Again, the internet proves me wrong.

Three Alaskan wineries have now come to my attention since my last post:

Alaskan Wilderness Wines is up in Kodiak, and do small batches of local fruits and honeymead. They have a salmonberry wine. I have no idea what salmonberry tastes like, but their labels all have a big ol' bear whacking a salmon out of a river. I'll bet salmonberry goes well with salmon. The mead with "wild fireweed petal" looks intriguing too.

Great Land Wines has a bunch of interesting things: Pomme de Terre (potato wine), Zwiebel (onion wine), and wine made from something called the porcupine carrot. They also have a rhubarb wine.

Denali Winery actually makes grape wine, but they are a little coy about where the grapes are grown. No matter, as if the climate keeps up the way it has been, Alaska will soon be a haven for vineyards, except perhaps Anchorage (where Denali Winery is) because it will be underwater. You win a few, you lose a few.

One less "stupid boy project" for me

One of the lingering effects of America's abortive experiment with the prohibition of alcohol in the early twentieth century is the arcane and complex set of laws regarding the shipment and sale of wine, beer and spirits between states. (You can read much more about the state of such things here.)

A year ago, when the Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal to allow in-state shipments without allowing out-of-state shipments, I thought that an excellent way to celebrate would be to try to get some wine from every state in the union.

I've been beaten to the punch. Every Friday, Lenn Thompson (who also runs the marvelous Lenndevours blog) updates the Wine Sediments blog with the latest in his "50 States. 50 Wineries. 50 Weeks" project.

He's on week six today (a pineapple wine from Hawaii), and it is looking like a very interesting trip. I'm particularly curious to see how and when he deals with California, as it is rather the big gorilla in the room. I'm also wondering about Alaska, as when I was considering doing this myself, I couldn't find any Alaskan wineries.

la saveur d'huile de moteur!

Blasting its way out of Napa is this blend with the exciting name that I won't mention here.

I don't want to ruin the surprise when you click.

$50 a bottle, $150 for a wooden case of three (So a free wooden case. Cool.)

And look! The wine has a podcast!

For he's a jolly good fellow

To commemorate Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday, industrious homebrewers across America are brewing up a nice big batch of "Poor Richard's Ale" to toast the big man with. The beer is a style typical of the Revolutionary era, and is not derived from any actual industrious homebrewing that Franklin may have done. (There are records of beers that Washington and Jefferson made - or at least had made on their estates, but that is a project for another holiday.)

I, as a non-industrious homebrewer, have not made any. If you want to try some, the Poor Richard's Ale page can guide you to brewpubs that might have some on tap.

In a similar vein, ten days from now I will celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday by not making fortified claret.

This is precisely why they invented the internet

The British Cheese Board's website is chock full of fascinating and detailed information and resources relating to British Cheese. ("Coloured cheeses like Red Leicester, Double Gloucester and coloured Cheddar and Cheshire get their red colouring from Annatto, a flavourless vegetable extract from the seed of a South American tree.")

Of particular (okay, peculiar) interest is the Download selection, including "Education Packs" and high resolution images of British cheese, like stilton (pictured - click on it for some big cheese).

Last night I was down in the lab

Yesterday afternoon actually.

The Pinot Noir is ready for bottling - It has a bunch of tastes running around in it like a bunch of happy puppies. It should settle down in the bottle and come together into some really good wine.

My experiment with tyttebaer (lingonberry or cowberry) wine is about ready for bottling as well, I think. Tyttebaer is a very cranberryish sort of fruit and it is coming out quite dry. I might end up blending it with something, or a bunch of things.

Finally, I started some malbec. The starting gravity was off the charts. This means a ton of sugar, and that means it will end up on the sweet side, or it will have a bit of a kick to it.

Last night I was down in the lab

Yesterday afternoon actually.

The Pinot Noir is ready for bottling - It has a bunch of tastes running around in it like a bunch of happy puppies. It should settle down in the bottle and come together into some really good wine.

My experiment with tyttebaer (lingonberry or cowberry) wine is about ready for bottling as well, I think. Tyttebaer is a very cranberryish sort of fruit and it is coming out quite dry. I might end up blending it with something, or a bunch of things.

Finally, I started some malbec. The starting gravity was off the charts. This means a ton of sugar, and that means it will end up on the sweet side, or it will have a bit of a kick to it.

I love the smell of cab sav in the morning

The Niebaum-Coppola Winery has just come out with an Apocalypse Now wine. It comes in a three liter bottle, and when you fiddle with the bottle's bottom a little drawer flips out, revealing a DVD of the movie!

Price - $200.

Breaking the price down, that's the equivalent of four 750ml bottles at $36 each, plus a $12 DVD without a case. Total - $156.

So $44 for a strange bottle/DVD holder that won't fit in your DVD case. Cool!

My, this is the super-finest screwdriver In The World!

Donald Trump is introducing a new line of vodka named after himself. After a week of reports that it will be called "Trump Vodka," we now learn the real official title.

"Trump: The World's Finest Super Premium Vodka"

Next we shall cover our news with copious amounts of dill

Andreas Viestad will be returning for the next season of New Scandinavian Cooking.

Among other things, he'll be making "Norwegian style sushi."

It's Beaujolais Nouveau Time!

Not really.

But there's less than two weeks to go.

The official site has information about the release of the 2005 vintage as well as where you can go to celebrate (providing you are either in France or New York).

There are even helpful hints about how to pass the time by playing foosball with yourself and sending yourself voice mail messages. Then at midnight on November 16th you can start talking with other people and disco dance slowly.

And perhaps try some Beaujolais Nouveau. The last few years wine commentators have remarked that it has been starting to actually taste like wine! Can't go wrong there.

Next week on Justice League Unlimited

Budvar (Budweiser in Europe - notice that they are now calling it "Bud") is running a new ad campaign featuring the adventures of superheros who have... well... had too much Budvar.

Simply Red Wine

Mick Hucknall owns a vineyard.

Couldn't resist the title there. Sorry.

A quick note of farewell

The last bottle of my 2001 zinfandel is now gone. All that is left of that batch is roughly a gallon of what I will refer to as "an attempt at port."

Who's hungry now?

Me.

Sepia Mutiny has an informative, link-laden and mouth-watering post about the first ever British Curry Awards followed immediately by another wonderful post on London's first Indian Restaurant.

Very fascinating stuff. And it reminds me that the last time I ordered dinner in, they forgot the papadums. This shall be rectified.

UPDATE!!

They didn't forget the papadums! The papadum truck hasn't been stopping by! They've been out for weeks! There is a papadum shortage!

I blame the struggling petrol industry.

Luckily for me and my papadum jones, I remembered that I had some raw pre-fab papadums ready to heat up. They were tasty even though they smelled oddly of fish. In an edible sort of way, mind you.

It's Cinnamon Bun Day!

But only in Sweden.

Apparently.

Scientists finally create a beer that I absolutely will not drink. Ever.

Nicoshot. 3 milligrams of nicotine per beer.

I'm sure it tastes swell.

It's Blue! Azure! Cerulean!

One of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite pranks was inviting people over for an amazing gourmet meal and then watching their reactions when they discovered that he had dyed all of the food blue. Although the food coloring was tasteless and oderless, nobody (at least the story goes) would touch the blue food.

A Japanese company has taken this idea and turned it into a diet aid. Just dye your rice blue! Then you won't eat too much!



I don't think that this will be viable in the long term, because the reason it works as a prank is that nobody is used to blue food. If you see it every day, then you will be used to it, and it will slowly become palatable.

The next level will be to get the struggling petrol industry involved. Just pour gasoline over your rice! Then you won't eat too much!

Victorian era brewery

This is the Hook Norton Brewery:


It's even cooler looking in person.

The date on the side of the wall is 1896. I imagine that the water to make the beer is pumped to the top of this amazingly cool building, and as the process goes on, the wort is drained to successively lower tanks. I don't know for sure, because while there are tours, there were no tours going on when we showed up.

Just up the street was an equally nice pub where we had the opportunity to have some of the beer from the brewery. So it all sort of worked out in the end.

Lost Horizon ... of food!

Here is a scan of the menu from a very good Nepalese Restaurant that we went to. I include it for multiple reasons:

1) It gives the information about the restaurant better than I can (although their website seems to be down).

2) The interesting writing on the side there. We didn't write it. That's how it was in the takeaway menu rack. Prank, recruitment, or absent-minded musing on the need for a change in life or its possibilities. I was not going to ask.

All the waiters carried gurkha knives. I didn't want to upset them.

The food, meanwhile, was wonderful. It was our first time having Nepalese, which turns out to be roughly 75% Indian and 25% Chinese stylistically.

We were also delighted at the opportunity to try a Nepalese beer, until a closer look at the bottle revealed that it was brewed in Manchester.