So what is Brandy

One of the most most popular after dinner drinks around the world is Brandy and is consumed by thousands of people without knowing what they are drinking and probably do not care.

They could not also tell you why different brandies have different flavors and ages or even how they are made.

It will come as a surprise to a lot of people to learn that the drink they are having at the end of the meal could quite possibly have been made from the same product as they had with the meal - wine. Many a Chateau in France has turned an inferior year's wine into a more profitable brandy.

The first brandies are believed to have been made in the 12th century although they really became popular in the 14th century as it became a popular way of preserving things and because of the reduced volumes cheaper for the merchants to transport. The original idea was to add the water that had been lost during the distillation process but it was soon discovered that the brandy improved considerably in terms of taste after it had been stored in wooden barrels, even for a short time. What really changed the concept of brandy was when it was discovered that this process continued indefinitely as long as the brandy stayed in the barrels.

It then came down to simple economics - how long could a vineyard or brandy maker afford to keep the brandy for increased profits whilst balancing this against cash flow.

Most brandies are made by distillation of wine that is between 8% and 12% and acidic (hence the use of cheap wine in the past) with the first distillate being 30% of alcohol by volume and sometimes known as "low wine". The process is repeated until there is an average of 70% of volume when it is put into wooden barrels and allowed to mature. Cheap brandies add caramel at this point to give an impression of greater age bit can easily be spotted by experienced brandy drinkers.

You can tell the age of a brandy as there is a recognized terminology used around the world to describe it:

A.C. has been aged in wood for 2 years
V.S. (Very Special or 3 star) has been aged in wood for 3 years
V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale of 5 star) has been aged in wood for 3 years
X.O. Extra Old or Napoleon aged  for at least 6 years
Vintage - aged in barrels to the date or number of years on the bottle

What is known by very few is that many good brandies are a blend of years with the age of the youngest brandy being the age shown on the bottle. It is quite common for good brandies to have 20, 30 or even 50 year old brandy within the blend although obviously at very small quantities.

Once you get to taste brandies that are older than 20 years of age you will appreciate the massive difference that being kept in barrels for extended time makes

Some confusion arises when it comes to Cognac and Armagnac who some believe are a superior type of brandy but are in fact just regional variants with Cognac coming from the Cognac region of France and Armagnac from Gascony

Another brandy that is well known is Calvados which is brandy made from apples, cider to exact, and is one of a number of fruit brandies that are very popular

Well known in Europe and liked by Gastronaughts around the world is Grappa which is distilled from the skins and left overs from the grapes after they have been pressed.

Insect Delights

Take a walk down any Asian street and you will find stalls offering a range of foodstuffs that you do not recognize and on closer viewing possibly do not want to as these are all insects of various shapes and sizes. Looks like you are in a minimized African safari.

For westerners the prospect of eating insects is so far from their psyche that it just does not even compute for 99% of the population. Only those that have been on exotic holidays to Asia or have participated in one of the current raft of reality TV programs would consider doing so but are the rest missing out on something.

Insects are horrible dirty things that crawl on the floor or fly through the air making a nuisance and from an early age we are told they must be ignored but our basic instinct as a young child of 3 or 4 is to eat them.

From a rational view point they are a combination of proteins and sugars along with carbohydrates the same as many of the other food stuffs that we consume, and frequently are "healthier" for us.

Personally I think it has a lot to do with the modern day view to eating - meat comes on tray from the supermarket or mall and not from animals. Because insects are generally small - I would not want to meet a cockroach or grasshopper the size of a cow, they are served intact and it is this aspect of "food" that really puts people off.

Asians have long had a more practical aspect to their food and eat parts of animals that westerners find disgusting but are for many a delicacy so their acceptance of insects as a nutritional part of their diet should not be that surprising.

Deep fried grasshoppers are a particular delicacy and to be frank are a little nutty in flavor and quite nice if served with the spicy pepper or oil that is often sprayed on. The real trick is to pull off the legs and wings and then snap off the head before popping it in to your mouth. it is really embarrassing to pop the whole thing in to your mouth to discover one of the legs is sticking out of your mouth on one side.

Smaller grasshoppers and bugs can be scooped up in the fingers and eaten like you would eat rice with your fingers, a little dry at times and really surprisingly different insects have different flavors.

Numerous studies have shown that the nutritional value of insects, especially in terms of protein is very high and many of them are very low in fats and carbohydrates making them an ideal food source if you are looking for a low carb diet - I just do not understand why this has not taken off in California...

As the world becomes more populated and foodstuffs become scarcer it is almost inevitable that insects are going to have to take a bigger place in our food chain. Did you know that 100 kilos of feed produces 10 kilos of beef but if that same feed was fed to grasshoppers or similar it would produce 40 kilos of food, 4 times the quantity.

So what I suggest is that the next time someone offers you an insect to try don't dismiss them out of hand, give it a go and you might be pleasantly surprised. Just watch out for those annoying wings.....

Does a bone matter?

All around the world on a daily basis people are sitting down and eating meat as part of their daily staple, if they can afford it. As you move up the money chain so to does the quality of the meat we are eating, or so many would have us believe, especially those in the food preparation industry.

The next time that you go in to a supermarket have a look at the packets of meat, in particular chicken and look at the price differences. The cheapest of the better cuts include the bone - chicken on the breast along with the skin, the next cheapest is boneless breast with skin and the most expensive is the skinned boneless breast of chicken.

If you are making a stir fry or something similar it can be argued that this offers the best value as all you get is meat but what you are also loosing is the flavour that the skin and bone can add to the dish. This is particularly so if you are going to slow cook or casserole meat which allows the flavours to seep into the dish and add to them.

The food preparation industry is also helping is to distance ourselves from where meat comes from by removing any hint of an animal. Unfortunately they are also loosing what is often the best part of a dish by removing some of its flavor.

A particular example of this is in the Indian restaurant cuisine where everything is made from boneless chicken - it is certainly easier for them to make it this way, it is easier to eat and because we all understand that skinned boneless chicken is the more expensive they can charge more for it. I went to India a number of years ago and had the most wonderful dishes served with chicken on the bone. Yes it was harder to eat, for me who love to travel around the UK for, but the flavor really made up from it although one of our party was heard to complain and ask why we could not get proper Indian food like she had back in England..... really!!!!!

Another example where meat on the bone is hard to find but so much better for it is when eating beef. Back in the 1970's and early 1980's T bone steaks were all the rage and the highest priced dish on the menu. The BSE scare killed all of this and beef on the bone was banned across the county and so a great English dinner disappeared.

What was even worse for gourmet dinners, and those that appreciated excellent beef was the overnight disappearance of Barons of Beef. These were large joints of beef, sometimes big enough for 30 or 40 people that took 2 people to carry out at a banquet and were often carved for the guests amusement by a ceremonial sword.

The flavor that was added to the beef by cooking it on the bone was hard to miss and couple with the fact that the bones carried the heat of the cooking in to the bulk of the beef meant that you could normally get rare cooked meat that was hot from a large joint of meat. Something that now is almost impossible to find still in the UK.

Fortunately a number of countries did not suffer the BSE crisis or have allowed the regulations they introduced to lapse meaning that you can now get beef on the bone often.

Beef on the bone has a particular aroma, almost cheesy and gives the impression of being off, or just going so. If the shop staff are not aware of this it can lead to some interesting opportunities - one of which I was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of recently.

The trainee on the deli meat counter was cutting the T Bone steaks for the first time and his supervisor had stupidly left him unattended. Noticing an unusual aroma coming from the steaks he had just cut he immediately marked them as discounted knocking 70% off the price.

Suffice to say that before the supervisor could notice his error I was the proud owner of 7 T bone steaks each of about 750g for the same price as I would pay for chicken breasts with skin. It is not often that I get to eat steak for 5 days in a row but in this instance I was prepared to make an exception and indulged my self accordingly.

True Balsamic

Vinegar has been used as a preservative and dressing since 2,000 BC in China or 3,000 BC in Egypt depending on which part of history you are reading and there are hundreds of different vinegars out there to choose from but the King of Vinegars is Balsamic.

We have all had balsamic vinegar either when we have been to the local Italian restaurant or when it has been served as a dressing on a salad in one of the posher restaurants but do you know if you have ever had true balsamic vinegar?

The first recorded mention of balsamic vinegar is in documentation from 1046 and has historically only been made in Italy, but things are changing.....

There are now 3 types of balsamic - those made in the traditional method and known as Aceto Balsalmico Tradizionale, those made on a commercial scale using new techniques Aceto Balsalmico Modena and the 3rd being a combination of both.

The modern method allows for thousands of liters to be made in just 24 hours but the traditional methods take  a lot, lot longer. A minimum of 12 years to be exact and are all blends and there are now only 2 consortia that are making it in the traditional way - Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena and Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Reggio Emilia

The process of making traditional balsalmic start with white grapes, only Trebbiano and Lambrusco grapes, which are boiled down in to syrup and then put in to a series of 12 different barrels made from different woods, a different one each year and allowed to ferment.

The barrels are made from diverse woods such as acacia, chestnut, cherry, ash, oak and mulberry and each barrel is slightly smaller than the one used for the year before.

It is the barrels that give balsamic vinegar its unique blend of tart and sweetness and make it so prized by chefs and gourmands as the vinegar absorbs the flavors of the wood.

A small portion of the vinegar evaporates every year and this is known as the "angel's share", the same as in the whisky industry

True Balsamic vinegar only comes from the last of the barrels after it has gone through its 12 year aging process. The contents of the next oldest barrel are then transferred in to the newly emptied barrel and so on all the way up to the contents of the largest barrel whose contents were only put in there the year before and made from grapes picked that year.

For truly spectacular balsamic vinegar the process is extended to 18 or even 25 years resulting in a vinegar that has a unique sweetness to it and is totally wasted on a salad. It does however go brilliantly with aged Parmesan Cheese - preferably 9 month minimum

Good traditionally made balsamic vinegar can go for as much as $400 for a 100ml bottle and many of these are unique in shape.

 Reggio Emilia use colour coded labels to depict the age, red for 12 year aged, silver for 18 year aged and gold for 25 year aged whilst Modena use a cream-coloured cap to denote vinegars aged for 12 years or more and a magenta cap for vinegars over 25 years old making it much easier to locate your preference in the specialist stores.

Balsamic vinegar has many uses including to many people's surprise desserts such as panna cotta and creme caramel and thanks to its digestive properties has also been used as a drink at the end of a traditional Italian meal.

So the next time you are in a good Italian restaurant take a look at the bottle on the table and if it has the word Tradizionale on the label ask for some Parmesan cheese and just relish its taste.

Were the 2007 Bordeaux really that bad? part 2

I suppose the only way to tell if a year is good or bad is to sample the wines and to tell if they are improving is to keep on trying them. The only problem with this is if the wine is not great but is improving over the years and you are testing it annually by the time it comes to perfection you might not have many bottles left.

One benefit of belonging to a wine club is that they will occasionally host a night where you might get the opportunity to try something special, or at least something you would not normally get to try.

Such was the situation with the 2007 Bordeaux where 10 bottles were lined up for blind tasting with only the names available to us, and oh what a list of names.

Regrettably all of the 2007 Bordeaux were definitely not up to the standards of earlier years as all were a little weak in both length and in flavor. All were high in tannins and a number of them quite sharp in taste leaving an almost metallic taste in the mouth.

The better known names definitely came out on top although there were a couple of surprises. What was very apparent when collating the scores was that there was a polarization of opinion on a number of the wines with some people marking the wines very high with others marking the same wines very low.

The results to some are the all important thing for a wine tasting night although personally I find it the experience and hope of getting to sample some great wines. Not this time but maybe next time

For those that want to know the results of the blind tasting were as follows

1st Chateau Angelus, St Emilion 2007 Premier Grand Cru Classe
2nd Chateau L'Evangile, Pomerol 2007
3rd Chateau Cos D' Estournel, St Estephe 2007 Premier Grand Cru Classe
4th Chateau Brane Cantenac, Margaux, 2005 2eme Grand Cru Classe
5th Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac 2007, 2eme Grand Cru Classe
6th Gerard Betrand Cigalus Rouge, Langeudoc Roussillon 2008
7th Chateau D' Armailhac, Pauillac 2007 5eme Grand Cru Classic
8th Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron, Pauillac 2007 2eme Grand Cru Classic
9th Chateau Lynch Bages Grand Cru Classe, Pauillac 2007, 5eme Grand Cru Classe
10th Chateau L' Evangile Pomerol 2007

Next month's wine tasting is followed by a dinner with the wines from the tasting matched to food so it will be interesting to see how the wine changes when served with food.

Were the 2007 Bordeaux really that bad? part 1

After a run of very good years the conditions for the 2007 vintage were not ideal resulting in the initial reports on the quality of wine not being good.

Up until 1999 a good bottle of Bordeaux would cost you around £10 but it all went wrong, from a consumers viewpoint, on the turn of the century.

A number of very smart marketers in the Bordeaux region saw the benefits that the Millennium year could bring and made a concerted effort to place Bordeaux wines as being THE drink to have for the New Year if you were a serious wine drinker rather than champagne that everyone would be drinking.

This was couple by excellent growing conditions and near perfect ripening conditions resulting in an excellent vintage.

What many people do not know is that you do not buy wine from the Chateau or grower but rather from a "negociant" who buy the wines on speculation, almost like buying futures, and then hope that the wine is an excellent one when it is ready for drinking 2 years later, although many Bordeaux are much better left for longer periods.

In order to be able to bid for the following year's crop a negociant must buy a certain amount of product in the current year.

The early marketing of the Millennium crop meant that prices rose steeply in 2000 and the perfect year in 2003 meant that the prices rose considerably, in some instances doubling the previous year's highs.

Because of the tight restrictions on watering and cropping, unlike in Australia and other New World regions, Bordeaux wines often bounce between excellent years and bad years with average ones in between. The first decade of the century however bucked this and in 2005 had another near perfect year producing another excellent vintage, the second in 2 years.

This created a lot of excitement in the industry and coupled with strong economic situation around the world resulted in prices spiraling upwards.

2006 was an OK year but retained the excitement from 2006 and once again prices rose sharply but it was in 2007 that the bubble burst in terms of quality but not the prices as the negociants were desperate to retain their bidding rights to the 2008 crop so many in the industry felt that the prices paid were excessive given the expected quality of the wines.

2008 was an OK year but 2009 once again was a good year and has set new benchmarks in terms of pricing - a bottle of 2009 Lafite Rothschild was selling for 1600 Euros per bottle with negociants. Wine speculators are expecting to make bumper profits on this which could mean that bottles will be reaching the market for over 2,000 Euros a bottle putting it far beyond the affordability for the normal wine drinker, and quite a few of the not so normal wine drinkers.

Story of Rice

It is the most important food stuff in the world and the basic staple of possible half of the world's population. There are thousands of different varieties and nearly as many different ways of cooking it - I am of course referring to RICE

What has always been uncertain is just where and when man first decided to cultivate it. It has long been agreed that there are 2 sub-species of rice with one being predominant in China with the other in India but until very recently it has been thought that the domestication of rice occurred in a number of different locations over thousands of years

In a recent study in the Philippines broke down the genome to its most basic levels to determine just where it came from and it would appear that all rice is the same at this lowest of levels.

This means that it all comes from a single source and that has been determined as being from China with the first domestication taking place about 8,000 years ago and then transported to India about 4,000 years ago

Some burnt rice remnants were found in South Korea a few years ago and carbon dating seems to place these back over 15,000 years ago but there is still a lot of controversy over these findings and accuracy of the data

There are fundamental differences in length, consistency and taste between the 2 sub species which could be explained by accidental cross fertilization with local wild rice in India but they are still cooked and prepared in the same way, most of the time anyway

Everyone has their preference as to which rice is the best but personally I think it depends on what you are eating. On the whole I think that the longer Jasmine rice is better as an accompaniment to curries and dry cooked or tandoori chicken whilst the shorter rice goes better with the Chinese style stir fry dishes.

Another particular favorite and something I had not had before is sticky rice which is very popular in Thailand and is part of one of the regional dishes served with grilled chicken and som tum, a very spicy green papaya salad.

In the east, rice becomes a main ingredient in kitchen, on traditional dish in Costa Rican cuisine. A combination of rice and beans called 'Gallo Pinto', serve with vary of 'mariscos', fresh seafood, direct from Costa Rica coast.

In the west rice is seen as something to be had when dining out at the local Chinese or Indian restaurants but for many people it is the only source of sustenance that they enjoy, and not every day either.