Monthly Archive for May, 2008

The Martini Chronicles Pt.12 - Dusty

Equipped with Bombay Gin, Noillit Noilly Prat (edit: did I actually misspell that? I’m such a chump!) did I and a solid Single Malt, I yesterday added another chapter to my glorious Martini Chronicles. Have a look:

The Martini Chronicles Pt.12

What you see is a variant of the Dusty Martini. While the original Dusty substitutes Vermouth with Scotch, I added the Scotch after mixing a 2:1 Dry Martini. The effect was a Martini that had lost most of its bitter edge and instead had most of the sweet Scotch flavour.

It’s definitely a good Martini variant, even though it doesn’t resemble the original Martini Dry a whole lot. Which, in the end, is not really a problem, because all I and probably everyone else wants, is a damn good drink.

Bratislava, beauty on the danube (official nickname)

Nový Most by night

So we went on a weekend trip to Bratislava for my sweetheart’s birthday. As always, I couldn’t refrain from thoroughly documenting our endeavours. I will post a few updates in the coming week about the trip, until then, have a look at the Bratislava set I uploaded to Flickr (including real names and tags, woohoo!).

The Martini Chronicles P.11 - Ice Age

With the advent of the Bombay Sapphire Gin, I also introduced a new way of chilling the Martini glasses to perfection:

The Martini Chronicles Pt.11

I looked up that technique from a pro barkeeper demonstrating the preparation of a Martini Dry on the Bombay Sapphire website itself. Unfortunately I can’t link to the exact page, mainly because some weird law forces commercial websites featuring alcohol or tobacco to verify the visitors’ age. Which is done by entering your birth-date. It’s a fool-proof system really.

Now, here’s the important bit: did the Martini actually taste better that way? Well, technically, it didn’t. But drinking a Martini is a lot, A LOT about the manner of preparation. The drink itself? Not that important. Which means, the more elaborate the method of preparation, the better the drink. And in that light, yes, the taste was fantastic!

The Google Trap

Went and saw a discussion at the Thalia-bookshop here in Vienna about a new book by an Austrian journalist titled “Die Google Falle” (The Google Trap).

Unfortunately, it was the worst panel discussion I’ve ever witnessed.

Here are a few points they should consider next time they hold something like that:

    • Apart from the author, don’t just invite marketing hacks. Telling people about the wonders of Adwords will not counter the arguments of someone who fears world dominance through data-mining. Find someone who knows about the Internets well enough to counter certain arguments by the author.
    • When selecting a moderator, make sure he knows what the term “moderate” means. If he’s more fervent in detailing horror scenarios about the abuse of data collected by Google, he should not have been the moderator.
    • If you bring up all the evil things Google does, let audience members who clearly know more about the subject matter than anyone on stage talk about it. That’s what makes events like that interesting.
    • Make sure the author knows how to behave. Having him accuse a member of the audience (!) of being a Google fanboy, only because he didn’t share the author’s sentiment about the evils of collecting information about a visitor’s screen-resolution, is not just ridiculous, it’s simply not professional.
  • Generally, I can’t say a whole lot about the quality of the book, as I haven’t read it. But gathered from the quality of the arguments brought forth during the discussion, I’m pretty sure I’d be better off spending those 20€ on something more worthwhile.

    The Martini Chronicles Pt.10

    And here we are, part ten of my, I dare say, infamous Martini Chronicles.

    As with all anniversaries, something special and exciting was in order, and well, here it is:

    The Martini Chronicles Pt.10

    Yes, it’s the famous Bombay Sapphire Gin, recommended to me by Max in a comment to the very first installment. Now, since it was my first taste of Bombay Gin, I decided to prepare a classic 2:1 mix, for no other ingredient than Vermouth should diminish the sensation of this Gin of Gins. And while I can’t say I tasted each and every ingredient written out in detail on the Gin’s bottle, I did taste the difference to the rather cheap Gin I had used for all the previous Martinis.

    And as proof that all that alcohol is not dulling our senses the slightest bit, my girlfriend noticed that the good people at the Bombay Sapphire Gin factory fucked up the spelling of their most important ingredient, right there on the bottle:
    Uniper Berries

    How’s that for fantastic?

    Come back tomorrow when I’ll post the results of a revolutionary new chilling technique for our Martini glasses!




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