Tea Cocktails! Barnes & Watson Heads to the World Tea Expo

Recently I was asked by Danielle Custer, GM of Taste Restaurant at the Seattle Art Museum and consultant for Barnes & Watson tea company to sit in and give my opinion on some new cocktails she was developing for Barnes & Watson, a Seattle tea company. What a fun afternoon – these cocktails were like nothing else i’ve tasted – the delicate and intense flavors of tea and Asian fruits had use wondering why tea hasn’t been more of a staple in mixology.

Tea in cocktails? Well, according to the London Times, the amazing range of flavors and aromas in tea are finding their way into all sorts of recipes, not to mention cocktails. Guided by Custer and Barnes & Watson owner and tea educator (and vice chair of the Specialty Tea Institute) Ken Rudee, we tried several different cocktails, all contenders for the B&N entry into the cocktail category at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas on May 1.

First was “Iron Buddha and the Flower” a delicate combination of Maraska (marischino cherry liqueur, not juice!), meyer lemon juice, yuzu juice (an Asian citrus juice) and ti quan yin (a chamomile infused light tea). It had a golden color, and smelled of hay and green tea, wet wood after a fire and artichoke, with a soft lemony, vanilla flavor.

Next was the Pu-er Pisco Sour, made with Pu-er tea, and a dot of angostura bitters. Very earthy but delicate!

The Cinnamon Oolong Lychee-tini had both gin and vodka, a bit of cinnamon and very aromatic and flavorful lychee juice.

Another favorite was the Golden Tip Assam Presse (after Presbyterian), with bourbon, soda, ginger, lemon and Assam tea. The bourbon was strong, but the tea added intense earthy aromas and softened the bourbon bite.

Lastly, here’s Danielle’s great recipe for the Cherry Earl Grey Mojito – a great summer cocktail and a fascinating twist on a basic Mojito. Try it out and raise a glass to Ken – as he heads out to shake up the tea world!

Cherry Earl Grey Mojito

Some say this surprising version is an improvement on the classic… with the addition of earl grey tea infused tart cherries and earl grey tea infused rum combined with classic fresh mint and lime, this becomes an automatic favorite. Don’t forget to nibble on a few cherries while savoring this fun and slightly addictive cocktail… Tell us what you think… did we improve on a classic?

2 heaping tablespoons earl grey infused dry tart cherries

12 mint leaves

¾ ounce organic simple syrup

1 ounce early grey infused Bacardi rum (silver)

1 ounce fresh lime juice

crushed ice

soda

Muddle cherries, mint & syrup in a pint glass.

Add rum, lime and top w/ crushed ice.

Give mixture a quick shake and pour all ingredients into a rocks glass, top with soda and serve with a straw.

Earl Grey infused rum:

Cold infuse ½ ounce or 10 grams Earl Grey tea with ½ (750ml) bottle of light rum.

Stir to combine and allow to steep for at least 2 hours before use (or indefinitely…)

Strain before using.

Note – the tea will never become bitter when cold infusing.

Earl Grey infused tart cherries:

Place 1 cup tart cherries in a container. Pour earl grey concentrate over the cherries until they are covered. Allow the sherries to steep at least 2 hours or longer.

* Enjoy the infused cherries in cocktails, over vanilla ice-cream or as a condiment with extra sharp cheddar cheese…

Earl Grey Concentrate:

Place ½ ounce of Earl Grey tea into a 2-cup measuring cup. Add boiling water to the 2 cup mark. Steep for 3 minutes. Strain, cool and store refrigerated for use.

Organic simple syrup:

Combine equal parts organic cane sugar and water in a small saucepan. Simmer slowly, stirring occasionally until the sugar is completely dissolved. Allow the mixture to cool completely. Reserve.

No Crackers! Suffer!—The delightful George Riedel demos his glasses

I was lucky enough last week to be a prisoner, uh, I mean pupil, of the famous 10th generation glassmaker George Riedel for a two hour tasting demo of his Sommelier Series of glassware. Three glasses—the flat wide Montrachet Chardonnay coupe, the buxom Bourgogne Grand Cru Pinot Noir glass with “acidity spoiler”, and the classic Bordeaux Grand Cru, Cabernet/Merlot glass.

There’s always a control sample in these things, so he also included a basic red wine glass from the restaurant we were at, and another “joker”—a plastic cup. All for a reason.

First, it was the Chardonnay, the 06 Januik Elerding VIneyard from Washington. “Think of the glass as a place to let the wine to fill a space with its aromas.” In other words, don’t fill your glass too full. We had to smell, first, of course, and note the lovely floral white flowers in the aroma, and banana, but also golden apple. When we taste, it has bright fruit and acidity, “nervous on your palate,” he says. Yes, I get it! Rich, but integrated oak. I was surprised, since these wines do have a tendency to smell pretty oaky.

Then we poured the white into the restaurant glass, and it definitely had a stronger mineral, salt component and a bitter finish. Then, into the plastic glass, where it had absolutely no smell, as the straight-sided glass captures none of the aroma, “diluting the concentration of aroma,” says George, “until they are below our ability to smell them.”

George is an almost sixty (”I’ll be able to ride the train in Austria for half price when I turn sixty!”), and exceptionally well-dressed, and even more exceptionally well-mannered, with the slightest of Austrian accents. Charming, as it were.

“We have two types of senses,” he says. “The official—sight and hearing—that can be measured through a benchmark.” You have 20/20 vision, you have a 20% hearing loss in one ear. Measurable.

“The other senses are private. We can only attempt to explain them to each other—what we taste, what we smell and what we touch. Sensual.”

George gets serious. “I am going to complicate your wine life,” he says, and talks about the life of the wine being a combination of many things, a story from the aroma through to the taste and to the finish, “an echo of the wine,” which he finds of ultimate importance.

We move on to the Lachini 03 Pinot Noir from Oregon in the big round Bourgogne glass, which supposedly captures the delicate aromas of this “prima donna” of a wine. The little flip-lip at the top helps keep the acidity under control, and the shape of the glass pours it in a little arrow straight to your mid palate, so as not to get too much tannin in the back or sides of your mouth. “The shape of the glass determines the intensity of the aroma,” he says.

Again, we move the wine from glass to glass, noting the smooth red berry and earthy minerality in the big glass, the green, almost cabbage-like aromas in the Chardonnay glass, (”You can almost LISTEN to how the grass grows on your tongue!” he says), and in the Bordeaux glass, the pinot is “a disaster!” according to George. I have to say I agree.

Someone reaches for a cracker.

“No crackers!” he says. “Suffer!”

The crowd, a combination of well-off Bellevue-ites (well, they were two weeks ago, anyway), a few young, hot sommeliers and a few poor writers who expect little and get a free dinner once in a while, are not used to suffering.

“How can I complicate your wine life if you are not suffering?”

Trudat.

So we move on to the Cab, a 2001 Caymus Cabernet. Napa at its best, a noseful of dust and bramble. In this glass it smells like picking black raspberries on a perfect summer day. “And now,” says, George. “We are going to destroy this wine!”

And we do. We put it into the Chardonnay glass, very similar to most nice red wine glasses we all have in our kitchens. A big round coupe. But George says we need straight sides for these big red wines, to let more of the tannins and acidity out so it mellows them. In this glass, the Cabernet is flat, with gripping tannins and higher acidity. Weird, but true.

Someone asks, “So can I just start buying cheaper wine and drink them in these glasses and they’ll taste more expensive?” “Good question,” says George. “No.”

The crowd laughs. He goes on to explain that a bad wine will taste mediocre in a good glass, but a nice wine will be even better, and who doesn’t want to bring a wine to its full potential? It has been waiting in the bottle all that time for you, after all.

Okanagan Days

As I’m writing this on a Sunday morning, I’m watching the neighborhood’s three-legged cat hobble around a construction site next door. He gives me hope—that even though I’m a procrastinator and often don’t post when I know I want to, that I’m still hobbling around nonetheless! I’m out there searching for mice even though I might not catch them! That said, here is the post I should have posted two weeks ago right after I came back from my trip to Okanagan, B.C., Canada. Here it is!

We finally have summer—the days are dry and even what you might call hot. I’m off on my friend Danielle’s annual birthday wine tasting trip—two years ago we went to Willamette Valley, and last year we went to Chelan. This year, the four of us ladies, of various ages and positions in life, agreed wholeheartedly on B.C.’s Okanagan region, just north of central Washington.

I drove out, they flew, and I was the designated rental car. Our first day, we visited three wineries and a goat cheese maker, a full day for five hours. Lunch at Quail’s Gate, then to the famous, fabulous Mission Hill. tried Chardonnay and Ice Wine, but mostly drank in the view and the architecture. This place is known as the most beautiful winery in the area, and I’d have to agree. It’s Mondavi-ized the area, created a destination for people to ooh and ahh over, and then go taste the wines at the smaller, more boutique or mom-n-pop wineries.

We also went on a trek to find the Carmelis Goat Cheese Artisan farm and shop, off in the hinterlands of Kelowna’s alpine hills along the shores of Lake Okanagan. They featured over a dozen styles of goat cheese with lovely names like Misty, Blue Velvet and Heavenly—and they were—from fresh yogurt cheese to ash-covered soft-ripened cheese, to smoked cheese to hard, tangy cheeses to a fantastic blue. I bought two Moonlights, a soft-ripened cheese similar to Mt. Townsend Creamery’s amazing Cirrus. Then to Cedar Creek Winery just down the road.

The next day, we visited the Naramata Bench, some miles south of Kelowna along the shores of Okanagan Lake. We visited Poplar Grove, Nichol, Kettle Valley (with their crazy Gewurztraminer slushy, great idea but there was nowhere near enough wine in it, just sugar icee with a splash. Then to Elephant Island Fruit Winery, one of the best tastings we had. All their wines are fruit wines, and before you get all snobby on me, you have to realize these wines are their own animal, and each is unique. The pear wine was light, fresh and dry, with a nose of jarlsburg and smoke, to me at least! The perfect thing with a goat cheese salad and an afternoon on a sunny porch. There are also wines from Fuji apples, crabapples, raspberries and their wonderful non-vintage Stellaport made from dark red Stella cherries, fermented and aged in French oak in an 8-year solera system. This wonderful wine had a nose of baking spice and mocha, and dark cherry, of course, with coffee, balsamico and prune on the palate. Would be fantastic with fondue!

We had lunch at the gorgeous little Heritage Inn, an old renovated hotel with a good restaurant. At lunch we opened a bottle of Joie’s 2007 A Noble Blend and loved it. Joie’s winemaking couple, Michael Dinn and Heidi Noble, have a small cooking school and winery (not open to the public) just up the road. This wine has a nose of lime zest with a bit of fresh tropical fruit, pineapple, and zesty acidity, great balance. We were so impressed with the wine that Monique called them right from the lunch table and asked if we could come by. Michael said sure! he’d be happy to show us around, so we trotted off to the winery and met he and Heidi and their lovely little farm. We ended up leaving with three half bottles of wine from their afternoon test tasting, and arms full of pears from their little orchard.

There’s so much more to say about this trip, but other wines I liked were Le Vieux Pin (we had lots of laughs trying to prounounce that – it’s Le (as in book) Vee-yeuu (as in book) Pa nh (nasally n!) how do you write that phonetically, I don’t know, but the wines were fabulous. Also visited their other new winery, LaStella, which was gorgeous, you MUST go there! More on that later. Also Blue Mountain sparkling wine and pinot blanc and pinot gris.

And Nk’Mip (INK-a-meep) which was big and resorty and disappointing as far as wine goes, but looked like a great place for family vacations.

More later!

Old-school organic in a new-school recyclable bag-in-a-box

Bill Powers and his organic Chardonnay

On a recent trip to the Tri-Cities wine region (Richland, Kennewick, Pasco for you non-Washingtonians) I had a chance to visit four vastly different wineries. One was one of the oldest wineries in the state—Powers (and Badger Mountain, their organic brand) on the hills above a Richland suburb, literally—we had to drive through suburban neighborhood to get to the tasting room and vineyard. I took a short truck ride with owner Bill Powers (now in his 80s) up to see the Chardonnay vines and have a sip of the Powers 2007 Chardonnay – a clean, crisp organic wine, full of fresh green apple and citrus flavors.

Powers has been growing grapes here since 1977, and has been organic almost that long. He says he was putting all these chemicals on the vines, and his boys were doing the work. He didn’t want the kids to do it, so he was doing it and not liking having to use these chemicals – so on a trip to California, he talked to some hippie grapegrowers who were farming organically, and they encouraged him to do the same, and so he did. And still, he’s one of the few certified-organic vineyards in the state. He does, as other organic farmers do as well, use sulphur to combat powdery mildew on the vines, about once a week for a certain period during the vine’s growth – this year was very humid and perfect for the evil fungus to grow. And then of course, sulfites are added to the wine to preserve it – pretty much every winery does this, or we’d be opening a lot of bad bottles. But Powers (Bill and his son Greg, the winemaker for Powers & Badger Mountain) and Mickey Dunne, part owner of Badger Mountain, have found a solution for their “no sulfites added” organic wine – bag in the box! It keeps oxygen away from the wine, and therefore keeps it completely fresh for up to 30 days! This is so common in Europe that I’ve heard box wine is almost 50 percent of the market. Here, it is growing, but still only about 10-12 percent. I hope that will increase as people put higher quality wines in completely recyclable boxes.

Rhone Rangers Roam Seattle

The Rhone Rangers – a membership group of winemakers who produce Rhone-style wines —seem to have developed a following and a great way of educating the public. Originally created by Randall Grahm when he was head wine dude at Bonny Doon, it has morphed and changed, but I still enjoy the annual tastings when the Rangers roll into town. This year, 39 wineries set up booths at Bell Harbor and it was an education making the rounds.

By making the rounds, I mean tasting every white wine in the room, and a few reds if I could get to them. When I go to a tasting, there’s no way you can tasting everything, so I usually go with a plan, according to what is being poured. Here’s my thought pattern, however convoluted

1. Get the big picture – what is the point to the tasting? All Washington? All pinot noir? in this case, all Rhone varietals?

2. Have a plan: If it’s a pinot noir tasting, I usually try a few whites from the region, just to get a sense of the ripeness level that I’ll encounter with the reds, and to prime the pump, so to speak. In this case, the list of very interesting, and mostly obscure Rhone whites were on my mind, and I wanted to clearly compare the differences in single varietal whites vs. blends, etc. In this case, viognier leads the pack, usually on its own, then blends of roussanne, marsanne, grenache blanc (which I discovered I really enjoy for its high acidity, and green apple – even apple Jolly Rancher – flavors) as well as bourboulenc, clairette blanc, muscat blanc a petits grains, picardin, picpoul and ugni blanc. Of the latter list, picpoul was represented, but I didn’t see the others in blends.

3. Spit! You’d be completely toasted if you didn’t.

4. Talk to the winemakers/marketing guys/gals. It is easier to remember what you like if you know something about the terroir, landscape, blend, etc. Sometimes they rattle off percentages of grapes in the blend, which I’m not really interested in – I want to know what the soil and climate and elevation, etc. is like. I usually ask – Tell me about where this wine is grown… and they are usually very willing to talk about the place – a fun way to picture the region and have a geology and geography lesson at the same time. It is kind of a neumonic device for me to picture the place with the wine made there.

5. Take a few notes in your own code, and remember the good ones! My favorites from this tasting were Paso Robles’ Adalaida Cellars White Blend of grenache blanc and roussanne – very minerally with that candied green apple taste that still had killer acidity and a slightly soft mouthfeel with peach and apricot flavors – an interestingly balanced combo of acid, fruit, soft and sharp. Love it!

Other wines I tasted -

Cass Winery Viognier – Paso Robles, mineral and mint!

Cline Cellars Viognier – Sonoma/Carneros, white peach, herbal notes with crisp white peach, not too ripe!

McCrea Cellars Ciel du Cheval Vineyard Viognier – love this producer! Fruity but lean with a lean, herbal – lavendar even – note, but also soft lemon and peachiness that is characteristic of Viognier. The difference here is that everything is in balance and delicacy and elegance are the goal.

Sawtooth from Nampa Idaho! Their Snake River Valley Viognier shows that this area has promise! A lean, mineral wine with white blossom and peach aroma, high acidity. A very refreshing wine!

So check out these Rhone-style wines – great for summer!

Thunder Shows, or When You are Lost at Sea, Wine is Where You Find it

Stuck in the Ballard locks with a bunch of stinkpots

Vaynerchuk may have left the building, but in his wake were two days of the most intense thunder storms we’ve seen (or heard) in years. My ex (now friend) was going to sail down to Hood Canal for the 4th and had a window of opportunity to leave at about 5 or 6 a.m. on the 3rd because of the tides, but that ended up being the craziest hour of lightening, buckets of rain and ear-splitting thunder.

So he couldn’t make the trip, and later that day, when the storm had left billowing clouds and still water behind, I was roped into–I mean graciously volunteered–to help him bring the boat BACK through the Hiram H. Chittendon locks, where the water level is raised and lowered between the salt water of the Puget Sound and the fresh water of Lake Union. We got stuck waiting for a gravel barge and ended up stuck outside the locks for THREE HOURS, getting to know the mussel-covered pylons, the kingfishers, and a few purple seastars very well. So of course, after a while, I started rummaging below decks and came up with a bottle of white wine that was fairly cool from being stored below the waterline. In desperate times, wine is where you find it, and I thought this was the perfect occasion for my first wine post – the essential Seattle moment. Stuck on a boat with the cityscape and the water all around, searching for refreshment.

What is your favorite boat wine? I have to say, I usually like dry rosé, but that is a fall back all summer, whether i’m on a patio, a boat or whatever. This 2006 Casalone dry Italian white from the Piemonte region made from the Cortese grape, definitely hit the spot, and was eye opening in terms of what we usually think of as dry crisp, refreshing summer wines. This one smelled of lemon gumdrops to me! Not a lot of fruit, just white flowers for sure, and a funkiness like light mushrooms. Interesting! There’s SO much to learn about Italian wines, but the main thing is to stay open to their classic combination of fruit and funkiness. This Cortese was a great example. Fresh, and light, it still was full of minerality, acidity, yes, but also mushroom and dried leaves. Not what I would usually choose for a boat sipper, but it was actually great with the salty chips that were the only food on board.

Come to find out, this wine WAS the perfect thing to drink with the scent of boat exhaust, salt air and fish in our nostrils, as it is produced all along the Ligurian Coast and served in the fish restaurants of Genoa—an area that probably looks very similar to the salty, mast-packed shores of Lake Union. Citrus complements salt – that lesson was learned here, with a little exotic mushroomy funk thrown in that I will remember for my next fish fry.

Inspiring Exhibitionism with GaryVee

Wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY-NER-CHUK!) (winelibrarytv.com) was in town promoting his first book, 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, and we had lunch at Taste at the Seattle Art Museum, across the street from Seattle’s famous lesbian-owned strip club, The Lusty Lady, of course. The marquee read “Inspiring Exhibitionism” and as we ate Chef Craig Hetherington’s gorgeous seared Vessel St. Jude albacore and drank a glass of Masterpiece White (an aromatic – honeydew, cantaloupe, white blossom – blend of Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc made by Taste general manager Danielle Custer, former Chef Chrisopher Conville and a bit of myself), it began to make sense. Shouldn’t everyone’s life work be about ‘inspiring exhibitionism’ – creating your show, showing your stuff, puffing up your feathers, flapping around—whatever that may be? One person’s exhibitionism inspires another. Townshend Cellars winemaker Don Townshend met Danielle at a winemaker dinner and said “you should come and make wine with me” because she was so passionate about wine. And she replied, “ask me again, and I just might!” So there you are. Danielle asked me—a fellow wine freak—to help chronicle the making of this wine and join her in its creation, so we traveled to Spokane to work with Don on several occasions, blending, racking, bottling…laughing, eating and drinking. And now its in a bottle—it’s out there!

Gary shares his love of wine every day and said that TODAY (well, what he really said was TOMORROW, but that was yesterday) I should begin blogging and sharing my love of wine, poetry, whatever. With whomever. Yeah, yeah, I say, who needs another blog? It’s truly information overload out there. But at the same time, losing inhibitions like the ladies of the Lusty, makes life WAY more fun and I definitely need that in my life right now, and so Gary, I’m taking up your challenge, dude!

I love the book—Gary cracks open the traditional language we use for tasting wine to include terms like “haunted house” which is his version of a wine that smells or tastes of dusty wood, cellar must (in a good way), and cobwebs. Come on, do cobwebs really have an aroma? Next time I see one, I’ll find out. Thanks a lot Gary, for making me smell a goddam cobweb! I’ll NEED a glass of Clos Delorme Valencay 2005 (Gamay, Malbec, Cab Franc, Pinot Noir from the Loire Valley) after that!