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Post by cenydd on Aug 17, 2013 8:10:57 GMT
Give me cold and wet over hot every time. Besides, we don't get hit with hurricanes!
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Post by ShivaTD on Aug 17, 2013 12:00:53 GMT
Give me cold and wet over hot every time. Besides, we don't get hit with hurricanes!
Tropical temperatures are typically between about 70F to 85F year round and are not considered to be a hot climate. Phoenix, with temperatures that can soar up to 120F, is a hot climate.
Of course we are creatures of our environment and Whaleans live in almost a subarctic climate and it is suspected they might be closely related to the polar bear. Global warming represents a distinct threat to the Whalean species as it isn't believed that they would survive in a tropical environment. Will they adapt and survive with the anticipated global warning is a serious question for species biologists.
I love a good Hurricane.
Hit me with a Hurricane anytime!
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Post by cenydd on Aug 23, 2013 18:35:32 GMT
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Post by cenydd on Aug 23, 2013 18:38:23 GMT
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Post by cenydd on Aug 26, 2013 14:10:15 GMT
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Post by ShivaTD on Aug 31, 2013 13:35:04 GMT
Last night I decided to drop by the Green Fairy's house.
Rarely do I enjoy this rare treasury because it is very expensive but once in awhile I do just because it's really the only true absinthe currently being sold anywhere. Most nations limit the Thurjone to a small percentage of the traditional amount and there is a significant difference in the taste. Sort of like comparing a very good Champaign to Dom Perignon where an excellent Champaign can be purchased for a fraction of the cost but they just can't compare with Dom.
BTW I enjoy my Absinthe in a Sazerac.
A couple of points.
We do know why rye whiskey replaced the original Cognac. It was due the blight that struck the French vineyards around the middle of the 19th Century and there was a severe Cognac shortage in the United States. I enjoy Sazeracs with both rye whiskey and Cognac as each has a unique flavor.
Next is that I don't chill my glass with ice but instead chill it in the freezer. Ice leaves the inside of the glass wet and I recover the unused absinthe after coating the glass. Century Absinthe is just too damn expensive to dump the excess down the drain.
Many claim that the Sazerac is the original cocktail but there is reason for debate on that. We can also note that the "Old Fashion" cocktail derived it's name from the Sazerac as it is the identical cocktail without the absinthe coated glass. In short the patron would ask for the whiskey cocktail made the "old fashioned way" that was before the glasses were coated with absinthe. The Old Fashion is typically based upon whiskey, simple syrup, and bitters over ice with a twist lemon (or orange) for the zest and, based upon ordering a whiskey cocktail the "old" fashioned way, apparently predated the Sazerac. Not definitive but it does imply that the "Old Fashion" whiskey cocktail did predate the Sazerac. Then again, for the first 50 years the Sazerac was made with Cognac and not rye whiskey so the debate goes on.
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Post by cenydd on Sept 2, 2013 8:49:53 GMT
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Post by ShivaTD on Sept 2, 2013 9:41:40 GMT
I was drinking this yesterday: Interesting collaboration brew between a Welsh brewery and one from Shanghai. Very tasty, too!
Interesting as I was under the impression that Europeans weren't generally fans of US amber beers and ales.
We grow hops here in Washington and they provide a great aroma when riding my Harley past the hop farms. |
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Post by cenydd on Sept 3, 2013 8:51:45 GMT
There are some very good hop varieties that have come from the USA (Citra in particular is one of my favourites), and there are some very good craft ales brewed in the USA. The mass produced 'beer' of the USA is almost universally appalling, though, and the US is particularly addicted to filtration and pasteurisation, which robs beer of much of its possible flavour, and serving beer at a half-frozen temperature, which actually robs the human body of its ability to taste things (and, since the taste can't be tasted anyway, most of the 'beer' that is produced is pretty much tasteless, because there's little point in making it anything else!). The mass produced lager-style beer (like mass produced lager in most places - Australia and the UK no better in that, although some parts of Europe are) also heavily uses extracts, additives and cheap filler in its production, too, and poor ingredients make very poor beer.
All of the 'big name' US brands that ship across the world and are so widely advertised everywhere are utterly and completely dreadful in every way, and that gives people the impression that all US beer is the same (because all of them taste the same - tasteless!). There are some decent craft breweries around over there, and good brewers (every now and then some of that ale finds its way over here, or one of the brewers comes over to brew something over here for a festival or whatever) - they don't exist at anything like the same kind of density and number that they do in the UK, of course, but they are still out there. Not all US beer is bad, just the overwhelming majority of it that ever gets seen or mentioned in most circles!
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Post by ShivaTD on Sept 3, 2013 9:17:47 GMT
As I've mentioned I'm not much of a beer fan anyway. As far as I'm concerned it's about 5% alcohol, 5% flavor, and 90% urine. LOL
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Post by cenydd on Sept 3, 2013 9:34:19 GMT
You might well be drinking the wrong beer, and at the wrong temperature!
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Post by ShivaTD on Sept 3, 2013 10:07:54 GMT
You might well be drinking the wrong beer, and at the wrong temperature!
I don't know how people can compare drinking several bottles of beer with slowly sipping just an ounce or two of a quality 10 year old whiskey. Beer is a watered down alcoholic beverage while distilled spirits are a robust concentrated favor. A person can almost become intoxicated from just smelling a fine spirit because it is so rich.
But different strokes for different folks.
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Post by cenydd on Sept 4, 2013 8:13:51 GMT
Oddly enough, talking of US ale, I went to the pub last night and they had this one on:  www.jdwrealale.co.uk/ales/chelsea-sunset-red-746It was OK and drinkable enough, but a bit on the bland side, to be honest. Very balanced, and with no strong character. Had a pint of it then went on to the Gower Power, which has much more flavour and character to it. |
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Post by cenydd on Sept 4, 2013 8:40:29 GMT
Beer is a watered down alcoholic beverage while distilled spirits are a robust concentrated favor. There can and should be plenty of flavour to a decent ale (assuming it's drunk at the correct temperature). Not all 'beer' is like that, though, and anything mass-produced and mass-market won't be, because it's intended to be as palatable as possible to everyone and not 'offensive' in flavour to anyone, rather than being something that some people will like and some people won't. Something having strong flavour and character automatically means that some people won't like it, so the mass-producers avoid it (and that also allows them, of course, to add cheap fillers into the brewing process that don't add anything to the final product). It's a 'lowest common denominator' product for people who want 'beer', and don't care much about the flavour as long as it tastes vaguely like 'beer' (and has some alcohol in it), which is most people who drink 'beer' and don't know any different. If you are trying to drink any mass produced 'beer', especially US or any 'lager' style mass produced 'beer', and trying to drink it very cold, then it will taste like watered-down fizzy urine. That's pretty much what it is - cheap ingredients, brewed as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then killed off by pasteurisation and filtration so that the flavours can't develop at all, artificially carbonated for make it fizz, and then served freezing cold so that you don't have to taste it too much. Good quality, craft-produced, cask conditioned Real Ale really isn't like that at all. Quality ingredients, brewed for flavour, with only the natural carbonation from the brewing process, left to mature and develop during a secondary fermentation in its cask, and served at 'cellar temperature' so that the tastebuds can actually function properly to detect all of the different flavour notes. It has character and flavour from an immense variety of possibilities (a far greater range of flavour possibilities than anything that is offered by wine, for example) from chocolate, coffee and toffee type flavours through to biscuit, citrus and floral flavours, and everything in between, all depending on the variety of hops (and the volume added, and the timing of adding them), the type of malt, the type of water, the strain of yeast, and so on. And that is before you get into the realms of other various added flavour ingredients, of which there are almost infinite possibilities (herbs, fruits, honey, etc., etc.). It is a completely, totally different drink from the kind of 'beer' that most people drink. |
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Post by ShivaTD on Sept 4, 2013 9:00:22 GMT
Living in the Land of Micro-Breweries with perhaps 20 within 50 miles of where I live I've had plenty of opportunities to try many. I don't say they're bad but they're just not worth drinking IMHO.
I still prefer sipping a shot of a fine distilled spirit over beers, ales, and even wines. Cognac or brandy over wine for example because the flavor is concentrated by the distilling. Quality whiskeys can be distilled from basically the same mash that beer comes from and it concentrates the flavor. A tiny sip of whiskey has far more flavor that an entire beer. Now a sip of beer can be used as a chaser to cleanse the pallet before another sip of whiskey but that's really not "drinking" beer. It's using it as a mouthwash. LOL
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