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Beer to be made from yeast swabbed from Roald Dahl's writing chair.
London's dining elite are always after the most strange and unusual of culinary delights - and this certainly is both strange and unusual.

Mr. Twit's Odious Ale has been brewed utilising yeast swabbed from the wood of Roald Dahl's famous writing chair; a specially-adapted armchair created to ease the pain of a back injury sustained during WWII, as the author avoided writing at a desk. With the permission of Dahl's estate, brewers took a swab from the chair itself, which will be used to culture all the yeast needed for the beer.

The Odious Ale is concocted by microdistillery 40FT Brewery and food designers Bompass & Parr. "We've been lifelong fans of Roald Dahl and so it's an honour to be collaborating with our friends Bompas & Parr to create this beer together," said Steve Ryan of 40FT Brewery.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-from-roald-dahls-writing-chair-a7195721.html
 
I hope they only took the samples from the back of the chair, not the bottom!
 
Do they still do that thing in Soho where if you go into a sleazy bar, order a drink and a woman (aka undercover sting/ sex worker) flirts with you then asks you to buy her a drink you're not allowed to leave until you've paid the (something like) £120 bar tab for two drinks ? ..
Do they still do that thing in Soho where if you go into a sleazy bar, order a drink and a woman (aka undercover sting/ sex worker) flirts with you then asks you to buy her a drink you're not allowed to leave until you've paid the (something like) £120 bar tab for two drinks ? ..
You're out of my price range there!
 
Regular students of my posts will know I'm partial to a drop of rum now and again, either to fortify a mug of beer, or (around Xmas), to mix with ginger wine or ale.

Normally, I use Tesco own brand rum, but today I went shopping in the Co-op and bought a bottle of theirs. Mistake! Even mixed in a pint of ale, it has an unpleasant taste and smell. (I would describe it as creosotey, although I've never drunk creosote!) I should have bought just a half-bottle to sample first.

Ah well, live and learn... :(
 
Take it back!
Well, I do still have the receipt...

But taste is such a matter of taste... Difficult to prove it's not what it should be... It could all end up with battalions of Lawyers, and numerous analytical laboratories.... :banghead:
 
Only this week I was thinking that the Co-op is probably the most reliable source of convenience-store booze, usually at prices no higher than the supermarkets.

If the receipt is all you have left, the shop might dispute just how unpalatable it was, though I know that dilemma well! ;)
 
Well, I do still have the receipt...

But taste is such a matter of taste... Difficult to prove it's not what it should be... It could all end up with battalions of Lawyers, and numerous analytical laboratories.... :banghead:

They'd have it back. They'd have it back if I took it. :twisted:
 
Easier to use it as lavatory cleaner.
 
They'd have it back. They'd have it back if I took it. :twisted:
Rum returned to Co-op for cash refund! :)

I was feeling a bit poorly yesterday - I wonder if that was down to the rum, even though I'd only had a couple of shots of it on Tuesday night. I'll stick to Tesco's version from now on - it's cheaper too!
 
Got the blackberry whiskey steeping - this year I've made a blackberry-and-apple whiskey, to see how it comes out. I'll let you know.
 
Tescos were selling own brand Muscadet half price at £2.80 a bottle the other week. I've never had Muscadet before, but this stuff tasted really sour and vinegary. It was quite ghastly.
 
Tesco's Bourbon is only £12 a bottle but my lord you have to drown it in something to make it palatable. All the worst sour notes you get in the inexplicably popular Jack Daniels and nothing else to counterbalance it.

When they have Jim Beam on offer, I'll plump for that, but beggars and choosers and all that. Interestingly I noticed that budget Bourbon of yore Four Roses that I used to buy by the gallon for a tenner on the ferries as a teenager has a fancy new bottle and is now in the mid-twenties quid a bottle.
 
this stuff tasted really sour and vinegary.

They used to say the only bone-dry French whites were Graves and Muscadet, with the latter credited as having a touch of the salt sea waves about it, due to the coastal location. It is often bottled sur lie - as the Wikipedia page explains. This gives it a slight pétillance; any secondary fermentation in the bottle could give rise to off flavours.

This rogue bottle may have put you off but it is a classic wine that is great with fish. Worth another go - maybe not Tesco's! I wonder if the drastic price-reduction was on account if it being known to be past its best? :cool:
 
Lots of beer and singing as Seven Stars in Falmouth celebrates what could be a record anniversary
Helen Dale , Reporter

Regulars of the Seven Stars in Falmouth joined landlady Amy Bennetts to celebrate 165 years of her family being in charge of what is the town's oldest pub.

Seven generations of Amy's family have run the pub since great-great-great grandfather, Hugh Dunstan Richards took over the pub that had first opened in 1660. Undoubtedly the best well known of these publicans was Amy's much-loved grandfather, Barrington, who had served almost 60 years behind the bar when he died at Christmas, 2011. He had also been an honorary assistant priest at Falmouth Parish Church.

The Campaign for Real Ale is now investigating whether Amy's family hold the UK record for the longest held association with a pub.

To celebrate the 165th anniversary, Amy invited friends and customers old and new to join her and her dad, Nigel, for an evening of singing, food, beer and wine. "It was an historic moment and we just wanted to mark it," said Amy.

Now 26, Amy has memories of the public going back to her early childhood and knew almost from the start that she would one day take over the pub. "I have lovely memories of when I was four-years-old and in pub," she said. "This is where I always wanted to be - this side of the bar and I'd like to be here for 60 years too."
Amy still sometimes finds it difficult to believe her beloved grandfather has gone. "I still think he is going to walk into the bar and look at me with his glasses half way down his nose," she joked.

Over the decades, the little pub tucked away off The Moor piazza has built up a loyal customer base. "We are a dying breed because so many pubs like this have been ripped out and transformed but this one has not changed," said Amy. "We have had a few alterations but nothing massive. It is what it is, and we have done pretty well.

Amy, whose partner Simon Fudge runs the nearby Masons Arms, puts the success of the Seven Stars down to her hardworking staff and her regular customers and while determined not to change the ethos of the pub, she does have a few plans up her sleeve.
In the meantime, she is happy to continue the family tradition. "This is my life," she said. "Sometimes people think it's just a job but for me it's my life. I would not have it any other way."

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...lebrates_what_could_be_a_record_anniversary/#

I used to drink there quite often, but not so much in recent years. I knew Barrington and his son Nigel, but I don't think I ever met Amy.
 
On a sadder note, the Windsor Castle Marylebone has closed when it's lease ran out & it was bought by a Saudi-based property company who are going to turn the block into yet more fucking luxury flats.

It was a really quirky old school pub, one of the last around in central London, with signed photos of visiting celebs over the years - footballers, tv actors etc, covering every bit of wall space, lots of memorabilia & a thing about royalty. There were brass plaques on the tables saying things like 'reserved for Mabel every Thursday & Friday'. Many so old that polishing had worn them down quite smooth & hard to read.

The handlebar club used to hold their meetings there & numerous photos of excessive facial hair adorned the walls as well.

When you bought a packet of crisps the landlord would open a packet & tip into a bowl.

I used to go there after playing table tennis as it was round the corner. Sadly missed.
 
Buckfast locals back monks after criticism of drink's links to violence
Sales of tonic wine helped bring in £8.8m for abbey last year, some of which is spent on community projects

Friday 16 December 2016 13.36 GMT

The routine for the Benedictine monks of Buckfast Abbey in Devon is plain and strict: a bell rings at 5.25am to wake them and thereafter the day is divided into periods of prayer, work and study. Meals are simple and, except on very special occasions, taken in silence.

Yet there is nothing austere about the finances of the Buckfast Abbey trust, which supports the community. New figures from the Charity Commission reveal that – in large part thanks to the success of the abbey’s tonic wine – the trust’s annual income totalled a cool £8.8m.

The success is not without controversy. Buckfast tonic wine, which contains caffeine, is often blamed for drink-fuelled thuggery in Scotland. Only last week a sheriff in Dundee said he believed there was a “very definite association between Buckfast and violence” as he sentenced a young man who smashed a bottle of the drink over a boy’s head at a child’s 15th birthday party.

Such trouble does not tend to happen in Buckfastleigh. “I don’t know anyone who really drinks it here, actually, and certainly not as apparently as some do in Strathclyde,” said Neil Smith, a town councillor and economics lecturer. “Although it does actually make quite a nice alternative to Pimm’s if you dilute it with lemonade rather than down it in one from the bottle.”

Smith does not feel the drink’s reputation is bad for the town’s image. “On the contrary, it generates interest in the town and the long history of the abbey here. The abbey is a huge tourist attraction, bringing people from all over the world. It employs local people; it is a beautiful environment with free entry, providing a space to walk and contemplate. I go there often myself despite not being religious.” ...

https://www.theguardian.com/society...iolence?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
I've just filtered of my blackberry whiskey (9 bottles) and 4.5 bottles of blackberry-and-apple whiskey. Well it's news for me.
 
I've just filtered of my blackberry whiskey (9 bottles) and 4.5 bottles of blackberry-and-apple whiskey. Well it's news for me.

Do you use a particular whisky for this? and do you simply put some blackberries into each bottle & leave for weeks/months?
 
Do you use a particular whisky for this? and do you simply put some blackberries into each bottle & leave for weeks/months?
Cheapest whisky. 3lbs of blackberries in a demijon with 8oz raw cane or dark brown sugar. 3.3l whiskey. Shake once a day for a week, once a week for 4-6 weeks. Filter using coffee filter papers when bottling.

For the blackberry and apple, swap 1lb blackberries for 1lb apples (eaters). Same method.
 
I've just filtered of my blackberry whiskey (9 bottles) and 4.5 bottles of blackberry-and-apple whiskey. Well it's news for me.

I got 5 bottles of elderberry wine (dropped one) that I started last September. It's been in a demijohn all that time and I bottled it on Halloween. The same day I started an apple and bramble wine with the neighbours apples and Sainsbury's brambles. That's my news.


Has anyone done this Booze Calculator by the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30500372

I'm not telling what I got but I will be cutting my intake by about 2/3rds. :eek:
 
I got 5 bottles of elderberry wine (dropped one) that I started last September. It's been in a demijohn all that time and I bottled it on Halloween. The same day I started an apple and bramble wine with the neighbours apples and Sainsbury's brambles. That's my news.


Has anyone done this Booze Calculator by the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30500372

I'm not telling what I got but I will be cutting my intake by about 2/3rds. :eek:
My Mum used to make elderberry champagne, it's gorgeous Dave .. I recommend you trying that one out next year. I can ask her how she did it if you want? ..
 
Jesus turned water into wine, they say. Now one James Gilpin brings us . . .

Whisky from the Urine of Elderly Diabetics! :revelry:

Insert favourite piss-joke here.
What, they are taking the piss... out of the Elderly! Naughty!
Personal impression: Yew! This Christmas, I stick to eau-de-yeast and wheat. ie real ale beer. or good old Pomerol (My favorite Bordeaux's wine)
 
I wouldn't touch that whisky with a very long pole.
 
I was actually drinking a notably "catty" American-style IPA* as I posted the above article. :drink:

*It called me a Limey Lush! :cry:
 
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