Food and Drink Articles   

Ah, the art of you can go back to the traditional method of drinking with salt, tequila,and lime, via the lick, sip consumption of a premium liquor. Who says that I have the right to tell you how you should drink your tequila. I must admit, I have tried the many different brands of Tequila. Whether you sip it, serve it with lime and salt add it to margarita mix, drink it room temperature or serve it chilled, Tequila is meant to be savored and enjoyed. If you want to really appreciate the full bouquet and body, try it at room temperature. Tequila is meant to be enjoyed neat. Taste it like a fine wine. It would be a shame to miss out on its full body, its aroma and its wonderful taste. Once you have appreciated its character and flavor, you can return to the salt, tequila, and lime – the lick, sip and bite- method

Real Tequila can only be produced in the Tequila Region of Mexico. As the brand ‘tequila’ is controlled by the Mexican government, it must comply with the strict Mexican government regulations. To make sure that tequila is genuine it has to be produced according to the strict standards. It also must bear the official standard, NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana) and the Tequila Regulatory Council’s monogram (CRT) on the label. All Premium Tequila must be adorned with the ‘100% Agave’ marking on the label as well. Each approved tequila distiller gets its own NOM that ensures that the product complies with the official Denomination of Origin. Not all tequila is created equal and if your label does not contain this information, it is likely that you are not drinking tequila.

The history of tequila began with the Aztec people making a fermented beverage from the agave plant which they called octli (later and more popularly called pulque). This occurred long before the Spanish arrived in 1521. Then, in the 16th century when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, the Conquistadors brought the process of distillation with them and the people of Tequila were quick to put it to good use. They knew that the blue agave plant contained sugars that could be fermented. When the Spanish conquistadors ran out of their own brandy, they began to distill this agave drink to produce North America's first indigenous distilled spirit . By fermenting and distilling the sweet sap of the blue agave plant, they produced liquor with a distinctive taste.

The process of finding the magic takes a long time. It all starts with a ripened blue agave plant. This ripening usually occurs 8 to 12 years after the seeds are planted. The leaves are then chopped away from the core of the plant by a tequila farmer, a ‘jimador’ who looks to see if the plant is ripe. This is a tedious process because if the plant is harvested too soon, there will not be enough sugars, too late and the sugars will have been used to form a once-in-a-lifetime stem called a ‘quiote’ which produces the seeds.

All of you that have do the cooking at home will have used cooking oil or olive oil at some point. Whether you use the oil for frying or salads, organic oil can provide the maximum taste with the minimum use of pesticides and chemicals in its production.

The UK is known as a nation of tea drinkers, one Polish person once asked me if we drank tea at 3 oclock everyday as some sort of ritual!

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I love Italian wine and food so much that I have done a series on the typical and special wines and foods of Italy's twenty regions. This article talks a bit about Italian white wines and reviews some of my findings.