29 Comments
Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

My thoughts for grape soda cocktails:

1. Use it like fizzy, sweet, wine in a float situation for something like a New York Sour, with the thought that the limited amount of soda compared to the larger amount of strongly flavored rest-of-cocktail will allow for better balance. (If you want to go completely ridiculous, celebrate Queen Victoria's favorite beverage of Scotch and Claret, and make the New York Sour with scotch instead of rye.)

2. In one of the cocktail books we have, someone boils down Coke into a syrup, and uses that strongly-flavored syrup in a cocktail. Maybe you could do that with grape soda? (No, I don't remember which cocktail book this is, because I have too many.)

Also, not saying there's a corgi puppy coming to the Plaid house in July, but I will say dog pictures are in your future, since you're asking nicely.

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

The grape soda cocktail reminds of two things in the young and stupid part of my life:

1. Grape soda was my favorite thing to drink after smoking <redacted> in college. Just perfect for the occasion. I can pretty much taste it just reading about it.

2. During Beach Week after my senior year of high school, I had the brilliant idea to mix vodka with grape gatorade. My teenage brain reasoned that the grape flavor would mask the vodka flavor well, the electrolytes would make my body absorb the alcohol faster, and I would prevent dehydration. I had a great time until I had a really bad time. The really bad time lasted much longer than the great time.

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

Honestly Scott, reading about your cocktails is as much fun as I imagine making them would be so please do not feel bad about sharing your failures. I get exactly as much enjoyment out of it as I a perfectly crafted cocktail. It is the ride after all, not the destination!

I think this can apply to most things in your newsletter too! Show me the bad pizza! Show me the book you gave up on! I'm happy to read about them all!

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

Also, my wife has that Ratio book, she's a big fan of that kind of "science of cooking" book. It dovetails with the way she learned to cook from her father, who would work his way through an entire book / books on a specific type of cooking to learn how the pieces all fit together so he could improvise. (Her mother is a good cook but not a jazz player like that)

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Jan 1, 2022Liked by Scott Hines

Guess I'm in remedial summer school (which sounds better when you consider it is single degrees out at the moment). I'm intrigued by the mini-loaf pizza concept, think I shall try to acquire a small pan or two to see what happens when I make my own dough. Thanks for the great idea. I'm having fun catching up on all of the posts.

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Is there a way to subscribe to your buddy's labor/sports blog posts? I wouldn't mind giving a try in my email inbox, but I wasn't sure I understood how to do that.

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

I think the grape soda might be a good ingredient to a punch bowl style mixture

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

Pimms Cup with Grape Fanta

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

I can't get over the fact that your kids have been out of school for nearly 3 weeks. My 16 year old doesn't finish up school until next week. When do they restart?

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

My kids school decided to start after Labor day this year instead of mid-August. That means my kids (and my school teacher wife) are still in school. Summer won't start for one more week and my house is just mentally done with this school year (but alas not physically).

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

It's never occurred to me to try to out-corner Jet's. You absolute madman.

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

I picked up famous men who never lived at the library last week and plowed through the whole thing in a single sitting. I'm a sucker for a good fictional story within the story concept, and this book did a great job with it. Tasting notes of both Kilgore Trout and Man in the High Castle. I really enjoyed it, great recommendation

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Jun 11, 2021Liked by Scott Hines

As I ponder my deeply cursed beagle mix (already featured) I wonder what it would be like to have a dog with any sense of chill. My last dog was basically a carpet, though.

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founding

Y'all I think I'm gonna get one of those little outdoor pizza ovens. I've convinced myself that's the way I'll make good homemade pizza. Anyone here have one?

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