LIBATIONS

On Friday night Gemma’s train arrived 10 minutes late, and due to this delay we were both ravenous by the time we dropped her stuff off and headed out to dinner. I had noticed a few weeks before that there is a Mexican restaurant only a few blocks from my house. With little debate, we walked over.

The restaurant, Dos Reales, is on University Ave., in Urbana. We were greeted with a friendly staff and a very young waiter who was ridiculously pleasant. A slight man of probably only eighteen. We decided it was worth going if only to make the acquaintance of the young man. Our feelings of fondness, thought to be at their peak, increased drastically when he walked over with two enormous mugs overflowing with horchata. Usually you get a small glass full of ice. But here we had Imperial Pints worth of horchata, and at only 1.50!

For those of you who do not know, horchata, also know as aguas frescas, is a drink usually made with rice and flavored with cinnamon, sugar, and/or vanilla. It is smooth and thin like rice milk with a perfect balance of sweetness and cinnamon. It is the perfect drink to go with Mexican food.

Gemma and I have been wanting to try to make horchata from scratch for quite some time and when we do I will certainly post what recipe we used and how it turned out.

This past summer I began brewing my own soda, in the traditional sense. Using roots from the earth, sugar or molasses, and yeast. The results were better than I could have expected and I encourage anyone who wants to attempt homemade beverages themselves to do so. Great information can be found in the book Homemade Root Beer and Soda Pop. I originally had the desire after seeing a recipe in Saveur magazine. After my first batch of root beer I brewed ginger ale and sarsaparilla. All three attempts were fairly to moderately successful; winning me the respect and admiration of my friends and girlfriend.

Then I got cocky.

When I was a child I fell in love with a soda called Kayo. It came in six packs. For some reason I remember cans always had dust on the tops. After blowing the dust off, I enjoyed the elixir made from cocoa and sugar and probably countless additives and preservatives. It is no longer available. There are other chocolate sodas but they don’t compare.

I attempted my own chocolate soda about a month ago. I combined water, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon sticks and some vanilla beans in a large stock pot. I boiled for about fifteen minutes, stirring constantly. I let it steep. Since cocoa has a chalky quality I stirred the mixture occasionally, making sure it was mixing appropriately.

After I removed it from the heat I added another 2 to 2 1/2 quarts of water to dilute the mixture. I strained out the vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks. Once it cooled to room temperature I added my yeast, then bottled. The next day, about 12 to 16 hours later, I put the bottles in the fridge to stop fermentation. Once cooled, I tried it.

It was not quite what I was expecting. It wasn’t awful, but not good. It certainly smelled chocolaty. The cinnamon was much more powerful than I would have thought. The vanilla was hardly noticeable. It was sweet and cold, so in that respect a success.

My brother and girlfriend and other friends who were the guinea pigs claimed it was all right, but I have a sneaking suspicion they were just trying to save my feelings, and am sure their respect and admiration for me dropped considerably.

I’m going to keep an ongoing tab on my attempts at successfully brewing chocolate soda. My goal is to brew something as sublime as Kayo soda is in my memory. This may not be a possibility, but I will toil on nonetheless.

I’ve been very unfair to England. I have an obsession with beer and soda and unfortunately have been consistently disappointed with all the offerings from across the Atlantic. Guiness is fine, I guess, and has a beautiful pour, but if that’s all a country can deliver it is a sad state of affairs indeed.

The Wychwood Hobgoblin, which I first tried on draft at The Blind Pig in Champaign, has quickly become one of my favorite beers. It pours a dark caramel color with a nice head that dissipates quickly. It is a fairly typical dark ale with a nice sweetness in the middle and the end. It is a very drinkable beer best enjoyed on a cool evening around a fire.

*images courtesy of probonobaker

**I may have taken them, but it was with Probonobaker’s camera 

For those drinkers interested in having a nice Scotch-Style ale, and who may be tired of drinking Robert the Bruce all the time, I’d definitely suggest picking up the Canaster WinterScotch-Style Ale.

The first thing one will probably notice is the heavy alcohol taste, followed by a middle that has hints of malt and a mild sourness. The ale finishes sweet with a bit of a caramel flavor. The sweetness of the aftertaste leaves your tongue wanting more.

I personally love scotch style ales and am always anxious to try a new kind. This Scotch Ale was suggested to Gemma and me by our friend Parker. I know it is available at Sams in Chicago because that is where I purchased it. As far as I know it is only available in a 1 pint 9.4 fl. oz. bottle. And at a whopping 9.5% alcohol, this is a beer best shared with a friend or a girlfriend on a cool autumn night.