Tiki Cocktail Continued

There was a new addition to our garden of citrus trees this year.
It was a little lime tree.
JC made quick Daiquiri with a lime from this newly planted Lime tree.

It tasted very LIME!
This tree is young and I don't have a green thumb, but this lime's flavor was really concentrated.
The freshness makes a real big difference.

JC is still in Tiki craze, so he made another cocktail.
This cocktail was his own creation.

According to his explanation, the Orange garnish was supposed to be a snake...
Well, he tried.

Unexpected pairing

Tasting of two wines. One white and one red.

Domaine d'Aupilhac Les Cocalieres 2014 is a white wine from Languedoc, France.
Blend of Roussanne, Vermentino, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc.
Relatively high acid with stone fruit. Easy to drink.

Bisceglia Gudarra Aglianico del Vulture 2009 is a red wine from Basilicata, Italy.
Grape is 100% Aglianico.
It had violet and dark fruits, but oak was a little too dominant for me.
Too much coffee and wood flavor tasted almost bitter (next day, the tannin became more integrated and felt much smoother).

After the tasting, it was dinner time.
Goya Champuru (Stir-fried Bitter Melon and Pork) is a local cuisine of Okinawa, the southern islands of Japan.
In this dish, Tofu plays the background for the perfect combination of the bitterness from Bitter Melon and the sweetness of Pork. Delicious!

We had this with the white wine.
The Bitter Melon made the wine taste bitter, but the pork helped this pairing work well.

We tried with the red wine too and they tasted really bitter together.
Then, just for fun, we had Vinegar marinated Cucumber with the red wine. I was ready for the extreme bitterness, but, surprisingly, the bitterness in the red wine was gone and the wine became so smooth!
I thought that the vinegar flavor was the nemesis for wines in most of the cases. Or, was it cucumber, not the vinegar flavor, which made them taste great? I don't know. Only thing I know was that this unexpected combination was the best pairing of the night.
And Aglianico is the wine which tends to give me positive surprises as a result of "just for fun" trial.

Vouvray for Hoikoro

Hoikoro (twice cooked pork) is a Chinese dish.
Stir-Fried Pork and Vegetables with Spicy Sauce (real recipe is of course more complicated).
When I cook this, I probably use less oil and chili peppers than I'm supposed to do, but it still tastes good.

I asked JC to get a bottle of wine which would go good with Hoikoro and be under $20.

He brought back this: Benoit Gautier Vouvray 2011
Chenin Blanc from Loire, France.
It had ripe yellow apple, honey and honeysuckle.
Some tropical fruits, too.
It was sweet like honeyed apple, but not as sweet as Demi-Sec.

It's hard to assess the degree of acid in sweet wine.
At first I thought it was low, but actually had good amount of acid.

This wine was perfect for my version of Hoikoro, but should be good with more spicy original Hoikoro, too.

It also was a good wine to drink by itself, so I wanted to save some for the next day, but we couldn't stop drinking until we finished the bottle.

Tasting at Jardiniere

There was a tasting at French restaurant Jardiniere, San Francisco.

This tasting was mostly for French and Italian wines.

Here's some of the wines I liked.

Giovanni Rosso, Barolo DOCG.
I liked them all, especially La Serra 2011.
It had aromas of potpourri, cherry, and a bouquet of red and pink flowers.
Cerretta 2012 had herbaceous quality.
Serralunga d'Alba 2012 was smoky, like BBQ. 

Castello di Ama 
Vigneto Bellavista Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2011 had thin tannin and mushroom aroma.
Vibneto La Casuccia Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2011 was spicy and floral.
Their Rosato was good, too. It tasted great with charcuterie. 


Domaine Dugat-Py and Bernard Dugat-Py from Burgundy.

They are basically the same and there is no such a thing that which is better than which.
Gevrey-Chambertin 2013. 
Coeur de Roy was earthy, mushroom, black cherry.
Vieilles Vignes was more spicy. They both had strong tannin.
Fruits were concentrated due to low yields.

Jean-Baptiste Adam is from Alsace.

Riesling Kaefferkopf Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru 2013 was like sour orange wrapped in soft candy.
Gewurztraminer Kaefferkopf Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru 2013 had bitterness of orange peel and freshness of, say, tofu from right out of a steamer.  

Saint-Cry from Beaujolais.
Chenas was earthy and had ripe or cooked fruit character.
Morgon was raspberry, herbaceous, medicinal.
Moulin-a-Vent had cheese and animal character.
Gamay is not necessarily my favorite varietal, but I loved them all! I enjoy these encounters which give me unexpected, happy surprise.
I just regret that they deserve a clear picture...

There were some wines from new world, too.
Snowden is from California.
They brought a Cabernet Sauvignon 1998.
It was powerful but not harsh, had decency.

At a tasting like this, I can't get to try everything and that of course makes me sad. 
On the other hand, the idea that there are so many great wines to explore out there makes me happy.

Rum Tasting

JC's been into Tiki cocktails. He buys tons of fruits, peels the skin for garnish, squeezes fresh fruit juice, and displays the panoply of different kinds of rums.

I think it's always good to have something you can be passionate about: life is a collection of moments and these feelings of passion or enthusiasm make each moment shine. 
The problem is that when he gets excited with something, he tends to involve passerby, which is usually me.
Now he challenges me with rum tasting.

First one was this: Hamilton  Jamaican Pot Still Gold Rum
This had clean, pale color and pronounced aroma of over-ripe banana.
The banana aroma was so strong that it was like I had blackened, soft banana in front of me.
On the palate, over-ripe banana had some greenness. It tasted more like plantain. It also had some coffee character.
The aroma was really strong and it stayed with me for the rest of the day.
JC said this was love or hate smell.
He loves it. 
Me? I found the aroma quite interesting, but it was too overwhelming to be in love with.

Next challenge was El Dorado 15 Year Old Special Reserve Demerara Rum
This had the aroma of banana, too, but it was more like processed banana such as banana cream or banana pudding.
There were also characteristics of caramel and toffee.
Texture felt so smooth.

JC had been saving this Rum for a special occasion.
And he decided that his Tiki craze deserved special occasion status.   

I'm not a spirits drinker, but becoming to like Rum.
In case if you started to get hooked on Rum like me, Edward Hamilton's  Ministry of Rum is fun and informative.

Pairing Challenge!

Blind tasting challenge for JC:
Monte Tondo Soave DOC Classico 2014 
Duca Sanfelice Ciro DOC Rosso Classico Superiore Reserva 2011

Soave is a white wine from northern Italy.
This one has 100% Garganega.
It has Honeysuckle, Candied Citrus, and slight bitterness of Almond skin. It feels soft than sharp. 
This is very friendly wine, palate-wise and price-wise.

Ciro DOC is a red wine from Calabria, Italy. 100% Gaglioppo.
I tried this wine at the Southern Italy tasting last week and liked it.
Floral aromas of violet and rose, cherry, coffee, and meat-like savoriness.

JC got both of them wrong. Long way to go.

Ciro has tannin and meatiness. To pair with this wine, we had Oven Roasted Lamb and Chicken for dinner.
Chicken and the wine wasn't a good pairing. Soave was better with chicken.
Surprisingly, lamb and Ciro weren't a very good pairing either. It wasn't bad, but I was expecting a great pairing.

We saved the wine for the next day and tried again, this time with Beef Sauce Pasta. The wine's tannin should have gone good with the fat in the beef sauce, but it didn't. They tasted bitter together.
The wine was really good with cheese, but I thought this would be a great food wine which would work perfectly well with salty, fatty meat dishes. 
Then JC came up with an idea. He opened a canned Sardine. 
Bingo!
Ciro works better with the savoriness of fish than that of meat.
Well, Calabria is the tow of the boots. People there must eat a lot of seafood. We should have known.
  

Tiki Cocktails

I still don't know if it was a good idea...I gave JC a cocktail recipe book "Smuggler's Cove Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and The Cult of Tiki" as a wedding anniversary gift.
Since then he's been totally into Tiki cocktails and seemed like he forgot about everything else. 

I agree that Smuggler's Cove's cocktails are excellent: amusement, sophistication, strength, all in one, so although I think he's a little too fanatic, I still enjoy the outcome.

Jungle Bird is the first cocktail he made from this book.
This is originally from Kuala Lumpur Hilton.
Ingredients are pineapple juice, lime juice, Demerara syrup, Campari, Rum.
There is good balance of sweetness and sharp refreshingness.

By the way, there are recipes for house-made syrup in this book, too.

Next is Planter's Punch. 
Lime juice, Demerara syrup, Allspice Dram, rum, Angostura Bitters.
Although it was used just a little bit, allspice gives the cocktail its own characteristics.
Good cocktail, but I encourage JC to work on its visual.

This book also tells you about the history of Tiki, description of ingredients, or origin of each cocktail.
This is not just a recipe book.



Hurricane is my favorite cocktail from this book so far.

There are only three ingredients in this cocktail: lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, and rum.
It's very simple yet deep.
This cocktail has decent sweetness and strong backbone, and even after the crushed ice was melted, it didn't taste diluted. Excellent cocktail.

JC also made Mai Tai. It was good, but he wasn't satisfied so he will try again. I look forward to seeing how he will fix and how different it will taste. 
Well, I'm becoming a little fanatic about Tiki cocktails, too, I guess.