Monthly Archives: March 2010

Angostura Bitters & the Banshee!

The thing you have to understand with cocktails (and all food) is that astringency is important. Celery is astringent. Grapefruit is astringent. Romaine is astringent. The absence of astringency begats a palate for fat people.
Angostura Bitters is widely available and perhaps the most useful cocktail ingredient ever invented. It is gentian extract. Apparently it is [...]

Wine and Asian food

Asian food in general, and Thai in particular is murderously difficult to pair with wine.
My fave with spicy food is Amontillado sherry served ice cold, but I’ve never yet found that on a menu. Jammy Australian wine works well. There’s no point in getting too expensive as the spice will overpower most wines. [...]