August 24th, 2008
OK, this is cool. I don’t know who did it, but I’ve been nominated for the Hot Blogger Calendar. They’re only taking nominations till tonight, and they’re basing it on how many nominations the person gets. I’m up against some pretty stiff competition, so get’cher ass over to the site and nominate me!
I want to go to New York for the shoot! :D
See? Hot. Smart. Funny. Heck, you guys keep reading me! Go nominate me please! :)
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By Colleen Coplick -- 2 comments
August 24th, 2008
mmmm. I want to get all of my furniture from these guys. Not only is this stuff gorgeous, but I bet is smells amazing. May as well carry my love for good bourbon throughout the entire house!
The furniture is made from reclaimed bourbon barrels from Bardstown, Kentucky. Usually, the used barrels are only used once to age bourbon, and then they’re either sold to Scotland for scotch or they’re turned into planters, or firewood (sob! how wrong!!).
Uhuru is instead taking this gorgeous charred white oak and has created the Küpe line. Heck, they make gorgeous furniture, period. I want all my stuff to be from here!
(Image source: Uhuru Designs. Hat tip to Liquor Snob for the heads up)
Tags: Bourbon, furniture, reclaimed furniture, recycledShare This
By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments
August 21st, 2008
(image, Life’s a gasp)
Yep, that’s exactly what it looks like. A snake in a bottle of alcohol. Snake Whiskey.
What is snake whiskey? Well, it’s madness, a bottle of whiskey with a dead cobra inside,pieces of snake skin floating around in it, nasty! [source]
I, personally, didn’t find it nasty. I experienced it in a very weird way.
The Tall Ships came to Vancouver in the summer of 2005. I was working for one of the major sponsors of the festival and as such, got to go on all sorts of cool events pertaining to the festival.
One of these was a party that the Russian Tall Ship, the Pallada, threw. We 
had copious amounts of Russian vodka, (mixed with orange juice, kinda – you know, in the “would you like some orange juice with your vodka?” sorta way), and had had enough to agree to go with a crew member to his cabin. There were two of us, so I knew we’d be safe, but it was still weird in that “I want to show you something” sort of way. And, add to that, the crew member taking us below-decks didn’t have what could be considered good English. He was a lovely man, but, well… yeah. It was complicated. (image source: Telstar Logistics)
He lead us down a complicated warren of staircases and sat us down in his 
cabin. He brought out a bottle of snake… what I thought was vodka, but I think now, was actually whiskey. Either way, it was a bottle of something, with a small cobra in it. (image source: John Brown) It didn’t look like this one – it was the size and shape of a 26 oz bottle, and had a red label, mostly in an Asian language I couldn’t read.
He had a cantaloupe. He handed us pieces. At first, I had no idea why, and I was confused. He poured all three of us shots and made sure we had the cantaloupe in hand. We did the shot, which was stinging, astringent, and … wow. It was very much alcohol. He gestured that we should eat the cantaloupe, you know, like you do with a bad shot of tequila – you suck on the lime afterwards to cut the flavour of the low-quality tequila.
But, GET THIS! It worked!! the cantaloupe totally cut the astringent flavour. I was stunned.
I’m planning to go to Thailand when the olympics are in Vancouver (2010…..winter. sounds like the best time to go away to me!), and despite the fact that the snake vodka/whiskey is apparently only for tourists, I’m trying it again. I am IN, if only because I can get some good pictures. Anyone want to come with me?
(PS - if you’re looking to buy some without travelling to Asia, try here.)
Tags: Tequila, The Pallada, Vodka, Weird, WhiskeyShare This
By Colleen Coplick -- 5 comments
August 19th, 2008
I’m a full-on spirits girl. I love my hard alcohol.
Don’t get me wrong, I like wine too, but I really KNOW spirits. Now that Drinks After Dark is my own world, I need to start being schooled more about wine. I’m learning. Quite seriously, actually.
In the process of my education, I found a fantastic site called Wine Searcher. They will give you the retail prices for anything you can buy… which means that when you’re at a restaurant (oh, and… more on this coming soon… cracking the code for restaurant wine markups), you can find out what you really would pay, which will tell you whether or not you want to buy that bottle.
(image source:Palm Court)
Tags: Learning wine, sites, WineShare This
By Colleen Coplick -- 2 comments
August 18th, 2008
Oy. Based on this study, I will never, ever drink a Red Bull and Vodka ever again.
Researchers in Australia have found that just one sugar free can of Red Bull raised the level of stickiness of the blood and could lead to the formation of blood clots.
But according to Dr. Scott Willoughby, of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Adelaide University, the results of the study were alarming.
"After one can it seemed to turn the young individual into one with more of the type of profile you would expect to see with someone with cardiovascular disease. People who already have existing cardiovascular disease may want to talk to their physician before they drink Red Bull in future," Scott said.
I don’t know about you, but I’m out. there are better drinks in the world than freakin’ red bull and vodka. (image source: RedBull)
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By Colleen Coplick -- 4 comments
August 17th, 2008
Yesterday, the first (annual, we hope) VinoCamp Vancouver. I covered several of the sessions, found a Riesling I actually really enjoy (which is unusual for me), and became a hardcore Riedel glass convert.
Here’s some of the great shots from participants yesterday.
Image source: Megan Cole. You can see more of the images from the day here.
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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments
August 17th, 2008
Who knew? I found out at VinoCamp.
The drink is described as: "The perfect ’starter drink’ for your night or a special pleasure as a reward at the end of the day." Paris has launched a new "bubbly blonde" drink - which comes in original, passion fruit and strawberry.
Of course she has. She already has her own perfume, jewellery range, shoe collection, bag line and has released a pop album and starred in a bunch of movies.
Bleh. Of all the drinks in the world, I’m gonna go with “no” on this one. Thanks though.
Tags: "drinks", Celebrity, Paris Hilton, WineShare This
By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments
August 16th, 2008
Kelly and Annie write Full Bodied. Annie has a great wine rack. So does Kelly.
See? Great Wine Rack.
Annie and Kelly write Full Bodied. They talk about wine, and, well, wine. Check them out. They also blogged VinoCamp. It’s all so very good.
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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments
August 16th, 2008
France.
If you want to look at organic wine, you have to look at France, where it started. A gazillion years ago.
The one thing to understand about organic wine is that there are 100s of wines you’ll never see on an “organic” shelf in the liquor store. They, much like several of the organic vegetable growers, can’t certify organic. It’s ridiculously expensive to get official organic standards.
There’s also a lot of “green” packaging in the world, but that doesn’t make wine “green” or “organic”.
Take a look at the videos by Gregory Finch. He’s talking about organic wine, better than I can.
shhhh… watch.
part 2:
and, part 3:
Tags: VinoCamp, VinoCamp08Share This
By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments
August 16th, 2008
Wine is the message. The glass is the messenger.
The senses are the first things that help you taste wine. Your eyes let you take everything in, and then your sense of touch. You feel a smooth round stem with Riedel.
There’s some controversy over stemless glasses, but have you noticed, that when you knock over a stemless glass, it weebles, wobbles and yet, it stands back up, thus “saving the wine, which is important”.
The Riesling glasses are designed to deliver the wine to a different place in your palate. The “everyday wine glass” is built for durability, and has a large rolled rim. The wine smells different; it smells flat. Boring. Like… nothing. Pouring that same Riesling back into the Riesling glass, and the scent is more powerful, it’s more intense. The nose is sharper, and the flavour is delivered more to the middle of your tongue.
What I assumed was a “red wine glass” and is a big bellied wine glass is opening up the buttery flavour of the Chardonnay. We poured the chardonnay into the everyday glass and you lose the buttery flavour. In the Riesling glass (which also works for zinfandel, sangovese, chianti and sauvignon blanc), the Chardonnay became more bitter, less open, less buttery and overall, not as good.
The fourth glass we have is another big bellied “bucket” as Riedel calls it, rather affectionately. Mr Riedel (the … fourth generation wine glass maker, i think) calls the typical red wine glass “the enemy of red wine”. This is a super soft crystal glass, which holds 1.05 litres of wine (!!!), but it’s soft enough that (a trained professional) can wobble the stem and squeeze the rim.
The Pinot Noir glass (which is a $140 stem!!!) we have was originally the Oregon Pinot Noir Glass because the Oregon wine makers wouldn’t stop bugging Riedel to make their own glass.
This glass looks for the tannins in the pinot noir. The tannins in pinot noir are notoriously hard to find and this glass opens up the tannins and adds to the beautiful mouth feel of this wine.
David Sanders, the lovely Riedel glass guy, keeps trying to get us to pour the wine from the glass it’s supposed to be in into the other glasses. He’s making the wine taste bad.
The Cabernet Savignon, which is normally a very tannin-y wine, has a glass that is hiding the tannins. The glass is called a Tannin Tamer. Pouring the Cab Sauv into the “pinot noir” glass, the tannin finder, brings out the tannins and makes it almost … astringent.
For the average wine drinker, the general rule of thumb is to buy the glass for the wine you enjoy the most. If you had to pick two to get, that would cross the widest variety of wines, get the Cabernet Sauvignon glass and the Riesling glass.
Like I said, I knew that Riedel glasses were made for the wine, but I had no idea that the wine would taste, smell and feel so differently in different glasses.
I am now officially a Riedel convert.
(image source: Megan Cole)
Tags: VinoCamp, VinoCamp08Share This
By Colleen Coplick -- 1 comment
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