Friday, October 26, 2007

Beer in a Punkin'

I love beer...and I love pumpkin...yet I don't love pumpkin beer. However, I was truly fascinated by literally brewing beer IN a pumpkin. Check out the whole brewing process. Amazing.

Of course, I need to give the Internet a shout-out for bringing this to my attention. I love you Internet!

Monday, October 01, 2007

Vodka Tasting: Take Cinco de Mayo

Well, it wasn't the 5th of May, but it felt like a party when the gang gathered to do another round of vodka tasting. The theme of this round was: more plain vodkas you often see at bars that we haven't tried yet. Yeah yeah, I know it's not a creative theme, but the non-flavored vodkas truly make the cocktails we all know and love. So, on with the results!

Vodka Tasting Take Five's Lineup: Svedka (Sweden), Three Olives (UK) and Reyka (Iceland).

Tonight was a little different than usual in that the two ladies and one gentleman had differing opinions on the vodkas, especially with the Three Olives. So, let's break it down a bit.

Best vodka straight up for the night: Svedka *barely* beat out Reyka for this title. Both ladies thought the Three Olives straight was horrid, with Goddess exclaiming that this tastes "chemically like an ultra-light cupcake" and "tastes like DC tap water." Strangely, the gentleman liked the Three Olives.

Best vodka with soda: Svedka, in it's very blue Ikea-looking bottle, was the clear winner for this category with all 3 tasters scoring this the highest. Reviews were "inoffensive" and "has a decent sweetness."

Best in a mixed cocktail: This round Reyka with its Icelandic lava-distilled goodness won, inciting comments of "clean" and "a little sweetness." Guess that lava works.

Overview: Svedka, which was $8.99 for the 750ml bottle this week, is a very good "bang for the buck." It would be a good choice for your next party when you don't want to go broke serving Ketel One. Our gentleman taster really like Three Olives best in his overall scoring, but frankly, the ladies thought it was just plain bad (and who really wants vodka from the UK anyway). Reyka did fine...but not so amazingly better than Svedka that you'd necessarily want to plop down an extra $10 or more bucks a bottle.

An aside, when selecting what seltzer or club soda you're drinking at home...we recommend paying the extra few cents for the Vintage (or other good brand). When using store-brand Zazz this round, we noted its crappiness and thought the better seltzer must be made by the Jews.