In his first book, Rich Woods unlocks the secrets of making creative cocktails at home, from mastering classic techniques, to flavoring alcohol through simple infusions and more complex distillations and making your own home-made bitters from herbs, spices, fruits, and roots.
Ron Barceló was the reason that we ‘ve recently visited Dominican Republic. This tropical paradise, creates the ideal circumstances for best rum production.
The National Genever Museum of Hasselt, produces its own unique and geographically protected styles of genever. The latter is distilled in accordance with a 19th century recipe, in which we had the luck to be introduced by the distiller himself:
JeneverMuseum in Schiedam, is not just another museum. Of course, it is a place that houses historical facts and materials about genever production during the old Dutch days. But at the same time, under the museum’s roof there is plenty of modern equipment which is used nowadays for the production of “the mother of all gins”: The original single malt genever.
There is an old Dutch saying which goes like this: “A sailor’s best working compass is a glass completely filled with genever”. A.van Wees distillery de Ooievaar was built in 1782. The distillery is run by Fenny van Wees and the employees are just a few loyal workers. All products are exclusively made of pure natural raw materials, without the addition of artificial flavours. The drinks are coloured with natural colorants. Jenever (in English it is spelled Genever) is a typical Dutch drink. The word means , quite simply, juniper.
There are many times, that people – and especially bartenders – try debasing white spirits by comparing them with vodka. “This rum smells like vodka” or “That white rum is a molassa vodka” or “gin is just a juniper flavored vodka” are common phrases of using vodka as “the underestimated” spirit. But how many things do they really know about vodka? Is finally vodka an indifferent spirit? Are all vodkas the same? Does it really matters which vodka one uses as a base spirit in a cocktail? And should bartenders show their true love in more “premium” vodkas?