Monthly Archives: February 2008
Gourmet Underground Detroit's content archives are organized by date and catalog the aggregated content of our Features pages as well as our blog.
Blenheim ginger ale
In the late 19th Century, Dr. C. R. May of Marlboro County, South Carolina, began adding Jamaican ginger to the mineral water from a local artesian spring near the village of Blenheim as a treatment for indigestion. The head-wilting concoction proved so popular with bloated plantation owners that Dr. May bottled and sold it as a soft drink. With flavors like “hot” and “not as hot” you know Blenheim ginger ale boasts a prodigious amount of the spicy root. When we’re in the Lowcountry we use it as a natural decongestant or to wash down a bag of hot-boiled peanuts.
The South Carolina Encyclopedia:
Despite a marketing push that began in the late 1990s and continues today, Blenheim ginger ale is not widely distributed outside the Carolinas. The spicy ale has, however, developed a cult following among food and wine aficionados. In a February 25, 1998 New York Times article, journalists Bill Grimes described the taste in this way: “The first swallow brings on a four-sneeze fit. The second one clears out the sinuses and leaves the tongue and throat throbbing with prickly heat.”
Retro post: Lake Michigan Circle Tour Day 1
My annual Lake Michigan Circle Tour began much as the last one only two months warmer. By saying no I was able to convince my customers to hold off until at last there are some swaths of spring emerald growth even in upper Wisconsin. Now I am in the Holidome ready to do my tasting duties. O how I suffer for drinks.
Just because the drive was so uneventful I start with a beer I figure to get the head juices flowing. Aecht Schlenkerla Helles Lagerbier does the trick and then some more. A glassful exudes marshmallow studded breakfast cereal eaten beside a hardwood campfire. The other Schlenkerla beers suffer from slight drinkabilty issues. Not the Helles Lagerbier. Smoky succulent gulps of malt are steered down your pipes by adult noble hops. Buy it by the case and take it camping. Drink your fill. It’s 4.3% ABV.
Actually, there was one event during the six+ hour trip to Fond du Lac. I was accosted by a group of bearded men on belching motorcycles. Puff-chested guys like this will brag on how poetry and art is sissy and feminine. I don’t know. Tooling around on what is essentially a giant vibrator under your crotch doesn’t seem so tough. I let them go about their business without further incident. I had more important things to deal with – like Banana beer.
Sprecher Brewing Company has always attended to both beer and soda markets. With their African-style, fire-brewed banana Mbege Ale they have blurred the line between the two completely. I drank a third of the bottle just to see if there was anything else to say about it. I shouldn’t be so harsh. I would probably drink it if I was playing out in the middle of a warm summer lake and it was the last beer in the cooler. It reminds me of Budweiser.
I give Sprecher’s fire-brewed, African-style experiment another try with Shakporo Ale. Sorghum is the flavor base here and it is much less intrusive than banana to tender palates like mine though it is still sweet and soda-like. There is some hint of nuts or squash seeds in the Shakporo. It is drinkable enough I suppose. I guess the fact that I drain-poured more than half and I’m alone in a Wisconsin hotel room is telling enough.
Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty. I’ll toast the moon with a bottle of Viña Alarba Rosé. It’s all berries and marsh. I feel like a bear; a raccoon that escaped roadside fate; a migrating bird with luck to fly over a protected wetland. Tomorrow I drive to the northern Michigan/Wisconsin border, eat string cheese, and drink Tyranena beers.
An orchard just outside Coloma
chicken nuggets
Chicago viewed from the Dan Ryan
Necessary pit stop in Milwaukee
Bad photo of good cheese factory. Widmer’s makes a cheddar like we like.
mental pit stop
2002 Pierre Luneau-Papin Semper Excelsior Clos des Noelles Le Cru Terroir de Schistes Muscadet Serve et Maine
At first it’s a big whiff of dust that quickly turns to summer rain then freshly washed cotton sheets drying in the sun. Beneath is a subtle hint of trees — apple trees and lemon trees and oak trees turning through the seasons. Barely evident under the trees is a layer of twigs and mulch, naturally. A drink is pure muscadet, dry and transparent with a thick vein of stone through the middle. Enchanting.
Luxardo Maraschino
Luxardo Maraschino liqueur is still made according to the original formula developed by Girolamo Luxardo in 1821. European marasca cherries from Luxardo’s own orchards are crushed with their pits, distilled and aged for two years in ash wood vats. After a dose of cane sugar, the finished product is sweet, with the flavor of cherries and hints of bitter almond. Serve straight with a twist of lemon as a digestif — a serving option not recommended with most of today’s shallow, artificially flavored liqueurs. Or try one of these invigorating classic cocktails:
1½ oz. gin
½ oz. Maraschino liqueur
¾ oz. lemon juice
1½ oz. light rum
¼ oz. Maraschino liqueur
¾ oz. lime juice
¼ oz. grapefruit juice
