21 January 2018

From the bartender’s corner – Melon Gin

In case you are wondering, this is NOT my second cocktail of the evening. The Lychee Love is something I had made in the middle of the week and forgot to post. This is the cocktail I made for this evening – Melon Gin. It primarily accentuates ginger and melon together with gin. It has Ungava gin, muddle ginger bits, Midori melon liqueur and ginger ale.

Refreshing but a little on the stiffer side…

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17 January 2018

From the bartender’s corner: Gin #29 – Ungava

I had seen this gin first at the duty free shop in Aruba airport. It said it was from Canada. I was not sure how a Canadian gin would be like – so never picked it up. Came home and studied it up. And boy, did I regret it! Turns out this is a very unique gin. Made from very unique botanicals and herbs from north of Canada (North of Canada? Isn’t the whole country in the north?), it had great reviews and some fantastic feedback.

I looked for the usual places in Atlanta for this, unsuccessfully. Found one store in DC that could send a bottle to me but the delivery would cost me twice the price of the bottle. Filed that away under the “When I am in DC next, need to pick up a bottle” section of my mind.

The other day, I swung by a liquor store in Cumming after finishing my hospice time. I think I was there to pick up some wine to gift at a party that evening. As is my wont, I strolled over the gin section to see if there was anything interesting. I expected nothing. Guess what? There was a bottle of Ungava!

I think I forgot to buy the wine in the excitement but I certainly got a bottle of Ungava.

Opened it up last night.

First, the gin is made in northern part of Quebec. In that frigid environment, on the banks of the Ungava bay you get some unique botanicals. Six of theme are used in Ungava – Wild Rose Hips, Crowberry, Labrador Tea, Cloudberry, Arctic Blend and of course the mandatory Juniper is Nordic Juniper. Frankly, other than the Rose Hips (which is the fruit in a rose plant), I do not think I had ever heard of the rest.

Now the process is somewhat unique. The base alcohol is derived from local corn. Then the six botanicals are used in the distillation process like every other gin. The twist is that these botanicals are again used to do an infusion (like you get infused vodkas, for example). Among other things, this infusion gives it the unique yellow color.

The nose is very juniper-y and if you give it a few more seconds, you start getting the citrus in the drink. The palate is very complex. To be sure, not knowing most of the herbs, I could not identify much other than there was the juniper and the citrus. There was a hint of floral taste too.

The finish was not as prolonged as I expect from gins and was again a very juniper-y finish.

Category: Cocktails | 12 Comments on From the bartender’s corner: Gin #29 – Ungava
11 January 2018

“Pen, pen, pen… Pilot pen”…

I have completely lost the moral platform to lecture the girls on all the shopping of clothes they have been doing this trip. I had found out about this place in Kolkata – “Pen Hospital” a few months back. Almost a hundred years old, it is a very small shop in a very crowded Esplanade corner in Kolkata. The owner specializes in fixing fountain pens and has a stack of vintage and new fountain pens. Both used and new.

After dad and mom went off to sleep, I managed to convince my brother to hit the road again and go back to Kolkata to check out the shop. An insane amount of traffic later, I finally hit pay dirt when I found the shop. It is not often that I come across somebody who really knows a thing or two about old fountain pens and their history.

Picked up a few pens – which are incredibly inexpensive by US standards. The crowning glory was the Pilot 51 (mistakenly called Pilot – should have been called Parker). A few days back, when my father in law and I had gone to the other pen shop, he had mentioned about the Pilot 51 pen. That was an iconic pen in his days. It was somewhat of a folklore when we were growing up. In fact many Bengalis might even remember our old rhyme “Pen, Pen, Pen / Pilot Pen / Siri thekey nemey elen / Suchitra Sen”!!!

My mom used to have one of the non-classical versions of Pilot pens that her teacher colleagues had gifted her in 1972.

The Pilot 51 is an all time classic. One of the few pens with vacuum system for filling ink, it has a very unique nib too. It is a pity that these pens used to be made in USA and I cannot find them in USA any more!! The best part of the pen that I got? The nib is an original 1946 vintage!!!

Category: Fountain Pens | 10 Comments on “Pen, pen, pen… Pilot pen”…
6 January 2018

2017 Running Dashboard

* Completed 13 years of running. Finished running in 16 countries in those 13 years.
* In 2017, posted 100 mile run per month for every month. Ran in 5 different countries.
* Ran with a lot of friends, ran with strangers and ran by myself.
* Ran by the oceans, ran in the mountains, ran in the trails and ran in the forests.
* Ran in sun, ran in rain, ran in snow.
* Ran by the sunrise, ran by the sunset, ran in midday and ran at night
* Ran mostly for fun. And picked up a few medals on the way…

Category: Running | 15 Comments on 2017 Running Dashboard