Gadgets

In the last post I talked about wine glasses and how the shape, size and overall construction, are enhancing the overall experience. I left out the beers and I debated quite long time if I should have a similar entry for beer. You see, although for instance white wines share many common characteristics although they are different, in a way, beer although it is the same type, there have more different than common elements. In certain type of wine there are the grapes and the aging process. In beer is the starchy elements (wheat, barley rice etc), the hops, the water and the aging process. So although all wheat beers are the same in principle the differences are much more pronounced compared to wine. It is therefore not uncommon for every self respectful brewery to have its own glass. We are not going to cover each one, but I will just give a small description of the major types of glasses.

In a previous post we covered the basic for the of the cocktail or bar glasses as part of the tools required for a basic home bar. The difference is that with the possible exception of the Martini glass they do not influence the drinking experience. And even in the case of Martini it is only to keep it cold since it has no ice. On the contrary, for the wine the shape can influence the taste and the overall experience equally to the wine type and the serving temperature.  In the wine the aromas are equally important as the taste and a badly selected glass can ruin the overall experience.

Mixology is referred to the art of mixing beverages alcoholic or not, usually cold in a combination that will yield a drink with a new flavor called cocktail. The word cocktail itself originally was an adjective describing a creature with a tail like that of a cock, specifically a horse with a docked tail; hence (because hunters and coach horses were generally docked) a racehorse that was not a thoroughbred, having a cock-tailed horse in its pedigree (early 19th cent.). Sense 1 (originally U.S., also early 19th cent.) is perhaps analogous, from the idea of an adulterated spirit. Later of coarse the word was used to describe the very well known alcholic (or not) beverages. The earliest known printed use of the word “cocktail,” as originally determined by David Wondrich in October 2005, was from “The Farmer’s Cabinet”, April 28, 1803, p [2]: “11. Drank a glass of cocktail — excellent for the head … Call’d at the Doct’s. found Burnham — he looked very wise — drank another glass of cocktail.” The second earliest and officially recognised known printed use of the word “cocktail” (and the most well-known) was in the May 13, 1806 edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York , where the paper provided the following answer to what a cocktail was: “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else.”
According to the great book on bartendering “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” by David...