The Worst Beer Ever – Chili Beer

Todd November 12, 2009

This post should be considered a public service announcement. So someone decided to combine two of my favorite things – Beer and Hot Peppers. While in theory, this could work…somehow…maybe…

It definitely did not work. At all. Someone should be fired for this.

How do I describe the taste? Oh – how about this. Go to the Chili Beer Website and turn on your speakers. Hear that music? See the strange, loud flash intro? Notice the 1994 style graphics? (Where is the dancing baby?!)

Their website experience is a bit like tasting their beer. First…you’re curious and amused. Then confused and disoriented. Then reviled and angry. Then you feel sad and depressed. Then you feel angry at them again for insulting LIMES! Limes are perfect in beer, margaritas, and everything else in the universe of delicious mexican food!

The beer tastes like a really, really, REALLY HOT Tecate. But, not as high quality. It’s like they took a generic, “mexican styled” beer – which is normally crisp and refreshing – and gave it a strange, hot, pickled pepper finish. Pretty gross. I predict that this beer is likely to create more fallen soldiers (beers dumped down the sink before they’re properly enjoyed) than any other.

I would, however, surmise that this beer could have some interesting applications in cooking. If used properly over fajitas or in a lime-centered Chili, this abomination could be rectified. Oops – there I go again, trying to make something out of nothing…

Ugh.

Ain’t No Risk with this Lobster Bisque – Le Dog, Ann Arbor, MI

Todd November 11, 2009

Ann Arbor, Food Reviews

hippies, hot dog, le dog, lobster bisque, soup

When I used to work in Ann Arbor, Le Dog was my favorite lunch stop. Right next to place that sold Birkenstocks and Patchouli (I love Ann Arbor). Open from 11:30-2:00 (M-F) all year round, this tiny hot dog stand serves up quick, delicious, very very non-kosher grub.

Le Dog’s hotdogs are amazing – not so much because they are pretty tasty (which they are), but because they have the cojones to turn a hot dog into a cheese dog by throwing on a giant chunk of sharp cheddar. And somehow, it actually works.

I recommend the chili cheese dog, especially now that it is starting to get cold. The chili isn’t amazing, but honestly, if you’re getting a hot dog/cheese dog for lunch, there is no excuse NOT to get chili. Beware: the chili is sloppy and it WILL get on your hands, and WILL get on your shirt. There is no avoiding this. You might as well get yourself a lunch chili shirt (preferably with dancing chili peppers on it), and just plan for the inevitable. No bib can keep this chili off of you.

A beautiful food explorer on her first trip to Le Dog. Oh the wonder!

Le Dog also services some of the best soup in the area. Seriously. You will not find a better Lobster Bisque, anywhere. The Bisque is rich and creamy, but also amazingly light and oddly refreshing. Most Bisques tend to thicken pretty quickly, likely due to over-reduction after cooking for too long during the day. While Le Dog’s bisque is very well seasoned, it remains light enough that the lobster flavor rounds the soup out very well.

If you plan ahead, you can even order a giant batch for Thanksgiving (which I HIGHLY recommend)! Just tell everyone you made it yourself – with lobster you caught with your bare hands (you then hold up your hands and show them fake claw marks all over your arms and hands). I live 1000 miles away and I’m considering getting it shipped. I wonder if they’d do that…

Cleaning out Grandma’s Liquor Cabinet

Todd November 10, 2009

Beer/Drinks, Randoms, Travels

alcohol, old liquor, old wine, unknown liquor

So my grandmother just moved out of one of my favorite American cities – Baltimore! Home of the Wire, the Orioles, the best Blue Crab in this galaxy, a fantastic NFC defense, and…apparently…one of the most interesting old-school liquor collections I’ve ever seen. If you’ve moved as much as I have – you know that it isn’t fun at all. Moving lots of glass is even less fun – especially when it is filled with the remains of rare and mysterious liqueurs and bitters. So here are a few gems that we discovered.

The first of this mysterious collection came in the form of a strange apertif – “Palo Morey”? Anyone have any ideas what this is?

Note the tools required to uncork...

My meager attempt at a web search revealed what seems to be a similar liqueur:

Palo de Mallorca – a spirit obtained by the maceration and/or infusion of cinchona bark and gentian root (gentina lutea) with sugar, caramelized sucrose and ethyl alcohol. Its name is derived from cinchona bark (also known as palo quina), which originally came from South America and became known in Spain thanks to the Countess of Chinchón. Cinchona bark contains various different substances like quinine, which gives it a bitter, astringent taste but has antipyretic and anti-malarial properties.

It turns out that this stuff was actually still drinkable, although I’m fairly sure that determining this took several months off my life. It is incredibly interesting to see how thick this type of liqueur becomes over time. It’s hard to see in the photo, but this thing had LEGS – about the viscosity of a thin molasses or WD-10.

Anyway – we tossed it. I’m really hoping that one of you dedicated readers doesn’t tell me that the bottle was worth 30 grand. Moving on…

Next on the block was pretty much the coolest wine bottle ever, containing the most destroyed cork and oxidized wine known to man. This was a 1965 Château Cissac, a winery in the Moulis-en-Médoc appellation (or “controlled wine area”) of the larger Bordeaux wine region of France. Odds on this was a pretty good wine during its day. Now…no longer so…

All those little pieces in the sink are from my repeated attempts to get the cork out without pushing it into the wine.

This wine did have what I think is on of the greatest wine labels I’ve ever seen. Talk about classy.

Has anyone ever had to clear out old liquor cabinets? Any interesting finds?