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February 20, 2014

The Face of Crystal Head Vodka

Filed under: Bar,Playing with food,Vodka,WTF? — raincoaster @ 4:56 am

Well, this is legitimately insane.

Crystal Head vodka, Dan Ackroyd’s side venture, is packaged in a, yes, crystal skull, meant to reference the mysterious crystal skulls of Mesoamerica. Now a very bored forensic sculptor has taken one of the decanters and reconstructed the face of the human behind it. Sure. Why not? It’s vodka; you’re supposed to go a little crazy, right?

The company says, “Forensic artist Nigel from Scotland shared these incredible images with us. Check it out how he’s using his empty CHV bottles!”

Crystal Skull 1

Crystal Skull 1

Crystal Skull 2 Crystal Skull 3 Crystal Skull 4

Crystal Skull 5

Crystal Skull 5

Crystal Skull 6

That dude is wasted. So would you be, if you had a head full of vodka. We can all drink to that, in these sassy Doom Crystal Skull Head Vodka Shot Glasses.

But wait, I think I recognize him!

December 7, 2013

Best of the Holiday Spirits to You!

Filed under: Beer,Bourbon,Cocktails,Emetic,Food Porn,Gin,Rum,Spirits,Vodka,Wine — raincoaster @ 1:37 am
GPOY, as the kids say

GPOY, as the kids say

This really is a gift: the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. I should start a Tumblr dedicated to this rarefied art form: the inspirational fitness quote, overlaid on a photograph of someone determinedly working their way through a bender.

Originally stolen from TheChive.

June 3, 2012

Alcoholism: the sad truth

Filed under: Accoutrements,Foodies,Spirits,Vodka,Wine — raincoaster @ 2:32 am
vodka vs wine

vodka vs wine

Just something to keep in mind as you build your Wine Cellar/Boozeteria.

May 18, 2012

Vodka vs Vodka vs Vodka

Filed under: Bar,Cocktails,Spirits,Taste Test,Uncategorized,Vodka — raincoaster @ 3:54 am

It's crystal clear, my dear Watson

Well, we had a half an hour of really amusing video (funny that, a vodka tasting and giddy video) but the tech gods decreed it was too powerful for this world and thus, erased it from our videorecorder (it had NOTHING to do with our own intake of vodka, we swear).

Undaunted, we are prepared to report on the blind taste test between the Polish potato vodka Luksusowa, and the Canadian vodkas Iceberg and the significantly more expensive Crystal Skull, repped by Canadian Celebrity (that’s not a misnomer!) Dan Akroyd.

The clear winner: Luksusowa. And not just because I had to pry it out of my unnamed friend’s hands at the end of the evening.

The rumour has always been that Iceberg vodka, which is inexpensive, is the same exact elixir as Crystal Skull vodka, which is the opposite.

This, my friends, is not the case.

What is the case, according to a taste test at Eat Drink Tweet, a wine and food social media conference?

Iceberg is better than Crystal Skull. So save yourself about $40 a bottle and get the cheap stuff.

The crowd favorite, however (and here I wish the video had come through, for it is PRICELESS) is Luksusowa. After the first round of tasting, in fact, people changed their seats to be closer to this Polish potato elixir, although it must be said, only people of Eastern European extraction.

iceberg vodka

iceberg vodka

Luksusowa is softer in the mouthfeel than any grain-based vodka, and the rep (who, full disclosure, sent me the bottle for tasting; I paid for the others) explained that potato vodkas are more expensive to produce than grain vodkas, but that the more complex carbohydrates, otherwise known as starches, are what account for the smoothness and roundness. You could mix this, and it would make any drink better. But for me, if I were to do shots of vodka in the traditional manner, this would be my choice. Yes, it’s strong, but my god, it’s silky too.

Iceberg, as I have mentioned in the past, is my favorite mixer vodka. It’s an excellent meeting of quality and price. In the blind tasting, every tester (and we are talking about people in the business of tasting, wine producers and retailers) guessed that this was the more expensive vodka. The reason was, its smoothness and its flavourlessness.

Crystal Skull vodka, however, is not without its adherents. Retailer Rod Phillips explained that it’s a top seller around Halloween, when the company comes out with an extra-large decanter. Frat boys and their decorators apparently favour the 1.5 liter size, something Phillips described as “an expensive candle holder.” Still, awesome.

The tasting notes on Crystal Skull are somewhat less complimentary. Uniformly, the testers described it as either medicinal or antiseptic. This reflects, Phillips says, the split in vodka schools between the flavoured and the “stripped of flavour” super-filtered varieties.

The victor of the taste test was Luksukowa, with Iceberg pushing second, and the most expensive entry coming in a distant third, with not one vote. Oddly the next day there were no leftovers of the first two for sober comparison and contrasting.

Luksukowa

Luksukowa

March 24, 2012

Lego Ice Cubes!

Filed under: Accoutrements,Cocktails,Gin,Vodka — raincoaster @ 4:53 pm
Lego Ice Cubes

Lego Ice Cubes

Sumer is icumen in indeed, and it will be much more enjoyable once I have these geek chic Lego-Inspired Ice Bricks Tray. Wintery drinks are anything but whimsical, while summer is just the time for something light, pretty, and a little bit more ridiculous than anything you’d allow yourself to enjoy during the dark months. Think of summer drinks as the Britney Spears to your usual Cure cocktail.

[GOD I’M OLD]

Here’s a simple, pretty, easy drink that I have never known anyone to turn down: the Gimlet. It’s still a classic, and will still empower you to look down your nose at all the vodka tonic drinkers; vodka tonic is just another way of saying “I like to get drunk, but I don’t like to drink.” If you like the taste of tonic water (and we do, God knows, love the taste of tonic water) then drink tonic water and shut up about it. Save sixty calories a pop, minimum.

Where was I? Right, Gimlet. You can do these with Rose’s Lime Cordial and we won’t make you sit in the corner, but they’re better with fresh limes. Fresh limes that must be juiced for every drink have a way of telling you when you’ve had enough, too, which is a quality to be prized.

2 oz gin, preferably Plymouth or Bulldog. Something balanced or slightly on the vegetal side. Tanqueray would work. Beefeater would work. Bombay and Hendrick’s are too floral#

1/2 oz fresh lime juice*

1/4 oz simple syrup. You won’t be able to use sugar for this, even if you shake it*

#can be replaced with vodka. It’s vodka, it doesn’t matter what kind as long as it isn’t flavoured and isn’t so bad it takes the roof of your mouth off. Iceberg is what I use for blended drinks. If you use rum, this is a Daiquiri. Put the blender DOWN!

*can be replaced with 1/2 to 1/3 oz Rose’s

Put them all in a shaker filled with ice and shake it. Strain into cocktail glass. If you’re sitting in direct sunlight, it is permissible to leave the ice cubes in, and even top with soda. Garnishing a drink this colour is overkill, but if you must, you can add lime. I like a thin wheel floating on the surface.

Do not use the 4 oz or “stick it in a freezer overnight” recipes from Wikipedia. They are abominations. If you need a drink with 4 oz of alcohol in it, you need a defibrilator. Either it’ll get warm before you finish it or you will fall off your barstool, and then we will laugh at you.

October 13, 2011

Goldfish

Filed under: Canadian Food,Fish,Food Porn,Restaurant Reviews,Restaurants,Vodka — raincoaster @ 10:30 am
A plethora of BC bounty

A plethora of BC bounty

And that, my friends, is how I like to start a meal: with a half-dozen exquisite bivalves, a Martini, and a good friend (neither of which latter you can see because well, good Martinis are invisible and so are good friends until you need them).

The Martini, in this case, was Elyx vodka, which my pal Jay Jonestells me is the premium offering from Absolut. Normally, of course, one is all about the gin, but one is curious and from time to time one likes to give vodka a chance. Normally, it’s the booze of choice for those who like to get drunk but don’t like to drink, a key ingredient in Cougartinis, a prerequisite to being featured on DouchebagsLoveGreyGoose.com , and normally I avoid it like the plague. See how tense the thought of such things makes me? I transubstantiated my tenses and persons! One is distraught!

But the Blue Elyx Martini was everything a proper vodka Martini should be: as cold as my ex’s heart, as clear as Fate, as bracing as a letter from the bank. Occasionally one runs across a vodka that actually deserves the adjective “smooth” and Elyx is one of those rare distillates, it was positively Bond Villain-smooth, while at the same time it possessed enough body to assert itself in the company of the two plump, gorgonzola-stuffed olives that lolled wantonly within.

But I was talking about oysters, wasn’t I?

One was.

The Kusshi oysters were the smallest of the lot, only about the size of Manila clams which, for someone from Vancouver, was a bit of culture shock on a plate, ours tending more towards the size and texture of a catcher’s mitt. These were delicate of taste and texture, mild like a sea breeze with a slight, lemony sweetness. Best naked.

One senses a theme. Why yes, it has been a long time since I’ve eaten an oyster…and you?

The moderately-sized Joe’s Gold were creamy and rich, and lemon juice was a good foil for those, if you’re an oyster-foiling sort of person.

The Sawmill Bay beach oysters were BC-sized (and you thought everything was bigger in Texas) and honestly unsubtle of flavour. Horseradish time, methinks. Meaty of texture, slightly liverish of taste, these are the kinds of oysters that put my old roommate off oysters: big enough that she could identify the component parts as they slid down her gullet, having deconstructed many a bivalve in high school biology class. Thank GOD in Ontario we dissected fetal pigs; I don’t run across a lotta fetal pigs in the food-and-bevvie-blogging bizness. In any case, they were delicious, briny, and assertive.

I could live off Martinis and oysters, but you’d get pretty bored with the blog, if I even remained sober enough to type it all up, so there was more, much more:

 

Goldfish Salmon Pastrami

Goldfish Salmon Pastrami

At a restaurant called Goldfish, I think I could be forgiven for sticking with fish all the way through, and so it came to pass that I ordered the Vodka-Cured (was it sick in the first place?) Salmon Pastrami for an appetizer. Or would that be the fish course? In any case, it came after the Martini-and-Oyster course which I always think of as the Monte Carlo Casino With James Bond on Your Arm course. As do all right-thinking people. Having been deprived of our fine Pacific salmon for several months, and fed insipid, pinkish farmed Atlantic fish, I was happy to see that these thickish slices of Sockeye were as sinisterly red as stigmata. As I’m not a mystic, I have to drop the metaphor there; if any of you know how stigmata taste, drop me a line in the comments; there’s bound to be plenty of interest in that sort of thing, at least in certain circles.

Salmon pastrami. We were talking about salmon pastrami. And it was good. I didn’t know quite what to expect of pastramized salmon, but it was to regular smoked salmon as bacon is to regular slow-cooked pork, assertive but neither over-salted nor over-smoked. The peppery arugula salad was a great counterpoint, with a vinaigrette sharp enough to set off the fatty salmon, a sprinkling of fried potato shards for crunch, and some creme fraiche for richness.

 

Goldfish Scallops; objects in the blog may be larger than they appear

Goldfish Scallops; objects in the blog may be larger than they appear

Objects in the blog may be huger than they appear. These East Coast scallops (I love it when the manager says “they’re from the East Coast. I KNOW! The East! But they’re actually quite good”) were massive, each almost the size of the palm of my hand, but there was not the slightest bit of toughness in them. They were perfectly prepared and that’s not easy with seafood this thick. Those brown nuggets in the foreground are delicious nubbins of bacon. Yes, yes, bacon has been done to death, but scallops can use the boost in flavour, and this particular bacon was marvelously understated, letting the taste of the meat dominate and bringing a richness and depth to the whole dish that the scallops alone would have lacked. It was served with roasted fingerling potatos, roasted asparagus, and roasted cherry tomatoes, which is the ONLY way to go with cherry tomatoes if you ask me; they’re the Dim Beauty Queens of the vegetable world, but roasting brought out the sweetness and flavours that are usually hidden behind underripe, frosty cuteness. Where was I?

Oh yes, about to rhapsodize about the wine which Jeff recommended for this dish: a white Bordeaux, Château Bauduc 2009 sauvignon blanc/semillon, which is hilarious because my cousin married a Bolduc, although if she gets a discount on this delightful beverage she’s been holding out on me all this time. It’s a buttery, full-bodied wine with moderate oakiness, and went well with both the creamy scallops and the bacon, which is quite a feat if you ask me.

I also had a glass of the Joie, and you’re lucky I can still read my notes from this point on. Joie is one of my favorite wineries, their rose is one of my favorite wines, and some day I will tell you one of my favorite wine stories which has to do with Joie but that’s not today. Today we must put such fripperies aside, as we have one more course to go at the Goldfish Saga. The things I do for you people.

Dessert. Pudding. Afters. Whatever you call it, I haven’t seen much of it since I moved out of my mother’s house at the age of 17. Single women just do not make dessert if they’re not expecting:

a) to seduce someone

or

b) to have to bring it to a party

and let’s just say it’s been a long time since I’ve brought anything but potato salad to a party. Which explains my love life, but there, I’ve said too much already…

 

Goldfish Strawberry Panna Cotta

Goldfish Strawberry Panna Cotta

We were talking, or were about to talk, about the Strawberry Panna Cotta on a peanut butter shortbread. Honestly, do you give it ALL ALL CAPITALS or do you recognize the subjugate nature of the shortbread, as a substrate upon which the actual, starred player rests, and lowercase it? I don’t know from capitalization; I’m not German. In any case, howsoever, and whatevs, it was delicious. There was a swirl of balsamic reduction, which catalyzed the volatile elements in the strawberries (and how you dice strawberries that fine, I do not know. Perhaps there is an army of miniature Japanese strawberry-dicing robots somewhere under the counter) and caused the fresh scent to rise, as if we were walking through a strawberry field on a sunny morning. Now, two courses in a row where the main players were round and creamy is perhaps one too many, but je ne regrette rien. Nosiree, je ne regrette strawberry panna cotta pas du tout, no way. The shortbread was beautifully done, although the peanut butter was more theoretical than it should have been. I mean, it was probably safe for the allergic.

And now in my notes I see that I have a recipe for another cocktail . Funny, don’t recall that one…but it does sound lovely. Here it is:

Kiss from a Rose

1 oz Giffard Rose Syrup

1 oz lime juice

1 oz Hendrick’s gin (and no other)

Peach Bitters

Mix and pour over ice.

Hendrick’s, of course, is made with roses as an ingredient, and I’ve always wanted to experiment with rose water and Hendrick’s. This cocktail is sweetish, but not as sweet as a tiki drink, lightly pink, and rather girly. In fact, it goes down dangerously quickly if you don’t remind yourself it’s a third gin, which explains why this is only coming back to me now. All in all, a beverage suitable for my lifelong dream job, White Rahnee of Sarawak. I’ll sip it on the terrace while giving orders to my Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Meantime, you can sip it at Goldfish in Yaletown, and you can read my good friend Heather’s report of the same meal at Blackbook once it’s up.

The things I do for you people.

October 7, 2011

Whip it … whip it bad?

Filed under: American Food,Emetic,Uncategorized,Vodka — raincoaster @ 11:15 pm
Whipped Cream Vodka

Whipped Cream Vodka

Via Wayne Racine:

Is there a NFTW tag? If so this deserves it. Imitation whipped cream flavoured vodka. No thank-you!http://instagr.am/p/PbuH8/

I guess this is useful for when you’re all out of Malibu and you have exactly a half-hour to get drunk and pass out before your parents get home.

June 25, 2011

Sunday Food Porn: Tequila Party Edition

Filed under: Bar,China,Cocktails,English food,Food Porn,raincoaster,Tea,Tequila,Vodka — raincoaster @ 8:54 pm
Cheers!

Cheers!

What can I say? It’s been one of those weeks.

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