Wychwood Snake's Bite

The flavoured cider, perry and alcoholic ginger beer trend has been roaring away for over five years now and seems to show no signs of abetting. One producer with their ear to the ground is Wychwood, who excel at a mix of innovation and surfing the tide of change.

Wychwood Brewery (of Witney, Oxfordshire) have already ventured into this market with Ginger Beard (an alcoholic ginger beer), which was released at the back-end of 2012.

Now, whenever I hear the term “snakebite”, I think of the “Student’s Snakebite” (AKA “Snakey B”), which is a mix of Carling, Strongbow and blackcurrant cordial. Snake's Bite from Wychwood is described as a “blend of traditionally crafted beer infused with cider apples”; essentially, Snakebite in bottle.*

The Taste
Nose: Strong, malty ale, plus creamy apple tart.
Taste: More malt to taste, followed by a burst of sweetness and then a bitter hops flavour. Finally, there’s some cream on the finish.

Over ice:
This improves the drink somewhat, but, for me, it is too sweet and the ice brings out an odd and unpleasant metallic quality in the drink.

In Conclusion
I think that the quality of this product is obviously far better then the mix served in your average Students’ Union, but you probably wouldn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that it wasn’t really for me. It does leave me wondering what portion of Wychwood’s existing fans would drink this; it seems like it would to be too sickly for the ale drinkers and too hoppy for the fans of their cider or ginger beer.

* The blackcurrant cordial in the Snakebite recipe is technically optional.

Stella Artois Cidre (Apple Cider)

With so many bottles, tasting notes and notebooks in the Institute’s South Coast branch, it is not surprising that sometimes things go missing; such was the case with this article. The tasting notes and photographs were taken approximately one year ago, but, as these records were never formalised, you lovely folk never got to the results.

The subject in question was the launch of Stella Artois Cidre (Spring 2011), which was slightly marred, because there was a product recall (some of the bottles had a tendency to explode in people’s fridges; an issue which has now thankfully been resolved). I won’t go into the finer details of their advertising campaign, as they are well set-out in this article on the new Pear variety.

Stella Artois Cidre is made using hand-picked apples and is made to a Belgian recipe. It is bottled at 4.5% ABV.

The Taste

Colour: Bright orange colour, somewhat akin to the artificial glow of Magners or Bulmers.
Taste: Rather effervescent, with an initial dryness which was followed by the sweetness of freshy-pressed apple juice. Served out of the fridge, this is very refreshing and one of the better bottled sparkling ciders available.

With Ice: I don’t think Stella Artois Cidre (apple) improves with ice, as it loses a lot of its flavour, is less fizzy and, ultimately, provides less refreshment.

In Conclusion

A rather good product once you get past the cidre/cider marketing pap; good value for money and worth a punt.

The Emperor Napoleon Cocktail

Whilst I was mixing some Courvoisier Cocktails for the Diamond Jubilee, I noticed again that the bottle had a picture of Napoleon on it (please make your own ironic comments here). Given that I also had Napoleon’s favourite wine, Vin de Constance, and a small sample of Mandarine Napoleon to hand, I was immediately inspired to mix up a drink.

Following a little research, I found that The Cocktail DB already lists a Napoleon Cocktail and so my creation is called the Emperor Napoleon.

The Emperor Napoleon Cocktail

The Emperor Napoleon

30ml Courvoisier

10ml Vin de Constance

10ml Mandarine Napoleon

SHAKE

This makes a rich and flavourful drink that has strong, warming Cognac on one side, the juicy and sweet Mandarine Napoleon sitting on the other, and the Vin de Constance in the middle. There are herbal elements, too, as well as a lot of sweet citrus. For a tart and extremely refreshing drink, add 10ml of lemon juice, to make an “Emperor’s Vacation”.

Courvoisier VS Cognac is available from  al major grocery stores – RRP £23.79 for 70cl

Kopparberg Raspberry Cider

Kopparberg Swedish Cider like to innovate and bring a couple of new flavours to the market each year, keeping things fresh. I, for one, always look forward to trying the new varieties. Top of my list of all-time favourites are: Blackberry, Blackcurrant Witches Brew (Halloween 2006) and, more recently, Naked Apple.

Today, I am looking at a raspberry-flavoured Kopparberg, which is made by combining their basic apple cider with raspberry juice and a touch of mint. Without further ado, let’s look at what it was like.

The Taste

Colour: Rose pink.

Nose: Sweet, jammy raspberry, a touch of sweet apple and a herbal note towards the end.

Taste: A medium-level of fizz accompanied a good raspberry flavour.  It was creamy, and was neither too sweet, nor too dry. Like on the nose, there was a slight herbal note at the end, courtesy of the mint.

Taste over ice: Much improved. This seemed to be fresher and less intense, which made it more refreshing and easier to drink. The raspberry flavour remained strong throughout.

In Conclusion
Having tried so many varieties of Kopparberg, I know that some are bound to be better than others. This Raspberry version is average, but with a positive outlook; as such, I would have it again, if I had a particular hankering for it (which I can imagine happening).

Stella Artois Pear Cidre (Cider)

Last year, I reviewed the new cider from Stella Artois, which, for reasons of pretension and/or marketing guff, they insist that everyone call “cidre not cider”, even going so far as to provide phonetic notes*. That said, the cider itself was pretty well-received, both from me and the cider-drinking folks I speak to.

So popular, in fact, that a second product has been added to the range: a pear cider (oops, sorry, I mean cidre!); this follows in the footsteps of Magners, Bulmers and Kopparberg.**

Stella Pear Cidre is made with hand-picked pears using a Belgian recipe and is bottled at 4.5% ABV. Beyond that, I couldn’t find out much.

But how does it taste?

Colour: Light green (rather like Rose’s Lime Cordial).

Nose: Slightly acidic; there’s some fruit, but it’s not that inviting.

Taste: Far, far better than the nose (but then who goes around sniffing cider?), with a medium-high level of fizz. It is not too sweet and has plenty of juicy, fruity notes and a good amount of dryness. Overall, I thought it was rather good and pretty refreshing, but maybe a touch too gassy.

Over ice: I don’t think that ice adds much to the flavour of the drink, but it will keep it cooler for longer and will quickly cool down a bottle that’s at room temperature. Personally, I would rather drink Stella Pear Cidre without ice, but well-chilled.

In Conclusion

I think that, all thing considered, this is a pretty good product and is far better than the offerings from Bulmers or Magners (which I’m not very keen on). I’d buy Stella Pear Cider again.

Stella Artois Pear Cidre (Cider) is available to purchase from supermarkets for around £1.80 for 568ml (one imperial pint).

* I think that this is a pretty vain and nonsensical gimmick; if someone has trouble pronouncing the name of your product, they are going to be less likely to order it from a bar. That said, in supermarkets (where no such oraton is required), this cider has done very well; according to The Grocer magazine, it has done £36m of supermarket sales, which is the equivalent of 16.8% (by volume) of the current cider market.

** Strongbow have also followed suit with a pear cider.

Bootlegger 21 vodka

You can see why this appealed to us when Nick, my partner in crime in the speakeasy-styled Candlelight Club, got talking to one of the people behind it on a recent trip to the US. Confusingly, the Prohibition Distillery behind it has nothing to do with either Prohibition Gin, a fascinating “New Western” style made by Heartland Distillers, nor with Prohibition Ale, made by San Francisco’s Speakeasy Ales & Lagers, but they seem to have snaffled the name for themselves, and their packaging and website are all about the Prohibition era. (See a CNBC video of the chaps here.)

It’s a story of a pair of coves who, despite the recession, decided to quit their jobs in software sales and HR and start the distillery of their dreams in New York, evoking both the wily determination of the bootleggers and the post-Depression can-do spirit of their forebears. Up till now their product has been distilled for them by the Tuthilltown Distillery but they are soon to move into a 1929 firehouse in Roscoe, NY, where they will be doing their own distilling. Their first efforts won them a silver medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, so they spent another nine months tweaking it, producing something that won gold at the 2010 New York International Spirits Competition and an “Exceptional” rating from the Beverage Tasting Institute.

Their vodka, named Bootlegger 21 after the 21st Amendment in 1933 repealing Prohibition, comes in a splendid “case”-style rectangular bottle with Art Nouveau designs moulded into it, suggesting a period apothecary. (I gather that the first person to sell whiskey in bottles in the US was George Garvin Brown, founder of Brown-Forman, who had a background in pharmaceutical sales and understood the reassurance that a sealed container gave to customers.) No metal or plastic screwcap here: it comes with a stopper, though I’ve discovered that if you serve the vodka from the freezer it can be a bugger to get the synthetic cork out of the bottle—I guess the glass contracts but the bung doesn’t yield that much…

Click on the image to see it larger

The marvellous label evokes period officialdom—it’s based on one of those certificates that allowed you to get liquor for medicinal use (and the side label reads “Original Bootlegger 21 purchase ticket”), but it also has “In vodka we trust” blazoned across the top, suggesting banknotes. Interestingly, if you look at their homepage, the photo shows the label glued over the Art Nouveau design, but the bottle I’ve got (possibly the only one in the UK) wisely puts the label on the blank side of the glass, leaving the floral design unobscured on the back (see photo below).

Of course, for all the talk of heritage there is no suggestion of a vintage recipe—because no one drank vodka in the US in the Prohibition era. It might seem odd that they would choose so un-period a liquor to produce, but vodka is relatively cheap to make, requiring no ageing, so would be a good source of revenue for a start-up company.

“We initially had an idea to do a gin,” explains co-founder Brian Facquet, “which of course is period-appropriate. However, all other craft spirits companies announced they were doing gin and whiskey. We thought our base spirit was stellar, so we threw caution to the wind. Our shared space at Tuthilltown prevented us from entering into aged spirits, but at our new distillery in Roscoe we’ll begin whiskey and gin production in the future.”

A bottle of Bootlegger 21 fresh from the freezer, showing
the Art Nouveau design on the back

Bootlegger is made from 100% corn, something that is relatively uncommon and mostly found, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the US and Canada. As such they trumpet the fact that it is gluten-free. (Do glutens pass through the distilling process? I have no idea.) At room temperature it hits me with a nose of sugar, some fruit, perhaps raspberries, and a paper/cellulose character. Compared to my current benchmark Green Mark, it is sharper, rougher, with a fruity spike and the cellulose thing again, like a damp cardboard box that has been used to store pencils. Compared to Russian Standard, with its vibrant spicy/savoury vegetable character, Bootlegger is defined by that dry sugar flavour. Contrary to what I previously said about frozen vodka, this is one that possibly does benefit from the low temperature. From the freezer it has a nice oily consistency and smells pleasantly like an iced cake.

Brian says that they chose corn for its soft mouthfeel and sweet, delicate finish. “We are six times distilled, then filtered through a massive amount of hardwood charcoal—we developed our own filtration systems that allow for extremely slow filtration over long periods of time. The result: we have a vodka that has no burn. Several critics called it a sipping vodka and last week Hooch Life called it ‘liquid silk’.” I’m not sure I’d say that, exactly, but it does have a sweet character.

There are a host of cocktails listed on the Prohibition Distillery website, so I try a few. Owny Madden’s Bootlegger 21 Martini is a basic dry Martini with orange and grapefruit bitters: the bitters dominate, at least at first, but the sweetness of the vodka does seem to balance with the bitterness and herbal quality of the vermouth. They suggest a few Gimlet varitions, interestingly using fresh lime juice rather than Rose’s Lime Cordial (sacrilege in some eyes); again the sweetness is apparent, along with a slight butteriness, but perhaps I’m now just thinking of corn on the cob!

Finally I try the Improved Prohibition Cocktail. I’ve not encountered any previous version of the Prohibition Cocktail, but I think it’s a cracking recipe. I’m not sure how much the vodka is contributing because I haven’t tried it with any other brand, but the combination of Cocchi Americano and apricot liqueur is an inspired one:

Improved Prohibition Cocktail
1½ shots Bootlegger 21 vodka
1½ shots Cocchi Americano
¼ shot orange juice
Bar spoon of apricot liqueur
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

There are currently no plans to distribute Bootlegger 21 in the UK, though Brian says he would love to do so. If anyone is interested, get in touch!

Down on the farm – Rock Hill Farms, Single Barrel Whiskey

This year saw my first visit to the Imbibe trade show, where there were lots and lots of lovely brands to explore. One of the stands that immediately caught my eye upon arrival was the one representing the Buffalo Trace Distillery.

I first tried some of the bourbons made by this American distillery at a wonderful tasting held at The Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis, but that was a good few years ago now, when I was just starting to explore the world of whisk(e)y.

Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel Bourbon is made  by the Sazerac Company in Frankfort, Kentucky and was introduced in 1990.

Nose: This was a deliciously sweet, but rich bourbon nose: I caught distinctive hints of cinnamon, vanilla, and fudge. Despite those notes, it wasn’t overly sweet, with the wood adding a dryness towards the end.

Taste: Wonderful, real, genuine notes of oak, followed by a very pleasant warmth. It had a good body to it, too—I often find some bourbons don’t have much going on in the middle of the taste profile, but that wasn’t the case at all with this one. 

Finish: The same real wood notes, lifted very slightly at the end with sweet, dark sugar caramel and toffee. Lasted for a good while, gradually becoming drier.

In Conclusion

A lovely, full-bodied bourbon, with lots of development of flavour, measured hints of the sweeter whiskey characteristics and genuine notes of oak. A little pricey in the UK, but definitely one of the premium bourbons that I’d be more likely to buy.

Mrs. B