Rewind 6 (Sunday, Mar 11)

[bovil]

britgeekgrrl, iamradar, kproche and I went to St. George Spirits to taste the new Qi White (white tea and orange liqueuer; it's really strange but it's really good) and to show off the St. George Spirits Special Forces Uniforms. As it turns out, the office manager at St. George hadn't let anybody know we were coming, so it was just the tasting room manager and one of the tasting room crew members who got to see them.

On the upside, it was a quiet Sunday afternoon, so we were able to take pictures in front of the stills. I haven't done anything with them yet, but they're pretty fabulous.

Afterwards, we ran to Valley Fair to get mini plasma discs from Spencer Gifts, and then over to ladycelia's for a late barbecue and drinks. It was a pretty relaxed evening.

Comments

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... would a teetotaler like myself be likely to like the Qi White? (If you remember Lee Schneider, he tried for five years [in vain] to find a liqueur I found palatable.)

[bovil.livejournal.com]

It's not likely; there's still a noticable alcohol taste to it, and "white" tea has a very light tea flavor; it's the youngest tips prepared in the same fashion as green tea and as such is very delicate.

Still, one never knows. The Qi Black (lapsang souchong tea, tangerine and Tahitian vanilla) might be to your taste. It's a complex flavor, but not at all delicate.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm a most indelicate sort of fellow; might try the Black if it ever came my way.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I'm just thinking of the sorts of liqueur that Lee keeps around. It's not like he doesn't have some excellent bottles. With that variety and range of quality, I expect that it's the basic alcohol taste that's the problem. A liqueuer that masks the alcohol flavor well would most likely be your best bet, which means pretty intense flavors.

Germain-Robin "Liqueur de Poete" is a honey-herb dessert liqueuer with only the lightest hint of alcohol in the taste. It's expensive and hard to come by, though; it's distilled in small batches by an expat Frenchman living up in the redwood forests of Mendocino County.

The Qi tea liqueurs might work, but they don't really mask the alcohol flavor; they just use very high-quality base spirits to produce a "rounder" alcohol flavor without the harshness. The folks running the St. George distillery started on eau de vie, un-aged fruit brandy; the goal in distilling eau de vie is not to reduce the alcohol flavor but to highlight the most delicate flavors of the source fruit. Their "poire" pear eau de vie is strong and, for lack of a better description, tastes like the shadow of a pear (not that pears have that much flavor to start).

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure we did this in March ;^)

[bovil.livejournal.com]

whatever...