Because once you’ve slain vanilla extract, the world is your essence. Or extract. Because you can pop any old thing in vodka and in its colourless, tasteless way, it’ll absorb colours and flavours and scents. Because, when in doubt, pickle it. Or liqueur it. And because it’s worked so well with coconut, mango and dare...
If you were born in 19 whatever, you mightn’t have the foggiest idea about Green Sands Shandy. My Lord, it was the height of refreshment. Do you remember it? In its green bottle? It is what we drank when we graduated from Maltina and Chapman. And today and forever, it is the measure of the...
There’s a new drink in town – Orijin and I’m a fan. Orijin…a diminutive of Orijinal, a riff on the word Original. The first time I tried it, there was a steaming bowl of catfish peppersoup set before me at an open-air bush bar type o’ place. We sat on wooden chairs, the moon high...
Coconut and its water, the liquid sloshing around its belly. If you ever buy a coconut and hear no water when you shake, put it down my friend, that mother is no good. I remember when I was young and I wanted to get the water out of the brown, mature coconut. I would find...
I love making (more than drinking) liqueurs 🙂 for the tons of flavour they bring to cocktails – sweet cocktails for a sweet tooth. Since I first made vanilla extract, the idea of going further, not only with seeds has taken root. There are a few principles to this: Read before you make – the internet is full of knowledge. If...
I go through phases where I ponder the meaning of life. What and why we’re here. If human beings are really human. Just how much meanness there is and the like. Then I walk in the door of the Philly Homebrew Outlet on 1447 N American Street, right on the corner with a United States...
…because we have more than Chapman, awesome as it is. We have Zobo, and Tsamiya, Kunnu and more. Isn’t it interesting that most of the drinks I’ve discovered are from the north of Nigeria. That kind of thrills me – most of them are recent discoveries and I’m now thinking of all sorts of combinations. Anyhoo,...
You can do a number of things with both the skin and the flesh, and seeds of the African Star Apple. At the start of my exploration, I didn’t realise how much of the flavour was in and could be extracted from the flesh. The notes below chart my progress with this fruit that can...
As in seriously, trouble not yourself. For if you seek rich and cream, you’ll end up with yuck, the texture of grit and curd. When tamarind syrup meets cream at first, nothing much happens but gravity. I marvel at the gorgeous whirls stirred up just by pouring one drink into another. I get the umbrellas...