Went to see our friends Rebecca & Tim’s band - Bim last night at Bar Music Hall, thought it would be a good chance to try out the new camera. Lights changing colour every few seconds was a bit tricky, but I think I got some ok shots for my first go :) Check out the set on my Flickr.
Dear Gastronaughts, extremely sad to hear the legendary Keith Floyd passed away on Monday, September 14 2009. I watched his cookery shows religously as kid, collected all his cook books to this day. If you’re not from the UK and don’t know who he is, Spitting Image’s 1987 parody should give you a good idea ;)
It’s no surprise really that he would die before his time, but he will be sorely missed.
He should be known for what he did best cooking & boozing so check out this clip of Mussels Mariniere, I think Me and Nicky will be cooking it in honor tonight.
I’ll leave you with a recipe from his hangover book – “probably the most famous moring-after reviver of all time”
The Prairie Oyster
1 measure of cognac
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Angostura Bitters
Pinch of cayenne
The yolk of 1 free-range egg
Mix together all the ingredients, apart from the cayenne and egg yolk, in a whiskey glass. Add a small pinch of cayenne and drop in the egg yolk. Drink in one without breaking the yolk.
Barrel Photo via: Dion Farrell.
Michael Crichton’s fictional tale Jurassic Park saw scientists bringing back dinosaurs from the dead by extracting dino blood from a mosquito preserved in a blob of amber. Seems like fact is catching up with fiction, they’re not building a funfair though, oh no, a brewery instead! Good lads :)
Apparently they’ve extracted a 45 million year old yeast from the belly of a bee trapped in a blob of amber. So after a long rest the yeast can finally get down to what it was born to do – turn sugar into CO2 & booze.
There’s a bit more of a backstory to it than that, Wired have got the lowdown on the prehistoric beer.
Apparently it’s due to be released in the Autumn, but there’s currently not much on their Fossil Fuels website.
Click on the dino pic to grab a desktop picture.
When my brother was out for an all day session (usually our birthdays) he used to wear his “Drinking Jumper” a bizarre comfort blanket that would increase drinking capacity and protect him from vomiting all over it. To be honest I can’t say that it didn’t work, he’s the heaviest and most civilised drinker I know. He wore a tattered old Marks & Sparks affair, But this 70′s collection are proper drinking jumpers!
Take note booze related branding dudes out there – If you make us some god awful jumpers just in time for Christmas, I promise you, we will buy them by the truck load! I’ll even help you design them myself, come on these need a come back ;)
Via: Art Brut(e) | Also almost worthy of a post on it’s own – tache rape-shave reference.
Here’s an entertaining and interesting article – In Vino, Civitas by James Bridle, author of Cooking with Booze. James’s idea is that we drank ourselves into civilisation, that the cultivation of grains was driven not by hunger but by thirst.
“Beer, as well as spirits, allowed us to crowd together into cities where the water was foul and undrinkable, and it allowed us set off on long sea voyages of exploration and conquest. These two opportunities – urbanisation and exploration, have fuelled all major human activity since the renaissance.”
I love his little diagrams, the one above cracks me up.
I‘m loving this, Wired how-to have taken the classic Mentos & Coke trick and made it into a prank cocktail which they’ve named – The Manhattan Project.
Basically the trick is the freeze the Mentos inside ice cubes so that it gives you enough time to mix a Manhattan, hand it to a friend and then retreat to a safe distance before it blows! Full instructions here »
Via: Neatorama.
Ah two of my favourites things, beer and illustration both in one place:) Check out Jonathan Chadwick’s beautiful series of ongoing booze studies »
Well news to me – I’ve never drank any wine from Georgia (that I know of), but it’s in fact the cradle of the wine industry, they first started cultivating wild grapes 7,000 years ago! They grow an incredible 500 diffenerent varieties of endemic grape. I think I’ve only heard of about 10…
As I’m sure you’re aware, Russia & Georgia aren’t very good friends at the moment. Russia used to consume 70% of Georgia’s wine production, but now they’ve banned it from being imported… Their loss is our gain I reckon, must be shit loads of it knocking about, a quick sniff around the internets reveals a few people have started importing and selling it to the UK, such as – Turton Wines & Evingtons – let’s give it a go!
The locals also make a more potent liquor called Chacha (pron. Charchar), a clear distillation of grapes similar to Grappa. Nearly everyone makes their own Chacha which is consumed in great quantities :)
More info from the Georgian Wine & Vine Portal, a Goergian wine blog, Georgia and it’s wine heritage.
I was put on to the Georgian booze scene by my mate John who’s off over there shortly to help the UN out with a bit of translating, check out his blog for updates as he travels about (not live yet).
You don’t get many literary recommendations from me, but this is one publication that no one should be without - The Modern Drunkard by Frank Kelly Rich is a collection of the best bits from his bi-monthly periodical of the same name. Together they form a comprehensive and instructive manual on how to drink-and how to do it well.
Check out the Modern Drunkard site to get a feel for what you can expect from the book. Be sure to read 40 things everything a drunkard should do, as Frank puts it -a man is, ultimately, the sum of his accomplishments. And or course the 86 Rules of Boozing, with such gems as “If there is ever any confusion, the fuller beer is yours” and “If you have been roommates with someone more than six months, you may drink all their beer, even if it’s hidden, as long as you leave them one”. Good work Frank.
Now that I’ve shaved mine off, I could re-live my former hirsute glories by drinking out of this moustache engraved pint glass ($15). I’m really liking the idea of augmenting someones face while they’re drinking a pint. If I worked for Guinness, I’d be designing a whole range of foamy moustache and beard variations to put on their branded glasses, maybe even some speech bubbles – ‘who’s round is next? I’m almost empty’ type thing.
There’s nothing better than a free drink and on Saturday I had plenty :) Courtesy of my friends Ant & Hal, who are launching a new brand of Cachaça in the UK – Abelha. For those who don’t know, Cachaça is a sugar cane based spirit (a little bit like rum, but not rum) from Brasil. It’s the main ingredient of the world famous Caipirinha cocktail. I’m so jealous, wish I had my own brand of booze.
It was a fancy dress do and we took the Brazilian theme to it’s logical conclusion by going in pubeless naked suits… Check out the photos of the event here »
Check out the stop motion how to make a caipirinha cocktail animation Hal made:
So we got a bit pissed to celebrate! We head to New Mexico today, not sure if we’ll be able post any pictures from the start, by the looks of the network coverage maps we might only get reception twice in the whole state! So if you don’t hear from us after today, don’t panic, we’ll be slowly heading northwards.
Tomorrow is my last day at Poke and my last evening in England for the next 6 months or so… I like to leave in style, so I’ve planned a bit of a farewell drinking competition for tomorrow evening :)
Basically I’ve stripped down the much loved pastime of drinking into it’s 5 main skill groups – Buying booze, carrying booze, drinking booze, being pissed & getting the Drunkest. When all the scores are added up at the end of the evening, we’ll find out – Who’s the drunkest?
If the prospect of that wasn’t thrilling enough, the prize for the winner is custodial care of my personal pint mug which Pete keeps behind the bar of the Owl & Pussycat for me. It generates much envy from fellow patrons each week, and could almost certainly ‘get you laid’ ;)
If you want to see me off, I’ll be at the Owl & Pussycat on Redchurch Street from about 6pm. If you want to compete for the prize, or just for fun – download the score sheet here, print it out and bring it along with you. If you want to rehash the game for yourself, feel free to download the original Illustrator file here.
Idoth my cap to this guy, this is one of the best pissup stories I’ve ever heard – Edward Russell (1653–1727) was the First Lord of the Admiralty and decided to throw a party for his fellow officers in 1694. Presumably wanting to put on a bit of a show, he filled up his garden’s fountain with 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg, thus setting the world record for history’s largest ever cocktail.
Apparently bartenders actually paddled around in a small wooden canoes, filling up guests cups. The party continued nonstop until they drank the fountain dry, took them a full week, pausing only briefly during rainstorms to erect a silk canopy over the punch to keep it from getting watered down.
Via Mental Floss.
Iwish I was in Swansea tomorrow to join Tim & Rob drinking their way round this custom monopoly board. I made something along these lines while at University, and have done the classic London pub crawl one. There can never be too much monopoly/drinking crossovers, brilliant fun. Good luck boys, send us some pics!
