"lenellsmothers" news and stories

Often stopping in a tasting room, you'll hear the staff person at the tasting counter rattle off nonsense about a product's ribbons, medals and other accolades. I think to myself, "Of course, your grandmother's muscadine wine won double gold at the county fair!"

Magazines and newspapers list top ten winners that drive retail and restaurant staff insane with customers carrying clippings asking if you have any on the list. If you don't, you are looked at with suspicion and a pinch of disdain. After all, how could you be such a moron to not have at least one of the top 10?

Some companies exist for the main purpose of telling you what you should drink. The scenario usually goes something like this:
1. You send in a sample.
2. Samples are judged by a panel of experts.
3. Press releases and parties celebrate the winners.

Read more about the LeNell's take on wine and spirits awards, after the jump ...

Years ago I worked a bar that only had an ice machine that made soft, mushy pellet ice that was great for sodas, sweet teas and my mint juleps. However, this ice made slushy, watery drinks when shaken, especially with all the excess water that resulted from the pellets sitting in a steel ice bin. I would bring my own bag of cubed ice from the corner gas station to work every day. I never imagined years later, ice would become so controversial.

Now, you can stir your drink with an ice spoon, or pour your highball concoction over prepackaged ice cubes made from purified, distilled water that's supposed to make a clearer ice cube than your tap water in the old fashioned ice tray. Big, clear ice cubes do look good in a glass. You can spend hours at home with distilled water, boiled twice, agitated while freezing to release air trapped inside to make your own clear cubes, but I've not found this very exciting.

Nowadays your top bars may boast about their expensive ice machines such as Kold-Draft or Hoshizaki brands. These machines make square ice cubes measuring more than an inch around that have been touted to make your drink better. Some bars even take these cubes from the ice machine and put them in a deep freezer for "double frozen" ice.

Once while mixing drinks alongside a very talented bartender, I noticed that all of his drinks had elaborate decorative accoutrement's while mine were naked. His study of Japanese mixology influenced his presentation style with a bit of mukimono, the art of carving fruit and vegetables into flowers, animals, and various other edible shapes.

One of the most important tools for garnishes is a good, sharp paring knife. The more common garnishes of lemon and lime wedges are dressed up when you use a zester to cut lines in the skin. A plain orange peel morphs into a magic show when the fruit oils burst into flame when squeezed over a lit match. The peelers shaped like a Y make cutting big wide slices of orange peel a breeze. A channel knife assists in cutting long spirals for dangling over the edge of your glasses.

Studies have shown that colors greatly impact our preferences in food and drink. The bright red maraschino cherry color appeals to our eyes, but many bartenders now reach for uglier and tastier versions soaked in sugar syrup and spirit instead of brine and FD&C Red 40.

Learn more about cocktail adornments after the jump.

Seattle bartender Evan Martin won $1,250 with his tiki punch that a group of four judges declared as the official cocktail of this year's Tales of the Cocktail July 21-25 event in New Orleans. Over 150 drink recipes were submitted. Who knows whether all 150 recipes were actually created and tasted as often times with these types of competitions a few eye-catching recipes are culled from submissions to make the competition a little easier on the judges.

Judge Jeff "Beachbum" Berry admitted judging so many drinks wasn't easy, saying, "Often it came down to the originality of the garnish..."


The winner dressed itself with a garnish that looked like a guy hanging off of the drink with a cherry head, pineapple leaf arms and citrus peel dangling legs.

By the time you assemble all these ingredients you may want to spear yourself as a garnish.

Find the winning Tales of the Cocktail recipe after the jump...

Have you ever been looking through old recipes and just got dumbfounded with measurement terms such as ponies or jiggers? Or when a recipe calls for a wineglass of a liquor -- what does that mean when you have a cabinet full of various wineglass sizes? Have you ever wondered exactly how much juice is meant when a recipe calls for the juice of one lemon? Never mind the fact that fruit today is often larger than it was a hundred years ago.

Sometimes trying to replicate a dish or drink from a really old book turns problematic when you can't accurately measure ingredients. It can all get even more mind-boggling when you learn that a British fluid ounce contains four-hundredths of an ounce more than the American ounce. What? If a recipe doesn't specify, the term "ounces" is an American measurement. At least we can count on 2 pints in 1 quart no matter whether following British or American measurements. Often the British measurement system is referred to as "imperial." Then the metric system adds even more complication to it all.