CTN: Restorative for holiday over-indulgence

Warren Bobrow, prolific cocktail writer,gives us a soothin: elixir for our days of over-indulgence: more of the same.

From his excellent book,http://www.amazon.com/Whiskey-Cocktails-Rediscovered-Classics-Contemporary/dp/1592336396/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

The Jenks Farm Restorative by Warren Bobrow
6 ounces (175 ml) white whiskey
8 ounces (235 ml) heavy cream
6 ounces (175 ml) whole milk
4 ounces (120 ml) Basic Simple Syrup mixed with 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract, or to taste
6 ounces (175 ml) old black coffee (yesterday morning’s coffee is fine), chilled
Freshly scraped nutmeg

And don't forget the fresh nutmeg!!!! (no old dried-out powder from the back recesses of your spice cabinet either)

That sounds like a tasty morning drink even if you're not in the midst of a hangover.

Hoke, for your next CTN -- I dare you!

From The New York Times:

Iceland’s whiskey boom began in 2009 when the brothers Egill and Haraldur Thorkelsson founded the Eimverk Distillery in Lyngas, just outside Reykjavik, but they only started selling commercially in 2014. ... Their Floki Whisky has a deep honey finish partly from using locally grown organic barley with low starch due to the northern climate. In 2016, they’re releasing a Sheep Dung Smoked Reserve.

“In Iceland, we traditionally smoke meat and salmon with sheep dung rather than wood or peat, like Scotland,” said the distillery’s chief executive, Haraldur Thorkelsson. “We don’t have much forest in Iceland, and peat has a negative environmental impact. But sheep dung we have plenty of.”

Hoke, for your next CTN -- I dare you!

From The New York Times:

Iceland’s whiskey boom began in 2009 when the brothers Egill and Haraldur Thorkelsson founded the Eimverk Distillery in Lyngas, just outside Reykjavik, but they only started selling commercially in 2014. ... Their Floki Whisky has a deep honey finish partly from using locally grown organic barley with low starch due to the northern climate. In 2016, they’re releasing a Sheep Dung Smoked Reserve.

“In Iceland, we traditionally smoke meat and salmon with sheep dung rather than wood or peat, like Scotland,” said the distillery’s chief executive, Haraldur Thorkelsson. “We don’t have much forest in Iceland, and peat has a negative environmental impact. But sheep dung we have plenty of.”

I'd at least be willing to try it, but I don't think it is likely to catch on here in the U.S. .. although hipsters might be fascinated by it.

Can't be worse than heavy peat smoke, can it?

Actually, I have had food cooked over dried dung. I had read historical references to nomads using dried horse/bison/cattle dung on plains and steppes, so I tried it with some thoroughly dessicated cow patties. No big thing, really.

Gotta keep in mind, when I led organic/biodynamic winery tours I would take the group over to huge piles of compost mixe with dried manure, plunge my arm down to my elbow and pass around some dry, warm, powdery compost about to go back in the vineyard. (Hint: there's no appreciable odor. Although I was careful to wash my hands and arms thoroughly before lunch.)

Good point. If the grapes for wine or the grains for spirits -- or for that matter the fruits and vegetables we eat -- are grown in manure, how bad can the smoke be? Of course, so long as it no longer retains the original odors. On the other hand, I like beer fermented with brett (not so much in wine...) and I love Islay peat, especially Laphroaig, so perhaps this would be appealing after all. And it certainly is better for the environment. Must visit Iceland someday.

Good point. If the grapes for wine or the grains for spirits -- or for that matter the fruits and vegetables we eat -- are grown in manure, how bad can the smoke be? Of course, so long as it no longer retains the original odors. On the other hand, I like beer fermented with brett (not so much in wine...) and I love Islay peat, especially Laphroaig, so perhaps this would be appealing after all. And it certainly is better for the environment. Must visit Iceland someday.

Iceland has always fascinated me...but I guess not enough to go there, because I've never been. Lot of friends have gone, and most love it.

As beautiful---and stark and strange---as it is, Iceland also has some very particular quirks. The people drink heavily there. As in drinking to get drunk, not wine tippling or cocktailing. And I heard it has one of the highest suicide rates in the world (although that may be due to the far northern sun-deprived climate.)

And that dung-smoked booze? MIght be the perfect companion to lutefisk!

that dung-smoked booze? MIght be the perfect companion to lutefisk!

Brilliant!

As to dung and smell----

there really is little to no smell to fully composted waste that has been dried over a long period.

The composting itself is biological fermentation. You go to a compost pile while it's in the early stages and plunge your hand in and you'll find it is very hot because of the bio action. Compost piles (and sawdust piles for that matter) can often combust. But a bio compost pile in a vineyard might take three years to fully ferment, marinate and dry out...and that's when the dessicated cow manure is mixed in.

[Apropos of absolutely nothing: it took me a long time (I'm slow) to absorb and figure out the correlation of heat/biology/bacteriology/ and the laws of energy. When I finally did, it blew me away. Talk about an epiphany! The whole transmogrification (in alchemic concept) of one thing to another through the application of heat, along with the heat production through the chemical and physical changes of objects, as it related to yeast fermentation and bacterial action, even to things like the body going into fevers, was such a revelation to me. Beer, wine, sake, hydrolysis, enzymes, yeast fermentation, cheese, all that stuff. I mean, you chew on a piece of baguette and a chunk of Emmentaler with a sip of wine, and you seldom stop and think about the miraculous magical physical processes that transformed them into what they have become.

Circle of life and all that stuff too. You harvest grapes, mush them up, transform them into wine through biological action, drink the wine, save the leftover biological mass, put it through a composting fermentation, and put it back in the soil. Meanwhile,you can take waste products (from us or animals) process and compost that, and put it back into the cycle as well. And most of us don't ever stop to think about this or how cosmically wonderful it all is. Right? Plus, we are stardust. And no, I'm not smoking or otherwise ingesting any now-legal in the state of Oregon biological substances.)

You go to a compost pile while it's in the early stages and plunge your hand in and you'll find it is very hot because of the bio action. Compost piles (and sawdust piles for that matter) can often combust.

Hoke, grain silos have been known to burn down too.

most of us don't ever stop to think about this or how cosmically wonderful it all is. Right? Plus, we are stardust.

Right indeed. Thank you for making me stop and think. Beautifully written.

most of us don't ever stop to think about this or how cosmically wonderful it all is. Right? Plus, we are stardust.

Right indeed. Thank you for making me stop and think. Beautifully written.

More babbling than beautiful, I think. But thanks for the kind words.

Nicely done! The Laws of Nature (Conservation of both Matter and Energy) fully described in a wine related theme.

Salute