This is one of the heaviest pens I have. Made from stone, I had collected this from a professional pen maker who hailed from New York at a pen show around 2008, I believe. I have always used this pen with red ink. Over the years, the nib has become a little broader and I need to replace it with a fine tip. Still, writes like a charm…
This morning, I was trying to catch up on quite a few things after coming back from vacation. There were a lot of calls to be made. While taking such a call from the breakfast table, I noticed that Nikita had started making a cup of coffee for me.
I put the phone on mute and said. “Thank you Nikita. That is very nice….” That is how far I could go.
She promptly cut me off with the rejoinder “Yeah! Yeah! I know. Now remember this when I ask you for money” !!
And they say she is just like me 🙂 🙂
You probably would not expect much from distilleries in Texas. Although there is that Tito’s vodka from Austin that is definitely top notch. This gin, while not in the same class as a Hendricks or Malfy has enough uniqueness that makes it worth a try. First, I tried it thinking it would be one more of the so-called “hand crafted”, “artisan”, “small batch” etc etc gins. All the adjectives used to try to position the uniqueness. I expected it to be very juniper forward and not expect much more.
Quite to the contrary, the juniper is subdued. Unlike some other reviewers, I would not call this as a traditional gin. This is more in the American Style gin to me.
Now comes the frustrating part… there is a overwhelming aroma of something in this gin – which is very pronounced when you exhale – but for the life of me, I cannot pinpoint what it is. I do not think it is any of the berries (like the açaí berry in it) – it is definitely a mix of citrus (probe the Sicilian bergamot – something that I have never had in my life) and something else – more flowery. Kind of like lavender but less pronounced.
I had Sharmila try it – who is far better in pin pointing the components than me, but between us, we are still struggling. If any one of you can nail it, please let me know.
You definitely want to have the first one neat. Take in small sips and let it sit on your tongue for a while. The nose has that flowery aroma that I talked about. But as you let the gin sit on your tongue and breathe in and out for the first time, it breaks down into a very rich mixture of that citrusy-flowery smell. You can quickly smell the juniper right after it. On the palate, it has a buttery feel to it. The length is very long and sweet.
I am still not sure how this will go in a cocktail or even with tonic water. I have a feeling the character of the gin might get totally killed with some of the stronger components. I will try it and see how it comes out.
From the distiller’s notes, the following are some of the botanicals – but not the complete list, they insist: juniper berries, cardamom, coriander, Sicilian bergamot, lemon, lime, orange, açai berry, and cucumber.
The whole spectrum of blue – from turquoise to ultramarine, the Caribbean waters has it all. The picture quality is terrible – we were about 10,000 feet above ground when the airplane banked to its left to head north and I had a few seconds to pull out the iPhone before the plane straightened out again. The clouds in the sky and the greasy window pane in the plane did not help matters much.
But you can still get a glimpse of what it looks like. That is the Cancun beach in Zona Hotelera. A 8 mile long “C” like island. If you can spot the three red roofs towards the very low end of the “C”, that is where we were staying…
So long, Cancún!
Saw this board in Cancun airport. It was very funny – or should I say “punny”?. Brought Nikita from where she was to show it to her.
Sitting in the plane, I was wondering if there was a myth behind the Conch Republic. Found out there is no myth. Only reality!!
There is a micro nation (mostly the Key West) which is called the Conch Republic. It even has an army and artillery – chiefly water guns and stale Cuban bread!!
I lived in Florida and never knew about this. You can read up about the hilarious history here…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic
On our way back from Chichen Itza, instead of taking the normal route, we had planned to take a slight detour and visit a small town that my friend Christina had told me about. I am glad she had given me that tip. Valladolid is very different from most of the other small towns or neighborhood we have seen so far. The striking thing is how colorful each and every building and house is. The even have doors painted in bright colors contrasting with the house colors. The city center roads were cobble stoned.
Reminded us of a place we had visited in Italy a couple of years back – I think it was called Burano. (island off Venice).
Very nice people and you can see the pronounced indigenous features in the faces of the citizenry here. An interesting feature was all the middle aged and elderly ladies seem to dress the same style – a casual, white tunic like one piece dress with some modest prints on them.
Went to a flea market to check out the local wares…
On our trip into the Yucatan Peninsula yesterday, we went to a local place to eat. It was a very large outside restaurant. While eating, we noticed something curious. Look near the roof at the edges. You see those plastic looking bags seemingly hanging with water in it? Well, they were actually plastic bags with water in it and they were hung up all over the edges of the roof.
Having flagged down the nearest waiter, I asked him what that was all about. Got a very interesting answer. Apparently they put it up to keep the flies away. I was wondering whether it was merely a custom or there was any reason for it. Before I could ask, the waiter explained to me that the flies get scared since everything looks bigger in it and thru it (the rounded edges of the water magnify things).
“Do you see any flies around?”, he asked.
“Nope”, I admitted.
“Mayan technology”, he proudly declared and went away.
Last evening I was researching on the Internet about it. I remember the craze for some purple colored water in villages in Bengal some time ago to keep away mosquitoes or something. I had seen it while running and had similarly asked a house owner about it. That was a complete misconception, I had found out while researching.
This one though is not so clear cut. Snopes (one of my sites to do fact check) left it as “Not determined”. Some people absolutely swear by its effectivity. Some claim positive bias (the ones who see a difference report enthusiastically, the ones that don’t simply move on to other things instead of reporting it).
In any case, that was an interesting learning…
First the geographical background. Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico is mostly formed with limestone rocks. Limestones being limestones, they often cave in. And I mean not like your average potholes in the road – this is tens of meters in diameter going down tens of meters below ground level. These “sinkholes” – called Cenotes were often a source of relaxations and pilgrimage for the Mayans who found clear water (and cold water, I might add) in the holes. (The water was mostly rain water getting filtered of all particles after going thru tens of meters of soil.
After seeing a few of those 6000-odd cenotes in Yucatan, this one truly took our breath away. The limestone rock caved in more or less vertically for about 90 feet. The sinkhole is about 200 feet wide and about 130 feet deep with water.
The amazing part were the vines that went straight from trees in ground level to the water.
Can you spot a couple of people in the picture jumping into the water?
