I don’t need to repeat here the marketing story of Camacho. You can read it here . If you are too lazy (or resistant to marketing stuff), the important info is: it is a puro - the cigar is made out of 100% Honduras tobacco. It is a long filler. It is made 100% out of corojo tobacco. Corojo tobacco you might ask? Well, the tobacco is made out of Cuban seed - however this hybrid produces rather wrapper (and binder) tobacco. However in this cigar, it is used to make the full cigar. You don’t get it yet? Well, in a coffee comparison, corojo is basically Arabica coffee - while criollo tobacco is like Robusta coffee. The question is - how is it? There are a ton of cigar reviews, which praises the Camacho Corojo (I had the Robusto today). Yes - the vitola / banderole is big and quite unsubtle. I w...

So I went over my feeds on feedly , which are obviously quite beverage heavy - and an article off Bevvy caught my eyes: Best Irish Whiskey under $50 . Well - there hasn’t been any news for me (well - it is an average selection - though with mentionably a deserved first place: Red Breast 12 years old) - however in the descriptions, several issues (read: mistakes) caught my attention. I don’t want to call Bevvy.com out here - however I thought, it would make sense, to repeat the respective categories of Irish whiskey and explain a bit!? So here we are - the “ ultimate ” Irish Whiskey Style Guide: Irish Blended Whiskey Irish blended whiskey is almost  the same as Scotch blended whisky - with 2 differences: a) there is an ‘e’ in the whiskey, and b) one more category of whiskey is allowed in the BLEND : Irish Grain Whiskey Irish (Single) Malt Whiskey Irish Pot Still Whiskey (and as non whiskey only water is also allowed) While Irish Blended Whiskey hasn’t been th...

In the last weeks, I have looked into the concept of simple distillation apparatuses. Not the decorative ones (which are nice and maybe even functioning- but not really made for real use) - but for hobbyist stills like the AirStill.  Let’s have a look at following video: There is a lot, what you can learn out of the video... first and foremost: if you can make vodka in small scale, out of dextrose and special ingredients- which results in such a clean and pure product (given that it is true), and the bottle cost in the UK (where you have rather high overall prices) less than £1.00... what does the production of a commercial vodka cost??? A fraction of £1?? (Ok - plus tax... but still!!!). Anyway- the video also gave me a lot of question marks: if you are going to the pain, of doing your own distilled alcohol, why are you using flavorings? I pretty much believe, that the spirit flavorings will be anyway useless. At this point there are a lot people, who want to tell...

Xmas 2017 - one more time an awkward Secret Santa event with work colleagues (it is not that I don’t like to have Xmas parties with my colleagues or any F&B party - but Secret Santa or anything similar is just too much for me to swallow). Anyway - I got from my lovely no more so Secret Santa a Vinturi wine aerator. This device is just a shortcut of decanting wine. I think the problem with these devices is, that you still need to know wine. It doesn’t make “every wine” better - it just makes wine better, which fits into specific categories ( • red wine • rather young • close/unbalanced/harsh tannins etc.). Check out this video, which explains better what it is: Well - let me break the news for my colleagues first: I am not a wine drinker (in fact, I got a wine connoisseur set in my previous year’s Secret Santa as well...). However the Vinturi wine aerator was actually a pretty cool gift - as it sparked an idea: What if aerated cocktails are changing in taste? I got...

Folks... A belated Happy New Year to all of you. There has been a lot of changes... I have got the feeling, that these changes will lead to a great year 2018... First: I have left my position as Beverage Manager at the Ritz-Carlton Dubai Beach. Better said, they made my position redundant (we will see, how well this works out for them 😶). I am not gonna lie - I loved to work with my previous Executive Assistant Manager i/c F&B Isabelle. It was simply inspirational and we have had a lot of brilliant and at times borderline crazy ideas! However Isabelle left the beginning of last year - and nothing was the same again. Let me not get into this too much... Second: Despite the fact, that I have had some offers as Beverage Manager again, I decided to go back into the operations - I am now “freshly appointed” Bar Operations Manager at Noir at the Kempinski Mall of the Emirates. The bar is beautiful, and had a short but somewhat controversial and very turbulent history. Th...

Gin is a big trend. And Gin & Tonics are pretty much the most consumed and the most popular mixed drink of 2017. As bartender, you won’t hear nowadays seldom, that a premium gin deserves a premium tonic. But how objective is that? It might start with the gin. How premium is premium gin? If we are comparing quality gins with the so-called “new” premium gins, there is not much difference - sure there are a different array of botanicals used, there is a different alcohol strength - but there is no real correlation between price and factual quality. That doesn’t mean, that “your” Monkey 47 is anyway worse... it just means, that you cannot buy taste with money (well if you involve your perception: maybe). But what is about your fancy Tonic Water?  Well - let’s face it: no beverage which is recognizable as “soda pop” can be made totally natural. Because if it is natural, it will taste like (cloudy) lemonade. Citric acid is made out of natural ingredients, but is hig...

Dear Bartenders, Please do not make tobacco infusions! I am serious - don't do it - don't try it - do not think about it. Tobacco contains nicotine. What is the big deal, you might ask? Nicotine is highly poisonous. There is not as much nicotine absorption when you are smoking tobacco - this would be rather save.  Chewing tobacco - has a higher absorption - but yet, isn't soluble in water (hence it is still "quite save"). On the other hand, nicotine is soluble in alcohol - that means there is a great absorption - and it becomes very very dangerous. How dangerous, you might ask?  Let me ask a counter question: Would you make a strychnine infusion? Or a cyanide cocktail? Or an arsenic essence? The lethal dose of strychnine (for a male healthy adult) would be ca. 100 mg The lethal dose of cyanide (...) would be ca. 200 mg The lethal dose of arsenic (...) would be more than 70 mg While the lethal dose of nicotine (for a male healthy adult) wo...