Vincent Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime. He toiled in obscurity and poverty, only to be appreciated after his death. Once art collectors started to realize the value of his work, it was scooped up, and now a Van Gogh piece rarely comes on the market.
Fifteen years after a little-known Caribbean rum distillery shut down for good, it’s having a Van Gogh moment.
The Caroni Ltd. distillery in Trinidad was a state-run distillery, producing heavy rums made from its own sugarcane crops. At its height, the sugar refinery and distillery employed more than 9,000 workers. Caroni was the preferred rum of the British Navy, but the lads apparently didn’t drink enough of it to sustain Caroni’s labor-intensive, unindustrialized methods of farming, processing and distilling.
After years of being subsidized by the Trinidad and Tobago government, the sugar-growing industry on the island collapsed, and in 2003, the distillery soon followed suit. Caroni died, and no one outside the island seemed to take much notice, until a chance discovery breathed new life into the brand. 
In 2004, Luca Gargano, the head of Velier, a Genoa, Italy-based importer and distributor of fine wine and spirits was in Trinidad on a research trip. He stumbled across the shuttered Caroni distillery and was led, Indiana Jones-style (or was it Jack Sparrow-style?) to a boarded-up warehouse and shown thousands of wooden casks of rum, some dating back as far as 1974.
Gargano bought up all the barrels, shipped some of them to Italy and left others to mature in Trinidad. Velier has been releasing small batches of Caroni to the market ever since, and for rum connoisseurs, Caronimania is officially a thing
Caroni’s cachet grew once collectors started realizing that supplies were limited and the quality was very high. A bottle that might have sold for around $30 in the early 2000s now sells for closer to $400 – and some bottles can go for more than $1,000. Velier releases just two or three bottlings a year that may yield just a few hundred bottles total.
Stefan Lercher is a bona fide Caronimaniac whose work allows him to cultivate his passion for Caroni. He’s head barman at Hotel Quelle, a luxury spa resort in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. It might seem an unlikely place to find an extensive collection of Caroni rums and other rare spirits, but the hotel’s high-end clientele have come to expect that Lercher will surprise them with liquors they can’t find elsewhere, especially not by the glass.
The hotel bar offers a selection of 10 varieties of Caroni. They’re not listed on the bar menu; instead Lercher knows how to spot the connoisseurs among his guests, move on them with the secret handshake and seek to win them over to Caronimania.
“It’s not a rum for everybody,” says Lercher. If drinkers are accustomed to sweet rum, then dry Caroni – which is cask-strength, meaning it’s not diluted or blended once it’s aged – might make them shudder. This is a collectors’ rum, not for cocktails with paper umbrellas and pineapple wedges, but for snifters or small grappa glasses, to be sipped, not slammed. Lercher wouldn’t think to dilute it with soda water or even ice.
“It’s a question of romance, a question of respect,” Lercher says. “This is a sacred distillery. If you add even one ice cube, you’ve just reduced the value of the rum.”
The only suitable accompaniments? A fine cigar (like, one that costs as much as the rum), or maybe a piece of dark chocolate. “It is a party after all,” Lercher says.
I’m certainly no rum connoisseur – unless ordering a Myers floater on top of my piña colada counts, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t – but Lercher’s enthusiasm had me ready to drink the Caroni kool-aid. He explained that two marks of quality define Caroni. One is the integrity of the distilling and aging process: “If the bottle says the rum was distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2006,” Lercher explains, “you can be sure you’re drinking 10-year-old rum that has aged in the original casks.” The other is what’s known as the “angels’ share,” the percentage of liquid that evaporates during the barrel aging process and lost “to the angels.”
For Caribbean rums, an angels’ share of about 7% is the average. For certain distillations of Caroni, it’s as high as 85%, making the finished product incredibly concentrated and high in alcohol content.
And so went my introduction to Caronimania – a dram of a 20-year-old, 100-proof heavy Trinidad Rum, distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2016 (bottle 1700 of 3800 released that year, to be precise) with that stunning 85% angels’ share. Bottled undiluted from the barrel, it clocks in at a mouth-searing 57.2% alcohol by volume.
It’s best to start with a small taste, which habituates the mouth to the tongue-numbing heat of this high-proof hooch, then wait several minutes before sipping again. The second sip is a revelation – still heady, but that burning sensation has disappeared, instead replaced with a complex, interesting character that lingers long after the last sip.
It’s easy to get sucked into the romance of Caroni and its rags-to-riches tale. Since Velier started releasing varieties a little bit at a time, Caroni’s cult following has grown, and collectors enjoy a scavenger hunt of sorts to grab up remaining bottles at auctions and online sales.
And since there are just a handful of places in the world where Caroni can be purchased by the glass, if you want to sample this rare and vanishing breed of rum without purchasing an entire bottle, you may just have to head for the Italian Alps. Because unlike Van Gogh’s masterworks, which can be visited in art museums any old time, Caroni Rum has to be consumed to be appreciated. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.
​Source: Eat, Sip and Drink 
​

John Tannous is aiming to connect customers with locally crafted beer, and also to the process behind it all.
The founder of Tommy’s Brewing Company, a restaurant and micro-brewery opening on Monday as the latest addition to Movietowne Port of Spain’s Fiesta Plaza, is sure to attract a slew of new clientèle – ranging from the Trini hipster circle seeking out micro brews, to those who want a fun or family environment with excellent food and in-house crafted beer.
Starting in the beer business in 2008 with the importation of Coors Light, Tannous went on to develop a full portfolio of imported beverages and brands in a market that immediately embraced them for their youthful feel with strategic marketing that went around the traditional approach to connect with consumers. While successful in its own right, the new entrants to the market faced stiff competition from the existing local breweries determined to maintain their market share.
He explained, “Besides having to face higher tariffs and other non-tariff barriers, we faced a slew of challenges as the incumbent local beer producers began to muscle their way back in to the market share we had won over.” That led to the idea, that a locally-brewed beer brand would help to overcome this challenge while offering something new and fun to the market.
“Tommy’s Brewing Company is a small-scale restaurant and micro-brewery that places an emphasis on quality, flavour and brewing techniques. After travelling around to a number of similar microbreweries internationally, particularly in Denver, I realised that this is something that would work well here. We craft our beer, which is different to manufacturing it. In manufacturing, there is a focus on cost-efficiency over say, quality of ingredients, so while we do focus on the science behind it, we are really placing an emphasis on the art of beer-making. It’s been a passion of mine to create something like this and share it with patrons and the market,” he detailed.
“While we do have locally manufactured beer and also do have a number of imported craft beers, Tommy’s brews are made right here at our Movietowne location and can be consumed fresh from the micro-brewery.” When asked about the size of the investment, Tannous responded lightly noting, “It wasn’t insignificant! This new establishment will create permanent jobs for 50 people with another 20 part-time roles as well.” The founder also noted that while entrepreneurial activity is high in TT, much has to be done to foster this type of activity that goes beyond the status quo, to businesses such as his that have placed an effort on stimulating local production, employment and perhaps even fostering positive changes to the current foreign exchange situation.
Patrons of Tommy’s will immediately notice the massive steel tanks located in the restaurant space but separated by a glass partition – which means that customers will actually get to witness their international award-winning brewmaster Saty, at work on the next batch of brewed options – and there will be lots of options.
“For our opening, we have selected six house brews that will be available year-round ranging from traditional pale ales to IPAs to stouts and Dunkels, but we will also take note of seasonal options, so you may at one point find us brewing a beer with hints of real mango or sorrel – this really is just the start of the journey for us,” Tannous commented.
That journey has seen him come up against as many as 18 governmental and regulatory organisations and laws related to the industry that were instituted at the turn of the 20th century; an adventure that was two years full of 24-hour-days of work and commitment. “There is also an extensive menu of food items… we partnered with well-known restaurateur Peter George of Prime/Trotters/Buzo fame to bring the best options to pair with our beers, forward,” he pointed out. “The choice was clear when it came to bringing his experience of the food market and the best quality to the table for our patrons too.”
Menu items range from shareable platters to bison burgers, Shepherd’s pie, tacos, and salads for the discerning. The space too, has its own charms – with a rustic but modern finish, smartly using a mix of concrete with lots of local wood and local craftsmanship to complement the industrial feel of the micro-brewery which is part of the charm of the dining experience. Tannous added, “We want people to feel at home here – almost as if it’s a family on the inside and definitely a space where people are excited to interact with our staff and learn about crafted beer and the food that goes best with it. There is the opportunity to learn, to have fun too and put down the phone and interact with your table or other customers at the bar, that’s what we intend for it.”
More than anything, patrons will immediately notice the quality of flavours and notes in each offering, something that is only possible by offering the freshest crafted beers that only have to make the journey of a few feet, direct from the micro-brewery to the bartender’s tap.
As for the inspiration behind the brand, the name and the logo of a shipwrecked sailor sitting atop a beer keg lost at sea, Tannous owes that to his grandfather, from whose journal entries he’s crafted an entirely new casual dining experience, taking patrons across the world with a mix of food and beverage as they sit either in the cosy interior or outside on picnic style tables astride turf grass and under hanging Edison bulbs.
There’s nothing quite like Tommy’s and with the innovations planned, the team behind the brand will surely have an adventure of their own to tell, in the years to come.
Source: Newsday, July 29, 2018

To read more, click here

Get the recipe here

Or copy and paste this URL into your browser 
​https://www.recipetineats.com/chinese-barbecue-pork-char-siu/

​Malay rose apple, red guava and mountain apple are some of the names by which our local Pomerac is known?

From his first creation of curried chicken at age eight, to booking one of the top 12 spots on Season 5 of MasterChef Canada, Trinidadian Jonathan Rahim is just getting started.
Originally from Port-of-Spain, Rahim moved to Canada as a young child and now resides in Winnipeg.
Growing up in the northern climate, however, did not change his love for West Indian flavours which continue to feature prominently in his dishes.
The 33-year-old real estate agent, who has always had a knack for cooking, wowed judges with his audition dish of Ghost Pepper Stew Chicken with Rice and Peas, and Mango Slaw on the season’s first episode which aired on April 3, 2018.
Chef and Restaurateur Alvin Leung was immediately impressed by the heat of the dish, which he said complemented the sweet flavour of the stew.
“The taste is amazing. I get that very sharp heat from the ghost pepper, but it’s being neutralised by the sweetness of the sauce. It’s a very balanced dish,” Leung told a beaming Rahim.
Fellow judges Claudio Aprile and Michael Bonacini shook their heads in agreement.
Leung then surprised the Trinidadian-Canadian with an apron with his name printed in red across the front, signifying that he had secured his spot on the show.
Rahim, whose dream is to take a culinary tour of the world is determined to succeed during his time on MasterChef Canada.
Source:  The Loop

​On Washington Island, drinking Angostura shots is the rule, not the exception.

ANGOSTURA, THE BITTERS PACKAGED IN the ubiquitous, yellow-topped bottles, can be found on nearly every bar in the world. Typically, a dash or two of the potent liquid is enough to add an earthy, sharp tang to any drink.
But on Washington Island—a remote locale off the tip of a tiny peninsula, surrounded by Lake Michigan in the northernmost part of Wisconsin—people do things a bit differently. To truly drink like a local, you must take a full one-ounce shot of Angostura at Nelsen’s Hall Bitters Pub (as one of only a handful of bars on the island, that means pretty much every resident is a regular). According to the card you receive as an initiated member of the “Bitters Club,” that shot means you are “now considered a full-fledged islander and are entitled to mingle, dance, etc. with all the other islanders.”

Tom’s tonic proved to be extremely popular among locals, many of whom apparently suffered from previously-undiagnosed stomach ailments until then. In fact, customers who kept Nelsen’s open for the entirety of Prohibition are directly responsible for the pub being the oldest continuously-operating tavern in Wisconsin. That’s despite more than one visit from the feds, who harbored their doubts about the island’s sudden onset of tummy troubles, but were never able to successfully shut down the pharmacy-cum-bar.
Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Though the pub eventually resumed normal operations, and even after a full bar was reinstated, the bitter shots had embedded themselves in the island’s drinking traditions. Shots of Angostura continued to be one of the most popular items on the menu. Tom himself is said to have consumed up to a pint (about eleven shots!) of bitters every day. “The bitters were a huge part of his life,” Jaworski says. “He lived to the ripe old age of 90, and drank his bitters until the very end.”
In the mid-twentieth century, Tom’s nephew, Gunnar, and his wife, Bessie, took over the pub and carried on his legacy by founding the Bitters Club, which has continued under several different owners. The club has proved so popular that Nelsen’s is officially the largest purveyor of Angostura bitters in the world. According to a representative from Angostura, the bar singlehandedly sells upwards of 10,000 shots every year. Many members of the club have told Jaworski that the experience inspired them to buy bitters for their home bar, though more often to use in Old Fashioneds than as shots.
“We go through case after case,” says Jaworski. “Busy weekends we’ll go through three cases of bitters. When we get a first-timer who wants to join the club, we try to be encouraging. We tell them that it smells like clove, and that it’s not going to be as bad as they expect.”
Maryn McKenna was one of those first-timers when she arrived in Washington Island with a boyfriend in 1992. The two visited the island on a whim and wandered into Nelsen’s knowing nothing about its specialty.
“We stepped into this big white building where there seemed to be lots of people at the bar, and someone was slamming back a shot glass and gagging,” McKenna recalls. Naturally, she was intrigued. “I had never heard of the Bitters Club. I’d never even heard of Nelsen’s. Anyway, they poured the Angostura, I tossed it down, I didn’t choke, and the bartender stuck her thumb in the dregs. She stamped my card with a thumbprint and initialed it, gave me my card, and wrote my name in a ledger.”

​

​Trinbagonians have the art of doubles down to a science. Here are some thoughts on what makes a good doubles.

A meal of curried turkey, paratha and cauliflower choka helped T&T born chef Dr Winnette McIntosh Ambrose win the Chopped: Gold Medal Games Baking competition in an episode aired on the Food Network on Tuesday night.
McIntosh Ambrose will now compete in the US$50,000 grand finale carded to be aired next Tuesday.
In 2012 McIntosh Ambrose and her brother Timothy won the Food Network’s popular Cupcake Wars competition.
McIntosh Ambrose, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with her PhD in Biomedical Engineering, owns and operates a boutique bakery in Washington D.C called The Sweet Lobby.
This year the Chopped kitchen launched the Gold Medal Games.
The tournament featured 16 “world-class chefs”.
Each week, four new chefs competed utilising their greatest culinary skill — frying, grilling, baking or speed.
The winner of each episode would then gain a spot in the finale and a chance to take home the coveted gold medal and US$50,000.
The baking episode was the last of the four competitions.
“I am super excited competing among the best of the best pastry chefs and bakers but it is so important for me to prove that I can also tackle savoury, one way that I am doing that is through my Trinidadian heritage,” McIntosh Ambrose said.
The competition comprised three rounds.
In the first round, the competitors were given the breakfast dough and a cut of lamb to make their appetizer.
McIntosh Ambrose made stuffed bake with jerk lamb and a ginger liqueur reduction.
McIntosh Ambrose explained that “bake is a casual term for quick breads in Trinidad”.
For the main meal, the competitors were given the ingredients smoked turkey legs, a roasted head of cauliflower, spaghetti rings and shredded phyllo dough.
“My strategy in this round is to bowl the judges over with the complex flavours of my Trinidadian roots,” McIntosh Ambrose said.
She made curried turkey, paratha and cauliflower choka.
For the final round, the chefs were given the ingredients banana curd, caneles, freeze-fried blueberries and hot chocolate to make dessert.
McIntosh Ambrose made blueberry cake with banana-hot chocolate sauce and meringue.
After the three knock out rounds, McIntosh Ambrose was selected as the lone baking chef to advance to the grand finale next Tuesday.
McIntosh Ambrose said if she wins the competition she will invest the money in The Sweet Lobby.
Source:  Joel Julien, Trinidad Guardian, January 25, 2018