Asterix's Campagnian Villa: A meeting place for TWCs old timers

[Obi Wan Asterix]

Do I qualify as an old timer?

Judging by your sabled beard and creaky voice yes...


Off course I have the Crandar password....


just can't remember where I put it

[Lord Rahl]

**** Toga-wearing exotic brunette brings Rahli a vodka tonic*********

That is why I joined TWC!

By the way, what would you consider your favorite mixed drink, Asterix? There is a bar I've been to here in Texas that serves only Prohibition era drinks like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned, if you know what those are. Good stuff.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

That is why I joined TWC!

By the way, what would you consider your favorite mixed drink, Asterix? There is a bar I've been to here in Texas that serves only Prohibition era drinks like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned, if you know what those are. Good stuff.

Now we are on a topic line that I truly enjoy

**claps hands and eleven more brunettes enter carrying full assortment of Rahl's neigbourhood bar***


Well, first the truth, I am a purist in terms of drinks, I like Single Malts, pure cepage wines, Armagnac, Armenian Cognac, straight things really... taken in moderation now and then in pleasant company - Well I drink wine like a Frenchman or Argentino, pretty much 4 bottles a week with my wife.

Mixed drinks are more of a nostalgic thing, for instance one of the World's most rancid concoctions

is the also the Argentine national drink, and since Argentina is my most beloved of countries I drink that discusting spoomy garbage in a masochistic adoration during and the day after

the simples of recipes here

Otherwise I like Brazillian Caxaca for mixing, especially with old smelly-feet caxacas you can get some interesting mixes... but I can't say off hand.

My brother in law (true story) won the Swedish barman's competition, then went to Singapore and snatched the world title... his experiments and manner of producing drinks is extraordinary, but the best part is that he has learned what I like and produces an original to that taste when we have that opportunity (once a year at most really)

So to answer in a simpler way, I think my favourite mixed drink is Pastis and water

Ok I will try again, Fernet con Coca, and anything with cognac and lime and a touch brown sugar really

In college I had a Malibu and Coke faze but I dont know if I could stomach it anymore

You pudna? What be yo flava fo mixin homesy?

[Lord Rahl]

Now we are on a topic line that I truly enjoy

**claps hands and eleven more brunettes enter carrying full assortment of Rahl's neigbourhood bar***

***Rahl tears (and needs to change his loincloth for a fresh one) at the sight of so many women and drinks***

Well, first the truth, I am a purist in terms of drinks, I like Single Malts, pure cepage wines, Armagnac, Armenian Cognac, straight things really... taken in moderation now and then in pleasant company - Well I drink wine like a Frenchman or Argentino, pretty much 4 bottles a week with my wife.

I have no qualms with that position. I'm very much with you there too. I don't prefer mixing drinks because I think a truly good liquor doesn't need to be mixed and takes away from enjoying the liquor (and it means you're more of a man!). I'm big into whiskeys, bourbons, and scotchs of all kinds (single malt or blended, it doesn't really matter). It saddens me that most people "like" a liquor when they usually mix it with so much stuff they can't even taste it. That's why vodka is so popular. They're not enjoying the liquor. They're enjoying getting drunk off a sweet (most likely) drink. I've yet to venture into wines. I'm busy enough drinking beer!

Mixed drinks are more of a nostalgic thing

Like I said, I'm not a mixed drink type of guy either but this bar that makes Prohibition era drinks, called "The Usual" (awesome name!), really knows what they're doing (although you definitely pay a good chunk of cash to do so!) like with the Old Fashioned and Manhattan. Around Halloween my friends and I always make a drink called the zombie.

The Zombie is a cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums, so named for its perceived effects upon the drinker.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That's definitely true. You don't want to have more than a few or you're day is over.

is the also the Argentine national drink, and since Argentina is my most beloved of countries I drink that discusting spoomy garbage in a masochistic adoration during and the day after

for instance one of the World's most rancid concoctions

the simples of recipes here

Interesting. I might have to try that.

Otherwise I like Brazillian Caxaca for mixing, especially with old smelly-feet caxacas you can get some interesting mixes... but I can't say off hand.

What is a caxaca exactly? Google is bringing up nothing.

My brother in law (true story) won the Swedish barman's competition, then went to Singapore and snatched the world title... his experiments and manner of producing drinks is extraordinary, but the best part is that he has learned what I like and produces an original to that taste when we have that opportunity (once a year at most really)

What did he have to do? Make crazy drinks really fast and fancy-like?

You pudna? What be yo flava fo mixin homesy?

Usually I'll just mix a drink of about 2/3 bourbon and 1/3 Coca-Cola if it's just me. I already mentioned the Old Fashioned and Manhattan. Oh, and because it's close to Christmas, one of my all-time favorite drinks to make is eggnog mixed with bourbon (or really any whiskey or scotch), some cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg. It can't be beat by anything. If you haven't tried it then do it!

***Hands Asty a sun-grown cigar***

[Obi Wan Asterix]

***Rahl tears (and needs to change his loincloth for a fresh one) at the sight of so many women and drinks***

***claps hands twice and Aisha brings Rahl a new loinie... albeit blushing***

I have no qualms with that position. I'm very much with you there too. I don't prefer mixing drinks because I think a truly good liquor doesn't need to be mixed and takes away from enjoying the liquor (and it means you're more of a man!). I'm big into whiskeys, bourbons, and scotchs of all kinds (single malt or blended, it doesn't really matter). It saddens me that most people "like" a liquor when they usually mix it with so much stuff they can't even taste it. That's why vodka is so popular. They're not enjoying the liquor. They're enjoying getting drunk off a sweet (most likely) drink. I've yet to venture into wines. I'm busy enough drinking beer!

If you want to try wines... start with 2006 pure Argentinian and Chilean wines... you need to start with the simple purity... the American wine market is a nightmare, with blended, rapidly produced rubbish dominating.. wine, properly treated, decanted and loved like a beautiful woman is well... wine

is the also the Argentine national drink, and since Argentina is my most beloved of countries I drink that discusting spoomy garbage in a masochistic adoration during and the day after


Interesting. I might have to try that.

To be honest I really like it... but its far from elegant, just likeable... I like it more than Coca-Cola on its own.... warning, don't mix with Vodka.... vodka and Fernet mixed makes a very bad drunk for some mysterious biochemical reason

What is a caxaca exactly? Google is bringing up nothing.

here is an alternative spelling (CH and X are interchangeable in Portuguese)



It's essentially the Brazillian way of making rum, and there is as much variety as in Colombia or the Carribean, probably even more (due to the size of the country)... they range from Vodka-like to smelly old man in liquid form...

But I like it, and some of the rare ones I like more than rum... good to mix with

What did he have to do? Make crazy drinks really fast and fancy-like?

Well they were judged for originality, taste, technique, cleanliness, efficiency, speed and 4 different other qualitative categories like acidity, balance etc. (don't remember all of them atm)... each event was 3 full days and involved many different trials.

Usually I'll just mix a drink of about 2/3 bourbon and 1/3 Coca-Cola if it's just me. I already mentioned the Old Fashioned and Manhattan. Oh, and because it's close to Christmas, one of my all-time favorite drinks to make is eggnog mixed with bourbon (or really any whiskey or scotch), some cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg. It can't be beat by anything. If you haven't tried it then do it!

It sounds interesting, but her in Haute-Savoie there is very little Burbon to find.. so I might have to wait a bit to try this having taken a mental note... Speaking of Egg-Not I made a Mandarine Sabayon with Armagnac for my friends on Sunday and it was very good (and easy)

***Hands Asty a sun-grown cigar***

***Asty calls over Brunette Linda, dressed only in her DEA overalls, and whispers for her to make sure that she sees that the cigar is Bucan and not Cuban***

Mmmm .... nicotine or anything smoked I don't do... but a good cigar with Rahli ahhhh off course


1:51 a.m. here will continue in the morn

[Jom]

here is an alternative spelling (CH and X are interchangeable in Portuguese)

That's interesting. Greek influence, presumably?

I'm afraid I'm probably too new to partake in all this old-timer revelry. I shall just remain outside the window with my nose pressed up against the glass, peering in.

[Crandar]

Judging by your sabled beard and creaky voice yes...


Off course I have the Crandar password....


just can't remember where I put it

You are meddling in issues where your usual lack of understanding impedes even the limited cognitive functions you have been randomly granted. Refrain or I shall bestow you.

[therussian]

Oh noble master!

[Captain Hastings]

EDIT - I should probably read the top of the page first.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

I'm afraid I'm probably too new to partake in all this old-timer revelry. I shall just remain outside the window with my nose pressed up against the glass, peering in.

*** Claps hands an the pale redhead, a perfect example of a Celtic beauty brings Jom three fake id's to choose from on a plate acquired from the Thracian campaigns. ***

You are meddling in issues where your usual lack of understanding impedes even the limited cognitive functions you have been randomly granted. Refrain or I shall bestow you.

Uncle Crandar it is you! You are certainly most welcome as a centerpiece for our old timer's honour & glory mantle... might I say you haven't aged any you little rascal! do come in and bestow us!

[Belisarius]

You are meddling in issues where your usual lack of understanding impedes even the limited cognitive functions you have been randomly granted. Refrain or I shall bestow you.

Be gone Vile creature! least I decide to banish you again into the void of triuvium! Or worse yet lock you into the vaults of Anagennese to forever gnaw on the bones of Noobs.

[Leonidas The Lion]

Crandar!

[jimkatalanos]

You are meddling in issues where your usual lack of understanding impedes even the limited cognitive functions you have been randomly granted. Refrain or I shall bestow you.

lol
Noble master.

[Amorphos]

Question; is good/bad wine just snobbery and generally bs? Ok so really cheap wines taste like vinegar, but once you get a reasonably smooth glass of, its just a matter of taste right?

Equally can you tell how good a bottle is before you have drunk the whole thing? All this taste and spit it out is nonsense, as you go through glass after glass the complexity of say a good French wine [a contradiction of the above I know] shines through, and the limitedness of say a californian wine gets worse. Blind tasting my arse, blind tasters more like!

If these have been asked before, …or many a time before, then please excuse, but I am on the baileys then a bit of Bordeaux so bring on the infinite repetition.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

Question; is good/bad wine just snobbery and generally bs? Ok so really cheap wines taste like vinegar, but once you get a reasonably smooth glass of, its just a matter of taste right?

Equally can you tell how good a bottle is before you have drunk the whole thing? All this taste and spit it out is nonsense, as you go through glass after glass the complexity of say a good French wine [a contradiction of the above I know] shines through, and the limitedness of say a californian wine gets worse. Blind tasting my arse, blind tasters more like!

If these have been asked before, …or many a time before, then please excuse, but I am on the baileys then a bit of Bordeaux so bring on the infinite repetition.

Well... I am a real wine lover, and took a somelier course on my free time, so I feel qualified to discuss with ou

Real French wine consuption (or Spanish or Italian or Chilean, South African or Argentine for that matter) has no snobbery whatsoever. The snobbery comes from the hollywoodesque marketing, which wine producers have bought into so they can sell 50% of their raw material to Japanese and American investors at a high price during a "good' year like 2009.

In French wine country you complement a proper vesicule filled with rotten grape juice as
"Ca c'est du vin" which means, "its wine." You never say "ahhh this is good wine,"

You are right about the whole marketing ploy with the blind-testers, the french winemakers funding terrorism bs, and that French wine is well, overpopular and is not everything it used to be.

The bottle of wine you buy for between 2 and 4 Euros in French supermarkets are definitelly better than in a lot of non-wine producing countries.

BUT the demand for French wine has since the 1950s been constantly rising, and has outgrown its supply multifold. Before the loss of the colonies (violin plays in the background) around 60% of the French grape crop was grown in the North African sun, and rebotled and mixed by producers at home. In practice this meant 90% of "vin de table" came from Algerian grapes.

In the past 30 years, the use of wood chips to give a woody edge and replace the long barrel (esepecially oak, but not exclusivelly) aging traditions... there simply were not enough quality barrels and quality coopers around.

So while Californication wine gets a bad wrap for unholy production methods, the French themselves have never realllly been much of an unwavering cult when it came wine production....

Take the example of one of my favourite wine regions, where its hard to find a "bad" bottle... Cahors. Tucked away in the fascinating hill country just South of Le Lot, with hilltop castle within visual site of each other, the Malbec grape dominate region is a mecca for lovers of tempermental wines with character (none of that Bourgogne-claret porridge crap for me).

The region was wiped out to the last grape by a 1996 plant-bug, and has had to regrow its crop from literally the ground up, reducing it on the market for years, and forcing many to emigrate to new-world regions like Argentina and Austalia (the Mendoza family of Montmayou is one of the best, and tasties examples of this exhodus, and absolute favourite producer of mine)

Cutting the long story there I want to make the following points:

• Although the French won't often admit it, and their excentricity contines on the matter, it's much harder to make a good wine out of a single grape than out of a blend, all of the modern hype about blends is simply high-level marketing
• Every wine region in France, makes wine from a pure cepage or grape, to understand the wine of that region, you should take a specially made glass of a cheap brand of pure vintage from the regioin and make love to it, warm it, enjoy it with your nose, mouth and don't look for perfection but discovery
• Avoid overhyped, overstrained regions like "Bordeaux Superieur" or "Vin de Bourgogne" they are not instructive but stop-gap wines - that is to say Margaux, Graves, all the Saint-Emillion or Pomerol producers should be honoured with at least a try"
• Never judge a wine region, or worse country by a single wine, always try at least two before you form an opinion
• The French sheeet in the general direction of New World wines, but I miss 2006 Argentine Malbecs and Shiraz, South African Shiraz from the Lake Lomond cape region, and certain good Australian producers here in France... they are different yet excellent winemakers, many of them coming from French origin and bringing all possible savoir and techniques with them to a new non-overproduced context, in a cheaper producers market and with better weather conditions
• The D.O.C. is an important non-snobbistic element. It stands for in English Denomination and Origin Controlled. These establishments guard, objectivelly, the regional name of their product, and its conservative character, an important generational evolution of skills and techniques SPECIFIC to each region, its soil (teroire), grapes (cepage) and climate as it is important to carrot, cow, horse or potato producers.
• Try to buy wines from the producers bottling... its not fullproof but has much wider horizons. The way wine is treated before it arrives for bottling in the US from Chile or Argentina, mixed from differnt producers and packed in sterile conditions into bottles like "Gato Negro" or whatever other hybrid crap they want to sell... On french bottle look for "Mis en bouteille au chateau" for anglophone South Africa and Ausylandia "Bottled at the estate or property" for Argentina "Origen de la propriedad" or any variety of non-uniform messages. You won't pay more.
• Last but not least... its not snobbery but science, decant every wine, if you use half a bottle get a bottle pump, don't use the old cork. No wine loses out being decanted, store bottle away from heat, and let them rest at least the equivalent amount of time they travelled from the store. Decant 2-3 hours before consumption, find the food that goes with each wine. In my subjective view only Shiraz/Syraz wine I truly can enjoy without food, and it has to be matured. A bottle should be at least 2 years old to be a class above, wines that are not meant to be kept can start decreasing in quality as early as 3 years after bottling (most of modern wine production really)

If you want good material here is the best read:

http://www.amazon.com/Oz-Clarkes-New.../dp/0151009139

[Amorphos]

Well I knew the French sometimes used wines from other regions to make e.g. champagne [the home of one side of my ancestors], but I did not know they used from other nations and continents too. I have a rather remedial view of it; with wines from hot climates the sun bakes the skin of the grape more so you get a caramelised taste? Or at least it appeared to me that the further south you go the more sherry-like the taste, but as you say that African grape are used then I guess this is incorrect.

My method of purchasing atm is; buy the half price Bordeaux for £5, it goes down smoothly, the taste remains complex to the end [or at least to what I can denote] and I get no hangover. Job done. Anything under a fiver is vinegar usually, and though I like Chilean and austrailian wines I prefer French [not so hot climate perhaps?], though it appears that may be purely psychological?

I expect if I moved up a financial level I would find a similar level of difference as I did from between £5 and £10? Though I have had some expensive wine and didn’t notice the difference between that and a £7 bottle.

Thanks for the info

[Lord Rahl]

***claps hands twice and Aisha brings Rahl a new loinie... albeit blushing***

***Has Aisha replace the new loincloth***

If you want to try wines... start with 2006 pure Argentinian and Chilean wines... you need to start with the simple purity... the American wine market is a nightmare, with blended, rapidly produced rubbish dominating.. wine, properly treated, decanted and loved like a beautiful woman is well... wine

Like I said, I'm not a big wine guy (yet). I'm so engrossed with beer at this point in my life so wine will most likely be something I'll get into later in my life. I've had some Chilean wine before, especially Malbec.

To be honest I really like it... but its far from elegant, just likeable... I like it more than Coca-Cola on its own.... warning, don't mix with Vodka.... vodka and Fernet mixed makes a very bad drunk for some mysterious biochemical reason

Don't worry. I've not drank vodka purposefully for years. I once had a 13 shot night and have strayed from it ever since.

Well they were judged for originality, taste, technique, cleanliness, efficiency, speed and 4 different other qualitative categories like acidity, balance etc. (don't remember all of them atm)... each event was 3 full days and involved many different trials.

Your brother must be an amazing bartender.

***Asty calls over Brunette Linda, dressed only in her DEA overalls, and whispers for her to make sure that she sees that the cigar is Bucan and not Cuban***

***Rahl assures everyone that Cubans are alright. He is a good friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger and gets many Cubans. Rahl lights his massive maduro and puffs delicate smoke rings up to the ceiling.

Mmmm .... nicotine or anything smoked I don't do... but a good cigar with Rahli ahhhh off course

Are you against smoking of all kinds? I don't like cigarettes at all but I'm big into cigars and my pipe!