I wasn’t planning on beginning this post for a pie recipe with anything other than a story about how much I liked it, encouraging you to make it. (Which I’ll get to later.) But after I had started writing it, several neighborhoods in Paris came under attack, including mine, and I put everything on hold. Cafés and restaurants that I knew, and areas that I frequent, were…
This weekend, I think I just made my twentieth, and last, visit of the year to La Maison du Whisky. For the life of me, I have no idea what prompted me to go to a liquor store the Saturday before Christmas. Well, actually I do. I was preparing to refill one of my empty cocktail aging barrels and the next cocktail on the docket…
I was scrolling through Twitter recently and one of the folks that I follow mentioned “Strawberry Vodka.” Normally fruit-flavored vodka wouldn’t interest me, I was happy to hear about a simple recipe and technique from Sean Timberlake of Punk Domestics, and since it was strawberry season and my market was bursting with fresh berries, I decided to give it a go. I made it myself…
Cocktail culture has landed in Paris. It took a while, though. France has always been known for its wine and beer, rather than Torontos, Cosmopolitans, and Martinis. And many of us have memories of trying to explain to a very confused café waiter how to make a martini, when they want to serve you a glass of Martini & Rossi (vermouth).
Maybe we shouldn’t count out le Kir quite yet. (# 2). Although I’ll take a pass on one spiked with violet, or à la rose.
For someone who used to not drink that much, I seem to have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. I guess I should rephrase that. For someone who drinks a lot of wine, but not a lot of liquor, I sure have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. Is that clear? Americans may be known for our cocktails, but in France,…
How does Cognac get to this… …from this? I didn’t know, but I was determined to taste as many glasses as I could to find out. The first thing I was asked before heading down into my first Cognac cellar during my recent visit was, “Are you afraid of spiders?”
Earlier this week, I woke up in a small town, smelling of something. It wasn’t anything bad. In fact, it was pretty good: sweet, caramel-like, and roasted, with a vague, but lingering aftermath of alcohol following it. It wasn’t something I was used to, but I’d tasted so many Cognacs this week in the town of Cognac, that it was literally wafting out my pores….
I recently stayed with some friends who have a house in the Lot, a lesser-visited area of France which is really beautiful. It lacks beaches, which seems to be the only thing keeping it from being an ideal summer vacation spot for tourists. Consequently, I was able to score some gorgeous old bistro wine glasses at a local flea market, which would’ve been ten times…
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