Image via Archinect.

There are plenty of examples of structures built from recycled materials—even Buddhist temples have been made from them. In Sima Valley, California, an entire village known as Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village was constructed from reused glass. But this is no new concept—back in 1960, executives at the Heineken brewery drew up a plan for a “brick that holds beer,” a rectangular beer bottle that could also be used to build homes.

Gerard Adriaan Heineken acquired the “Haystack” brewery in 1864 in Amsterdam, marking the formal beginning of the eponymous brand that is now one of the most successful international breweries. Since the first beer consignment was delivered to the United States upon the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, it has been a top seller in the United States. The distinctive, bright green of a Heineken beer bottle can be found in more than 70 countries today. The founder’s grandson, Alfred Heineken, began his career with the company in 1942 and was later elected Chairman of the Executive Board at Heineken International. Alfred, better known as “Freddy,”oversaw the design of the classic red-starred label released in 1964. He had a good eye for marketing and design.”Had I not been a beer brewer I would have become an advertising man,” he once said. When Freddy’s beer took off in the international market, he made it a point to visit the plants the company had opened as a part of its globalization strategy.

A display of WOBO “bricks” from the Heineken Experience, in Amsterdam. Image courtesy of Flickr user seaotter22.

In 1960, Freddy took a trip to the island of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea and discovered that he could barely walk 15 feet on the beach without stepping on a littered Heineken bottle. He was alarmed by two things: First, the incredible amount of waste that his product was creating due to the region’s lack of infrastructure to collect the bottles for reuse. (Back then, bottles were commonly returned for refilling, lasting about 30 trips back and forth to the breweries). Second, the dearth of proper building materials available to those living in the impoverished communities he visited. So he thought up an idea that might solve both of these problems: A brick that holds beer.

The rectangular, Heineken World Bottle or WOBO, designed with the help of architect John Habraken, would serve as a drinking vessel as well as a brick once the contents were consumed. The long side of the bottle would have interlocking grooved surfaces so that the glass bricks, once laid on their side, could be stacked easily with mortar or cement. A 10-foot-by-10-foot shack would take approximately 1,000 bottles (and a lot of beer consumption) to build. Yu Ren Guang explains in Packaging Prototypes 3: Thinking Green:

“On returning to Holland [from Curacao], Alfred set about conceiving the first ever bottle designed specifically for secondary use as a building component, thereby turning the function of packaging on its head. By this philosophy, Alfred Heineken saw his beer as a useful product to fill a brick with while being shipped overseas. It became more a case of redesigning the brick than the bottle.”

A handful of designers have accepted Alfred’s WOBO as one of the first eco-conscious consumer designs out there. Martin Pawley, for example, writes in Garbage Housing, that the bottle was “the first mass production container ever designed from the outset for secondary use as a building component.”

A WOBO wall. Image courtesy of Flickr user greezer.ch.

There were many variations of the original prototype—all of which were ultimately rejected as many components were considered unworkable. For example, a usable beer bottle needs a neck from which to pour the beer and a protruding neck makes it harder to stack the product once the beer’s run out—problematic for brick laying. The finalized design came in two sizes—350 and 500 milimeters (35 and 50 centimeters)—the smaller of which acted as half-bricks to even out rows during construction. In 1963, the company made 50,000 WOBOs for commercial use.

Both designs (one of the wooden prototypes is pictured in Nigel Whiteley’s Design for Society), were ultimately rejected by the Heineken company. The first prototype for example, was described by the Heineken marketing team as too “effeminate” as the bottle lacked ‘approprate’ connotations of masculinity. A puzzling description, Cabinet writes, “considering that the bottle consisted of two bulbous compartments surmounted by a long shaft.”

For the second model, Habraken and Heineken had to thicken the glass because it was meant to be laid horizontally—a costly decision for an already progressive concept. The established cylindrical designs were more cost effective and could be produced faster than the proposed brick design. But what most likely worked against Habraken’s design was that customers simply liked the easy-to-hold, cylindrical bottle.

Though the brick bottles never saw the market, in 1965 a prototype glass house was built near Alfred Heineken’s villa in Noordwijk, outside Amsterdam. Even the plastic shipping pallets intended for the product were reused as sheet roofing. The two buildings still stand at the company’s former brewery-turned-museum, The Heineken Experience. 

A Heineken label circa 1931. Image courtesy of Heineken International.

Where Heineken failed in creating a reusable brick bottle, the company EM1UM succeeded. The bottles, which were easier to manufacture for most automatic bottling machines than Heineken’s design, were made to attach lengthways or sideways by pushing the knobs of one into the depressions of another. EM1UM was mostly successful in Argentina and collected awards for bottle designs including prisms, cubes and cylinders.

In 2008, French design company, Petit Romain, made plans to make its own take on Alfred Heineken’s WOBO design, the Heineken Cube. It’s similar to the original concept in that it’s stackable, packable and altogether better for travel than the usual, clinky, cylindrical bottles. The major difference is that the cube is meant to save space, not to build homes. Like Freddy’s WOBO, the Cube is still in the prototype stage.

The prototype Heineken cube from Petit Romain via Laughing Squid

Though Freddy’s brick design never took off, it didn’t stop Heineken International from maintaining the lead in the global brew market. By ’68, Heineken merged with its biggest competitor, Amstel. By ’75 Freddy was one of the richest men in Europe.

A fun, slightly-related fact: Alfred Heineken and his chauffeur were kidnapped in 1983 and held at a 10 million dollar ransom in a warehouse for three weeks. Lucky for Freddy, one of the kidnappers gave away their location mistakenly while calling for some Chinese takeout. According to the Guardian, after the incident, Heineken required at least two bodyguards to travel with him at all times.

Alfred played a large role in the company’s expansion, championing a series of successful acquisitions, right up until his death in 2002. While his plans for translucent, green bottle homes never came to fruition commercially, the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple, constructed from a mix of one million bottles from Heineken and the local Chang beer remains proof of the design’s artfulness. For some designers, it seems, there is no such thing as garbage.

A tabletop laden with goodies showcases the nut culture of the French Périgord, where locals make cheese, bread, oil and liqueur using the area’s walnuts. Photo by Alastair Bland.

Walnuts, like almonds, avocados, flax seeds and other things rich in good oils and antioxidants, are among the rising stars of the American whole foods health craze. But it never took a good word from Dr. Oz or Oprah to make this nut a favorite in the Périgord region of southern France, where walnuts have flourished for centuries. Mature orchards line the highways and carpet the Dordogne River floodplain, plots of sapling twigs sprout their first year’s leaves in adjacent plots, trees blossom with the promise of a bumper autumn crop, and heaps and heaps of nuts are sold in bulk in virtually every single market. Deeper inside the local shops and households, one finds other things walnut–including fresh-pressed oil and whiskey-strong walnut booze. And following the road signs of the “Route de la Noix,” a meandering circuit of small highways through the woods, travelers discover the Périgord’s most prolific walnut country–and along this route are walnut oil presses, walnut museums, distilleries, and places to taste the Périgord’s variety of other walnut products. I, as it happens, am on vacation here, and for at least a few days I’m disregarding the region’s foie gras, truffles and wine and, instead, am making this visit to the Dordogne Valley a walnut tasting tour.

Here are five ways I’ve recently learned to enjoy this rising superstar of nuts:

1. Drink it: Eau-de-vie de noix. This liqueur–translated into something like “firewater of walnut”– begins as brandy, distilled from wine, but gains its distinguishing marks through several weeks of sitting on mashed-up walnuts. The final product, which may never touch an oak barrel, is usually just faintly yellow with a subtle candy-like nuttiness. The drink is dry–unsweetened–and usually weighs in at about 42 percent alcohol by volume. (Don’t get it mixed up with drinks like vin de noix, eau de noix or liqueur de noix, discussed below.) Drink eau-de-vie de noix straight or on the rocks to best savor its subtle essence–and in the name of France’s cherished food-and-drink traditions, keep the expensive bottle away from that hair-gelled mixologist friend of yours.

Walnut-infused liquors of varying strength command varying prices at the Distillerie de la Salamandre, in Temniac, France. Photo by Alastair Bland.

2. Drink It, Part II: Walnut wine. You’ll see this billed as “vin de noix” in the Perigord, yet the product is grape-based, made from straight red wine that sits on macerated green walnuts (harvested in the summertime, when bitter and scarcely edible) for several weeks before being sweetened with sugar and sometimes spiked with brandy or vodka. Many households make this drink, as do inns where it may be served to guests. Relatively little is labeled and sold commercially, but visitors to the Dordogne Valley (it occurs in Italy and the Balkans, too) will have little trouble finding a glassful. Walnut wine usually runs about 16 percent alcohol by volume. But those who read bottle labels will observe that a similar product called “eau de noix” runs 18 percent, and that another labeled as “liqueur de noix” measures about 30. They are different renditions of the same recipe. Speaking of which, walnut wine is almost stupid-easy to make yourself; you need just green walnuts, wine, sugar, brandy and a few weeks.

3. Drizzle It: Walnut oil. This is one of those oils that can be so delicious that one hates to do anything with it much more complicated than sipping it from a spoon. It is a product of the autumn, when the walnuts fall by the tons and tons throughout the Périgord. Many farmers rake up at least part of their crop and bring it to the local oil maker. Here, a grinding mill–sometimes decades old–smashes the nuts, rendering a honey-golden juice that comes gurgling out into jugs. Often the walnuts are toasted before being ground, though some farmers of less traditional tendencies are now “cold-pressing” the nuts for a subtler, softer oil–and supposedly with more health benefits. You may find roasted walnut oil to be superior. It is fragrant, rich, warm and toasty. Don’t even think of blending it with balsamic (even though the locals often do, perhaps since they have all they can use), and if you must make a dressing with it, go easy on the vinegar. Also, don’t use walnut oil for cooking, as high temperatures can supposedly annihilate its purported health benefits and burn away its aromas. The best ways to taste walnut oil may be to drizzle it over couscous, charcuterie, a runny egg yolk or a steaming plate of whole-grain bulgur.

4. Eat It: Walnut Bread. The humble baguette may be the oven-made star of the French boulangerie–but walnut bread is better. Produced year-round and available in most good bakeries, walnut bread–sometimes made with whole wheat for a richer, fuller flavor–is often baked into a round loaf with a hard crust, and the nuts are inevitably toasted. Layer a slice with cheese–or drizzle it with walnut oil.

Many sorts of breads in France trump the plain baguette, such as these morning loaves of fresh walnut bread spotted in the village bakery of Saint Julien de Lampon. Photo by Alastair Bland.

5.  Spread it: Walnut cheese. Another specialty of the Périgord, walnut cheese may be encountered as a sticky Tomme-like substance called Echourgnac, made at the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Good Hope and soaked in walnut liquor. This treatment produces a strong-tasting and smoky scent–almost like cured anchovies–yet subtle in the walnut spectrum of flavors. One must consciously wish to taste walnut to believe he actually can–but the label of the Trappe Echourgnac, a 14-ounce walnut cheese wheel, verifies that, indeed, the stuff is bathed in “liqueur de noix.” Want a crunchier experience? Try Gourmandise, a blended cheese studded with crumbled walnuts.

The Route of the Walnuts leads travelers in the Dordogne Valley past oil presses, museums, bakeries and distilleries, all in the midst of the region’s prolific walnut orchards. Photo by Alastair Bland.

Since the mid to late 19th century, isinglass, a fish by-product has been used as a clarification agent in Guinness beer. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Guinness sells about 10 million pints a day across 100 countries. On St. Patrick’s Day, that number hops to 13 million. When Arthur Guinness set up shop in Dublin back in 1759, he never would’ve guessed that his stout would become the unofficial beer of the Irish and the go-to beverage to shout to the bartender come March 17 (besides Jameson). Even Obama honored his Irish lineage with a highly-publicized Guinness at a pub in Ireland last year. But the classic brew isn’t for everyone. For the hardline vegetarians and vegans out celebrating this St. Paddy’s Day: there could be traces of fish bladder in your Guinness.

Isinglass, a gelatine-like substance made from the air-bladders or sounds of fish like the sturgeon is added to cask beers like Guinness to help any remaining yeast and solid particles settle out of the final product. As the finings pass through the beer, they attract themselves to particles in the fermented beer that create an unwanted “haziness” in the final product and form into a jelly-like mass that settles to the bottom of the cask. While beer left untouched will clear on its own, isinglass speeds up the process and doesn’t affect the final flavor of the beer once removed.

The word isinglass most likely comes from the corruption of the Dutch word huisenblas which translates directly to “sturgeon’s bladder,” but its history goes back a little further. Its archaic, Latin root, ichthyocolla, comes from the Greek words ikhthus (fish) and kolla (glue)—defining the mucous-like substance as “fish glue.”

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume IX, originally published in Edinburgh in 1797, the method of using isinglass as a clarification agent was long a secret in the hands of the Russians who were known for their exceptionally strong isinglass-made glue. The entry, which draws heavily from Humphrey Jackson’s 63rd volume of the Philosophical Transactions, cites the principal research of Pomet on the process of making isinglass:

“As to the manner of making the isinglass, the sinewy parts of the fish are boiled in water till all of them be dissolved that will disolve; then the gluey liqur is strained and set to cool. Being cold, the fat is carefully taken off, and the liquor itself boiled to a just consistency, then cut to pieces and made into a twist, bent in form of a crescent, as commonly fold: then hung upon a firing and carefully dried.”

Pomet’s experiments with the sounds of fish and its chemical properties lead him to discover the fish membrane’s ability to clarify beer. Adding an ounce and a half of “good isinglass” to a gallon of stale beer to steep for a few days, he found that the bad beer “was converted into good fining, of a remarkably thick consistence.” When he tried this with the same quantity of glue, the experiment yielded only “mucilaginous liquor, resembling diluted gum water which instead of clarifying beer, increased both its tenacity and turbidness.”

Combining the insinglass with malt liquor, he found that a “vast number of curdly masses became presently formed”, became attracted to the “feculencies of beer,” and, with the “well known laws of gravitation,” the unwanted particles combined with the isinglass and fell to the bottom of the barrel.

The process is simple: Remove the membranous parts of fresh-caught fish, scrape off the mucosity with a knife, roll, twist and dry in open air.  The thicker the sounds are, the better the isinglass. The air-bladders of fresh water fish are preferred because they are more flexible and delicate. Swim bladders from sturgeon—especially that from the Beluga sturgeon which yielded the greatest quantity of sounds—were used to make isinglass until the 1795 invention of a cheap cod substitute by William Murdoch.  Summer is the best time to collect, as frost interferes with the fish’s gelatinous principles. After the drying process, “good” isinglass, once held up to a light, exhibits prismatic colors.  

Guinness first used isinglass in its Dublin brewery in the mid to late 19th century. A young fermentation scholar by the name of Forbes Watson, the son of an Edinburgh solicitor, was a pioneer in the experimentation and examination of the mineral constituents of Guinness beer. Within six weeks of being hired at the brewery, Watson discovered a way to recover beer at the bottom of the vat saving Guinness 6,000 pounds a year. Very early in his career, he toyed with pasteurization and introduced new methods of breaking down isinglass finings that would increase the lifetime of the stout. In 1909, Watson was killed in an accident with a machine he had helped create at age 37. After he died, little scientific ground was broken for the company until the 1930s.

With the presence of modern gelatin, isinglass is rarely used today with the exception of British “real ale” cask beers. Generally, British beers still use isinglass, gelatin, glycerin or casein. According to a recent statement made by Guinness:

“All Guinness brands are free from animal matter and from contact with animal matter. However, isinglass, which is a by-product of the fishing industry, is used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass is retained in the floor of the vat but it is possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer.”

For many strict vegetarians and vegans even “minute quantities” of an animal product is enough to abstain from eating a particular food. Much like the honey debate (Does it hurt the bee? Or does it not count as an animal product? What about silkworms and cochineal bugs?) flexitarians and militant vegans may disagree on how to classify the potential traces of isinglass in beer.

For those who are on the anti-isinglass side of the spectrum, carrageenan, a type of red algae, also called Irish Moss, (an appropriate title for St. Paddy’s Day) also works as a fining agent in beer, but doesn’t yield the same results as isinglass. The k-carrageenan interacts with the proteins that create cloudy beer and form the molecular equivalent of marbles in syrup at the bottom of the batch. Vegan brands like Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon use carrageenan while others like Odell Brewing Co. use centrifugation for clarification. 

Strict vegetarians and vegans often choose German or Belgium brews which abide by “purity laws” (first enacted in 1516) which require that breweries use only ingredients of water, grain (barley or wheat), hops and yeast. The ruling was officially lifted in 1987 by the European Court, but the tradition of the law remains.

So, before you step out on the town in your green get-up and order an Irish stout this St. Patrick’s Day, remember: Pescetarians, rejoice—Guinness is still “good for you“. Vegans, stick to whiskey.

Falernum, a syrup that originates in Barbados, pairs nicely with rum. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In a time of $15, infused vodka cocktails with too many ingredients (add a dash of pretentiousness), a simple drink is hard to come by. “Portlandia,” as always, captured it best: “That is a ginger-based bourbon drink infused with honey lemon and chard ice. Then building off of that base, we’ve got cherry tomato, lime zest. I actually made the bitters myself at home. We’ve got egg whites, eggshell, egg yellows. Rotten banana.”

The fancy mixologist forgot one ingredient, though: falernum.

This rum-based syrup with lime and spices—typically almond or ginger—originated in Barbados and likely isn’t stocked at your neighborhood bar. It can be alcoholic or nonalcoholic when served sans rum. Records pinpoint its popularity in America circa the ’30s, but the history gets fuzzy—even among well-read mixologists.

The word falernum originates from the Roman wine falernian (or falernum in Latin.) But modern falernum, found in classic tiki drinks like the Mai Thai or the Zombie, has little in common with the original use of the word except for it’s coloring. But even that is a little off—Pliny The Elder was once quoted describing it’s color as a rich amber. [Pliny and Cicero’s feelings on the potent wine is also detailed in the Harvard Divinity School's Theological Library's records (reprinted from 1564)]. In Food in the Ancient World: From A-Z, Andrew Dalby writes that the earliest reference to the fine Roman wine produced near Mt. Falernus was by Polybius in about 140 B.C. The word falernum as it is spelled today was most likely not used until 102 B.C.

The wine, which Pliny rated second to Caecuban in his evaluation of Italian wines, was at its best when aged 15-20 years, becoming darker over time from a light amber, to fuscum (brown), to niger (black). He also stated that it was the only wine high enough in alcohol content to catch fire. The Alcohol by Volume (ABV) of Falernum today is roughly 18 percent, comparable to other liqueurs like Kahlúa (20 percent) or Amaretto (24 percent). According to Pliny, Falernian wine (a very different beverage altogether) was close to 30 percent.

But Pliny’s second-favorite wine shares little more than a namesake with the syrup first invented in Barbados. In fact, a New York Times article from 1892 entitled “In the Lore of Barbados: Redistilled Rum,” tells a very different tale of the drink’s etymology. It includes a housewife’s recipe for the mixture and describes a moment of misunderstanding that resulted in the syrup’s namesake:

Once, when a woman was asked for the ingredients, she answered in the dialect, ‘Haf a learn um’ – ‘Have to learn how it’s done.’ Hence the name.

A Washington Post article from 1937 cites the use of falernum to improve the Cuban drink “El Presidente.” The “reason for this definite cocksureness,” the columnist wrote, was the exotic island quality of classic “tiki” drinks.

But cocktail blogger, Darcy O’Neil, who has written extensively on falernum, dug up this gem of a newspaper article from the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1896 which includes a basic recipe for the Caribbean syrup:

O’Neil also cites the research of Ted Haigh, whose work suggests the origin of the drink to be in question. He was unable to find any references before the ‘30s, when the recipe “one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of the weak” received popularity in America.

In Explore Barbados (2000) Harry S. Pariser claims Bajan Henry Parkinson first mixed the ingredients (almonds, clove powder, ginger, crushed limes). His great-great-grandson, Arthur Stansfield, registered the combo in 1934 and brought it over to the states. But O’Neil says, a man named John D. Taylor claimed to invent falernum in 1890 and may have been responsible for the drink’s initial commercialization.

Tropical mixers like falernum gained popularity with Donn Beach‘s (Ernest Gantt) invention of the tiki bar in 1931. In ’33, Beach claimed to have invented the infamous Mai Tai which included the Barbadian mixture. By the ’70s, though, the thatched roof aesthetic—along with falernum cocktails—experienced a decline. In And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, Wayne Curtis details the rise and fall of the “Tiki Era” of cocktails:

“Perhaps the most startling death knell for tiki rang out in 2000, when the glorious Kahiki restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, built in 1961 and featuring a forty-foot high tiki with a fireplace in its mouth was demolished to make way for a Walgreen’s drugstore.”

It’s difficult to track down records of homemade concoctions of the syrup predating these newspaper clippings, leaving plenty of room for variations on the recipe. But one thing most cocktail connoisseurs can agree on: Though falernum’s got a fuzzy past, it’s certainly obscure enough to impress party guests at your next “tiki era revival” hula party.

America can’t get enough craft beer. Microbreweries, regional breweries, and brew pubs per capita as of April 2012, according to the Brewers Association

Dan Koester wants to assure you, there’s nothing to fear. Despite having names such as the Worthy Adversary, Alimony Ale and Nippletop Milk Stout, craft beers aren’t as intimidating as they appear, though just try ordering a Fulton Lonely Blonde without feeling like a crusty, old sailor. But Koester, craft enthusiast and author of The Definitive Guide to Buying Craft Beer: Discover Everything You Need to Know About Buying and Enjoying Craft Beer, says craft beer is for everyone.

Koester says he hasn’t met a craft beer he doesn’t like.

“I think the group in general, the people who are enjoying craft beer, is just a very laid-back group,” says Koester, who sports a respectable mustache and hails from the brew-loving land of Wisconsin. During the day, he’s conscientious, Oak Creek Dental Care Dr. Koester, but in his free time, he’s a bit of a Renaissance man, restoring old cars, biking with his family and trying any craft beer he comes across.

After sampling craft beers his son was bringing home while working at a liquor store, Koester began exploring a world previously unknown to him. Now he travels the country, most recently to Oregon, to try as many varieties as possible.

His interest coincides with a national boom in the craft industry. After a serious slump post-Prohibition, large companies were the only survivors, acquiring smaller operations so that by the end of the 1970s, there were only 44 brewing companies in the country, according to the Brewers Association. Koester says homebrewing grew in popularity in response to industry consolidation. Craft breweries blossomed from basements and garages and, as regulations began recognizing the smaller breed of brewers, craft beer gained a foothold in the market. Over at the Atlantic Cities, Richard Florida sifted through the data to figure out why craft brewing seemed to boom in certain states. Interestingly, the state comparison revealed that income played less of a role than education level (the higher the level, the more breweries abound). Florida also found some interesting corollaries:

“…craft brewing is more closely associated with higher levels of happiness and well-being (0.47).”

“Curiously, there was a negative connection between craft breweries and two other unhealthy behaviors or “sins” — smoking (-0.28) and even more so with obesity (-0.54).”

Some states have even begun trying to attract craft brewers as a way to boost local economies. And, in true trendsetting fashion, American craft brewers are now feeding demand in Europe, according to PRI’s The World, who argue that the big shift came two years ago at Munich’s Oktoberfest when a Samuel Adams beer took home gold. The victory in the heart of European beer country was compared to the famous Judgement of Paris in 1976 when two California wines bested the competition in a blind tasting.

There are now 2,126 breweries in the country, according to the Brewers Association, with 2,075 considered craft breweries, meaning they produce 6 million barrels of beer per year or fewer.

Before you get overwhelmed by the choices, Koester offers his expertise on everything from food pairings to essential questions to ask before you buy a drink.

On food pairings:

Spicy Foods: “With spicier food, Mexican food, that sort of thing, I like the Scotch Ales, they go very well with spicy food,” says Koester, singling out Samuel Adams’ version of it in particular.

Best Bets: For a gold medal-winning brew, try Oskar Blues Brewing’s Old Chub Scottish ale, which placed first in its category at the U.S. Beer Championships. The beer is “brewed with bodacious amounts of malted barley and specialty grains, and a dash of beechwood-smoked malt,” creating a flavor profile “of cocoa and coffee, and a kiss of smoke.”

Heavy Foods: ”The more bitter, hoppy beers, which I do like a lot, the IPAs and Imperial IPAs like a Russian Imperial Stout, go really well with German food. The heavier, meatier foods seem to go well with the bitter, hoppy beers,” says Koester.

Best Bets: The Alchemist Brewery’s Heady Topper, with a promise to put hair on your chest, took the top honors over at Beer Advocate in the Imperial IPA category. And Paste Magazine nominated Great Divide Brewing Company’s Hercules, also a double IPA, for its balanced flavor and hoppy finish.

Sweet and…Sweet: With the glut of holiday cookies upon us, Koester says you can’t go wrong pairing a similarly sweet brew with a sweet treat. “Something like an Abbey Triple or a fruitier beer, a Lambic, with something sweet goes very well,” says Koester.

Best Bets: Developed from a Belgian recipe from the 1300s, the Allagash Brewing Company makes a Coolship Resurgam that the Wall Street Journal calls, “clean and tart with an effervescent strawberry finish.”

On craft beers for wine lovers:

So maybe you remember a little too well the stale, pale flavor of college party beers past though you wish you didn’t. For whatever reason, you’re a wine-only person. To get out of your grape rut, Koester again recommends starting with something like a Lambic, known for a refreshing, bubbly profile with hints of fruit that should appeal to the wine-lover’s palate.

Best Bets: And for another great Lambic from abroad, the New York Times likes Lindemans Cuvée René as an older, aged variety “with wonderful raspberry aromas that combined with a sort of earthiness.” For a sweeter finish, the New York Times suggests, De Troch Apricot Chapeau from Noble Union Trading, saying it had a ”nut flavor almost like Turkish delight.”

On beginner brews:

“A lot of the things that will turn people on or off is how bitter is the beer,” says Koester. “I think that’s a very basic question: Do you like more of a sweet or milder beer?” Because the hoppier brews can be a bit strong for beginners, he says brown and amber ales tend to cut a middle road. “They have some bitterness, some hoppiness, but they’re also a very flavorful malty beer.”

Best Bets: Tröegs Brewing Company’s amber ale, Nugget Nectar, has the highest user-generated score of any amber ale over at Beer Advocate. Available February through March, the brew promises to “take hopheads to nirvana with a heady collection of Nugget, Warrior and Tomahawk hops.” Meanwhile, Red Brick’s version, Laughing Skull, placed first in its category at the 2011 U.S. Beer Championships with its signature zombie logo.

Imperial Stout is a high-alcohol rendition of standard English stouts born about 300 years ago through a series of sea voyages between England and Russia. It stands in ably as a Christmas Eve nightcap—and can be squeezed into a stocking. Photo by Andrew Bland.

With Christmas tunes, ugly sweaters and tacky plastic reindeer out in full force, it seems it’s time again to blend up some rum-spiked eggnog—but today, I’m going to stoke up a different sort of holiday spirit: really strong beer. ‘Tis the season, after all. We often see a spike in the number of extra potent beers about now, the common notion being that a touch more alcohol will warm the bones on cold nights. “High-alcohol” beers, by some standards, might include 6 or 7 percent alcohol by volume holiday releases, like Deschutes Brewing’s Jubelale, Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome and Marin Brewing’s Hoppy Holidaze, and if you’re a regular sipper of light lagers, these seasonal beers are festive enough. But it’s the ludicrously potent, double-digit beers that I’m thinking of now—beers with attitude, charisma, strength, flavor, culture and, especially, spirit.

Imperial Stout. Few beers may so strongly evoke the image of dark winters, frozen European landscapes and long ship voyages as Imperial Stout. This pitch-black, super-strong sipper has become a favorite in modern American craft beer circles, but the style has a long and compelling history, too. The story takes us across oceans and continents, to the damp streets of London and even into the dens of emperors. While England made the first Imperial Stout, it was Russia that drank the stuff. Czar Peter the Great is known to historians for his productive time as Russia’s leader from 1682 until 1725. But many beer geeks only know the famed czar’s role in the invention of Imperial Stout. Peter visited England in 1698, when he was in his late 20s. Here he took a liking to the nation’s black and bitter stouts. Before returning to Russia, Peter requested that a shipload be delivered at a later date. England proudly answered the request—but with embarrassing results: the beer casks, deep in the ship’s hold, froze during transport through the frigid Baltic Sea. The water expanded and burst the barrels. The beer was ruined. (Actually, they might have discovered the trick now known as “freeze distillation” had they only the courage to taste the stout. See below.) As legend tells it, the Barclay Brewery of London came forward with a solution: Raise the alcohol level to stave off frost and try again. They custom brewed a new batch, and the effort seems to have worked. The next delivery made it to Peter in shipshape, and the bigger-boned rendition of the standard English stout swept the emperor off his feet. Deliveries became routine, and the beer is now often called Russian Imperial Stout. Though the first batch that Peter tasted may only have been about 7 percent ABV (like Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout, brewed in North Yorkshire—a classic representative of the original), modern brewers have upped the numbers. North Coast Brewing Company‘s rendition runs 9 percent, Lagunitas Brewing‘s is 10, Three Floyds‘ 15 and Dogfish Head‘s a smashing 18. These are the big guys that sit well in a brandy snifter—and they fit nicely in a Christmas stocking.

Other Holiday Spirit Boosters

Samichlaus Classic Malt Liquor. Billed as “The World’s Most Extraordinary Beer,” Samichlaus Classic measures 14 percent ABV and back in the 1990s was recognized as the world’s strongest lager. The beer is brewed once per year, on December 6, and after months of aging, released about a year later. Trust me: It’s not going to be a favorite of just everyone. It barely tastes like beer, in fact. It is sweet, sticky, syrupy and raisiny, with hardly a hint of hops. Colored like brandy, it drinks about like one, too. In other words, go slow. The beer, for a piece of trivia, means Santa Claus in Zurich, the Swiss-German dialect of the Alps.

Samichlaus Classic is a Christmastime lager from the Castle Brewery Eggenberg in Austria. At 14 percent alcohol, the beer drinks like brandy. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Bernt Rostad.

Ice Beers: No—don’t go plunking any ice cubes in your stout. Ice beers, in fact, are made through quite the opposite process: Beer is placed in a freezer, where water in the beer turns to ice, while the alcohol remains in liquid form. As clear ice floats to the surface of the beer, a stronger, condensed version of the original brew is left behind. It’s basic chemistry—and a trick brewers call freeze distillation. It’s illegal, in fact, in the United States—mostly. That is, the law’s fine print says it’s OK to use freeze distillation to add trace amounts of alcohol—a loophole that allows big breweries to make such products as Molson Ice and Bud Ice, which are only barely affected by the process. However, we have secret info from industry insiders that the technique occurs in full force at some brewpubs, where the often smooth, velvety beer may be served on tap. Customers thus unwittingly consume great beer, contraband and evidence of the crime all in one glass. The first ice beer is believed to have been made by accident in Kulmbach, Germany, in 1890, when a cask of beer was forgotten and left out on a freezing night. In the morning, the brewers tasted the beer and found the boozy liquid under the cap of ice to be strong and delicious. Sound tasty? You’re in luck, because while making ice beers is illegal in America, importing them from Europe—where freeze distillation is completely lawful—is not. Kulmbacher Eisbock and Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock are two available examples of the style.

He’Brew Jewbelation Sweet 16 from Shmaltz Brewing. What? You don’t believe a fat man in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer delivers billions of presents around the world every December 24? Yeah—it does seem sometimes like a grand parental hoax. But far from being left out in the cold this winter, you just might be enjoying the best specialty drink of all: an extreme Hanukkah ale called Jewbelation, brewed by the Shmaltz Brewing Company in upstate New York. The beer, released this month, commemorates the 16th anniversary of the brewery’s birth. The anniversary series began with Shmaltz’s eighth, when the beer was made with eight kinds of hops, eight malts and to 8 percent ABV. In following years, the numbers pattern was maintained—and now, Jewbelation has morphed into a 16 percent ABV giant. It’s dark brown and easy to love for anyone with a small glass and a taste for brownies, chocolate and coffee. One bottle contains 480 calories, so divvy this one between friends—and if you believe in him, don’t leave it for Santa: There’s a lot of skinny chimneys out there.

Not a beer fan? Then drink glögg. The Swedish rendition of mulled wine, glögg, or gløgg, is a keyboard nightmare—so we’re going to call it glogg. Red wine, orange peel, cloves and cardamom are the essential ingredients of this Christmastime drink, though some versions contain additions like sugar, cinnamon sticks, brandy and Port wine. My own preference is for something heavily spiced but on the drier side. Glogg can be purchased ready-made in bottles, but the drink is so easy—and, at the risk sounding cheesy, fun and festive—to make that not stewing up your own would just be silly. Try this recipe. The wine (it needn’t be expensive) is heated slowly in a cauldron with orange slices, whole cloves and cardamom powder bathing in the drink. These and other ingredients’ flavors leech into the wine, and the warm aromas fill the house. Now, before your company arrives, get the pronunciation down: That funny “o” is, in fact, pronounced like the double “o” in hook, making glogg actually more like “glug.” Which allows you, as host, to look from guest to guest to guest as you take drink orders and suggest, “Glug? Glug? Glug?” Mulled wine just isn’t the same.

A crock of glogg simmers on the stove. Often brewed during the holidays and served warm, glogg is a Scandinavian rendition of mulled wine. It is made with red wine, orange peel, cloves and cardamom. Photo courtesy of Flickr user thebone.

Drinking Down Under? As a northerner, I’ve always been intrigued if not confused by the notion of celebrating Christmas at the peak of summer. But for many in the world, it just might be 95 in the shade this Christmas Day. For you folks, I feel I need to suggest something, but I’ll be honest: I’m clueless. Cold lemonade? Watermelon juice? Fruit smoothies? Ice water? Really: We northerners are fascinated: How do you drink in the holidays?

Read more articles about the holidays in our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

Twinkies. Image courtesy of Flickr user Christian Cable.

The first thing I did when I got into the office this morning was a Google search for DIY Sno-Balls because I woke up to the sound of NPR confirming my worst fears: Hostess, the bakery responsible for Twinkies, is declaring bankruptcy and liquidating its assets in light of a labor strike that began on November 9. I’ll leave the discussion about how the bakery ran afoul of its workforce to other information outlets and instead focus on the actual baked goods. In the pantheon of novelty foods, Hostess was the prima domestic diva bar none. Not only were her wares fun to look at—a Sno-Ball’s shaggy mound of pink coconut-topped creme-filled chocolate cake, the curlicues of icing atop their branded CupCakes—but also fun to say. Oh that there were some sort of diagnostic to measure the volume of tittering that Ding Dongs and Ho-Hos elicited in schoolchildren over the decades. And while I used to joke that Twinkies could survive a nuclear holocaust on account of the preservatives, they and their brethren now seem to be on the critically endangered list of supermarket snack cakes. (There is the possibility that Hostess’ nostalgia factor will attract the attention of another company will buy out and continue certain product lines, but as of this writing, that remains to be seen.) So what does one do should these cakes go extinct?

The cream-filled sponge cakes debuted in 1930 with banana-flavored cream filling—later changed to vanilla when World War II made sourcing bananas a tough task—became a cultural touchstone in the 50s after becoming a sponsor for Howdy Doody, the wildly-popular children’s television program. Ever since, Twinkies have been the everyman’s eclair, and of all the Hostess cakes, they may very well be the most versatile. A staple at state fairs, you frequently see them battered, and fried. In 2006, an entire cookbook was concocted, inviting fans to expand the horizons of the humble Twinkie—sometimes in strange directions, such as the recipe for Twinkie sushi. The cakes have even inspired mixologists. Michael J. Neff, co-owner of Ward III bar in New York, admitted to experimenting with muddled Twinkies in his cocktails—although he found the combination of cake and booze to be perfectly unpalatable. Most people, however, approximate the flavor by combining a few choice liquors. So on the one hand, there’s an entire cookery subculture that would die off should these products no longer be available to sustain and inspire trash food devotees. On the other hand, this situation may be a win for our national fight against obesity and diabetes.

During a lunchtime trip out to the nearest CVS, I had a George Bailey moment and saw a vision of what the world would be like if Twinkies ceased to exist. The prepackaged cakes rack was stripped down to the wire, with the only Hostess products remaining being a few packages of Zingers and a healthy supply of fruitcake. If there’s a run on Twinkies, like I think there will given this morning’s news, what’s a person to do? It is not impossible to replicate these snack foods at home. Twinkie pans have been available to home cooks for ages and America’s Test Kitchen even came out with their iteration of Hostess CupCakes. For me, the more difficult treat to make at home is the Sno-Ball, because in this case, you have the component of marshmallow frosting that has to be sticky enough to make the colored coconut flakes stick, but no so sticky that you can’t eat it out of your hand without making an epic mess. It’s a delicate line to tread and I’m amazed at whatever chemistry and unpronounceable ingredients converged to produce this scientific marvel of modern baking. I found a recipe or two to work with, so we’ll see how this goes. So it is possible to more or less get your fix. But what you give up is the convenience of cakes that will stay fresh ad infinitum and packaged so that you can only have one or two at a time. If you make batch, you need to liquidate your stock in a matter of days. And that’s a lot of sugar—and fat—to have to consume in a short span of time. On the upswing, you may be able to produce a higher-quality product at home because you have control over the ingredients. And to be honest, part of Hostess’ downfall has been a cultural shift away from the processed foods that are the company’s bread and butter. (Well, Wonder Bread was the company’s bread and another culinary icon that may be biting the dust.)

Faced with the prospect of cowboy mascot Twinkie the Kid riding off into the sunset, is it worth the elbow grease to produce your own novelty cakes at home? And is the media buzz about the loss of the Hostess dessert products simply a case of overblown nostalgia or are we losing something more than a line of junk foods? Talk to us in the comments sections below.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user 96dpi

“A glass of the Chianti. With ice on the side.”

While I’ve had more than a few raised eyebrows shot in my direction for willingly diluting my red wines with ice, my distaste for the acetic sting that accompanies warm wine far outweighs my concern for thinning out my drink with a cube or two of ice. I’ve often wondered about the age-old “rule” that red wine should be served at room temperature, while white wines should be served chilled. Personally, I’ve always found room temperature red wine to be, well, repulsive.

It turns out that my uncouth icing of the reds is not completely unjustified. Most red wines are served too warm; the “room temperature” rule originated in Europe, where room temperature is between 60 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other hand, chilled white wine came from the European cellar, where temperatures hover around 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

In America, to achieve the ideal wine temperature you actually have to cool red wines and warm white wines, assuming your reds are stored in a room temperature wine rack and your whites are kept cold (too cold!) in the refrigerator. Average room temperatures can be over 70 degrees and most refrigerators are a frosty 35 degrees Fahrenheit. One critic recommends putting a bottle of red wine in the fridge for 45 minutes before serving while taking a bottle of white wine out of the fridge 30 minutes prior to serving.

For those with a more refined wine-tasting palette, temperature can be adjusted to accommodate bold, dark versus light, fruity red wines, and white wines can be served warmer or colder depending on whether they are sweet and full or crisp and light. Between a robust Bordeaux and a bright Pinot Grigio, the temperature graduation for serving wine runs between about 65 degrees to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take two or three degrees.

The reason temperature is so important to bringing out the flavor of wines is that warming or chilling wine can unlock different layers of flavors within the wine. Serving wine at a temperature too far from its ideal range may overpower desirable flavors with alcohol or tannins.

When wine is served too warm, the dominant flavor can be that of alcohol, masking the subtler flavors of the wine’s ingredients. This effect is particularly noticeable with strong red wines that have a higher alcohol content to begin with. On the other hand, chilling a wine brings out greater astringency, which means the wine tastes sharp and tart as the flavor of tannins is emphasized. The trick is to find the happy medium for each wine, especially important in bringing out a wine’s aroma. Goldilocks had it right about more than just porridge when she said, “Too hot, too cold….just right.”

The good news is that there are no hard and fast rules for the “exact” correct temperatures for serving wines; it truly is to the preference of the individual. The chart above page can be used as a guideline, but by experimenting with a wine’s temperature, wine enthusiasts can fine tune their favorite “flavor sweet spot” of aromas and flavors.

Even my habit of dumping ice cubes into my red wine turns out to not be completely unrefined, although the practice is definitely a point of contention between wine experts. Famous chef Mario Batali, who was featured on the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America” and his own cooking show “Molto Mario,” has been noted to chill and dilute his wine with fruit-juice-based ice cubes. I’ll consider that permission enough to continue my controversial use of ice.

Cheers to that.

What puts the buzz in energy drinks? Photo courtesy Flickr user Like_The_Grand_Canyon

Beating the lazy, mid-afternoon summer heat with a cold energy drink?

Energy drinks are a staple among active Americans, who substitute the canned, sugary beverages for coffee or tea and have launched brands like Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar to the top of a $7.7 billion industry. Not only do energy drinks pack a caffeine-punch, they are filled with energy-boosting supplements.

It’s a tough call whether the benefits associated with supplemental boosters outweigh all the unhealthy sugars that give energy drinks their sweet flavor. Red Bull contains 3.19 grams of sugar per fluid ounce, Monster contains 3.38 g/oz. and Rockstar has 3.75 g/oz. Marketed as health drinks, energy drinks are as high in sugar as classic Coca-Cola, which contains 3.25 g/oz. of sugar.

So what exactly are those “energy-boosting natural supplements” that supposedly set energy drinks apart from other sugary beverages — and how do they affect the bodies of those who consume energy drinks?

Taurine: Although it sounds as though it was dreamed up in a test-lab, taurine isn’t foreign to the human body. Its name stems from the fact it was first discovered and isolated from ox bile, but the naturally-occurring supplement is the second-most abundant amino acid in our brain tissue, and is also found in our bloodstream and the nervous system.

The taurine used in energy drinks is produced synthetically in commercial laboratories. Since excess taurine is excreted by the kidneys, it’s improbable that someone could overdose on the supplemental form. To be on the safe side, one expert recommends staying under 3,000 mg per day. Animal experiments have shown that taurine acts as an antioxidant and may have anti-anxiety and anti-epileptic properties. Some studies have even suggested that dosages of the amino acid may help to stave off age-related bodily degeneration.

And taurine’s anti-anxiety effects might be useful when consumed as part of an energy drink; the amount of accompanying stimulant found in popular beverages is capable of causing some seriously anxious jitters.

The caffeine chemical in the guarana plant is called guaranine. Native to South America, the plant is picture here in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo courtesy of Flickr user ggalice.

Guarana: The caffeine component of many energy drinks is guarana, which comes from a flowering plant native to the Amazon rainforest. In fact, most people in South America get their caffeine intake from the guarana plant rather than coffee beans. Guarana seeds are about the same size as a coffee bean, but their caffeine potency can be up to three times as strong.

Both coffee and guarana have weight-loss inducing effects through the suppression of appetite, a common side-effect of caffeine. Although caffeine can improve mental alertness, it can also cause dizziness, nervousness, insomnia, increased heart rate and stomach irritation. 

Ginseng: Some of the most interesting, if not debatable, effects come from supplemental Panax ginseng, which is included in 200mg doses in several energy drink brands. As a traditional herbal treatment associated with East Asian medicines, ginseng has many folkloric uses — although many of those uses are not proven scientifically. Rumored uses for ginseng have included improved psychologic functioning, boosted immune defenses and increased sexual performance and desire.

Myths aside, ginseng does offer some attractive benefits. Studies have indicated positive correlation between daily ginseng intake and improved immune system responses, suggesting ginseng has anti-bacterial qualities in addition to boosting a body’s “good” cells.

Panax ginseng root extract has been used in traditional East Asian medicine for centuries. Photo courtesy of FloraFarm GmbH / Katharina Lohrie via Wiki Commons.

Ginseng has also been shown in animal and clinical studies to have anticancer properties, due to the presence of ginsenosides within the extract of the plant. Ginsenosides are a type of saponins, which act to protect the plant from microbes and fungal and have been described as being “tumor killers”. Scientists are still working to understand the effects of ginseng supplements for use in preventative and post-diagnosis cancer treatment.

Energy drinks may be overhyped as a source of supplemental substances. All of the supplements found in energy drinks can be bought individually as dietary supplements, which allows consumers to ingest the substances without the complementary sugar load found in energy drinks.

Please, though, if you’ve ever sprouted wings after chugging back an energy drink, we’d like to be the first to know.

Soak grain in water and a seed begins to sprout. Dry out that tiny protoplant, or acrospire, roast it, and you’ve got malt—the basis for fermenting beer (and distilling whiskey too). The process can be crude; soaking can take place in a puddle, drying on the roof of a house. I wrote about the small-scale revival of the malting process, of the more modern variety, in The New York Times last week and it’s curious just how far the process predates the current garage-scale renaissance, the flourishing of regional malthouses in the 19th century, or even the English maltsters who first set up shop on American soil four hundred years ago.

The late historian Peter Damerow, of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, published an examination of 4,000-year-old cuneiform writings found near present day Turkey, including a mythic text from ancient Sumerian tablet known as the “Hymn to Ninkasi.” Ninkasi was the goddess of brewing. In the paper, published earlier this year, he explains that the hymn accompanied “a kind of drinking song” dedicated to a female tavern-keeper. It’s the first recipe, of sorts, for beer:

Ninkasi, you are the one who handles dough (and) … with a big shovel,
Mixing, in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics.
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grain.
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the earth-covered malt (“munu”),
The noble dogs guard (it even) from the potentates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt (“sun”) in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash (“ti-tab”) on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes …
Ninkasi, you are the one who holds with both hands the great sweetwort (“dida”),
Brewing (it) with honey (and) wine.
Ninkasi, [...]
[You ...] the sweetwort (“dida”) to the vessel.
The fermenting vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on (top of) a large collector vat (“laÌtan”).
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is (like) the onrush of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

As archeologist Patrick McGovern has written in Uncorking the Past, the domestication of barley in the Fertile Crescent led to the emergence of a forebear to modern beer some 6,000 year ago, providing a possible motive for a decisive step in the development of human culture and the so-called Neolithic Revolution. Beer may have come before bread. Still, these cuniform tablets are notoriously difficult to translate and leave only a rough outline of the process—so, despite the best efforts to replicate the Tigris-like rush of ancient Sumerian beer today, unanswerable questions about the beer’s exact composition remain. When, for example, did they interrupt the germination of the “earth-covered” malt, a crucial step enabling a grain to undergo alcoholic fermentation?

Damerow suggests there’s reason to doubt whether these brews even proved to be much of an intoxicant 4,000 years ago: “Given our limited knowledge about the Sumerian brewing processes, we cannot say for sure whether their end product even contained alcohol.” Then again, would we really have kept the ancient process alive for so long if it just gave us better nutrition and didn’t also make us feel good?

Image: Woolley 1934, pl. 200, no. 102/Cuneiform Digital Library Journal, 2012

In 1906, Liberty Hyde Bailey, the father of American horticulture, predicted that America’s next big wild fruit, joining the ranks of strawberries, cranberries and gooseberries, would be the common elderberry, which he wrote was “almost certain to become the parent of a race of domestic fruit-bearing plants.”

Elderberries can be pressed into a magenta wine. The plant is a distant relative of honeysuckle, and its distinctive umbrella of cream-colored flowers makes an aromatic alcoholic cordial. Within the past decade, this elderflower elixir and its sui generis floral flavor has been given some credit for reviving the popularity of liqueurs. The most recognizable version behind the bar is a bottle of St. Germaine. The European elder (Sambucus nigra) gives Sambuca its name, although the modern version of the Italian liqueur tastes more like licorice.

Many alcoholic elder-containing concoctions came about, much like Angostura, as remedies, inspired by elder’s age-old medical claims; the plant was thought to have the ability to ward off colds, for instance. Some of these folk remedies may potentially have some basis. In 2009, researchers found that elderberry extracts in vitro compared favorably with Tamiflu® (a drug that is derived in part from star anise) in blocking the swine flu virus.

Despite its remarkable history, the primary use of elderberry today in the United States has little to do with anything Liberty Hyde Bailey or the early European apothecaries could have foreseen. Its pigments are extracted and made into a food-safe dye. And unless you’re a vegetarian or slaughtering your own meat, you’ve probably benefited from the elderberry. When the USDA inspects meat and its inspectors stamp a label—”U.S. Inspected” or “USDA Prime”—they use a purplish, food-safe dye that comes in part from elderberries.

Photogram of elderberry blossoms by Bertha E. Jaques/Smithsonian American Art Museum

I love my mom and all, but I also want to recognize another set of mothers—those blobs of yeast and bacterial cultures found floating in unpasteurized cider, wine vinegar, and other fermented liquids, like cloudy constellations of pond scum. The Dutch have a word for mud and mire (modder) that may have lent its name to these mothers, but given the proliferation of the term across Europe—French mère de vinaigre or Spanish madre del vino—etymologists suspect that these slimy sediments of mother derived from the mother who takes care of you.

Two mothers seemingly at odds, right? Well, thankfully, the Oxford English Dictionary made a valiant, if somewhat perplexingly worded attempt, to tease out exactly why the lees at the bottom of the barrel came to be named for your female parent:

The transition of sense is difficult to explain; but most probably the scum or dregs of distilled waters and the like was regarded as being a portion of the ‘mother’ or original crude substance which had remained mixed with the refined product, from which in course of time it separated itself. (The term may possibly have belonged originally to the vocabulary of alchemy.) An explanation sometimes given, that ‘mother of vinegar’ was so called on account of its effect in promoting acetous fermentation, does not agree with the history of the use. It has been pointed out that ancient Greek γραῦς old woman, is used in the sense ‘scum, as of boiled milk,’ but the coincidence is probably accidental.

Wine left out in the open air will spontaneously ferment into vinegar if the right airborne microbes land on the surface (Acetobacter bacteria and Mycodermi aceti yeast); the oxidation process can also be kick-started by mixing in the cloudy undefined bacterial and fungal cultures left at the bottom of an old vinegar container—an old, yet reliable, mother. These cultures work in much the same way that yeast or sourdough starters give rise to beer and bread (why these cultures are more often called starters and not mothers remains one of the many vagaries of the English language). Perhaps, then, it’s not all surprising that one mother gave birth to another.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Shannalee | FoodLovesWriting

Pop Tarts. Image courtesy of Flickr user myJon.

Before any major holiday, I see a slew of ads in my email inbox that tout certain foods as being must-have additions to the celebratory table. It’s usually fairly run of the mill fare: special menus at local restaurants, deals on appliances and kitchen tools. The headline “For the Zero Calorie Mom: Sparking Ice Beverages” struck me as a bit odd. I’d be wary of subliminally suggesting that Mom needs to cut the calories on any day of the year, but do you absolutely have to say it on Mother’s Day? I  dug some more into how food companies are positioning their products for this time of year, and some of my findings were, well, unconventional.

Peanuts. Image Courtesy of Flickr user La.blasco.

When it came to fighting the Civil War, the South may have been rich in military leadership, but the North had superior resources, especially when it came to industrial strength. Still a largely agrarian society, the Southern states had to import most of their manufactured products, and with a poor railway system, keeping troops well-stocked was a battle in and of itself, especially when enemy blockades interrupted supply lines. Combined with inflation and scorched-earth military campaigns—such as General Sherman’s march through South Carolina—food shortages were a problem for both military and civilians. But even in those hard times, people could find relief in peanuts.

Before the Civil War, peanuts were not a widely cultivated crop in the United States—Virginia and North Carolina were the principal producers—and were generally viewed as a foodstuff fit for the lowest social classes and for livestock. When they were consumed, they were usually eaten raw, boiled or roasted, although a few cookbooks suggested ways to make dessert items with them. The goober pea’s status in the Southern diet changed during the war as other foods became scarce. An excellent source of protein, peanuts were seen as a means of fighting malnutrition. (And they still are, with products such as Plumpy’nut being used in famine-plagued parts of the world.) In addition to their prewar modes of consumption, people used peanuts as a substitute for items that were no longer readily available, such as grinding them to a paste and blending them with milk and sugar when coffee was scarce. “This appreciation [for peanuts] was real,” Andrew F. Smith wrote in Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea. “Southerners continued to drink peanut beverages decades after the war ended.” Peanut oil was used to lubricate locomotives when whale oil could not be obtained—and had the advantage of not gumming up the machinery—while housewives saw it as a sound stand-in for lard and shortening as well as lamp fuel.

Peanuts became ingrained in the culture, going so far as to crop up in music. For Virginian soldiers wanting to take a dig at North Carolina’s peanut crop, there was:

The goobers they are small

Over thar!

The goobers they are small

Over thar!

The goobers they are small,

And they digs them in the fall,

And they eats them, shells and all,

Over thar!

The humorous song “Eatin’ Goober Peas” also surfaced during the war wears. (You can hear the song in full as performed by Burl Ives and Johnny Cash.)

Just before the battle the General hears a row,

He says, “The Yanks are coming, I hear the rifles now,”

He turns around in wonder, and what do you think he sees?

The Georgia militia eating goober peas!

There is also an account of a July 1863 episode where the Confederate Army’s Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans was entrenched in Jackson, Mississippi, and burned down a mansion in order to clear their view of the battlefield—although not before saving a piano. As the Union Army drew nearer, one soldier took to the ivories, encouraging his compatriots to join in song, including a round of “You Shan’t Have Any of My Peanuts”:

The man who has plenty of good peanuts,

And giveth his neighbor none,

He shan’t have any of my peanuts when his peanuts are gone.

While the Fifth Company succeeded in keeping the enemy at bay that day, peanuts just weren’t enough to save the Confederacy in the long haul.

Bitters occupy a curious niche in the history of food and drinks, especially given their early history as patent medicines with rather dubious reputations. Take one of the oldest, Angostura. Originally, the company’s greenish-tinted bottles contained an herbal concoction made from roots, bark, and spices. The “Aromatic Bitters” took their name from the Venezuelan city where they were first created (Angostura was subsequently rechristened Cuidad Bolivar in 1846). Interestingly, early botanists also gave the name Angostura to three different species of trees, including Galipea officinalis. Because the bitters’ recipe is a tightly guarded secret, locked in a vault and known by only five employees, whether the trademarked concoction once contained the bark from any of these Angosturas remains something of a mystery. Either way, the recipe’s since to be reformulated—in much the same way that Coca-Cola removes the potent alkaloids in coca leaves—and now Angostura neither contains Angostura, nor is it produced in Angostura.

I was curious about how bitters went from being drugs to an intrinsic part of today’s cocktail renaissance. I spoke with Brad T. Parsons, the author of Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas from his home in New York.

How did bitters evolve from a substance kept behind the apothecary to a staple in the modern cocktail?

The English used bitters in this drink called Canary wine. They were putting medicinal herb-based dashes and drops in these drinks, but bitters really exploded in American Colonial times, up through Prohibition. The word “bitters” is in the definition of the first printed usage of the word “cocktail.” It was any drink consisting of spirits, water, sugar, and bitters… There is some murkiness about when it went from being something someone sipped on its own as a medicinal to when it went into a cocktail, but people were taking these high-proof root-, botanical-, fruit-, or seed-based infusions for medicinal value.

Around 1824, Johann Siegert, who was a doctor in Venezuela, began making Angostura as a stimulant for the troops to help them with malaria and keep them on their feet. As we get to the golden age of the cocktail, the late 1800s, bitters became more synonymous with cocktails no matter what bar you went to.

Even during the Temperance movement, people who were teetotalers were still drinking bitters even though it was a high-proof infusion. During that time, people were putting these bitters into a poorer quality spirit, which was a way for it to taste better, or people were applying alcohol to their bitters to help their medicine go down, so to speak. I was never really able to pinpoint the year we went from these corked, apothecary bottles that people would nip to when they started putting them into their drinks and it became more of a concentrated drop versus a splash or a nip.

Then we get up to 2004, when Gary Regan put his bitters back on the market and now you can get a dozen different bitters. There is a little bit of “everything old is new again” charm to it, but also it was a lot of people seeking out old copies and the internet leveling the playing field by finding old, rare books, you didn’t have to physically travel around and buy them at auctions, you could buy them online.