Drinking Vinegar Taste Test, Part 2

To get caught up on our drinking vinegar tasting, be sure to read Part One.

The friends who volunteered to taste the vinegars had never had a drinking vinegar before. They were all a bit apprehensive but up for an adventure. My friend, John Waller,  mentioned that his mom used to make him drink apple cider vinegar when he was getting a cold. Most were expecting the sharp, sour tang of vinegar. I can't say that people were all that excited to taste the vinegars... what good friends I have!


After a quick drinking vinegar history and letting everyone examine the bottles, I whipped up our tastings.

I diluted the vinegars 4 to 1, about 1/2 cup of the drinking vinegar to 2 cups water. Being very fancy and trying to keep things a little bit "blind", I used measuring cups and had Justin bring each one out. We called them sample A, B, and C. The guests didn't know which was which. I recorded comments while everyone tasted the samples.


Each person was given a small sample, one at a time. Below are the notes on each tasting. Overall I think everyone was really pleased with how the drinking vinegars tasted.

A (Apple Good Health Vinegar)

Observations: 

Darkest in color

Thicker vinegar (straight from the bottle)

Strongest apple scent

Comments:

"Really good and refreshing, strong apple presence"

"Better than expected, not sour, no bitterness"

"Hint of apple, but no bitterness"

"Sweeter than expected"

"Very light and refreshing"

"Tangy with a touch of honey"

and my favorite: 

"Hey, it is good!?"

B (Pok Pok's Apple Som Vinegar)

Observations: 

light in color

clear

very strong vinegar smell

Comments:

"not as strong as I expected"

"lighter flavor and sweetness"

"delicate"

"not as juicy"

"spicy, sweet and a little nutty"

"flatter flavor than the first tasting"

"more refined"

C: My homemade drinking vinegar

Observations:

Hardly any or no smell - apple or vinegar

Cloudy

Dull color

Comments:

"least overall flavor, the apple doesn't shine through"

"almost like a neutral water with a little tartness"

"less complex, but delicate"

"more summery because it is more refreshing"

"dry, with a tanin, and a vinegar after taste"

"in between the other two in terms of sweetness"

After the tasting we tallied up our votes - which did they think they would buy and drink again, A,B, or C?

AND THE WINNER???

Pok Pok's Som was the winner!!!
But.....when I showed the price differences between Som and the Good Health, the two store bought bottles became tied. 

This was a fun evening and I am really grateful that my friends were good sports about being taste testers. And, I clearly need to rework my recipe :) I think I will try it again with some honey :) 

So, tell me, have you tasted either of these brands? Or another one I should track down? What is your thoughts on store bought drinking vinegars?

The Baby Eats and Lemon, Mint, Vanilla Soda Syrup

Zucchini pancakes are yummy!

 Don't worry, I won't go all baby food blog here. There are a million great baby food resource blogs out there. (If you want some of them, just email me.) My little dude has started eating real food and it is a hoot! I knew I was going to love cooking up food for my son, but I had no idea just how fun it would be to watch him eat it!

Me eating blueberry muffins? No, why do you ask?

Just the other day he was enjoying zucchini feta pancakes and an apricot. Other self feeding favorites have been roasted sweet potatoes dusted with cinnamon, whole wheat bread with hummus, and corn meal blue berry muffins. He recently discovered ice cream when I was enjoying a cone of vanilla. You can't eat in front of him without sharing, so he figured out how to lick the cone pretty fast. :)

Eating lamb in front of the lambs. So wrong, but so funny.

 The best though, was when we took him to Sundan Farms for their open farm day. They were grilling up all sorts of delicious lamb. Justin and I were enjoying the lamb chops when we hear a small but demanding voice asking for a taste. Next thing we know we have a baby squealing with joy as he tastes his first meat. He is his father's son. He spent the rest of the visit sucking on the bones. 

One of the best things about being home for the summer is all the family time we are getting. We are trying to all get out for a long walk each day. The other day, while wandering through the ally behind our house I came across a HUGE patch of lemon balm. Lemon balm is basically a mint like weed around here, popping up through our fence, giving us an almost daily chore of ripping it out. But, on this day I decided to take an arm full of fragrant stems home with me. I stopped at my neighbor's garden for a large handful of mint. Once home I simmered them in just enough water to cover the leaves, with some sugar until a dark sweet tea was made.

After tasting it I added a tiny drip of vanilla to round the lemon, mint flavor. Now we have a great syrup to make lemon mint soda with our handy Soda Steam. I also really like it mixed with my strawberry drinking vinegar.

Funny thing, the next day I was reading the Oregonian FoodDay and found a recipe for Lemon Verbena Soda. Great Minds!  :) 

Lemon, Mint, Vanilla Soda Syrup
2 large handfuls of lemon verbena, washed and stems broken into smaller pieces
1 large handful of mint, washed and stems broken into smaller pieces
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
3 drips of vanilla

1. In a large sauce pan add verbena, mint, water and sugar. Simmer 10 minutes or until the water takes on a dark tea like appearance.
2. Strain leaves from tea. Add vanilla.

3. Pour into a pretty bottle. Add a tablespoon or more to a large glass of bubbly water for a refreshing soda.

PS. I want to welcome all my new visitors! I hope you like my little blog and come back again. Please become a follower. :)

Celebrating the Cherry Blossoms

Last weekend our family headed down to the Portland waterfront for a walk in the Spring sunshine and to enjoy the cherry blossoms. Viewing the cherry blossoms is one of my favorite activities in the early Spring - the soft petals waving in the breeze, along the hustle and bustle of the waterfront and Saturday Market.

Our front yard now boasts two 4 foot tall cherry trees, which are just starting to show off their blossoms. I felt we needed to celebrate this, and have an excuse for an afternoon get together. We were in luck, the clouds parted just in time for our front yard party. We enjoyed dumplings, edamame, and rice crackers in the sunshine while sipping on St. Germain and champagne.

If you haven't tried St. Germain, it is an elderflower liqueur. Sweet, flowery, and a perfect addition to a flute of bubbly. I thought the flowery taste would be the perfect compliment to the cherry blossoms. The website has a lot of great looking recipes, this is their champagne wedding cocktail, but worked just fine for our get together.

Cherry Blossom Viewing Cocktail
For one cocktail, in a champagne flute
1 tablespoon St. Germain liqueur
1 twist of grapefruit skin
champagne

Add all to a champagne flute, stir gently. Enjoy!

Homemade Drinking Vinegar

Anyone who has visited my house knows my obsession with drinking vinegars. I offer a bubbly fruit/tart drink up to anyone who sits at my table. It can take some convincing of first timers that this vinegar does really taste wonderfully refreshing. They are growing in popularity, especially here in Portland. Pok Pok, a terrific authentic Thai restaurant, has made drinking vinegars practically mainstream.

I written about them before, and even made a cocktail using apple drinking vinegar in my Food Network application video. I have been purchasing bottles of fruit flavored vinegars at the Asian market. Apple, lemon, and strawberry vinegars have been my favorite.

Strawberry and peach drinking vinegars. The raspberry was drank very fast!

Drinking vinegars, from what I can tell, have a history in both the American South and all over Southeast Asia. It is a syrup created with fruit, fruit juices, a base vinegar and sweetened with sugar. When mixed with bubbly water it makes a sweet tart soda. Add a splash of gin or vodka and you have a fabulous cocktail.

I have been thinking about attempting homemade drinking vinegar for a while. Being pregnant, and off the cocktails, encouraged me to come up with interesting nonalcoholic drinks. A kitchen counter filled with u-pick strawberries, raspberries and peaches was all I needed to push me into experimentation.

The whole process took a week, but really only about an hour of hands-on time. I am very pleased with the results - sweet, tart, and fruity. Any juicy fruit would work. I can't wait until fall to try an apple and pear flavored vinegar. This is a pretty loosey-goosey recipe, but just adjust sugar to match your tastes.

Homemade Drinking Vinegars - makes about one quart
1 pint fruit, or 2 cups chopped stone fruit
3-4 cups white vinegar (I think a rice vinegar would work well too)
1 1/2 - 2 cups white sugar

1. In a clean quart jar add fruit and smoosh with a spoon until juice is released. Top off the jars with vinegar. Push fruit under the vinegar if it floats.
2. Cover the top with a clean cloth napkin and secure with a rubber band. Leave in a cool place for one week. (At this point you have a fruit vinegar for salad dressings)
3. Strain vinegar to remove fruit solids into a sauce pan. You should have about 3 1/2 cups of liquid.
4. Add sugar and bring mix to a boil for 5 minutes. It should thicken a bit.
5. At this point I would do a taste test. Mix 3 tablespoons with a large glass of seltzer. Is it sweet enough? If not, add more sugar and boil until the sugar melts.
6. Pour into a jar and store in the fridge. Use as needed.

PS. A yummy cocktail recipe: In a large glass mix 3 tablespoons of strawberry drinking vinegar, shot of vodka, squeeze of lime and top with seltzer.

Warmth in a Mug - Chocolate Eggnog

We have been snowed in for days and I have cabin fever! Justin is addicted to the local news. 24 hours a day of news reporters telling us that it is, may, or will snow. It is really exciting. They are right! It did, will, or may snow. Hurrah. Can I have Oprah back now?
So, I decided to walk to the market (trudged through the snow, 2 miles, uphill, both ways!) for some eggnog. I imagined warming up with a mug of eggnog, maybe an eggnog latte as a reward for time spent in the wind and snow.
As I was defrosting, Justin created this masterpiece in a mug.
Makes 2 large mugs. After one mug I promptly fell asleep in front of the fire all toasty inside and out.

Chocolate Eggnog
3 cups eggnog
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons shaved chocolate (or I imagine cocoa powder would work)
3 shots of dark rum

Warm the eggnog and milk in a pot. Do not let it boil. Melt in the chocolate into the mixture. Turn off heat, add rum, stir and divide between the mugs.

Hop To It!

It is time to harvest those hops. Get them off the vines before the rain ruins your chance at brewing some homegrown beer. Last Spring, we planted a little hop vine. We did not have high hopes for the hops, but we were very pleasantly surprised! For a little plant we used to cover an ugly fence, it sure did a good job producing Cascade Hops. The vine did a great job covering the fence and climbed the neighbor's tree!

Pick the hops when they make a papery sound when you rub a "flower" between your fingets. We picked them on a sunny afternoon and then dried them in 200 degree oven that evening.

It took about 2 hours to dry the hops and the house smell sorta, well, hoppy. Pleasant.. but also sorta wierd.
When the hops are dry stuff them into gallon ziplock bags. Press the air out of the bag and store in the freezer until ready to brew.

Rhubarb-a-rita

Nothing helps wrap-up a fabulous sunny day at the Portland Pug Crawl like an icy drink.

Two Saturdays ago, I bought a pile of bright red rhubarb stalks at the Portland Farmer's Market. It was a busy week and as the days passed the stalks became more and more wilted. My motivation to whip up a rhubarb pie also slipped away. What was I going to do with the sad pile?

While waiting for the Splendid Table to start on Sunday, I remembered that last spring Lynne Rossetto Kasper talked about her favorite birthday drink, a rhubarb-a-rita. She simmered and strained the rhubard to create a syrup. Then she mixed it with tequila and lime. It was the perfect solution to my rhubarb problem.

It tastes fabulous! A smooth mix of sweet and sour. And oh so pretty! (I wish I had taken a picture!)

Rhubarb-a-rita Syrup
Makes about a bit more than a pint of syrup. The syrup stores well in the refrigerator for improptu party needs!

2 Cups chopped rhubarb
2 Cups water (or to cover the rhubarb)
1 1/2 Cups sugar

Simmer together until sugar has melted and the rhubarb is cooked and broken apart into strands. Cool. Strain the syrup (over the sink!) through a cloth napkin or a cheese cloth. The syrup should be a rosy pink shade.

Rhubarb-a-rita
Shake 1 shot of syrup and 1 shot of tequila with ice. Pour over the rocks and add a squeeze of lime. (I like to cut mine with some homemade seltzer too.)

Enjoy the Spring sunshine. It looks like summer is just around the corner.