"BlackCurrant" news and stories

Starry Night Cooler. Photo: LeNell Smothers.

Alabama-born LeNell Smothers defines herself first and foremost as a bartender, but she's been called many things -- most recently, the proprietress of LeNell's liquor store. She's owned her own whiskey label called Red Hook Rye and been recognized by her home state as an honorary Colonel. Other interests include gin, sin and men.

Absinthe has been blamed for a lot of rowdy behavior, but I don't think any French folks could blame it for the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Absinthe actually had its peak in France in the late 1800s, but the trend lasted into the early 1900s. Although it originated in Switzerland, most production during the heyday of the Green Fairy took place in southern France.

The idea for Van Gogh's magnum opus, "Starry Night," is also said to have originated in southern France. Although it was created a full 100 years after the Bastille showdown, I figured I'd celebrate le quatorze juillet with a tribute to beautiful night skies (black currant syrup), a bit of revolution (gin) and a touch of madness (absinthe). I call this my Starry Night Cooler. Oh, yeah, and to beat off the summer heat, I threw in some seltzer and a bit of family-recipe lemonade.

The recipe for LeNell's Starry Night Cooler is after the jump.

There is something about Japanese soft drinks, food, and candy treats that fascinates us here at Slashfood, and their chocolate bars are definitely no exception. Could you imagine biting into a Kit Kat stick, but rather than the regular chocolate and wafer flavor, you taste apple? If that isn't strange enough, how about Cherry Blossom or Melon?

The Japanese have certainly cornered the market on different varieties of the Kit Kat bar, with flavors ranging from Green Tea to Red Azuki Bean, to the premium "Exotic Tokyo" - a Japanese limited edition made with milk chocolate, passion fruit, raspberry, strawberry, cherry, blackcurrant and pepper. They even have an adult, Wine-flavored version, just in case the others are a little too tame for you.

In fact, as the folks over at InventorSpot have pointed out, Wikipedia now lists over 80 different varieties of the chocolate bar that have been in production at one point or another. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed this morning when I checked in at my local store and only found two different kinds available, but as we've said before, for some reason the flavored varieties just don't seem to do well over here or in the UK.

(thanks, Michelle!)

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Two 14-year-old New Zealand girls made the news recently when their school science project revealed that Ribena, the popular black currant drink, did not have the high levels of vitamin C it claimed to. According to a story published yesterday in The Guardian, the girls were testing a variety of beverages, expecting to find that the less expensive ones had less vitamin C, when they discovered the opposite. Their results were picked up by a local news show and then eventually a national watchdog group. Today, The Guardian reported that GlaxoSmithKline, the drink's producer, is being fined almost $160,000 for misleading ads, which stated "the black currants in Ribena contain four times the vitamin C of oranges." A GSK press release says that that fact is true "on a weight for weight basis," but also admits that it could be misleading. There's also some discrepancy about the differing vitamin C levels in the concentrate versus the diluted product. On a personal note, I was a Ribena drinker for a while. I think it's tasty stuff. I don't think I ever believed it was good for me, however.