opinionated alchemist

Since quite a few years, I have had a quite unique idea, which popped up in my mind now and then - but particularly in the holiday season. Why not barrel age mulled wine?! I have been growing up with German Gl ühwein and since I am working in the beverage service industry, I have been following a lot of recipes with increasing results. I have been quite bold a couple of weeks ago, in a  Chaîne des Rôtisseurs  event, when I have paired barrel aged mulled wine with "quatre-epice foie gras". The real surprise however were the raving reviews and comments about the pairing as well as my mulled wine. Even more surprising was, that there were a lot of German members (here in the UAE chapter of this club), which know their mulled wine, and elevated it to the "best  Gl ühwein they ever had". Carried by this success, I'd like to share with you my "secrets", of making a pretty much kick ass mulled wine. I don't give here some specific measurem...

Lads, I have changed domains... just a bit... What was before www . opinionated-alchemist.com  is now www.opinionatedalchemist.com . If you anyway went with the original source URL opinionated-alchemist.blogspot.com , it stays the same (and it probably is faster and more responsive). Second: I changed the template. I thought it is quite pretty, to use this dynamic view - but all what it did was confusing and delayed the loading period. Hope you like the new “dark” design - and the faster page loads. Please comment, if you have any suggestions - I would very much look forward to read your comments.

First learning: I originally wanted to use the headline: what my coke addiction taught me... then I rephrased due to obvious reasons... Jokes aside - I know, how unhealthy soft drinks are. Having this in mind, I have been for the look for an alternative. There is for example Coke Life - Coca Cola which is partly sweetened with normal sweeteners and partly with stevia, Coke light or Coke Zero which is sweetened with Aspartam (or other artificial sweeteners). But also Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry, Diet Mountain Dew Cherry Zero and so on. What I learned is, that sugar (and high fructose corn syrup) doesn't only changes the mouth-feel. It heavily effects the taste perception. I am calling this here taste perception, as taste and aroma are far more scientific and "constraint". But anyway - on a personal, subjective note, these products "taste" different than their "fatty" counterparts - and this is kind of a big deal. That means in reality not only...