drinkme magazine Issue 04

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Issue 4 sept/oct 2009

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LIFESTYLE BEYOND THE GLASS

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Features

Issue 4

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Note from the editor

4 Design: repurposing bottles 6 Macgyver would have been a brewer

By Brian Hunt Any independent brewer worth his salt must be a MacGyver

13 Well equipped Behind the bar basics

16 Where i come from, we call this hooch

By Matt Wisniewski Tales of Malawian bucket wine

19 Websites to drink to 20 Behind the vine

By Walter Moore Spending time in the Italian coutryside

24 Betel nutinis on the island of yap

By Paul Ross Using what you've got

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recipes

Issue 4 Editor In Chief: Daniel Yaffe Senior Editor & Events: Aja Jones Aguirre Managing Editor: Ali LaRaia Designer: Tia Hopkins Web Developer: Aman Ahuja Copy Editor: Sam Devine Director of Operations: Pablo Perez Assistant: Donald Shield contributOrs: Brian Hunt Walter Moore Matt Wisniewski Alina Sandu Robert DeBusschere (Cover Art)

Kristin Lerner Paul Ross

Publisher: Open Content www.opencontent.tv Eriq Wities & Daniel Yaffe Thank You: Michael Moskowitz, Janell Moore, David Slade, Sitar Mody, Erin Hunt, Sangita Devaskar, Sacha Ferguson, Skylar Werde, Miriam Aguirre Advisory Board: David Nepove, Gus Vahlkamp, H. Ehrmann, Hondo Lewis, Carrie Steinberg, Jeremy Cowan, Genevieve Robertson, Dominic Venegas, Debbie Rizzo Thank you to the countless others who continue to support Drink Me and make our dream possible.

Thirsty for more?

www.drinkmemag.com

Note from the Editor We’re paying homage to Angus MacGyver. We wanted to show our appreciation for the do-ityourself king, realizing that decades later we still have buckets to learn from the man with the mullet.

We want to give an awkward nod to the good old 80s of Long Island Iced Teas and Buttery Nipples.

In this issue, Drink Me explores the ins and outs of D.I.Y. and chats with experts on how they manage to (barely) pull together simple makeshift devices and backup methods and still look like pros. The leaders of today’s bars, breweries and vineyards are still using odd gadgets and found objects (sometimes even unexpected edibles) to conjure up tasty drinks at your local watering hole. They are twisting metal and cutting bottles to create their own tools, forging new ground and finding new ways to recreate old recipes.

You don’t need a specialized Swiss Army Knife or an infantry of paper clips, ballpoint pens and rubber bands to join in on the fun. Look around your house and see how you might be able to reuse those old bottles or rig up everyday utensils to mix up your own drinks. If you need some inspiration, watch MacGyver, episode 58. It’s a good one.

Twitter: drinkmemagazine Check out our facebook page, too!

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: ads@drinkmemag.com Please drink responsibly The entire contents of Drink Me magazine are © 2009 and may not be reproduced or transmitted in any manner without written permission. All rights reserved.

Because MacGyver opens a sound activated security lock by filling four glasses partially full of wine ...

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Drink Me magazine is printed on 20% recycled (10% post-consumer waste) paper using only soy based inks. Our printer meets or exceeds all Federal Resource Conservation Act (RCRA) standards and is a certified member of the Forest Stewardship Council.

This is a QR code. You can scan it with your smart phone and link directly to us.

Want to find out more?

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Design: repurposing bottles

The magazine for the whisky enthusiast

Presents America’s Triple Crown OF Whisky Events

Dexigner Seeing an empty Carlo Rossi jug usually swirls up feelings of regret and a pounding headache.

Seattle artist Jay Blazek is taking the jug to the new level. He’s hanging them in the foyer and filling them with sand to make industrial light fixtures. Of course all of his furniture has clever names: Chardonnay Chandelier, Rhine Reading lamp, and even a Sangria Surround Sound Speaker System. If you’re licking your lips for more, watch the video tutorials with step-by-step procedures of all the innovative, empty jug endeavors at www.dexigner.com.

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Zero-Waste Design

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Zero-Waste Design is exactly doing exactly that. They’re reusing old trash to solve design dilemmas and create unique furniture. The “Ten Green” project came from collaboration with a charitable, ecological company, Coach House Trust. This inspiring modular shelving procedure is made up of old wood and empty wine bottles.

No adhesives, no nothing. It just takes a few friends to drink a whole lot of wine. www.zero-waste.co.uk

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MacGyver Would Have Been a Brewer

by Brian Hunt, founder and brewer, Moonlight Brewing Company.

Where a wine-maker is shepherd, keeping a watchful eye and delicately manipulating processes of the natural world, and where a distiller is an outlaw, concocting powerful potions under cover of night, the brewer is a craftsman, tinkering away in a garage or a workshop, constantly tasting, adjusting and tweaking his recipes and methods.

Many of the men and women who today sit at the helms of our most compelling craft-breweries started in their own homes with crude, improvised tools and accessories. Before the microbrew boom of the 1990s, small brewing equipment and supply stores like San Francisco Brewcraft and Seven Bridges were very hard to find. Also, the online communities and support boards, which today are invaluable to new brewers, were virtually non-existent.

This left the aspiring brewer to, like MacGyver, troubleshoot and solve problems through processes of imaginative improvisation and trial and error. This placed home brewers in line with the long-standing traditions and techniques of brewing. The post-industrial production of beer by nationally recognized brands, which have the goal of making a bottle of beer in St. Louis that will taste exactly like the bottle they produced in Colorado or California, is at odds with beer’s mercurial history. Most of the story of beer is compromised of tales of invention brought on by necessity, as in a peasant’s simple desire for a safe-todrink beverage, other than water out of a stream; or idiosyncrasy, in the case an industrious farmer in need of something to do with the excess grain his goats did not eat.

This spirit remains in many of the independent breweries operating today.

While it is true that in the case of some chain brewpubs you do see strict formulas being followed, more often,

independent brewers improve when less attention is paid to the way things are “supposed to be done.”

Here in the Bay Area, the hop-drenched, home of the double IPA, much of a brewerís MacGyvering is concerned with finding ways to cram more hoppy bitterness, flavor and aroma into their beers. The men and women behind these methods are not shy about sharing them. As one colleague put it, “There’s nothing home-brewers love more than waxing lyrical about eccentrically fangled methods of beer production.”

Will McKenna, a home-brewer based in Santa Cruz, CA is a perfect example.

Since Will brews at home with a very small brew kettle he faced the problem of physically fitting in enough hops. He devised an at-home method of hop extraction. Will puts roughly half of a pound of hops into regular tap water and places it in the fridge overnight.

The next day the water is removed and replaced with everclear (roughly 95 per cent ethyl alcohol). This is let to soak for about a week, after which Will is left with a about a cup of extremely pungent hop extract. The solution is so strong Will claims he adds only a few drops drink me

Photo by Alina Sandu

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at various times during the boil or during postfermentation to achieve the desired amount of hop flavor and aroma in his brews.

Craft Beer Tavern • 24 Taps & 150+ Bottles • Hand Crafted Beers • Great Wines • Kitchen Open ‘til 1 am • Gourmet Pub Fare with Beer Pairings

No matter how big your brew kettle is, all brewers face the problem of freshness. More than any other beer styles, IPAs and other hop-centric brews must be consumed fresh and locally. To combat the problem of declining hoppyness as their beers travel across the country, Dogfish Head, a Delaware craft brewery, has created “Randall The Enamel Animal.” Randall is “a three foot-long cylinder filter, packed with half a pound of whole leaf hops, that we affix to the beer line leaving a keg.” Randall reinvigorates your pint of Dogfish Head’s 90-minute IPA with lively hop flavor and aromas, just seconds before it hits your lips.

Clearly there is an improvisational, fun-loving, and even occasionally ridiculous resolve that brings much of the variety and spontaneity to independent beer brewing. This “why the hell not” attitude is one of the main reasons that beer enthusiasts everywhere are beginning to admit that we are sitting in the most interesting place to drink beer in the world. Local breweries are constantly re-writing rules, redefining styles, and utilizing whatever tools and ingredients they may have on hand to create something extraordinary to top off the end of a long day.

3141 16th St., at the corner of Albion, San Francisco, CA between Valencia & Guerrero www.monkskettle.com

La Pinta is a Pomegranate Infused Tequila that is a derivative of “Ponche de Granada” which is a very traditional drink in Jalisco, MX. La Pinta is delicious on its own and is super versatile in a myriad of cocktails!

BEERS MAC WOULD LOVE: Dogfish Head’s 60, 90 and 120 Minute IPAs

Named for the length of the boil. These beers are unique because they could not be made without the use of two improvised mechanical devices. First: the “hop-shaker,” inspired by a 1970s era vibrating football arcade game, allows the brewer to continuously add hops to the brew at a consistent rate for the length of the boil. Then, during post-fermentation, these beers are dry-hopped utilizing another device called a “me-so-hoppy” which is an “inert gas fired, closed-loop system, used to spin hop pellets into the beer as it conditions.”

the

Moonlight Brewing Company's “Working For Tips” and Craftsman Brewing’s “Triple White Sage”

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By Jonny Raglin Absinthe Brasserie and Bar, San Francisco 1 ½ oz La Pinta Pomegranate Tequila ¾ oz Absinthe ½ oz Limoncello ¼ oz Fresh Lemon Juice Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass filled ⅔ with ice. Shake vigorously for 10 to 15 seconds until cold. Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a chilled cocltail glass. Garnish with a Lemon Twist.

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MacGyver could always use whatever was around and fashion it into something extraordinary. At Moonlight Brewing, I’ve taken the redwood tips plentiful around my Sonoma County home and utilized them in place of aroma hops to create a delicious beer with a clear sense of place.

Similarly, Craftsman’s brewer Mark Jilg uses the white sage abundant near his Pasadena brewery in a delicious Belgian Triple that makes for an ideal companion to any mild fish dish or cream sauce.

Try the “Sacred Heart”

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Well-Equipped Behind the bar basics

because gold just wasn’t good enough 2009 Double Gold winner at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Cocktail connoisseurs and amateur mixologists realize the importance of a good set of bar tools, same as any other hobbyist, but what if you had the chance to rummage through the trickedout toolkit of a professional bartender? We wanted to find out, and Elixir’s H. Joseph Ehrmann was more than happy to coach us through some of his most prized tools (and tricks!) of the trade.

From ways to “rinse” a glass without wasting a single drop of liquor to heavy-duty juicers that’ll tear the skin off your knuckles if you’re not careful (an $800 lesson, not including any medical costs), we bring the best of his bar to yours.

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H. Ehrmann, proprietor and mixologist of Elixir in San Francisco

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Antique juicer(s) The vintage, old fashioned juicers are sturdier than the new ones. Hinges on the latter, H says, are prone to breaking and aren't as comfortable in your hand. Antiques are not just collectibles anymore.

ELIXIRS ONLY H got these gorgeous old tincture bottles from London, using the pipettes to add a few drops of absinthe or elderflower liquor to his creations.

CRUSHED You can hack the tops and bottoms off of Store & Pour containers and secure them atop a pint glass filled with ice. Why? It’s the perfect fit for keeping a muddler secure, so you can hand-crush the ice quickly with a muddler without making a mess.

Who wants a custom barware kit loaded with top quality products designed by one of San Francisco's most respected bartenders? We sure as hell do, and we're thinking you might as well. H. has been secretly developing a top-of-the-line set that'll be available for purchase on the web or at the bar soon. Until then, check out his most prized basics here.

REPURPOSED: Can’t figure out how to showcase your homemade syrups?

Reuse empty bitters bottles for an apothecary look, vintage olive oil or vinegar bottles for something more antique or get your practical hands on the kind that pancake syrup comes in at your favorite diner, the one with the silver lid that slides back, for functionality.

MORE BING FOR YOUR BUCK: During cherry season, nothing beats a cherry stoner that pits up to four cherries at once.

HEY, BIG SPENDER: H’s biggest investment is an $800 commercial citrus juicer for the bar, a massive, stainless steel beast that’s worth every penny. An industrial blender like the Vita-Mix Bar Boss is your new best friend for making cocktails or purees in batches, especially for entertaining!

The one in H’s bar pulverizes even the tiniest seeds.

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MUDDLE ME: Bartenders’ magical wands: muddlers. Often wooden, they’re used to crush fruits or herbs at the bottom of a shaker or sturdy glass by pushing down and twisting to release the full flavor of the ingredient. It’s a basic yet often overlooked bartending tool!

CHEAP TRICK: Use a microplane zester or grater for rich garnishes like dark chocolate or ginger.

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WHERE TO FIND your tools: Uber Bar Tools (www.uberbartools.com), OXO (www. oxo.com), Vollrath (www.vollrathco.com), Mr. Mojito (www.mistermojito.com), Sur La Table (www.surlatable. com), Vita-Mix (www.vita-mix.com), Specialty Bottle (www.specialtybottle.com/) & Frontier Coop (www. frontiercoop.com).

Behind the Bar Basics

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Photo and Article By Matt Wisniewski

Remember when you were an eager, undiscerning drinker? Swiping unknown bottles from the liquor cabinet and mixing them with a disregard that today seems quaint, even offensive? Grand Marnier and Midori, anyone? Now take that same mentality, add about ten years and a foreign country and you have, in a nutshell, drinking in the Peace Corps.

Destination: Malawi, Africa.

The main reason anyone in America has ever heard of Malawi is because it’s where Madonna cultivates children.

You make a lot of sacrifices living in a country like Malawi: comfort, food and relationships, not to mention decent alcoholic beverages. Peace Corps volunteers and expats have created their own drinking culture, light years away from what we are accustomed to in the United States. Since rural Malawi has few conventional goods to offer, creativity got the best of us.

First of all, we make our own alcohol.

We call it wine, although frankly that’s a technicality. My first batch of wine was made from freshly gathered mangos and coconuts. In the spirit of Malawian solidarity (or necessity) the wine is always made using locally available resources and seasonal fruit, usually picked straight from the garden.

Take that, locavores! Picture a bucket filled with no less than twenty liters of fermenting “wine” sitting in the corner of a mud hut for about two weeks.

Procuring the bucket took days. Buckets were only sold on Wednesdays, when the traveling market would make its lakeshore stop in my village. Colorful chitenjes (pieces of fabric used for clothing in Malawi) would be splayed out with the cheap plastic plates and shoes and I would weave my way through, bargaining with familiar sellers, arguing for the best price. After choosing my neon blue bucket, I strolled back the two miles to my home and started the vinification. I gathered kindling from around my house to start the fire in my mud stove. On days when I was lazy or it was late, I would cheat and just pull some of the grass out of my thatched roof. Boiling water is used to sanitize the bucket – with fermentation, purity is essential – mix the ingredients (sugar, fruit, water, yeast, and tea), wait two weeks, and there you have it: bucket wine.

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Since buckets are a scarcity (and liquor a necessity) the best tasting vintages are bottled and labeled for future consumption. The bottles we employed

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There is a sense of sheer appreciation one feels after working hard all day and then getting on a bike and riding 15 miles to meet up with another volunteer who offers you a warm plastic cup of their finest, cloudy reserve. The wine doesn’t usually taste like the fruit used during the process- banana wine tastes like anything but bananas.

On its own, bucket wine has a dusty, slightly sour taste to it,

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I taught winemaking to a group of HIV+ villagers who started a successful brewing business and were finally able to pay for transportation to pick up their lifesaving drugs. It was a perfect way to provide them with their first income ever while using forest products sustainably. They sold it right from the chief ’s house, who was also a member of the group, for 40 kwacha (about 25 cents) for a used Coke bottle full. This

Malawians found the wine quaffable, although they generally preferred to buy a spirit known as katchasu, due to its higher alcohol content. Katchasu feels like jet fuel going down but the bucket wine buzz does sneak up on a person and the hangover is brutal, compounded by the fact that, in Malawi you are probably waking up on the floor no matter how late you were out.

You know you've been there. Sweaty palms, the minutes ticking, indecision racing through your veins. You're not saving the world, no, you're just trying to pick out a bloody bottle of wine for a dinner party or your meal and it is very, very difficult. Happily, HELLOVINO is here to save you, with its soothing fonts, neat little widget and a free iPhone app!

It helps you narrow down an appropriate wine selection by your choice of meal, occasion, style, or region. Go to hellovino.com to find out more, or test it out on your regular cell by texting HELLOVINO to 368266.

Being a self-sufficient drinker is a way of life in Malawi, and it’s not one that is easily repeated in western countries. It requires patience, a new and wide-open taste palette, and those old glass coke bottles. If you really want to impress your friends with something more adventurous than a new microbrew, grab yourself a bucket, head down to the farmers market, and brew up some homemade wine. But take it from me: don’t bother with a tomato-basil blend.

That’s just weird.

A TERMITE WALKS INTO A BAR

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although it varies depending on the ingredients. Many of the wines aren’t even particularly good, although they are always much more palatable when mixed with Sprite. My neighbor made a batch of very flavorful orange-cinnamon wine, and another batch of lemongrass wine – the best hooch I ever tasted.

price didn’t include the bottle; it was just used as a measuring tool, and the wine was then poured into the glass or whatever the buyer had, usually a worn and beaten plastic cup.

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were used glass Coke bottles, readily available in every Malawian village.

After sanitizing them, they were filled and sealed very tightly, usually using plastic bags and tied with used tire threads.

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Behind the Vine Spending time in the Italian coutryside

Photo and Article By Walter Moore

In October of last year I ate and drank my way through southern Italy, accompanied by my friend Lauren Kiino, a San Francisco chef who's recently opened Cane Rosso. We ended our travels at Valle Reale, a boutique, upstart winery on the West of the Appenine mountain range in Abruzzo.

Historically, Abruzzo has a reputation for making low quality wines. It’s a reputation that stems from large, dominant cooperatives making lowacid, plush, inexpensive reds in the warmer coastal regions–wines with the flavor of tart red cherries and minimal complexity. But a small number of Abruzzo producers, like Valle Reale, grow Montepulciano grapes in cooler, more mountainous parts of the region.

They produce wines with darker, black cherry fruit, which express more complex, earthy and herbal flavors. Their focus on high quality at a reasonable price is attracting the attention of the wine world.

I was quickly recruited into the ranks of the seasonal grape-picking crew. I was, of course, the only American tourist among this motley group of old and young, men and women, veterans and first-timers.

Most of the workers were part-time and their diversity intrigued me. We bonded during the cooler days in the vineyard, picking grapes hanging from the older pergola vines. Pergola vines are trained up on a tall trellis where the grapes hang at shoulder level. This system thrives in hot, high humidity areas where more shade is needed to keep grapes from maturing too rapidly and allows more

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Leonardo, the owner of Valle Reale Winery, discovered old Montepulciano vines thriving despite 30 years of minimal attention. They had survived the cold, mountain winters and hot, dry summers by sending their roots deep into the rocky, clay soil, gathering ground water and needed nutrients and adapting naturally to their terroir. These self-selecting, old vines produced sweet grapes with bright acidity and thick, flavorful skins–the perfect ingredients for making high quality Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

In the past, locals harvested these grapes to make cheap wines for early consumption, but Leonardo realized the quality potential of these old vines.

The main vineyard sits in a natural bowl surrounded by a protective barrier of regional and national parks. And the narrow pass running through the Appenine Mountains breathes cool, drying air over the vineyard, reducing the potential for mold. The cold mountain air also lengthens the growing season, adding complexity as the grapes mature slowly, resulting in one of the latest harvests in Italy.

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ventilation of the vineyards, reducing the risk of mold. But most modern, qualityfocused wineries have abandoned this method of training vines for the more common cordon system, where the vines grow lower to the ground, utilizing the heat in the soil to continue the ripening process at night. Although all of his newly planted vines are on the cordon system, Leonardo keeps the section of pergola-trained vines because they are the oldest on the property and produce wines that add a deep, complex character to final blends.

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I began my days in the winery by learning the fine art of pump-overs. This is the process of pumping wine from the bottom of a tank and spraying it over the cap of grape skins floating at the top, which accomplishes a number of crucial functions in the wine-making process.

This heavy aeration of the fermenting wine aids in the development of hearty yeast and also allows oxygen to interact and combine with the most volatile components, reducing off-odors that occur naturally during the fermentation process (like the smell of rotting eggs caused by hydrogen sulfide). Pumpovers also moisten the cap, reducing the risk of bacteria, which could adversely

affect the flavor of the final wine and, most importantly, it aids in the extract of color, tannins and flavor components from the cap of crushed skins.

On my first day, I was gifted the main tool of this trade: a tightening key to connect the tubes. The key is used to securely tighten the tubes to the stainless steel pieces on the pump and the tank. In preparation for this job I would push a large red bin (secchio) to the base of a tank and drain the wine from the bottom. Tubing would suck the wine from the bin up through the electric pump and out through a long tube that was fastened to the top of the open tank, more than twenty feet above.

They tell you to double and triple check the tubing. I learned the hard way: one day, high-pressured, half-fermented purple wine spewed out from a loose tube and tie-dyed my pants. At least it didn’t taste half bad.

For each tank we ran the pump for 30 minutes, took our mandatory Italian smoke break, disassembled the pump, cleaned all components thoroughly, and then moved onto the next tank.

For the first couple of weeks after harvest the tanks are pumped over twice a day to ensure thorough extraction of tannins, color and flavor from the skins.

It’s very basic work but requires focus, forethought and good hearing to juggle multiple, simultaneous pump-overs.

On a number of occasions, I was taken around to sample the young, fermenting wine from all the tanks. This is a crucial step in creating a quality wine because if there is a problem with the wine at this point, it can usually be fixed. We began with the Montepulciano. One tank showed off flavors and aromas caused by the yeast dying prematurely due to a lack of nutrients. The solution was to add a little thiamine (a vitamin B complex) during the next pump-over, enriching the must and kick-starting the starving yeast. Another tank in particular was “dumb,” having very little aroma or fruit but maintaining a long, tannic finish. According to Julian, the winemaker, this tank of Montepulciano

juice would be an important part of the final “cépage” (blend), adding backbone, length and spice. He looked at me with an impish smile, and said, “It is the parmeggiano we sprinkle on the pasta.”

As the vines began to shut down for their long hibernation and the wines finished their fermentation, I watched the steady progression of winter’s chill slowly turn the leaves of the grape vines at Valle Reale from deep greens to brilliant shades of red and yellow.

Eventual frost and cold rains wilted them to dirty, spotted browns. In my last days, we filtered and then pumped the best Montepulciano into small Barrique oak barrels to age from 1 to 3 years and moved the simpler, early consumption red and white wines into large stainless steel storage tanks.

It’s estimated that twenty per cent of the world chews the mildly narcotic betel nut—every day and almost all the time.

But few have drank it. To the uninitiated (me), chewing betel nut produces an unpleasant high, a fuzzy, half-outside-yourself buzz and a low-grade brainstem headache. Alcohol seems to slow down and mitigate the harshest effects and leaves in their place a mellow glow befitting the tropics. But I’m in the minority. The Yapese like their nuts straight.

On the remote Pacific island of Yap, everyone, from teens to seniors, carries a betel nut preparation kit tucked under the arm. The “nut”–actually the green seed of the areca palm is cut into slices, combined with powdered, burnt coral calcium hydroxide commonly called “lime,” and wrapped in a pepper leaf.

Men call it their “second home” and never venture anywhere without it.

Traditionally, the kit was a woven leaf basket, but today it’s often a plastic tackle box.

Using what you’ve got.

Photos and Article By Paul Ross

At Traders’ Ridge, a luxury resort on Yap, you can imbibe Micronesian culture via a betel nut martini. The classic ingredients of a good island chew are

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Betel Nutinis on the Island of Yap

All social interactions– from meeting a neighbor to convening political sessions–commence with chewing the nut. The habit is a cultural addiction that leaves red splatters of masticated expectoration all over Yap, like some monochromatic Jackson Pollock painting of a crime scene. A chemical reaction of saliva and the chew mixture releases both the nut’s psychotropic effect and its red hue, and after years of partaking, the teeth of the user resemble the mottled finish of

an old Mahogany table leg. For many betel nut cultures–ranging from the Pacific and China, to India and Africa– darkened teeth are a mark of beauty (though, oddly enough, the scantily-clad “betel nut beauties” of Taiwan, who hawk the seeds from roadside kiosks, are not noted for their glamour).

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muddled tableside with a traditional wooden pestle and dumped into a standard martini glass. Then the contents of an iced shaker of vodka and vermouth are added.

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Betel-nut devotees around the globe claim health benefits from their habit, but medical research has found an increased incidence of oral cancer most probably due to the common practice of incorporating cigarette tobacco in the chew. But there’s no tobacco in the Traders’ Ridge Betel Nutini and perhaps the most peculiar thing about the concoction is that the nut mash at the bottom of the glass tastes like an olive!

DIY Betel Nutini

Yap is famous among divers and WWII history buffs but, if a six thousand mile hop from mainland USA to the mid-Pacific isn’t on your immediate agenda, here’s how to craft your own version of the Traders’ Ridge Betel Nut Martini.

With a little work you’ll find all the betel nut elements in the Pacific Island section of at your closest international market.… You’ll need a mortar and pestle to pound the nut with the lime and leaf, as the Yapese elders do when they can no longer chew.

Add this to a martini glass and pour in 2 oz. of gin or vodka and 1/2 oz. Vermouth from a shaker with ice cubes.

Shake and pour over the nut mix.

The longer it sits, the stronger the effects of the nut become.

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drink me

drink me

3 grams 1 1/2 oz

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