Summer Fun Food Drink and Gear - The Gin Virgin - Chapter 21 · Monday August 23, 2010 by colin newell
If you think Victoria B.C. is coffee central, better get ready to add a new category for this little piece of West Coast paradise! Victoria Gin has hit town.
We spoke with boyish master distiller and molecular biologist Peter Hunt, 31 as he tended his copper pot still – the first one I have ever seen.
Photo right: From L to R – The Hemp Vodka, the Oaken Gin and the Pure Gin.
Peter did his B.A. and Masters degree in Micro-Biology at UVic and seemed as surprised as my wife and I to be tending and managing the intricate discipline of distillation. One of his former vocations was community development work in Africa – but now, at this very early stage in his career, he is doing something completely different – if not just as equally satisfying.
This was our second attempt at finding the operation (they have added some more signs!) and adjacent to a small vineyard in Saanich, the distillery and tasting room are in a barn, giving it that cottage industry feeling that you find in many small wineries.
I learned a lot about distillation and the process of making gin and vodka while checking out their neat operation. A mash of juniper berries and 10 “botanical” additions are used in this handcrafted spirit. Watching it “boil” away at just over 80 degrees © was cool – as well as seeing the condensation towers “perking” – with a gentle little stream of refined “brew” ending up in a steel tin.
Wild organic herbs and spices plus natural spring water create the complex flavor profile of gin – and it is not entirely lost on me, an avid coffee taster. In some ways, it is even more challenging. In the sample room, there are martini glasses laid out with samples of the botanical pallet they use. So much for secret ingredients!
We sipped several varieties of the Gin, one Oak aged and one pure as well as the hemp vodka – and bought a bottle of each. Because I was driving I kept my tipple to less than 1/8th ounce sips with each sample – but the flavor was all there.
Some extra things I learned…
The German-made, 120L copper pot-still produces a “batch” in an attention grabbing 4 to 6 hour distillation process. Intense knowledge of biology and chemistry is key because you do spend a lot of time stripping off ingredients you really do not want in liquor – like acetates and methanol, the blindness inducing byproduct of careless distillation.
Comment [1]
Summer Food Fun and Drink 15 Life in the now lane · Thursday July 29, 2010 by colin newell
One of the neat things about being over 40 – and being fairly hip to what is hot and happening in the early part of the 21st Century…
Is the fact that I am old enough to remember going into a record store to buy LP’s – when cassettes were actually available…
Photo at right: New copyright protection laws and digital locks – technology and new media – Stephen Harper wants to know: What’s on your iPod!?
(And)Seeing the arrival of CD’s in the early eighties was way cool as well.
I can recall shopping out my first CD Player (a Sony) with my one CD I owned… and then previewing the performance of new systems with Dire Straits “Brother in Arms” release (which by the way was the first million selling CD in 1985) – yes, I waited until at least 1985 to get my first CD player.
My Amp was (and is with my Mom now) a Class-A JVC high end amp with a pair of Boston Acoustic speakers (that I think need a re-coning by now…)
There was a time in the late 70’s when home video tape arrived in the form of the VHS and Beta tape – ushering in an era of home video rentals – something that is quickly going the route of DVD rentals. When DVD rentals arrived I think a lot of us figured that “this was it…” – this is the medium for home entertainment that was here to stay.
Then Blue-ray. And in some senses, that technology has hardly dug in its heels and the rental market is entirely drying up as viable internet downloading of individual shows as well as broadband on demand is becoming more available to the average person.
My point? I have seen it all – from the late sixties and album oriented masterpieces on vinyl from the likes of Led Zeppelin – and I heard ever album as they were released!
Nowadays one does not even need to leave their living room to acquire every bit of “entertainment” that is available. No need for video or DVD rental. No need for record stores. Game rentals? History my friend.
And I think that we are all poorer without the whole community experience. One wonders what kind of people we will become when we only need to go out for work or food. I wonder.
As of today, I have still managed to not download one song off of the internet – and I have never downloaded a TV show or movie. Call me square if you want – but I work with this technology all day. Which might explain something.
Currently, what is left of the music industry (and movie empire) is quickly trying to come up with some tough new standards on protecting intellectual property. I am all for supporting the artist – but everything so far has not worked.
Anyway. Stay tuned. Let’s see what is next.
Comment [1]
Summer Food Fun and Drink 13 Thirteen is bad luck - get insurance · Tuesday July 27, 2010 by colin newell
Sometimes a little gamble is a good thing. It’s a fun thing. Like rolling the dice on a $1 lottery ticket or 15 minutes in a local casino with a roll of quarters. No harm right?
But who would venture South of the border to the U.S. without any personal health insurance or supplemental insurance for a loved one – particularly an elderly or at risk person?
But we Canadians roll the dice with extended health benefits. Lots apparently.
A recent survey by Ipsos Reid found 42% of Canadians always purchase travel insurance for leisure trips to the United States. The risks are somewhat higher for the other 58%. So what are they thinking?
A two-day stay in a hospital in the United States to deal with chest pain will cost you around $11,000, with only US$400 covered by your Canadian provincial health plan. Have an auto accident putting you in an ICU for 7 to 10 days and you can expect a sweet tab of around 100 grand! And your Provincial plan will cover about 6000 of that.
Doing the math?
A dear friend of mine went down to “The Islands” for a mere 4 hours last week. The “Islands” being a spot in the N.W. – in the U.S. of A.
She went with her sparky old mom – age 82.
And she had no extended health care beyond her basic Provincial coverage…
Risky? Maybe not if you are, like me, young healthy tall and generally awesome.
And even with my irrepressible awesomeness I still like to cover my back – with extended health coverage from Blue Cross – and trust me folks, that little card opens doors at virtually any first class hospital in the continental USA – and the Hawaiian Islands. And not only the doors, but the corridors to the private rooms!
Anyway – sparky old mom was minutes away from getting on the Ferry to Vancouver Island-Land and fell… hitting her head, ending up being helicoptered to a suitable American hospital with an ICU. Ka-Ching. Sparky’s daughter had to charter a flight of her own to catch up with Mom. Ka-Ching Ka-ching.
Mom was in American ICU for three days before being stabilized and moved into the general hospital population. Ka-ching, Ka-ching, Ka-ching, ka-ching!
And all of this impending financial pain could have been eliminated with about $40 of insurance for the duration.
Sparky is going to be OK. She is on her way back to Victoria and we will all celebrate with her… and her daughter. And maybe throw a benefit concert when we get around to it.
So bottom line folks – save your quarters for the slot machine and put a few dollars into prevention. Travel insurance will treat you right – and spare your pocket book a debilitating whack if you don’t.
Comment [2]
Summer Food Fun and Drink 12 Salmon Kings - what were they thinking · Friday July 23, 2010 by colin newell
Folks who know me well know that I enjoy my Salmon Kings hockey…
A lot.
But through a strange twist of hockey club management, my favorite Captain… Wes Goldie, has been replaced with, by the looks of it, a guy who spends more time in the penalty box – than on the ice or on the bench…
Say hello to the new captain of the Victoria Salmon Kings – Pete Vandermeer – third on the all-time American Hockey League penalty minutes list.
Say it with me folks… WTF!
“Our barn, Save-on-Foods Memorial will not be a place other teams will want to return to,” threatened Vandermeer…
“Even if the other guys leave with a win, it’s important they leave missing some blood and teeth when limping out of here.”
Once more… WTF?
A recent perception from management is that while it has been a skilled and scoring team, it’s also been soft.
Soft, my ass.
“Our building needs to be a scary place to come into.” Vandermeer chuckled.
Someone needs to remind Morrison, Salmon Kings coach – that the ECHL is family entertainment and regulars and season ticket holders are not interested in thuggery and bloodletting. Ever.
My opinion: We have not even begun to feel the blow-back from this stupid management decision at Salmon Kings HQ.
