Adam Bernbach making drinks with organic local gin.

From guest blogger Jeanne Maglaty

Earlier this month, Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery unveiled a new portrait of Alice Waters, the legendary owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, and pioneer of the farm-to-table movement.

In the photographic portrait, a mulberry tree looms over Waters, looking chic in black in the Edible Schoolyard, her organic teaching garden and kitchen project in Berkeley that connects kids to “real” food and encourages healthy eating.

“The thing that I love most is that I’m very small and nature is very big,” said Waters as she stood beside the portrait, teary-eyed.

Waters’ acolytes gathered around her as she spoke in the museum’s Kogod Courtyard, some as teary-eyed as she. But hundreds of other hungry guests dared not move closer and risk losing their place in line for the food at the event.

Washington, D.C, culinary celebrities had prepared edible innovations for a glittery reception.  Here’s who and what you missed if you weren’t there:

Chef Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve: Rappahannock River oysters with coriander migonette and green goddess vinaigrette

Chef Haidar Karoum of Proof and Estadio: Roasted winter vegetables with wheat berries and garlic and anchovy dressing

Chef-owner José Andrés of ThinkFoodGroup: Jamón Ibérico de Bellota Fermin—Acorn-fed, free-range Ibérico ham; Selecciónes de Embutidos Fermin—Selection of cured Spanish sausages

Chef-owner Mike Isabella of Graffiato: Crudo of wild striped bass with kumquats, cranberries and arugula

Chef-owner Nora Pouillon, Restaurant Nora: Winter root vegetable & Mushroom gratin with Ecopia Farms microlettuces

Chef-founder Todd Gray of Equinox Restaurant: Lightly smoked duck breast with savory fig chutney and French baguette crostinis

Owners Sue Conley and Peggy Smith of Cowgirl Creamery: Mount Tam cheese—bloomy, rinded triple crème, mushroomy, buttery; Red Hawk cheese—washed rind, triple crème, unctuous, aromatic; Wagon Wheel cheese—pressed and aged cow’s milk cheese, medium strength, semi-firm

Bar manager Adam Bernbach of Proof and Estadio: Catoctin Creek Gin with Tarragon-Pear Soda

Who could resist a single morsel? My daughter and I went back for seconds.

Waters has espoused her culinary philosophy based on using fresh, local products for 40 years. I asked cheesemonger Adam Smith of Cowgirl Creamery if it was difficult to decide what to serve at a reception for such a prominent person in his field.

Not at all, he answered.  He selected three cheeses that the Petaluma, California, creamery made from organic milk purchased from a neighboring dairy.

Nearby, Bernbach mixed cocktails using gin that was distilled (from organic rye grain) only 50 miles away from the nation’s capital in Purcellville, Virginia.

Dave Woody’s selection as the portrait’s artist came with his first-prize win in the gallery’s Outwin Boochever competition in 2009. You can see the new portrait of Waters on the museum’s first floor near the G Street NW entrance.

Courtesy Whyte and Mackay/Journal of the Institute of Brewing

During the 1908 Nimod expedition, the ill-equipped British adventurer Earnest Shackleton attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole. Having failed to do so less than 100 miles short of his destination, he abandoned the continent–and the entire contents of his supply huts. In 2007, mycology experts recommended cleaning out the ice under one of the huts on Ross Island to help stave off an invasion of hungry Antarctic fungi. In the process, conservators discovered three crates of Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky, apparently left by Shackleton or a member of his crew.

Initially, the conservators were unable to dislodge the crates, but in 2010, the whisky came free. After it thawed out in New Zealand, the current owners of the Mackinlay label, the Scottish distillery Whyte and Mackay, set about tasting the sample and replicating the centenarian spirit. They sampled the alcohol with a syringe and analyzed the recovered stock using both gas chromatography and a 15-member expert tasting panel (a.k.a. “sensory analysis”). Because the alcohol had been preserved in permafrost, it was, in large part, no worse for the wear. Then Richard Peterson, the distillery’s master blender, blended 25 different malt whiskys made since the 1980s to clone the distinctive taste of the original, which had “peaty, mature woody, sweet, dried fruit and spicy aromas.”

At face value, the replication of a historic whisky might reflect little more than our fascination with artificial artifacts—the instant nostalgia you can find in CDs engineered to sound like vinyl, camera-phone photographs designed to look like Polaroids, or diets designed to replicate the eating habits of Paleolithic hominins. If a modern distiller remade the flavors of a 19th century single malt without going through the arduous process of growing heirloom varieties of barley, malting and distilling the grain, or, not to mention, hiding it under a hut in Antarctica for 100 years, then doesn’t the contemporary culture of the copy somehow muddle the waters of authenticity?

Well, what’s curious is that, at least according to a paper the distillers published in The Journal of the Institute of Brewing (PDF), the 100-year-old whisky yielded another surprise:

Malt whisky from this period was generally regarded as robust, peaty and too “heavy” in style for ordinary consumption. Our analysis however describes a surprisingly light, complex whisky, with a lower phenolic content than expected.

In other words, it tasted quite modern. The recreated blend will probably prove to be the expedition’s sole contributions to eating and drinking today (barring any sudden appetite for Manchurian pony meat or “Forced March,” the caffeinated cocaine pills that were sort of the Red Bull of the day). And, as for the three crates, per order of conservationists, they’re back under the floorboards where there were discovered—perpetually, you might say, on ice.

The foamy head of a Ramos gin fizz. Image courtesy of Flickr user ReeseCLloyd.

It’s the holiday season, and for many that’s reason enough to indulge (responsibly) in a mixed drink at a holiday gathering. But as you’re convivially tossing one back, do you ever wonder why a drink looks and tastes the way that it does? Harvard University physicist David A. Weitz and grad student Naveen Sinha offer a unique look at the science behind mixology, including techniques for building a better cocktail.

According to Weitz and Sinha’s report in Physics World magazine, our sensation of a mixed drink can be broken down into three elements: flavor, appearance and texture. Ethanol, also known as pure alcohol, is the delivery mechanism for flavor. On the molecular level, ethanol does a great job of trapping aromatic molecules in an aqueous solution (i.e. your cocktail) in addition to extracting flavors from flowers, spices and fruits. (Think infusions: if you’ve ever tried flavoring vodkas by adding in whatever tickles your fancy, after letting it set for a few days you get a flavorful spirit.) Some bartenders are even utilizing lab equipment such as rotary evaporators, which can distill a liquid’s aroma molecules to attain more potent flavors.

It also turns out that when it comes to creating the look of a drink, the method of mixing can make all the difference. For example, a Manhattan—composed of whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters—is clear when stirred but cloudy when shaken. This happens because shaking introduces air bubbles, which scatter light and produce an opaque drink. Shaking also impacts texture and produces more viscous drinks. While 12 minutes may sound a little extreme to create a Ramos gin fizz, the air bubbles in the drink progressively divide into smaller bubbles during the mixing process, with the end result being the drink’s signature stiff layer of foam strong enough to support a metal straw. Some chefs have taken the element of texture to extremes to create drinks that have chewy or even solid consistencies. With an understanding of how cocktails work on a molecular level, it will be interesting to see what new concoctions mixologists will offer us.

Mocktails, image courtesy of Flickr user Kirti Poddar

Being pregnant during the holidays has its pros and cons, I am discovering. On the upside, I’m counting on getting some maternity clothes for Christmas or Hanukkah, sparing me an expense that would otherwise be an annoyance (after all, I’m only going to wear the stuff for a few months).

On the downside, though, expectant mothers are told to avoid a whole roster of foods that can carry some sort of risk to the fetus: cold cuts, unpasteurized cheese, high-mercury fish, eggs that aren’t cooked through, and the list goes on. After sushi and sunny-side-up eggs, the thing that I am missing most this season is being able to have a glass of wine or a celebratory cocktail. That beer my husband and I are home-brewing? Off-limits for now.

So, lately I have been getting acquainted with a part of the menu I used to ignore: “mocktails.” Going beyond the usual soft drinks, some bars and restaurants are starting to get creative with their nonalcoholic beverages—good news for pregnant ladies, designated drivers, people younger than 21 and anyone else abstaining from alcohol.

I got my first taste of mocktails as a little girl, ordering a Shirley Temple on those rare occasions when my family ate out at a real restaurant. Even though I never saw an adult drink one of these sugary concoctions, I always felt very mature ordering one. It had all the trappings of a grown-up drink: multiple ingredients, a flashy name and, most important, a maraschino cherry garnish.

These same elements—with slightly more sophisticated ingredients—form the modern mocktail. There are whole books of mocktail recipes aimed at pregnant women, including Preggatinis: Mixology for the Mom-to-Be, by Natalie Bovis-Nelsen (who blogs as The Liquid Muse) and Margarita Mama: Mocktails for Moms-to-Be, by Alyssa D. Gusenoff. The drinks have names like the Cosmom, the Baby Bump Breeze and the Swollen Feet Fizz.

Some mocktails are simply “virgin” versions of common cocktails, altered only by the omission of alcohol, or with a little seltzer, ginger ale or another ingredient replacing the booze. A Virgin Mary, for instance, might have tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, horseradish and celery salt—everything but the vodka.

But there’s no need to stop there. Herbs, spices, unusual fruits and flavorings can all elevate a drink to mocktail status. One restaurant near me makes a drink with pineapple, lime and orange juices, seltzer and fresh basil leaves. Martha Stewart combines ginger syrup with sparkling cider and garnishes it with cinnamon sticks and crystallized ginger.

Ethnic markets and the international aisles of the supermarket are good places to look for other ingredients to play around with: tamarind (often available fresh or in juice or concentrate form at Latin American or Asian grocers) for a spicy-sweet flavor; rose or orange blossom water (at Middle Eastern markets); pomegranate syrup (ditto); or one of the unusual soft drink flavors from the U.S.-based Latino brand Goya or imported Mexican sodas (Jarritos is a popular brand), including Jamaica (hibiscus flower), pineapple and “cola champagne”.

The best part of going alcohol-free is that you won’t feel like George Foreman after the Rumble in the Jungle the next morning. Unless, of course, you’re suffering from morning sickness.

Boiling the wort. Image by Lisa Bramen

I have found that one of the keys to harmony in my marriage is clear division of labor. I’m in charge of food acquisition and preparation (except one night a week, when my husband makes either pasta or pizza so I can write), paying bills, and general tidying. My partner is responsible for doing the dishes, most of the heavy housework (like cleaning the floors and bathrooms), and either mowing the lawn in summer or clearing the driveway of snow in winter. I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the bargain—here’s hoping he never develops an interest in cooking.

But sometimes it can be fun to tackle a kitchen project together, as we found this weekend, during our first attempt at brewing our own beer. After my last DIY food adventure, pickling vegetables from my garden, I was glad I didn’t have to go solo this time. As with the pickling, the process took a lot longer than expected—the better part of Sunday—but it went a lot more smoothly having two heads, and two sets of hands, rather than one.

Which is not to say there were no glitches. We followed a porter recipe from a nearby brewer’s supply store where we bought our ingredients. (There has probably never been a better time to take up home brewing—thanks to the explosion in interest in the past decade or so, supplies and information are readily available at bricks-and-mortar stores and online.)

The first step was to steep our specialty grains—a combination of three kinds of malted barley—in hot water, wrapped in cheese cloth like a giant tea bag. We accidentally spilled about a quarter of the grain in the sink while trying to pour it into the cloth. Everyone, from the supply store owner to the guys on the instructional video that came with our brewing kit to the authors of the book we bought on brewing, had drummed the importance of sanitation into my husband’s head. (After reading the book before bedtime, he actually muttered in his sleep, “It’s all about cleanliness.”) We didn’t dare try to salvage the spilled grain, even though the sink was clean. So we decided to compensate for the lost grain by steeping the remainder longer. I’m hoping we don’t end up with two cases of watery porter.

Next we added malt extract, which looks like the sludge left in an engine that’s overdue for an oil change but smells pleasantly, well, malty. This we boiled, along with the hops, for about an hour. Or, it would have taken an hour, if our 1961 stove weren’t so dysfunctional. The large front burner goes on strike about as often as an Italian train worker. At some point we realized our rolling boil had slowed to barely a simmer. And since the five-gallon pot wouldn’t fit on the back burner under the second oven, we had to move it to the small front burner. Again, we added a little extra time to compensate.

The beer in the early stages of fermenting

Finally we had our wort, which is what gets poured into the fermenter (a glass carboy) along with some yeast. At this point we would have used our hydrometer to measure the original gravity before fermentation—later readings will tell us how fermentation is going, because the reading will get lower as the sugars turn into alcohol—but we didn’t realize until too late that the hydrometer had shipped broken. The supplier sent out a new one and assured us it wasn’t a big deal to not get an original reading.

A couple of days later, our batch appears to be fermenting nicely; it has developed a good mound of foam on top, called Kräusen. By next weekend, it should be ready for racking, or siphoning into another carboy for secondary fermentation without the spent yeast sediment that has settled to the bottom of the first carboy. Once fermentation is complete, we’ll add a little corn sugar to aid carbonation before bottling.

By Christmas, we’ll either have two cases of delicious porter under the tree or 48 bottles to reuse/recycle and some brewing lessons under our belt. Either way, we’ll have a new hobby to share.

Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Image courtesy of the Phillips Collection.

Mealtimes are fairly well represented in fine art. Wayne Thiebaud had an affinity for deserts. Manet gave us images of Breakfast in the Studio and Luncheon in the Grass. And I think Da Vinci may have a dining scene in his oeuvre as well. And then there’s Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s instantly recognizable scene of a convivial bunch of diners enjoying a summertime meal alfresco. Completed in 1881, Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of the most famous midday meals committed to canvas, but it’s curious to note that in spite of the title, there’s precious little food to be seen. Taking a cue from Clara Peller, I have to ask: where’s the lunch?

“It’s like a painting about the most perfect meal that ever was—but you can’t tell what most of it was,” says Phillips Collection Chief Curator Eliza Rathbone. By the time we see the table, all that’s left are a few not-quite-empty bottles of wine and a compotier of fruit such as grapes and pears, perhaps a peach or two. “It’s the end of the meal. And I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s such a beguiling picture. It’s of that time that comes when everyone has had a delicious meal, they’ve all gathered, they’ve focused on the food and now they’re just focusing on each other and this beautiful day and they don’t want it to be over. And we’ve all had those kinds of experiences where you want to linger and those are the best meals we ever have.”

The scene takes place at the Maison Fournaise, an open-air café on the Ile de Chatou where people of all social classes mixed and mingled as they enjoyed their leisure time away from the bustle of the city. In its heyday the Maison was a popular hangout for artists. It remains open for business, although the scenic views have changed a bit since Renoir’s time.

But it seems Renoir wasn’t much of a foodie. In a memoir, son Jean Renoir, who made a name for himself as a film director, remembers his father preferring simple fare, even when finer things—like veal and soufflés and custards—were laid on the table. In terms of food as a subject for his paintings, actual foodstuffs crop up most often in his still lifes, and even then, his attentions turned to raw ingredients instead of finished dishes. “He could paint a beautiful onion,” Rathbone says. “They’re the ingredients in their most natural form, which is their most beautiful moment. Let’s face it, a chopped onion isn’t nearly as beautiful as an onion whole. I think Monet and Caillebotte did more prepared food in their still lifes than Renoir did. We have a wonderful still life in the collection that’s a ham and it’s a marvelous subject in Gauguin’s hands. He makes the most beautiful ham you ever saw.”

Instead, Renoir seems to prefer to focus on the social aspect of the dining experience. “He was a people person, and people love food. So I think the subject came to him naturally.”

Next time you are in the D.C. area, you can enjoy Luncheon of the Boating Party first-hand at the Phillips Collection, which is a short walk from the Dupont Circle metro.

Why decant wines? Image courtesy of Flickr user SMercury98

Like the average casual wine consumer in America, I drink bottles mostly in the $10 to $15 range. I’ve never decanted my wine (poured it into another container to allow it to “breathe” before serving), and I’ve wondered if the practice really improves the taste or if it’s just a wine snob’s affectation. It seems even wine experts disagree on whether or when decanting makes a perceptible difference, and whether that difference is necessarily positive.

All agree on one clear benefit to decanting: done properly, it means any sediment that has accumulated in the bottle won’t end up in your glass. Sediment is usually only an issue with red wines, especially older ones, although decanting also works for unfiltered wines of any age. Decanting to improve a wine’s taste is more controversial.

First, a little (simplified) science: wine, as a fermented food, has a complex combination of chemical compounds. The character of the wine is constantly changing as these compounds interact with one another and with light, oxygen and humidity. Left to its own devices, wine will eventually turn to vinegar. Bottling or otherwise storing wine (as in casks or tanks) slows down that process almost to a halt—the trick is capturing it at the optimal point in its evolution. Most wines made today, especially those in the low to middle price ranges, are intended to be drunk within a few years of bottling. But others are meant to be further aged in the bottle, allowing them to develop what is considered the perfect balance of flavors.

Decanting, ideally into a wide-bottomed decanter that increases the wine’s surface area, exposes wine to oxygen, speeding up its transformation. The disagreement is over whether this change is significant to be worthwhile, and whether the change is always for the better.

Andrew L. Waterhouse, a California viticulture and enology professor, explains in Scientific American that an expensive (more than $20) red wine intended for cellar aging can taste astringent or “closed” if drunk before its time, and that decanting allows unpleasant volatile compounds to evaporate. In theory, it also “softens” the harsh taste of tannins, although Waterhouse notes that chemists have not observed changes to the tannins after decanting.

But Jim LeMar, a wine company sales representative, points out the risk of losing pleasant aromas through decanting. He argues on the blog Professional Friends of Wine that today’s winemaking techniques have mostly eliminated undesirable sulfuric smells, “rendering aeration before serving moot.” He continues, “Some VOCs [volatile organic compounds] are present in such minute concentrations and are so volatile that they may be exhausted and disappear completely with only a few seconds of aeration. Is it worth sacrificing these scents for what amounts to superstition that has little scientific basis?”

At the other extreme, Joseph Nase writes in New York magazine that all wines, even whites, can “come to life at an accelerated pace” through decanting. “This is especially important for younger wine,” he continues.

The latest wrinkle in the debate is the practice of “hyperdecanting”—mixing wine in a blender to maximize oxygen exposure. Nathan Myhrvold, co-author of the recent Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and a proponent of the technique, claims it “almost invariably improves red wines—particularly younger ones, but even a 1982 Château Margaux.”

But John M. Kelly, a Sonoma Valley winemaker, contends on his blog that just because a wine objectively changes through decanting or hyperdecanting doesn’t mean everyone will prefer that change. It’s a fair point, and one that brings us to the bottom line: if you want to try decanting, go for it. If you like the results, keep doing it. If you don’t, or you can’t tell the difference, don’t bother. Decanting, as with everything about wine, is a matter of taste.

A Manhattan, mixed using Maker's Mark bourbon. Image courtesy of Flickr user Mark H. Anbinder.

We are halfway through the month of September and I would be remiss if I neglected to note that it is National Bourbon Heritage Month. This American-born beverage is a type of whiskey (not whisky, and yes the “e” makes a difference) made from corn mash and aged in oak barrels, producing a sweet and spicy, amber-colored spirit that can be enjoyed on its own, used in cocktails or in home cooking. But it’s also a drink with which Americans have had a complicated relationship.

Fruit brandies and rums were initially the libations of choice in Colonial America, but once corn, rye and wheat farming became widespread, so did whiskey production. Bourbon originated in Bourbon County, Kentucky, where farmers would ship spirits in oak barrels, and the journey aged liquor enough to give it its distinctive flavor. And with America’s population booming in the 19th century, more people began drinking whiskey.

But the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcohol, changed America’s relationship with bourbon. First and foremost was the issue of how consumers could procure supplies of a banned product. Some American bourbon producers, who had stockpiled spirits for when prohibition took effect, found loopholes that allowed them to legally market their liquor. Their solution? Sell it to drug stores and say the stuff could be purchased for its supposed health benefits, which was perfectly legal. (However, prescriptions could only be filled once.) The Wathen brothers, makers of Old Grand-Dad, recast themselves as the American Medicinal Spirits Company, and eventually brought nearly sixty other brands of bourbon under its wing, selling their products to pharmacists.

But Prohibition also altered the national palate. Imbibers began showing a preference for lighter spirits such as gin and vodka that could easily be produced on the sly—stereotypically in one’s bathtub. It was during this time that bourbons distilled in Canada were smuggled into the United States, and these liquors were typically a mix of whiskey and neutral spirits, lacking the robust flavor of whiskies produced in the United States. When prohibition was repealed, distilleries were unable to immediately place aged liquors back on the marketplace, so they copied the Canadian model and provided consumers with underaged bourbons. (The Manhattan cocktail was originally mixed with rye whiskey, but that spirit was not as readily available after the repeal and was consequently supplanted by bourbon.) With the weak-flavored charlatan whiskeys on the market, this former darling of the American liquor cabinet fell out of favor. “The lowest, bottom-shelf stuff being made today is better than the best whiskey made in 1947,” Makers Mark master distiller David Pickerell remarked to Forbes magazine a few years ago.

But in the 1980s, there was a shift in American consumer patterns and people were willing to shell out more money for better products. This trend was noted by distilleries, and aged, bolder bourbons began to resurface, with premium bourbon sales skyrocketing, raking in $767.5 million in 2003.

And how will you mark National Bourbon Heritage month? For me, it will be enjoying a well-mixed Manhattan. But for hardcore aficionados wanting to get the full experience of Kentucky’s best, check out the Bourbon Trail, a hit list of six distilleries you can tour to see how America’s native spirit is made.

Scientists recently discovered the wild yeast that came to be used to brew lager beer. Image courtesy of Flickr user Anders Adermark.

People have been tossing back beer for thousands of years—the drink is a cornerstone of human civilization—and it’s a potation whose heady qualities come to us by way of yeast. Perhaps most familiar to us in the granulated form stocked on supermarket shelves, yeast is a single-celled microorganism that creates the alcohol and carbon dioxide in beer, in addition to imparting flavors, all of which can vary depending on the type of yeast being used. (More than 800 species of yeast have been documented.) A variety of this fungus commonly used to bake bread and brew ale beers is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which ferments at a warm 70 degrees. But at some point in the 15th century, Bavarian brewers introduced lager, which employed a hybrid yeast that fermented at cooler temperatures. But what the S. cerevisiae was crossed with to craft this type of beer remained a mystery until now.

Scientists from the Argentine National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elsewhere set out to find where the non-ale portion of the lager yeast came from—and the search took them to Patagonia. Here, in outgrowths on beech trees, they found an undocumented wild yeast—dubbed Saccharomyces eubayanus—whose DNA sequence matched the genome of the unknown half of the lager yeast. They hypothesize that this wild yeast made its way to Europe by way of trans-Atlantic trade and mixed with the baker’s yeast in brewery environments.

But with lagers being brewed before Europeans graced North America, how did this variety of beer initially come to exist? Chris Hittinger, one of the lead scientists on the study, suggests that lagers were made before the arrival of S. eubayanus, and while the beer underwent a long fermentation process in cool temperatures, the resulting brew just didn’t taste very good.

Blackstrap molasses. Image courtesy of Flickr user FotoosVanRobin.

People between North Carolina and Vermont are cleaning up after Irene, the storm that destructively tromped along the eastern seaboard this past weekend. Hurricanes in the northeast are pretty rare and can leave people at a loss for how to prepare for extraordinarily severe conditions. At the very least, there are standard pieces of advice you can use to more or less muddle through a nasty situation. But perhaps even rarer are freak events involving food that cause a lot of damage. Those with an appetite for tragic tales might enjoy the following:

London Beer Flood: In the late 18th century, the Meux family brewery attained celebrity status, at least on account of the spectacular size of the vats they used to craft porter—one had the capacity to hold some 20,000 barrels of beer. Unfortunately, the hoops holding one of the vats together had corroded, and on the evening of October 17, 1814, they completely gave out, loosing some 3,500 barrels of beer that knocked down the brewery walls and flooded Tottenham Court, killing eight.

The Great Mill Disaster: Built in 1874, the Washburn “A” Mill along sat along the east bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota and at the time was the largest flour-making facility in the United States. “Was,” unfortunately, is the operative word. On the evening of May 2, 1878, the stones used to grind grain gave off sparks, igniting particles of flour dust in the air and causing a massive explosion. (Flour, a carbohydrate, is made mostly of sugar and burns very easily.) In all, 18 people were killed and the blast started other fires that destroyed six nearby mills.

Boston Molasses Disaster: In Boston’s North End, near the city’s financial district and working class Italian neighborhoods, there stood a molasses tank owned by the Purity Distilling Company. Built in 1915, the vat was capable of holding some 2.5 million gallons; however, by 1919, locals were complaining that it was leaking, and on the afternoon of January 15, it exploded. Flying metal knocked out the supports of nearby elevated train tracks and a 15-foot-high wave of molasses crashed through the streets at some 35 miles per hour, knocking down and enveloping people in its path. Parts of Boston were standing in two to three feet of molasses and the disaster left 21 dead and 150 injured.

Basra Mass Poisoning: In the winter of 1971, shipment of grain arrived in Basra, Iraq; however, it was treated with a methylmercury fungicide and was intended only for use on seed. (If ingested, methylmercury can cause serious neurological damage, and in high doses, can be deadly.) The bags were accordingly marked poison—although only in English and Spanish—and the grains were dyed bright pink to indicate they were not for consumption. Nevertheless, bags of grain were stolen before they could be distributed to farmers, the dye washed off and the grain sold as food. (Another account says that the grain was freely given away and the recipients thought that washing off the dye would rid the grain of mercury, making it safe to eat.) Some 6,500 people were hospitalized, 459 of whom died.

The Hurricane cocktail, a New Orleans specialty. Image courtesy of Flickr user Guy Bisson

Between oddball earthquakes and far-reaching hurricanes, much of the country is in disaster preparation mode right now. But once the windows have been boarded up, a cache of water, food and batteries has been stockpiled and the bookcases have been bolted to the wall, sometimes there’s nothing left to do but have a drink.

That’s always been the tradition in places like New Orleans, where people sought safety in numbers, throwing hurricane hootenannies that were as much about partying down as hunkering down. It should be noted that these festivities are reserved for relatively mild hurricanes—after Katrina, at least, I don’t think too many people are laughing off the seriousness of the devastating storm.

Even on bluebird days, though, New Orleans is known for its Hurricane cocktails, the ultra-boozy concoction invented at Pat O’Brien’s, in the French Quarter, during World War II. According to company lore, the fruity, supersized cocktail was born of the need to use up the relative abundance of rum compared to whiskey during the war. Its name comes from the 26 oz. glass, which is shaped like a hurricane lamp.

Though Hurricanes are the most famous drink named for a natural disaster, they aren’t the only one:

A Mudslide—an oozy mixture usually made from Kahlua, Irish Cream and vodka and sometimes served frozen—gets its name from its thick, mud-brown appearance. The inventor, according to LoveToKnow, was a bartender in the Grand Cayman Islands during the 1950s, known only as Old Judd. Drink too many of these rich, sweet concoctions and the slide may reverse course. I know of what I speak.

A Tornado gets its name from its presentation—it’s stirred in between additions of liquor, sugar, cola and ice to resemble a miniature twister—but could just as easily apply to the spinning-room effect that may be caused by mixing whiskey, vodka, rum and tequila in the same drink.

The Earthquake is an absinthe cocktail whose invention is attributed to the Post-Impressionist French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, best-known for his posters for the Moulin Rouge. The name—Tremblement de Terre in French—comes from its effects on one’s head. Noticing a theme? The simplest version of the drink is half absinthe (a favorite of the artist, who was an alcoholic, and others in his bohemian circle) and half cognac, though other recipes call for whiskey, gin or brandy.

During a real earthquake, though, anything goes. I was in college in San Francisco during the 1989 earthquake. After hours of fretting over my missing boyfriend, who had been on his way from the East Bay (over the Oakland Bay Bridge, which had partially collapsed) to visit me, I discovered he had been at a bar on Haight Street, where they were serving free “earthquake specials”—meaning whatever booze bottles hadn’t broken—by candlelight. By the time I found him I needed a drink myself. And a new boyfriend.

Waiting. Image courtesy of Flickr user morberg.

In the criminal justice system, those who live outside the law sometimes meet their downfall through their relationship with food. These special cases keep cropping up, and some themes even begin to emerge, be it Jell-O-centric criminal behavior or the nefarious activities of ice cream peddlers. Take your fill of a few more stories from the underbelly. (Here is the apropos sound effect if you’d like to play it as you read each entry.)

Port St. Lucie, Florida. July, 2011. A minor beef.

It was a drug deal that spun out of control. Timethy Morrison shelled out $100 for marijuana, and the dealer drove up and handed Morrison a white bag through his car window and began to drive off. Inspection of the bag’s contents, however, revealed nothing but ground beef, and Morrison promptly turned around and fired several shots at the dealer’s Volvo and fled the scene. He was later apprehended and charged with attempted murder, burglary, escape, possession of marijuana and providing a false name to a law enforcement officer.

Kittery, Maine. March 2010. “Redemption is a dirty business.”

Many states add a 5-cent deposit to the price of bottled and canned drinks—and you can get that deposit back if you return your empties a redemption facility. But in addition to the consumer getting back a bit of change, the facility is paid a handling fee on the order of a few cents for every can processed. It is illegal for facilities to process out-of-state containers, since a state’s beverage industry is paying back those deposits. But a at a few cents a pop, who would put the effort into working the system? Attention turned to Green Bee Redemption in Kittery Maine, when Dennis Reed of New Hampshire rolled up with some 11,000 empty bottles and cans. Reed, along with the facility’s owners, Thomas and Megan Woodard, were all charged with fraud. During the Woodards’ trial, it was revealed that they arranged for Reed, along with Green Bee employee Thomas Prybot of Massachusetts, to collect large quantities of cans which would then be dropped off at the Maine facility after hours. Thomas was found guilty of stealing more than $10,000 by way of processing the illegal empties while his wife was acquitted. Reed is slated to stand trial in October while Prybot was not prosecuted for his role in the crime in exchange for his testimony. It is estimated that some $8 million worth of bottle fraud takes place in Maine every year.

Holyoke, Massachusetts. August, 2010. A load of baloney.

Postal inspectors in Puerto Rico had been working with authorities to try to crack down on illegal drugs being sent via mail to the United States—and their attentions turned to Juan Rodriguez of Holyoke, Massachusetts, after several parcels were sent to his home in May and June of 2010. When the post office alerted Holyoke police about another shipment being sent to Rodriguez, narcotics dogs detected the presence of drugs and an undercover agent delivered the package. After the package was signed for, police raided the residence—and it turned out that Rodriguez had a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a. About 2.2 pounds of cocaine, worth about $100,000 on the street, had been hidden inside a hollowed-out loaf of luncheon meat. Rodriguez was arrested and charged with cocaine trafficking.

Webster, Massachusetts. July, 2008. Get ‘em while they’re hot.

On July 27, 2008, a tractor trailer traveling on Interstate 395 was involved in an accident and overturned, spilling its contents—a shipment of live lobster—and tow-truck operator Robert Moscoffian was called to the scene. Prosecutors allege that Moscoffian also called Arnold A. Villatico, owner of Periwinkles & Giorgio’s restaurant to the scene, who drove to the site with his refrigerated truck, and the pair took crates of lobster from the scene, with an estimated value of some $200,000, and sold them to local restaurants. Some of the upscale crustaceans were returned to the authorities, and the contraband lobsters discovered at Periwinkles & Giorgio’s were released into Boston Harbor. Indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit larceny, larceny over $250 and selling raw fish without a license, Moscoffian and Villatico are currently slated to stand trial in 2012.

Why do Americans love ice cubes? Image courtesy of Flickr user wintersoul1

Last week Alina Simone wrote an amusing piece on the New York Times Opinionator blog about why Russians don’t put ice in their drinks. Any American who has traveled in Europe has probably wondered the same thing in many of those countries, where you might be served a few cubes of ice floating in your soda but rarely the glassful we’ve come to expect here. A better question might be, why do Americans love ice so much?

The answers Simone heard from older family members and from strangers in New York’s Russian immigrant–dominated Brighton Beach were all over the place: A Chechen antiques dealer said, “Who knows where that ice came from? It’s probably dirty.” A bar patron posited that ice dilutes a drink, but had no answer for why, then, it shouldn’t be used in water. A Siberian friend pointed out that they are already surrounded by ice for most of the year, and another said maybe it was because they have bad teeth that were sensitive to the cold.

One explanation I’ve heard elsewhere, and which may hold some truth, is that Europeans see ice as taking up valuable real estate in the glass, so that they would feel cheated if they got too much ice and too little beverage. This theory has two problems: It doesn’t explain, again, why water shouldn’t be served with ice, and it doesn’t take into account the fact that one is often served a whole can or bottle of soda, which could then be used to refill the glass. My guess on the first issue is that drinking water with a meal is (or at least was) less common in Europe than here—a Parisian waiter once sarcastically presented my requested water as “Champagne”—and since no one had become accustomed to ice in drinks the preference carried over to water.

The answer that Simone heard that was closest to the truth, I suspect, came from a waitress in a Russian restaurant: “That’s just how it’s always been.” With a question that could never be answered definitively, that seems as good a response as any.

As for the reverse question—why Americans use so much ice in their drinks—my theory is that it has to do with our “more is more” mentality. Because somewhere along the line free drink refills became the norm, giving customers lots of ice was actually seen as adding rather than subtracting value. It’s like the giant slab of cream cheese many delis slap on your bagel, when a light schmear would do nicely. Personally, I think they sometimes go overboard with the ice; I like my drink chilled, but not glacial.

At the other extreme, in some countries—Turkey, for instance—hot beverages, like tea, are preferred in warm weather. The theory is that they cause you to sweat, which cools you down, while your body will have to work harder to warm a cold drink to your internal temperature, thereby making you even hotter. But, as Dean Edell points out, this theory doesn’t hold water: Neither a hot nor a cold drink in anything but an enormous amount can raise or lower overall body temperature. It’s “like throwing an ice cube into a tub of hot water,” he says. Any difference felt is an illusion.

Image courtesy of Flickr user 2create.

I think most of us are familiar with the sardonic idiom “no good deed goes unpunished.” The idea is that no matter what goodness someone tries to bring into the world, the intentions will ultimately backfire. Foods that have been carefully crafted to induce pleasurable sensory experiences can also become victims of this truism. While there may be no use for crying over spilled milk, the loss of certain other foods might certainly merit a handkerchief. In the following stories, no good food goes unpunished.

Them’s the Breaks: Australia’s Mollydooker winery produces Velvet Glove, a premium shiraz that retails for around $200 a bottle. Its flavor has been described as a combination of “blueberry, black and damson plum, with a panoply of sweet spices” that makes for a “seductive, rich, viscous, and multi-layered Shiraz powerhouse.” With so much promise—and such a price tag—it was nothing short of tragic when, on July 22 of this year, an unsteady forklift dropped a container of the precious wine destined for the United States. Suffering a 6 meter (about 20 feet) fall, all but one of the 462 cases of wine were completely destroyed, at a loss of more $1 million.

Belated War Casualty: When a World War II-era German mine was found off the coast of Swanage, England in October 2009, the British Royal Navy was promptly alerted. Upon investigation, divers found a lobster had taken up residence there and lovingly named him Lionel. They tried to coax the crustacean out of his home, but the crabby lobster belligerently refused to be evicted, delivering a few nips to the trespassers. Needing to dispose of the bomb and left with no other alternatives, the Navy cleared the area and detonated the 600-pound explosive with Lionel still inside. (Granted, there was no indication that this particular lobster was going to be consumed—but he certainly had the potential.)

Smoked Sturgeon: The Mote Marine Laboratory’s Aquaculture Park in Sarasota, Florida raises Siberian sturgeon, which are harvested for their roe—a high-end treat we know in its packaged form as caviar. But on July 20, 2006, employees noticed plumes of smoke emanating from one of the buildings that houses the fish tanks, which contained sturgeon that were just mature enough to begin producing caviar. The six-alarm fire ultimately killed some 30 tons of fish—more than a third of the farm’s population. The caviar that could have been harvested from those fish over a three-year period would have netted an estimated $2.5 million.

Too Good to Eat: Truffles are considered to be a luxury foodstuff, and Italian white truffles are exceptionally rare mushrooms that grows underground and are hailed for their earthy flavor. One such mushroom weighing 1.9 pounds—the second largest known in the world—fetched $112,000 at an international charity auction in 2005. The winning bidder was a syndicate of regular diners at Zafferano, an Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge, England. The fungus was put on display at the dining spot for several days, attracting visitors from as far away as France and Spain. Soon after its arrival, chief chef Andy Needham had to leave on business and the truffle was locked in the kitchen’s fridge. Upon his return, it was discovered that the mushroom was past its peak and the only person to have savored a piece while the truffle was in its prime was newspaper reporter Nick Curtis, who raved about the truffle’s flavor, describing it as “halfway between that of a smoked cheese and strong mushroom.” The truffle was buried in Needham’s garden.

Overturned by Revolution: In 1979, Islamic rebels overthrew Iran’s monarchy to establish a theocratic republic—and Islamic law forbids the consumption of alcohol. Tehran’s Intercontinental Hotel was resplendent with fine and rare liqueurs in addition to having a fabulously well-stocked wine cellar, a collection that was estimated to be worth in the neighborhood of $1.2 million. But instead of exporting the spirits out of the country, revolutionary guards poured the entire stock down the gutter. As of June 1979, Tehran newspapers reported that more than $14 million worth of alcoholic beverages had been destroyed.

The increasingly popular SodaStream. Image courtesy of Flickr user greychr

For the past year or so I’ve been hearing people rave about this amazing new contraption that magically turns your tap water into seltzer or, with the addition of flavor concentrates, soft drinks. As someone who goes through a 12-pack a week of lime seltzer, this struck me as a brilliant idea—a way to save money and send fewer cans to the recycling center—but I never got around to buying one.

Last week I finally got to try one of these SodaStream gadgets at a friend’s house, and it worked as promised. I was completely sold.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it didn’t occur to me until I mentioned it to my editor that do-it-yourself seltzer is hardly a new concept. Seltzer bottles—also known as soda siphons—have been bringing the fizz to the table for centuries, and in snazzier style.

SodaStream works the same way as those old-fashioned seltzer bottles, by infusing water with pressurized carbon dioxide.

Even SodaStream itself is just an update of a product that’s been around for years. The company’s roots go back to 1903, when Guy Gilbey (a surname familiar to gin drinkers) invented the first home carbonation machine, in the United Kingdom. A smaller version of the machine was popular in Europe and elsewhere for decades, but it wasn’t until 2009, after a global brand revamping, that the product became widely available in the United States.

A recent article in Slate points out how successful the retooling has been: Worldwide sales climbed from 730,000 units in 2007 to nearly 2 million in 2010. The gadget’s entry into the U.S. market seems to have come at just the right moment, when a perfect storm of economic, environmental and health concerns about sugary sodas have converged with an increased interest in do-it-yourself everything, including food and drink. There’s also a nostalgia factor—not for the modern-looking device, but for the old-time soda fountain treats like phosphates and egg creams that the seltzer recalls. Last week the New York Times highlighted a new crop of soda jerks around the country who are bringing fizzy back.

Customization at home is one of the SodaStream’s selling points: It allows you to adjust the amount of fizziness and flavor syrup (and hence, sweetness) in your drink. It’s also possible to make your own creations. During maple-tapping season in the Northeast, Kristin Kimball, farmer and author of The Dirty Life, tweeted her recipe for “Essex Farm soda”—carbonated maple sap with a splash of vanilla. Blogger Andrew Wilder wrote about the SodaStream bar he set up at a party, which led to some creative mock- and cocktails—the Cucumberist, with cucumber and mint, sounds right up my alley. Even better, the blog Former Chef gives a recipe for a spicy-sounding homemade ginger syrup that includes cardamom, allspice, black pepper and star anise.

Suddenly my old standby, lime seltzer, is looking a little vanilla. It may be time to experiment. But I haven’t decided which home carbonation system to buy: Those vintage soda siphons would look great with my other retro barware, though they may or may not work well anymore. New versions, like the sleek aluminum seltzer bottles made by iSi, are also an option. Or, of course, there’s the SodaStream.

One thing is clear: My 12-pack-toting days are numbered.