The Most Ridiculous Man in the World

No cows were harmed during the production of this blog. Only afterwards.
 

I've been laughing for two days now, and I thought I'd share the joke with you. 

Last night I did an LE 2012 tasting event for my friend Jason at Keystone Homebrew. We had a great time, sharing wine and great food and talking about the regions, answering winemaking questions and generally hanging out with a bunch of great folks. 

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Put a Little Sparkle In Your Life

I only drink champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory.
I trifle with it if I'm not in a hurry and drink it when I am, otherwise I never touch the stuff unless I am thirsty 
--Madame Lily Bollinger
 

Ahh, glorious Champagne: our companion at celebrations and important events, it christens our ships, welcomes our New Year, and gently helps the caviar and oysters along the path to culinary nirvana. Until recently, Winexpert has had a standard kit for making your own version of this glorious beverage--Selection Speciale Millennium Sparkling Wine--but alas, market forces (read: slow sales) have removed it from our line-up. This is terribly unfortunate: sparkling wine has no peer, and it is precious to me.

Sparkling wine goes with everything, Precious! Cava! Cava!
 

On the other hand, don't despair: you can make it at home if you’ve got a little adventure in your soul and a DIY attitude. But first, a little housekeeping: the word Champagne is protected under French law. Oh, those wacky gendarmes de France and their courts and laws! Since we won’t be using grapes from the Champagne appellation, we’ll be referring to the fizzy stuff as sparkling wine.

And since we’re not constrained by the shackles of French jurisprudence, why not make something really cool? How about a fruit-and-wine combination of deliciousness and fizzy happymaking? Chardonnay est passé: Vive le Viognier! Ever wanted a bottle of red sparkler to go with that meatloaf-cake you’ve been itching to make? Now’s the time!

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Critical Drinking

Better living through chemistry. And, in this case, grave-robbery. 
 

Every year for the Limited Edition tastings I try to switch things up a bit, to keep it fresh, and for LE 2012 I tried a completely new tack: teaching people how to taste wine. 

Ha, I hear you say, 'Tim, I've been tasting wine for years: put it into your mouth and vi-ola! The taste is there! Quit wasting my time with your science-y foolishnesses!' And you know, you're not wrong. Sometimes as wine educators we get all wrapped up in the minutiae of this delicate aroma or that subtle flavour, until before you know it we're yapping about 'a hint of May blossoms carried on a layer of spice and apricot with subtle hints of boot polish and mild regret, to a long shallow finish of duck pond and figs'. 

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Drinking Topologically

Yes, it's impossible. Yes, it's real.
 

Searching for the perfect holiday gift for the topologist/mathematician/demented genius in your life? Or are you just irritated by boundaryless compact 2-manifold homeomorphs? Then have I got a solution for you! Courtesy of Bathsheba sculpture, I give you the Klein Bottle opener. 

Eine Kleine Bottle Opener
 

A 3D printed sculpture, it really works. According to the (delightful) ad copy on the site: 

The problem of beer That it is within a 'bottle', i.e. a boundaryless compact 2-manifold homeomorphic to the sphere. Since beer bottles are not (usually) pathological or "wild" spheres, but smooth manifolds, they separate 3-space into two non-communicating regions: inside, containing beer, and outside, containing you. This state must not remain.

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Good Food, Good Meat, Good Wine, Let's Eat!

 
More flame means more flavour! 
 

One of the fun things about our Limited Edition program is the food pairings that go with the wines, and LE 2012 has some outstanding combos. Every year we produce a recipe book that has complete instructions on how to make our favorites, and this year as an added bonus, we've had them made into mini cooking-show type segments. I've organised them here, so you can see how to prepare them and what each finished dish will look like. Yummy!

 

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Doings, Goings, To and Fro-ings

 

Is it just me, or does it look like that city just sneezed out a bunch of jet planes?
 

It’s been a long time since my last update. I’m starting to think this should be my standard blog header ‘Tim Seldom Blogs’. Ah, well, it’s a busy life and I do try to keep folks updated on my Facebook and Twitter feed.

I’ve been doing my Limited Edition wine tasting events for LE 2012, which amounts to about ten weeks of travel between the last week of September and the middle of December. Even at this schedule I’m still not getting out to see everybody who wants to come to an event. Luckily for me I’ve got a trove of capable and engaging surrogates who conduct the food and wine tastings and pairings for me in places that I can’t get to in my busy travels.

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Remember, Remember, to Vote This November

Aside from being Guy Fawkes day, it's the night before America goes to the polls to determine the next four years of Presidential leadership. The time has come to put down bullhorns and the signs and pick up pens (or however they do it in your county) and mark your ballots. 

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Facing You Naked--For a Good Cause

Today I'd like to speak to you from the bottom of my heart. Well, from the bottom of something anyway: I'd like to talk about your prostate. 

Now, you may say, 'Tim, I'm a woman, and I do not have one. What could we possibly discuss?' And that's a fair comment. But while you may not have one of your own, somebody you know, and quite possibly somebody you love has one. And as a society we need to talk about them. If you or the men in your life are like my family, discussing one's plumbing or even acknowledging it was never The Done Thing.

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