Drinking Vinegars

I first discovered the exciting beverage world of drinking vinegars when some friends took me to Pok Pok, a Thai restaurant in Portland which immediately became my favorite. If I remember correctly, drinking vinegars are actually a Japanese thing, but the adventurous owners of Pok Pok just had to share them, because no other restaurant was.

I think the flavor I tried that first day was boysenberry, but plum is now my new favorite. Every trip to the Asian supermarket (Fubonn, here in Portland) has me searching for the best brands. They tend to be popular, and sell our very quickly.

Just mix 1-2 oz. with some club soda, and you've got a fabulous non-alcoholic cocktail that doesn't taste like it'll rot your teeth or make you crave the hard stuff.

After photographing these bottles, I noticed the little slogans for each flavor:

"Plum aroma, sweet and sour taste that moisture your throat and quench your thirst."
"Lemon keep youth, beauty and maintain healthy."
"Scent of strawberry is just like the scent of happiness and sweet love."

Each label ends with:
"Sweet and sour, refreshing taste, it gives you a new experience in love."

Tastefully put.

[The cup, by the way, is one of the silk-screened hi-ball glasses that Urban Outfitters made with my artwork on them.]

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No Soap, Radio #30

June 24, 2005
Sometimes music can be inspiring. Sometimes it can be annoying. Other times, it can give you a good idea that gets ruined because it lacks beer.

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How-Tuesday: Brew Beer!

I like to brew my own mead, since it's so simple and yummy. Sean prefers to brew beer, which is also yummy! He finally got around to crafting up his first batch since we moved to Portland a year ago, and he decided to document the process! We put all the photos up on Flickr to create a little "How-to" series. Hopefully, this will make homebrewing a little less intimidating to those of you who've been wanting to make your own, or who just wondered how it's done.

You really don't need very much in the way of special equipment to make your first batch of beer, and the best part is that most recipes are ready to drink in 2 weeks! That's 5 whole gallons (or, about 54 standard 12oz bottles) of fresh, alcoholic goodness that you can make just how you like it.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/breadnbadger/sets/72157617443894760/]

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Happy customers make me happy!

I got a fantastic email the other day from a man who received some of my mustache rocks glasses as a holiday gift. Not only did he tell me how much he likes the glasses, but he also sent me a screenshot of the glass in action as his avatar at allrecipes.com!

At first I thought, "cute picture!" Then I thought, "wait, I love allrecipes.com!" Then I realized, "the cool guy who writes the cocktail blog at All Recipes likes my glasses!" It was a great day.

I love to cook, and I like cooking interesting things. I don't have an overabundance of cookbooks, since we tend to move a lot and I like to purge the belongings that haven't been used much. Online recipe databases are the way of the future! They're great to browse for ideas (with great photos!), and reading other cook's reviews has become essential. All Recipes even has a great search feature where you can input the ingredients you want in a recipe, plus the ones you don't want included! Brilliant.

[Don't forget to enter to win a free pair of high-ball glasses! You have until Valentine's Day, which is the 14th. Instructions for entry are here.]

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Free for YOU

The high-ball glasses that Urban Outfitters are making with my licensed artwork are about to hit stores across the US and Canada! They look fantastic, and I've been using some of the samples for a few months now. They're not etched, but the simulated decals look pritty dern fantastic, (I even had to look really closely to tell that they weren't etched!) and they've held up to lots of dishwasher cleanings. Very cool! They've actually become my favorite cocktail glasses.

I finally got a few of the final products sent to me by the amazing Urban Outfitters ladies (thanks Lindsey and Emily!), and I'd love to give some of them away. Just comment on this post with your favorite beverage that you plan on drinking out of these rad vessels. Please include an email address or some way for me to contact you!

You'll have until Feb. 14th (Valentine's Day) to enter, after which I will draw a name randomly from a hat (or a big vase or something) to pick the winner. I'll contact you to find out which two glasses you'd like to receive, and then I'll ship them to you for free! What's better than that?

If you see these at your local Urban Outfitters, please let me know! I'd love to create a list of stores that are carrying them so people can find them easier. I've specially requested that my Portland store have them, but I dont know where else they'll end up.

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Bottling Mead

You may recall that I started brewing a batch of mead way back at the beginning of August, using local honey from one of the organic farms on Sauvie Island. I finally had time to bottle it this weekend, even though it's been done fermenting for about a month.

Bottling is even easier than brewing the mead. You just gather up 10 or so large liquor bottles (I like handles of Seagrams, so that's mostly what I used) or 9 2-liter soda bottles. Sanitize all the bottles and caps with bleach, plus a plastic hose and racking cane. Our hose has a fancy shut-off valve that only opens when it's depressed on the bottom of a bottle, so the flow stops whenever you need to switch bottles.

It was a super-fast process, and now we have 10 big bottles of mead! It needs to age for about a year, but a couple always get consumed before then. ;)

I can't wait to share this at Thanksgiving, and to trade Leah for a bottle of her hard cider!

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Mead Making

This weekend, I finally got around to making a batch of mead with the local honey I bought
while berry-picking on Sauvie Island. I've been making mead for quite a few years now, though very infrequently. This honey is darker than any I've ever seen, and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

If you've never had mead, it's a fermented wine-like beverage made only from honey and water. Lots of honey. A 5 gallon batch requires about 15 lbs. of honey. This batch is using 12 lbs of farm honey from carrot and madras flowers, plus 1.5 lbs. mesquite honey from Trader Joe's that I happened to have in the house. You can use any honey, but local will always be better than something from the big-box discount store.

I learned how to brew mead from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, but this batch is a simpler recipe that I found in The Compleat Meadmaker. With just a quick trip down to your local homebrew supply store (you don't actually need a stock pot as big as mine!) you can be brewing mead the same day. You can even add fresh fruit like berries or pears to your fermentation, or fresh apple cider!

Unfortunately, mead takes a few months to ferment, a few more to clear (so the yeast isn't mixed in with your lovely golden beverage), and about a year to age. Sounds like a long time, huh? It's totally worth it! This is truly a nectar of the gods.

There are a couple decent meads on the market that you can try, but most are extremely sweet (even for my tastes!) and none taste anything like what I brew at home. The Sunset in Boston often has a whole bunch, (Except on Christmas day when my friends like to buy them out).

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