Cocktail Werkshop

Block 15 is three floors of brewery and brewpub which hums like a beehive seven days a week. They provide a vast variety of beers in their ever changing beer library. A few of my favorites have been the One Hop Wonder, the 80 Shilling and the Honey Wheat. On the main floor resides the tip of the brewery iceberg however, the jaw dropper is what they have going on in the basement.

Every year there are hundreds of applications submitted for acceptance into the apprenticeship program and only around 40 are actually selected.No one from Corvallis has ever been considered for this position until now and yours truly has landed a spot as one of the coveted apprentice positions. Yep, I’m gloating. It goes without saying that this is a HUGE honor.

With all of the hoopla out there regarding raw eggs in cocktails (New York Department of Health) I have to take a moment and delve into this topic a little further. Last week a reader wrote into me stating that a few people from their area received salmonella poisoning and alluded that it was from egg [...]

The bottle that I picked up today at the beer shop conveniently located a block and a half from my house is simply called Matilda. This is a very flavorful Belgian style ale with a rich and creamy mouth feel.

The only facility making Pelican beer sits on the most valued piece of beachfront property of Cape Kiwanda. Almost right on the ocean’s edge, the brewery overlooks the natural geological formation hewn by the sea known as “the other” Haystack Rock.Pelican has several beers among their permanent library, however they also brew a very large selection of seasonal and European style beers.

In the last entry I gave an introduction to how flavors can be broken down into the components of specific molecular compounds. This month I would like to follow that up with more of the same and how it relates physiologically to the senses. In short, I’m going to geek out about the senses of [...]

Ok, the title of this blog is a little misleading but it was just so damn catchy I couldn’t resist. The topic today is not simply star anise but anise in all forms. “What’s the difference?” you say. Plenty actually. In simplified nomenclature the word anise not only refers to the flowering plant but also [...]

Eggs have been consumed  in cocktails since the turn of the 19th century. Just why that happened can be hotly debated until the turn of the next century with no one the wiser. So I will not engage in that argument here. Let me just say that it’s possible that our forefathers wanted to add [...]

Something fairly new to the Oregon cocktail scene is the line of vermouths made by Dolin de Chambery. From what I’ve gathered this is the last small, vermouth producing company in France. The constant strain to obtain their products lends to some proof of this. They produce a Dry (white), Blanc (sweet white) and Rouge [...]

My wife just returned from a trip to Baltimore and brought me back a little surprise. Nine little surprises to be exact. She handed me a small box about the size of a palm pilot which contained 9 small cube shaped stones cut slightly larger than a 6 sided die.
I scratched my head.
I turned the [...]