Return to Garda

three grappas from the Garda region

Just over a year and a half ago Mrs Cake and I took our booze tourism adventures to Lake Garda in northern Italy (which you can read about here), and last year we decided to go back – because we were offered a discount to stay in the same apartment. Actually, not just for that reason; also because it was really good.

So we landed at Milan’s Bergamo airport at around 5pm (UK time) on the Wednesday afternoon. We had already chosen to remain in UK time for the purpose of keeping our little girl on her regular schedule of naps and meals. There were certainly no problems there, but this would lead to one or two difficulties and errors along the way that we’ll get to later.

I picked up a couple of take-out beers at an airport outlet (Ceres Strong Ale, 7.7%, 3 out of 5) for when we got back to the apartment.

After picking up the rental car (which always takes ages because queuing is an under-utilised concept in Italy) we had an hour’s drive to the accommodation, by which time it would be 7pm and getting on for little Sylvie’s bed time. We decided Mrs Cake would take care of bed time activities while I drove down the mountain to the Italmark supermarket for supplies (water, wine, beer, bananas – that last item for little Sylvie’s breakfast) and the nearby pizza bar for takeaway.

Both were closed, but I wasn’t about to give up. Otherwise it would be bed with no tea, and in the morning no breakfast and no water for the little girl to drink. You can probably drink the tap water in Italy these days, but not knowing that for sure, it was time to be the provider. I started to drive toward Salo, figuring there would have to be something open, and after one or two dead ends I found a hotel-restaurant-pizzeria and returned home with two pizzas, a bottle of house white wine and a big bottle of water. Result.

Triumph over adversity is a beautiful feeling.

The next day the people back home would be voting on whether we would remain part of the European Union. Mrs Cake and I had already voted by post, and were hoping for a victory for remain. While all that went on we got on with things. First on the agenda, after getting our little girl up and fed, was a trip to the supermarket to get food for the week, overstock on cold drinks, and get some preliminary booze.

Let’s start then, by looking at some beer selections from the local supermarket.

Peroni varieties

Peroni Nastro Azzurro is a very popular beer here in the UK. It seems to be the lager that is acceptable for drinking when you’re having a meal out. I first came across some of the other varieties of Peroni when we went to Tuscany, but I have noticed one or two of them since on the shelves at local supermarkets. Nevertheless, there are still more varieties available in Italy than there are in the UK.

I picked up the following:

Gran Riserva Puro Malto (5.2%), or pure malt, and I scored it a mere 3 out of 5.

special Peroni?

Gran Riserva Rossa (5.2%), or red pure malt. I was looking forward to this one. I, for some reason, thought it might have been aged in burgundy casks or something, and would be quite special. It doesn’t appear that anything of the sort is the case. I scored it a very disappointing 2 out of 5.

Gran Riserva Doppio Malto (6.6%), or double malt. I have seen this one in UK supermarkets, and would say it’s worth a punt at that nicely elevated ABV. With this one I finally started to deliberately score quarter points on Untappd, awarding it 3.25 out of 5.

For those distinctbeer enthusiasts who are thinking of visiting Italy, other varieties you can look out for are Peroni Gluten (gluten-free), Chill Lemon (a Radler), and Forte which is an impressive 8%. I didn’t see any of those on my travels, but rather on the Peroni website when I got home to do some research for this post.

Moretti varieties

Also available in the local supermarket were a selection of similarly packaged Morettis, representing various regions. I consider Moretti to be a decent quality lager, so I thought I’d get these because they’d also be decent additions to my distinct beers total. The ones I found were:

Lucana (5.8%), an amber ale with a scent of laurel (?) and a slight flavour of eucalyptus and mint (?!). Not things I’d normally be looking for in a beer… I thought it tasted gingery, but that could be my uncultured palate failing to identify eucalyptus. 2 out of 5.

Toscana (5.5%), a dark honey lager with “a chestnut aroma and scents of dry erbs and pine”, according to the website. I had no comment for this, but scored it 3 out of 5.

regional Moretti

Friulana (5.9%), a light yellow lager that tastes of apples. It really does. Fuck knows who wants their beer to taste of apples. I scored it 2.5 out of 5.

Piemontese (5.5%), an amber lager that is supposed to taste of blueberries. I wasn’t able to detect that, and scored it 3 out of 5.

Pugliese (5.6%0, an amber beer, that I actually wrote that I hadn't been able to find. I certainly hadn' logged it. Nevertheless, now that I come to post this, I find a picture, proving that I did find it.

I wasn’t able to get the Pugliese or Siciliana varieties but, as the ones I did try all seemed to be the same lager with an external influence of one kind or another – and as I didn’t enjoy them all that much – I think it’s safe to assume that I didn’t miss out on too much. Anyway, as we’ll find out shortly, there were other beers to be concerned with.

Nardini

The next job was to pick out a bottle of grappa to drink during the week. It was a mammoth task as, as you can see from the photo, there was a veritable butt-load to choose from. And they were all well within the limit of my budget.

a selection of supermarket grappas

I went for the Nardini because I’d heard of it, it was a full 70cl, and it contained a cosy 50 ABVs. You’d be looking at around £37 plus P&P in the UK, while mine was around 15 euros. That was a large factor in my decision – the fact that I was already interested in trying it, and that I knew I wouldn’t want to buy it at home – why not buy it here, where it’s cheap?

Nardini - and a view

There was a bit of confusion in that the label states “Aquavite”, so I wasn’t sure whether this actually was grappa (once I got it back to the apartment). I looked for it on various websites and alls I could find was an identical bottle that said “grappa” on the label. Finally, I have to conclude that they are the same since fact of the matter is that aquavite is merely a synoynym of distillate. So grappa is an aquavite of grape pomace. It’s not for certain, but it’s the best I can ascertain from the information available.

As far as the drinking is concerned, it tastes like grappa, the extra alcohol gives the spirit a nice, full body and an extra, not un-welcome sweetness. I tried it straight at first, and figured at 50% a bit of water would be in order, but over the course of a couple of evenings I realised I’d been preferring it straight, so that was how I proceeded and then finished it.

What with everything else I drank during our stay (mostly during the evening when the day’s driving was definitely done) 70cl was almost a struggle to get through. One glass was nudged off the corner of a table (and smashed) by Mrs Cake, but nevertheless, I had to drink four large glasses on the last evening of our stay. By this stage, Brexit had cast a gloomy shadow over everything, but the cheap cigar I picked up at the bottom of the hill made everything better – until the next day when we’d have to find out how much Mrs Cake nearly driving us off a cliff would cost us with the rental company, and what returning to a politically divided UK would bring.

Nardini – this bottle at least – is far from the best example of grappa I’ve enjoyed so far. It is perhaps a little too rugged, too utilitarian. I suspect some Italians might tell you that’s how grappa should be, but I’ve been coming across some beautiful, refined examples in the last few years (as you’ll know if you read this blog), and I prefer those.

Wine Tour Part One

phone notes

In my pre-trip research I’d laid the foundations for some potential grappa tours – one such being an excursion to some distilleries in the Brescia region, to the west of our location, and the other being to the east, in the Vicenza area. These are easily accessible from the region around the southern end of Garda – as indeed is the Trento region, as we’d found out last time – but with our little girl still a month shy of a year old, we ultimately decided to err on the side of caution when it came to road trips. So instead of embarking on journeys that would take an hour or more (in the outward direction), we decided to keep our focus within 15 to 30 minutes of our home. Our host’s website showed that there was a world of wine within our grasp and, as had been the case in Tuscany, a lot of these vineyards, wineries and cantinas also produced their own grappas.

For the most part, they are open to the public from Monday to Saturday from 8.30 until 12, and then from 2 until 6 (give or take half an hour, depending on individual preferences). On this first outing we tried to arrive at our first target for afternoon opening. This should allow us to visit two or three places, then get back to the apartment in time for little Sylvie’s afternoon nap.

Now, we couldn’t find every cantina that was on our list of possibilities, but I had some backups (hastily prepared using the wi-fi at the apartment), so here’s what we got.

Monteacutodi Leali Antonio - Just a few minutes out of Salo, on the SS572 that skirts around the south western end of Garda, the satnav instructs you to turn right onto a country lane that leads by vineyards and to the tiny settlement of Puegagno del Garda. I park next to the fields, turning the car around in the expectation that we’ll be heading back to the main road after this.

I go to do a little recce, to make sure we aren’t getting the baby out of her car seat for no good reason, and find a sign directing me into a little courtyard. There’s no one obviously around, but it is just after lunch, so I go back and get Mrs Cake to come exploring with me.

After a minute or two, and with the help of a dog, I get the attention of a lady who comes down to help. She’s friendly and welcoming and doesn’t speak a word of English, but she’s happy to show us her showroom and let us sample some products. As with most Italians, she loves to see little Sylvie.

After a couple of purchases (Mrs Cake selects some pink fizz – Turmalino at 8 euros – and I some artfully packaged grappa, white in a dark glass bottle for 13 euros for 50cl), we head out encouraged, into the heat and back to the car for round 2.

At the Franzosi showroom

Cantina Franzosi – It soon turns out that turning the car around was a waste of effort because our next destination is behind us and only just up the road. I briefly consider walking because the satnav suggests it’s not far, and it seems easier than putting the baby back in the car seat. I don’t act on that, and it turns out that it’s a bit further than I thought – not very, but far enough to drive.

In contrast to Monteacuto, Franzosi is a larger, more industrial operation. I’m thinking that still makes it seem bigger than it is, but it is a more modern building with a car park, a warehouse and a forklift truck. At the back is a large and well-stocked showroom with many varieties of wine and grappa (one particularly fancy looking 3 year old at 43 euros for 50cl) as well as oils and vinegars.

By now little Sylvie is starting to get a little antsy, so I walk her around the building a little, trying not to bother the employees and keep her away from things she maybe shouldn’t be touching. She isn’t wearing shoes and the floor of the warehouse quickly turns her little feet black.

Meanwhile in the showroom Mrs Cake is being plied by the friendly host with four generous glasses of various wine varieties. Every now and then I hoist up little Sylvie and return her to this starting point before she gets herself in trouble. A couple of varieties of grappa are presented also, and we both select Rebo for our purchases – partly on the recommendation of our host. I could afford, and even be open to buying the 3 year old but as I’m already aware that grappa doesn’t tend to survive ageing more than 2 years all that well, I think it’s telling that it isn’t recommended to me. I also decide to pick up four new grappa glasses. I forget how much Mrs Cake’s wine cost, but my grappa was 14.50 for 70cl.

IlRoccolo – we fail to find the next cantina on our list, so we abort that one and instead come to il Roccolo in Polpenazze del Garda. Once again we are greeted warmly and treated to fresh wine samples, grappa samples and even finger foods for the baby. Mrs Cake selects a bottle of red for herself and a bargain white for our neighbour who is looking after Ruby the cat while we’re away. I also plump for another grappa, making it three for three. We’re already most of the way to achieving our take home target of four bottles each (and one for the neighbour).

It’s time to head home and relax while the little lady sleeps.

Rarrw! Manerba brews

ManerbaMicrobrewery

Now, this is a place we went to last year to pick up one of each of their various beers. It’s a short drive from where we were staying, and indeed, close to many of the cantinas we visited during our stay. There was no one else there the first time we went, so we just picked up a box of 8 or 9 beers and went on our merry way. This time – after an occasion where we tried to go before they’d opened – we figured we might be able to get an early evening dinner while we picked up our beers.

It was probably about 17.30 when we got there this time, and it was thriving. We were sat outside with an Italian couple who were interested to know about the Brexit thing (though there was a great language barrier, so we talked a little bit about football instead), where we could listen to the rock n’ roll soundtrack and see a procession of people call in either for their own dinners or to pick up a box of beers.

In terms of food, they’ve gone for a kind of American roadhouse type menu – burgers, wings and that, so it probably doesn’t provide the authentic Italian dining experience that many tourists would be looking for, but it was decent enough food.

And the beer…

The branding has been changed somewhat; shifting from a simple but classic look with plain labels and a small follow the bear style emblem to stark black and electric, ZX Spectrum-type colours with a simple image representative of a snarling bear. I prefer the old style, but Mrs Cake saw the merits of the new one.

Luppulula, 5.2% – this one hadn’t been available last time, and it was the one I chose to drink on draught with my meal (it wasn’t available in a bottle). It’s classed as a pilsner, but it’s very light in body and in colour. 3/5

Fiordalisa, 4.8% - this is a wheat bear, which is usually a favourite genre of mine. That is reflected in the score, and that, at this point I’d given up relying on the fridge to get my beers cold, and had started sticking them in the freezer for 40 minutes prior to opening. 4/5

La Bionda, 5.2% - a Helles style lager, I scored this quite low. I must have been a little disappointed. 2.75/5

La Rocca, 6.8% - a Belgian Tripel that comes in one of those oversized bottles, topped with a cork. 4/5

Cucunera, 7% - a good strong bock, and a favourite of the range for me. 4.5/5

Weizen, 5.2% - a Hefeweizen and, again, a very good one. 4.5/5

Hop ‘n’ Roll, 4.7% - a pale ale, another favourite. 4.5/5

Rebuffone, 6.7% - also presented in an oversized bottle, this Belgian Dubbel didn’t quite reach the heights of the last three, but still; 4/5.

Wine tour part 2

You may not believe it, but a good smattering of months has passed since I last wrote anything on this post. I don’t know what happened, but suddenly I just couldn’t be bothered to write it anymore. Luckily, that’s all over with now and I feel like I can proceed again, though I have to warn you, my memory has faded somewhat and I might not be able to recall all the details. At least that means it won’t take as long to write – or read – right?

So anyway, our second wine tour was a chance to mop up some of the cantinas that were either a little too out of the way, or that we didn’t have time for on our previous excursion. We didn’t plan a big one though, as having already purchased 3 bottles of grappa and 4 bottles of wine, we simply didn’t have the luggage capacity to buy any more. I figured then that we could visit two cantinas, buying a bottle of wine at one and a bottle of grappa at the other – you don’t have to, but you kind of would prefer to be able to buy something everywhere you visit to make the effort the proprietor has put in worthwhile.

Our first stop, LeChiusure, turned out to be something of an unpleasant experience. Let’s make no bones about it. It was quite hard to find, with roadworks blocking the route the satnav wanted to take, and when we got there we ended up going through the wrong entrance, which meant strolling across some beautiful grounds that really ought to have been reserved for the family. They didn’t seem to mind, but we did feel we were imposing on their privacy.

In the showroom Allessandro Luzzago was already concluding business with a couple of visitors from the UK – visitors who were casually buying a couple of cases of his wine. Through this, a couple of sample bottles were already open, though one of the customers recommended we try the Portese. We requested to do so, and the proprietor opened a new bottle for us. Mrs Cake decided to buy that, and the annoyance on the proprietor’s face at opening a new sample bottle to secure a purchase of only one bottle was unmistakable. He quickly tried to make out it didn’t matter, but we knew that really it did. Really, I could understand this, but everywhere else we went the proprietors opened fresh bottles at the drop of a hat, and were delighted no matter how little we wanted to buy. I suppose it’s possible that most other cantinas can put these open bottles to good use later the same day, while perhaps Le Chiusure doesn’t have that kind of set up. Nevertheless, it left a bad taste in our mouths and left us apprehensive about continuing our adventure.

Was the wine any good? Well, as you know, I don’t tend to comment on wine. It seemed fine to me.

We had been late leaving the apartment that day – a result of keeping our clocks on UK time, to facilitate little Sylvie’s naps, remember - so when this first visit was concluded it was nearing lunch time, and all the cantinas would be closing. We decided to head into the nearby town of San Felice del Benaco and grab some lunch, then see how we felt after that.

After that we felt like maybe calling at Turina, which we’d spotted was on the main road through the industrial state at Manerba. It can be tough to pad out two hours though, even with lunch in southern mainland Europe, so we arrived at the site a good 20 minutes before it was due to open. The car park was bathed in direct sunlight, and little Sylvie was uncomfortable and upset, so we ended up parking under the only shade, which was actually in the middle of the road around the building.

It wasn’t a very happy time, but eventually someone arrived to open up, and they actually let me in early. He seemed confused by my presence, and my clumsy attempts at conversation got me nowhere, so I ended up just purchasing a bottle of Invecchiata, the aged grappa for 14 euros (I think). Finally we could head back to the apartment, and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking and relaxing by the pool.

Final Days

Brexit did cast a gloomy air over proceedings (and did pretty much ruin our holiday – and indeed, much of my waking life since. I wonder if anyone else is as worried about all this as I am?), but that didn’t stop us trying to get our party on for the last couple of days. The Manerba beers were dwindling, and it was time to revisit the supermarket and see what I could add to my distinct beers for the week.

Bad Brewer, but, presumably they mean bad in a good way

What I picked up this time were three varieties of Bad Brewer, an Italian brand described as street food beers – so they’re small bottles, and funkily branded – presumably intended for drinking with fancy burgers.

Now, as I said a little earlier, all this happened a while ago now, and I can’t remember much detail. Untappd tells me though that the Pale Ale scored 3.5/5 and the California Common and Amber Ale both scored 3/5.

Finally I picked up a super strength Dutch lager, whose cans had caught my eye – all shiny and gold, like. Even more importantly, this 8.6 Gold by Bavaria Brouwerij was 6.5% ABV. But it only scored 2/5.

Duty Free

Finally it was time to head home and find out what life in a fractured and divided Britain was now like. I’d been reading articles about increases in racism and hate crime, Corbyn’s shadow cabinet had resigned – which at first seemed likea good thing – and it all seemed like a great big shitstorm. I actually wished I’d been home the whole time, so that I could at least see things from my own perspective. The distance of a bit of a continent was distorting.

First though, there was the prospect of Duty Free. I’m sorry to say, that once we sorted out the damage to the rental car and got through security and all that, I had no enthusiasm for extra purchases left in me. I also felt a little rushed and didn’t have the luxury of time to adequately evaluate what was on offer. I did have a quick peruse, but all the grappa looked to be around twice the price it would have been in the supermarket. I should perhaps have looked at vermouth or even an Italian chocolate liqueur I’d heard about, but like I say, my mind just wasn’t in the right place.

We went home. Life, for us at least, was pretty much the same as it had been when we left, it was just hard to feel upbeat about the future. I think I’m used to that feeling now. Shit happens, we’ll deal with it. It doesn’t necessarily stop you feeling low, but you deal with it, don’t you?

There will be no trip back to Italy in 2017 unfortunately, and probably no trip to France either – which was something we’d been planning – because redecorating the hallway and carpeting the upstairs bedrooms is looking likely to cost £2k. But that’s life, isn’t it? There’s always next year, and this year’s going to be good anyway. Little Sylvie continues to develop, and there are loads of beers and spirits to try. Let’s get on it.

And if you come back next week, I’ll be looking at the grappas I picked up that week in a little more detail.

Grant’s Sherry Cask Edition: An affordable blended scotch

Here you go, another blended scotch at the “affordable” end of the price spectrum. This one is Grant’s Sherry Cask Edition, so it’s your standard Grant’s that has been aged for a further four months in sherry casks. Interesting. Grant’s also produce an ale cask edition in this range, which as the name suggests, has been aged for four months in casks that were used to hold ale (Innis and Gunn, apparently) for a few months previous to that. And that is apparently unique.

If you’re shopping in a standard UK supermarket, you can expect to pick up the usual Grant’s at around £12-15, while the other editions are more around £18-20. I picked up my sherry cask edition on sale at £15. No doubt you can do better, though this was the first time I’d seen it on offer. We picked up a bottle of the ale cask for my brother-in-law at roughly the same time, which I actually got to try before I opened my bottle, but a little more on that later.

All three expressions are bottled at a standard blend ABV of 40%, and are presented in identical triangular bottles with a different coloured label denoting each one. They’ve picked nice shades (red, green and blue) for these. The Sherry Cask is the green one.

Experiencing

I seem to find my initial impression of any whisky is tempered by what I’ve become familiar with of the same genre immediately prior. It is like I want to be blown away every time, and sometimes that just doesn’t happen.

So the previous blend I’d been growing friendly with was Ballantine’s Finest, and I’d been enjoying it very much. Despite having a drop of that left, I decided not to do a comparative tasting immediately so that I might meet Grant’s on its own terms.

First Taste

I opened it then, one Saturday night and what I was left with was a flat disappointment. It seemed to have no nose, and nothing of interest on the palate. I had come to expect a sweet luxuriousness from the Ballantine’s, so while it is usually unfair to expect the same qualities from a different brand… this has been (however briefly) matured in ex-sherry casks, so surely you should be able to expect a more rich sweetness than other basic blends? Perhaps not.

After about 20 minutes of tasting I did notice there developed an impression of fresh apple and a surprisingly long finish, but nothing else came to the fore and I put the Grant’s back into the cupboard that I might enjoy something else.

Second Sampling

The second appearance came the following Thursday night after Mrs Cake and I had returned from a local restaurant. I had already been drinking Peroni as well as what I’m going to call the nicest red wine I can recall sampling and, along with all that rich food I was thinking this might not be the most opportune occasion to enjoy a fine whisky. So I didn’t pull a fine whisky from the cupboard, I went for the Grant’s Sherry Cask.

Most unexpectedly, the experience was far more rounded and fulfilling than previously. Perhaps I had been too quick to judge.

Competition

It was time then, to see how it fared alongside the Ballantine’s. Result: fairly well actually. Though I hadn’t managed to enjoy it on its own as much as I had the Ballantine’s, when tasted side by side I didn’t detect that much difference. As far as the Ballantine’s was concerned, I felt that was a sad end to a bargain dram that had delivered consistently over the last few months. I’ll remember it for the good times, rather than this one let down. It was with some sadness that I put that attractive brown bottle in the recycling, but I made a solemn vow that I would pick up another some day.

Further tastings

 As time has progressed the Grant’s Sherry Cask has grown into its role of lead cheap blend. It makes a pleasant, uncomplicated drink for early evening and the over stimulated palate. In later weeks it has been joined in the cupboard by the dregs of the great supermarket blend test, so it has been interesting to see how it has fared alongside such competition, and despite very enjoyable products from Asda and Morrison’s, this Grant’s benefits from a little more depth of flavour than any of the supermarket products can offer. Is it better than McKendrick’s? As time goes on I’m becoming more certain that it is. Once again, it must be the magical effects of oxidation, as this liquid seems to grow sweeter and more interesting by the day.

There was one notable occasion where I had to pour a glass back into the bottle because I realised after tasting it that I simply didn’t want it… but that was severe hangover related, and the Grant’s reasserted its quality a few days later.

How does the Ale Cask edition measure up?

Yes, before I go, I need to address the ale cask edition that Mrs Cake and I bought for her brother. I did get to have a taste one evening over Christmas while helping put some Lego construction together and I can report being fairly impressed. It is of course difficult to compare when several thousand miles and a few weeks separate my experiences, but for the sake of offering a simple conclusion, if you were going to buy only one, I would say you might be missing out if you didn’t return and get the other one in the fullness of time.  Jim Murray places quite a few marks between the two in his 2013 Whisky Bible, but I don’t think there is such a gulf in class as he does, and I suspect I will be returning for that ale cask edition at some point – and I wouldn’t shy away from buying this one again either – at the right price.

Thanks for joining my this week. Next week I’ll be continuing on my one man mission to promote the consumption of grappa throughout the world by looking at La Castellina Squaricalupi – a bottle I picked up nearly a year ago, and finished only this week. See you then.

Booze Tourism Tuscany: Grappas Delight

Another holiday, another booze tourism adventure. That’s what happens when you don’t have any kids – making 3 in 2013 (holidays, not kids – maybe we’ll make 3 kids next year… but preferably one to begin with), with [at the time of writing] one still on the horizon - Christmas in Canada, with the chance to pick up some obscure bourbon and Canadian whiskies…I’ve even heard Canadians make pomace brandy, you know.

 Mrs Cake’s equivalent of my Distilgrimage

This time it was Tuscany, in the heart of Italy, and you know what that means, don’t you? Grappa, Italian beer and to a lesser extent (for me at least) wine. Yes, they make a lot of wine in Tuscany (you might have heard of the Chianti region which is right in the middle of it there), so the general idea behind the holiday was much relaxation, much tootling around in a rental car (which may not necessarily go hand in hand with the relaxation thing) and much consumption of sumptuous foods and rich alcohols.

I would be doing the driving, so in theory that would make this Mrs Cake’s equivalent of my Distilgrimage. That was so awesome that I was delighted to be able to return the favour that Mrs Cake did by driving me round most of the distilleries of Islay while I drank enough samples for both of us – and not just because my pre-trip research didn’t turn up any grappa distilleries in the region. I’ll just chauffeur the missus around then so that she can consume as much wine as possible. But would there be any grappa to be had? That was my concern (outside of generally having a great time and relaxing with Mrs Cake). Well… we’ll see.

It’s going to be too late to get to the duck fest…

No duty free purchases to take with me this time; I knew interesting alcohol would likely be available in abundance, so I set my sights on an early supermarket purchase of some grappa that I could dip into throughout the week, and hopefully finish before returning home – ideally leaving space for two special grappas to come home with me.

We collected the hire car from Pisa airport – a tiny and clunky Nissan Micra with far more scratches on it than were marked on the damage sheet (we’d been warned of the notoriety of Pisa Airport’s car hire merchants, so we had the guy mark on all the extra scratches), and a fuel tank that was two notches below full… though I didn’t notice that until we had to fill up the first time; oh, so those bars do go all the way to the top… ROBBING BASTARDS!

We plugged in the satnav, and away we went, straight down the highway towards Florence, before turning off towards Arezzo and arriving at our apartment, halfway up a mountain an hour and a half later.

Though our host couldn’t be with us for another couple of hours, we elected to hang out by the pool, eating the Aldi crisps we’d brought from home.

A couple of hours and a brief orientation later, we were on our way back down the winding mountain road, looking to head to the Coop supermarket in the nearby town of San Giovani Valdarno. The plan was to collect a few essentials before heading to the slightly further town of Arezzo for what was being billed as a Duckfest - so lots of duck to eat. We were starving by this point and prone to irrational bursts of panic or stress as our stomachs digested themselves, so the possibility of a duck fest went right up my flagpole.

San Giovani Valdarno is only a small town so surely, we thought, it couldn’t be difficult to locate a medium sized supermarket. WRONG. We drove up and down, round and round, trying to get used to the traffic system and the fact that you’re not expected to stop for pedestrians at crossings in Italy, all the while watching the light fade and thinking, ‘it’s going to be too late to get to that duck fest… it might be too late to pick up groceries at this rate…’

We made it in the end, finding what turned out to be a medium sized supermarket that would have been a food blogger’s delight… fantastic deli counter, but you don’t want to hear about that.

No, what about the booze? Well, Mrs Cake went in search of the cheapest wine she could find while I went to check out the beers. Most of the beer was gone but I got a couple of reasonably priced three packs – Moretti and Poretti…

When I found Mrs Cake again she’d found wines for a euro fifty and three euros. I’d struggled to find the spirits aisle, but much to my relief (and after being briefly overwhelmed by the choice of bottled water) there it was, and while it was small, there was a plethora of different varieties of grappa.

The problem now was how to make my choice. I quickly engaged the logic circuits and decided to choose something that was 50cl, rather than 70 (to better facilitate finishing it during the holiday), and that was also at least 40% ABV (because it’s just better, and I can tell the difference).

...and in the glass... at night

Deta Ars Essentiae in the bottle...

It still wasn’t easy with all that affordable spirit (prices ranged from 7-35 euros), but in the end, this is what I went for; Deta Ars Essentiae Riserva di Chianti Classico. Clearly it has been aged (probably from around 18 months to 2 years) and it comes in a fancy bottle with a Grolsch style cap. No doubt these factors played a subconscious part in my decision.

 Sixty euros later, we returned to the car to programme the satnav, and found that the duck fest was around an hour and a half away. As that wasn’t what we’d been led to believe by our host we wondered whether the satnav was mistaken and decided to head back to the apartment, drop off our goodies and check the map we’d left there. The sun was sinking fast, and when we found out the satnav was correct, the experience of the roads we’d driven so far convinced us an hour and a half more without food might be a bit much for us to handle on our first day. It was a shame because food festivals were the kind of thing we would have liked this holiday to be all about. Nevertheless, our host had said there were these kind of festivals all the time, so we decided we’d see about trying another one later in the week.

We headed to the much nearer town of Loro Ciuffena to search for a restaurant. The one we found was fairly good, but there was to be no booze for me just yet – navigating dark mountainous roads (on the wrong side), in a left hand drive car, struggling to flick between the full beam and dipped headlights and having to be ready to shift down to second or even first at a moment’s notice was proving far too taxing to risk driving back with even a single beer in me. The only help was that the satnav gave me a basic idea of where the road was going, and if the severity of a turn or gradient wasn’t entirely accurately represented, it at least gave some advance warning. Making it back to the apartment would be cause for celebration… and something to look forward to.

Achievement unlocked: Clutch control.

Beeroni

We did make it - it would be hard for me to be typing this if we hadn’t – and I dipped straight into those beers that I’d popped in the fridge a couple of hours before. They were nice and cold because I’d thought to check the thermostat earlier, and knocked it down (or up) a notch (whichever makes it colder). It’s worth bearing this in mind for future holidays – properties will often adjust their fridges while unoccupied, presumably to economise on electricity bills, so get on it early and you too could have proper cold beers when you return from that first excursion.

 I was able to procure four types of bottled beer over the week, all of which were strong and most of which were terrific. I’m a fan of Italian beer, but sadly I can't remember any specific details for you, so you'll have to make do with pictures. Soz.

Days In

On the first day we briefly discussed what we would do on each day of the holiday, and it was quickly decided that there would be two days reserved for sitting around the pool and in the apartment’s designated garden. The first, we decided, would be Sunday, our first full day.

The weather, of course was beautiful, but what would be a sensible time to open that first beer? 12.30.

Stop. Grappa Time.

Later also, I was able to open the grappa and sample its delights for the first time. I struggled a little getting the cellophane off the cap, and  I think in the end Mrs Cake may have finished that particular job off for me, but all that just served to make the pomace spirit all the sweeter.

Information on this brand hasn’t been too easy to find, but I can confirm the Deta Ars Essentiae Grappa Riserva di Chianti Classico is from the Chianti region, which was just over the next mountain from where we stayed. Also, it is made from the Sangiovese variety of grape, from which the vast majority of Chianti wines are made – as we were to learn later.

At 11 euros it wasn’t the cheapest, but in comparison to the first bottle of grappa I ever bought – Domenis Storica (50% ABV, 32 euros), it was positively budget. Because of that, I kept my expectations low. Deta was merely conceived of as something to drink with gay abandon during the holiday, so it didn’t have to be amazing. It was the stuff I’d be selecting for taking home that was intended to be special.

Nevertheless, those late evenings relaxing after a long day’s driving and the two days I was able to dedicate a little more time to it convinced me that this was actually a grappa of quality. I’m clearly no expert as yet, but I have decided to move this straight into 2^nd place (behind the unaged Storica) on the grappa hierarchy, and that is actually ahead of the aged Domenis Blanc e Neri, which you may remember me parting with 48 hard-earned pounds for. That had a slightly bitter finish, despite a complexity on the palate. There was no bitterness with the Deta, so it turns out to be quite a bargain.

Boozy Chess Update

If you’ll allow me to digress for just a moment, let’s just get into the game of chess that we had on our last full day at the apartment. We didn’t follow any specific drinking rules, but we were drinking. Mrs Cake was on the red wine and I was trying to polish off a number of strong beers and just over a quarter of a bottle of the grappa.

It was a good game that had two turning points. First, I lost concentration enough to plan ahead and then act on my future plan before the situation was in place. Mrs Cake threatened one of my important pieces, and instead of moving it I decided to back it up – which should be fine, except I backed up a move that hadn’t happened yet, allowing Mrs Cake to take the piece I was trying to protect.

That seriously affected my chances of winning, but I went on, hoping I could forge out a clever victory. What won it in the end though was when Mrs Cake inexplicably moved the one piece that was preventing me launching an attack on her king.

Unbelieving, I looked at it and said, “why would you do that?” suspecting I might be about to fall into a trap, as I so often do but no, Mrs Cake had just gifted the match to me. I moved my castle up next to her king and that was it. A lucky victory.

I’ll leave it there for part one. Join me next week for part 2, when we’ll be visiting Siena and the Chianti region and having all kinds of exciting adventures. See you then.

The Wedding: Awesome

Against all odds I actually finished part 2 of my Wedding Trilogy this week, so here it is for your perusal. It also looks like part 3 is finished, but whether I post that one next week depends on what happens in between. In the meantime, enjoy…

There are some occasions that demand booze and the king of them all is the wedding.

Weddings are awesome. The booze, for the most part is free, and you’re encouraged to drink it all day. I love drinking all day, and I try to do it as often as possible. The British media call that a binge, but not when it’s a wedding. Weddings are the acceptable side of binge drinking. I suspect it might be because weddings usually involve drinking a lot of champagne and wine – and also that weddings are in keeping with Conservative family values. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem like so much of a binge when you’re drinking wine. You’d have to be a special kind of person to go on a wine binge.

What’s not to love about a wedding? It is expected that you are going to get smashed. In fact, if you do get smashed, Great Aunt Sybil isn’t going to think, “what a drunken lout”, she’s going to think, “how nice that that young man has come to celebrate this wedding, and is having such a great time”.

Just don’t punch Great Aunt Sybil in the nose, or vomit in her hat. Also, maybe don’t swear prolifically.

Well, I’ve alluded to it in previous posts, but Brenda and I got married recently, which was brilliant – you know, for all the usual reasons, but also because it meant we got to throw a massive party, and place particular focus on the quality of the food and quality and quantity of the drink.

At our wedding, one of our friends was dragged onto the dancefloor, still in his chair and treated to a lap dance, right in front of my parents. Afterwards my mother said it was lovely to see all the young people having a good time. There were also two gay men having a full-on snog in the middle of the dancefloor, and no one batted an eyelid. Brilliant.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a blog about weddings, so I’ll keep non-booze related details to a minimum. If you want that stuff, I’m sure there are tons of blogs to satisfy your needs. This post is just about the ideas we had, and what happened about the booze. There will have to be some details about the wedding though, otherwise it just won’t make sense.

In theory, you should only be planning a wedding once, so you don’t really know how to do it. Those idiots on Don’t Tell the Bride can do it mind, so how hard can it be? Well, we’ve found it can be quite hard, so it’s good if you’ve got about a year to do it. The main problem is that you come up with all these original and exciting ideas, then someone tells you, “yeah, you can’t do that.” 

Of paramount importance to us was the quality of the food and booze, so we needed to make sure that we found somewhere that could provide what we wanted within our budget. To be fair, we didn’t even have a budget for a long while there, and I don’t mean ‘money was no object’ – I mean, there was no money - but we sorted some out eventually.

With regard to food, a lot of the venues have their own caterers, and each caterer produces a number of set wedding menus. It’s all stuff like a salmon starter and thin slices of beef for the main (how many times have you had that at a wedding?), and it costs £47 per head.

Not only did we want to avoid anything that resembled what we call ‘wedding food’, but we didn’t want to pay £47 a head for it. They all assured us that they could work to our specifications, but at a price. So like… £60 a head.

At one particularly memorable wedding we went to, we were served fillet steak. I’d never been served that at a wedding before, and it was superb – hot, tender, perfectly cooked. I said to the guy sitting next to me, who was himself getting married shortly, “you never get fillet steak at a wedding; it’s normally thin slices of beef! What are you having at your wedding?”

“Thin slices of beef”.

I thought he was joking. He wasn’t, and his fiancée wasn’t looking very happy. I wonder whether their wedding menu changed after that…

Wedding caterers tend to advise against serving fillet steak because it’s really difficult to cook it correctly and get it out to everyone in sufficient time, so how the caterers managed it at that wedding remains a mystery, and one that we weren’t keen to solve when it was our turn.

Don’t worry, it’s all booze from here on in. I only mention the food because there was a story about it, and it was a large contributing factor in the selection of our venue – as I’m about to tell you shortly.

In terms of booze, some of the bars at the venues we checked out were no better stocked than your local working men’s club. It was all Fosters and Carling, Bells and Bacardi. And the lagers were £3.80 for a 330ml bottle. This would never do! I wanted premium lagers that I actually liked to be available and fancy spirits with ages on the bottle, not stuff you get at 2 bottles for £20 in Morrisons.

Of course there were lots of other considerations, but the place we chose, The Living Room on Manchester’s Deansgate fitted the bill completely when it came to food and booze. I never thought I’d have my wedding reception on a Friday night on Deansgate, but The Living Room has three private upstairs rooms that we could use, it’s an actual restaurant (of some repute) - so it could provide the modern gourmet cuisine we were after, and it’s also an actual bar – a well stocked one.

We’d eaten there before, and been impressed. We were more impressed when we saw the function rooms, and the deal was sealed when they told us they could do our choice of menu for £32 a head. For my money, it’s better quality than 95% of wedding food, and it’s different. They could allow us to provide three choices for each course for our guests, and could even do lamb for us – for that price. Furthermore, it’s what you call a ‘minimum spend’ deal. So there’s no charge for hiring the room, there’s just a minimum amount of money you have to spend, and all the food and booze counts towards it.

Wine

When I say the booze was important, I’m not talking about wine, mind. If you’ve read much of my blog before, you’ll be aware that I don’t think much of wine, and although we knew we’d have to provide some, we weren’t keen on spending too much on it – what’s that? Your house white and your house red are £17 a bottle? That’ll do. You just have to forget that Aldi sells bottles of wine at £2.99 a bottle. We looked at providing our own wine too, and corkage tends to cost the same as (or more than) the house wine. I think providing Aldi wine would have been a bit too cheap, mind.

We did taste the house stuff, and it was all right. That’s all you want so sorry to any guests who were hoping for some great wine. I don’t think many people would know great wine if it bit them on the bottom… and given that I’ve never tasted a great wine, I remain unconvinced that such a thing actually exists – and if it does, it’s going to be too expensive to provide for all our guests anyway. On that subject, a friend told me his boss had bought some £180 bottles on a night out recently, and when I asked him if he could tell the difference, he said no.

We did try to think about our friends who liked wine a little though, in that we both remembered at least one of them professing a liking for Sauvignon Blanc, and saying that everything else was bland in comparison. So we made sure one of the wines was that, and we made sure there would be enough for one whole bottle per person. No one complained about the quality of the wine, so I’m going to assume it was fine.

Beer, and more specifically, Double Maxim

Now, one of the ideas I had was to have beer available during the meal (which is called a wedding breakfast, for some reason – beer for breakfast! Speaking of breakfast, I did have a little Caol Ila to calm the nerves before leaving the house in the morning). I’ve been to countless weddings where I’m being served a generous flow of wine throughout the meal, but all I want is a beer, so we asked our liaison if we could have big buckets of beer on ice at every table so that people who wanted beer could damn well have it. Not a problem. They could do good beer too, and I got to choose. I went for Peroni because everyone likes that. We also chose a cider (Bulmers) because several of my friends can’t drink beer anymore, due to wheat intolerance.

What God would drink...

One of my other ideas (that also came to fruition), was that I wanted one of the beers that was to be available to be Double Maxim. My friends and I used to drink this in Gosforth’s Earl Grey pub (now a wine bar, apparently) while we were at University in Newcastle in the late 90s (£2.05 a pint, in those days, 4.7% ABV). It was a beautiful, deep red ale that was the ideal complement to Brannigan’s Beef and Mustard crisps, and that didn’t have that bitter taste many ales of this kind do. I would call it an underappreciated gem. In fact, when our events manager mentioned my request to the chef, he said we should get Newcastle Brown. I told her to tell him, “Newcastle Brown good, Double Max better.” Whether she did or not, I don’t know.

...if he was real

The recipe of the Brannigan’s crisps has changed now in order to make them healthier at the expense of flavour - in spite of the complaint I wrote to the manufacturer through one of those online complaint submission forms that didn’t provide nearly enough capacity to adequately describe my gripe.

Meanwhile Double Maxim is very much harder to find. I haven’t seen Double Maxim anywhere since I left Newcastle in 1999, though after the wedding my friend Dave located some bottles in his local Morrison’s.

Double Max used to be brewed by Vaux in Sunderland, and I seem to recall that the brewery closed that year. A couple of years later I entered the Red Lion pub in Sheffield (a frequent haunt for a while) and saw that they had Double Maxim beer mats on all the tables. My excitement was extinguished when I asked at the bar and found they didn’t actually have the beer, but I did collect a beer mat to take home with me.

I also used to have a Double Maxim ash tray, but I think that was lost in a flat move.

Double Maxim is now brewed by Maxim Brewery, and is supposedly available in bottles, cans and cask. The website says it is available in supermarkets such as Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, but believe me; I have looked, and I haven’t seen it so far. It does say you can order it direct, though.

The Living Room said they would try to source it, but they are subject to limitations on the suppliers they are allowed to use. If they couldn’t, they’d allow us to provide our own, subject to a corkage fee. I’m happy to say it didn’t come to that. They found they could supply it at £3.50 per bottle, and that was 500ml bottles, so for bar prices, that’s pretty reasonable. The ones Dave found in Morrisons were £1.80 per bottle.

Providing Double Maxim led to one of my highlights of the day. As I was sitting at the head table, waiting for my first course, two friends (Joe and Dave) approached with looks of absolute delight on their faces. It was a special moment. If you’re a fan of ale like Old Speckled Hen, there’s a good chance you’ll like it – nay, prefer it. If you do happen to see it anywhere, make sure you let me know; we could start a Maxim Watch. I can’t believe I just say ‘nay’.

Now, I know you’re not necessarily supposed to keep ale in the fridge, but I like my beer cold, and that’s where I kept the crate of Double Maxim that was left over after the wedding. I may be mistaken, but I swear this beer stays cold once you take it out of the fridge a lot longer than it should do. So that’s a bonus.

Unfortunately it is now gone. I finished the last bottle on Sunday afternoon, and I hope it won’t be so long before we next meet. Until then it will be sorely missed, and though the photos can’t simulate the flavour, at least I can keep one in my wallet and think of the good times. I’m not really going to keep one in my wallet.

Pre-mixed drinks

I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself here, because I’ve jumped straight to the reception, but there are one or two other elements I want to cover. Firstly, it was essential that we got people lubricated fairly early (for the relentless alcohol bumming that was coming their way later). The wedding was to take place at 2pm at Manchester Town Hall, and I didn’t want it to be one of those weddings where you’re standing about asking, “when are we going to get a drink?”

We wanted, in some small way, to simulate a pub crawl, and had hired a bus to take everyone to the nearby Rain Bar for free drinks while the wife and I went for some more outdoor photos, but we were aware that people might be in need of refreshment before that. We were also aware that people might be getting hungry. The meal wasn’t scheduled until after 6, so anyone who hadn’t thought about lunch might be struggling.

 Brenda hit upon the idea of taking snacks and drinks on the bus. The snacks would be nuts and pretzels, and the drinks would be those pre-mixed alcoholic drinks you can get in 250ml cans. We stored them with bags of ice for the duration of the ceremony (in one of those giant Ikea shopping bags), and handed them out as our guests clambered on to the bus.

tower of booze

I hadn’t tried any of these before, but I thought it was a great idea, and a lot more weddingy than handing out cans of beer – not to mention, something different to write about for the blog. We had Smirnoff and Cranberry (6.4% ABV), Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Cola (6.4% ABV), Gordon’s Gin and Tonic (6.4% ABV) , Southern Comfort with lemonade and lime (5% ABV), and a Pimms one (5.4% ABV, I still don’t know what Pimms is…).

Sadly I didn’t get to try them all, though they went down very well with the guests. I had a Captain Morgan and cola on the bus, and I have to say, finally I ‘get’ rum and coke. The balance of flavours was just right.

The missus and I then left our guests in the pub while we took a car to various nearby locations for more photos. I was able to grab a can of the Smirnoff to take with us, and since then have also been able to try the Southern Comfort. Like the Captain Morgan, they are all nicely balanced, so it’s just a matter of personal taste.

We bought 80 cans for our 52 guests I think, and they were on offer at 4 cans for £6, which isn’t bad. There are a number of other varieties you can get; I wanted the Three Barrels brandy and coke, but I wasn’t present at the purchasing, so that one was overlooked.

I wouldn’t normally see the point in pre-mixed alcoholic drinks like this, but under these circumstances they made perfect sense – a little bit classier than cans of lager, but alcoholic nevertheless.

The Pub

As I said, we took everyone to a pub (Rain Bar) for drinks in advance of the main reception. We thought it would be cool to have the wedding simulate a pub crawl, since it wasn’t all going to take place in one venue anyway. I don’t know what people drank in there, but we put £450 behind the bar, and let them order what they wanted. They were scheduled to be there for about an hour and a half before the bus would pick them up again, and take them to The Living Room for…

Cocktails

I’m afraid I didn’t think to take any pictures of the cocktails, but they were pretty special. The new wife and I shared a general apathy towards champagne receptions, and we’d thought it might be more fun to offer our guests a selection of cocktails on arrival.

The original idea was that I would invent a couple of cocktails, but when we mentioned cocktails to our events manager, she said that they would have a new cocktail menu for the summer, and that they would allow us a free tasting session in advance of the event, so we just decided to go with that.

One Friday evening after work we went over there, where a table had been reserved next to the bar for us. We were introduced to the bar manager and encouraged to peruse the cocktail menu and try whichever ones we fancied. It was a lot of fun to talk about what we liked and what we wanted, and in the end we must have drunk about ten between us, finally settling on three.

Foam seemed to be the theme of the summer, with two of our selections featuring it. One was served in a cocktail glass, but was made with whisky and was very strong. I figured that while it looked like a feminine drink, it tasted quite masculine, so we would need a masculine looking drink and a feminine looking drink that tasted feminine. It made sense at the time, but as I say, we were drinking free cocktails. I figured the ladies would be drawn to the one in the cocktail glass, and might be shocked at the strong whisky flavour.

We fulfilled our criteria, with one drink called ‘Return of the Mac’ and another one being a fruity concoction. On the day I only had time to have one cocktail, and after that I was feeling pretty smashed, so I had to drink two jugs of water with my meal to regain equilibrium.

A number of our guests were already well on their way, too. I understand there was impromptu singing on the bus from the pub and one person was caught having a snooze during the meal.

Fallout

The result of the smorgasbord of booze we laid on was that everyone got wasted, which made for a very fun day and evening – even the staff were getting down at one point (I’ll put that down to the killer playlist I’d put together for the dance).

I estimate that we spent around £3000 on alcohol, and I don’t consider a penny of it to have been wasted (that was for 52 people, though we had more join us in the evening). There were numerous reports of severe hangovers on Facebook the next day, and general consensus was positive, so we were very happy with the way things turned out, and ready to start married life.

It’s a shame it’s all over really, because it was a lot of fun, but I suppose we don’t have to stress about it anymore – all the organising and vow writing and speech writing… If there’s one bit of advice I could give you should you be considering getting married at some point in the future – other than making sure you find the right person (though you can never guarantee that, even when you’re sure!) – it would be to plan as much as possible with your guests in mind. If you make them feel special, and they have a good time, then you’ll feel special and have a good time, too. You may be getting married, but it isn’t about you. You might look the best on the day, and have everything how you want it, but It’s about all the people in your life, so just try to remember that.