Sloe-ly does it

Autumn is upon us. The nights are drawing in, the weather is starting to revert back to type for the UK and we will be out and about less and less. Fear not friends, there is still time to get yourself out into the Great British countryside and find some treats to warm your cockles this winter. I am referring to a fantastic, free, flavouring to make a drink guaranteed to turn that frown upside down. Sloes. 

Sloe gin is beautiful if you make it yourself. It is a luxurious, smooth and warming spirit that you can drink neat to warm you up on a cold winter evening or mix with tonic for a refreshing, fruity long drink to share with friends. These little beauties are not around for long however so get yourself out there picking now. 

The process is easy but like all good things, it takes time. First you need to get out picking. My best advice would be to go to wherever blackberries are normally found and look up. Sloes seem to like the company of brambles making them quite challenging to pick at times. Around Bristol you can find them on the old Bristol Bath Railway, near the Bedminster Cricket Club and this particular picture was from a spot in Bradford on Avon near the river. Stay clear of the wrinkled ones, they wont give up as much juice as the others. 

Once picked and home give the sloes a quick rinse in cold water. You then have the pain staking process of pricking each sloe with a sterilised pin/needle. The more you puncture the fruit the more juice and flavour is released so don't be tempted to rush this step. Pop the punctured fruit into sterilised, glass bottles that you can securely fasten. You now need to add sugar and top the bottle(s) up with gin and give a shake. That is it. The bottles should be stored somewhere out of the light as this may discolour your finished drink. Leave the gin now for 8 weeks, shaking the bottles every week. You will see the colour changing over time. After 8 weeks the gin should now be ready to drink. Some people suggest straining the liquid into new bottles, I prefer to just leave them as they are. 

For 750ml of gin you need:

• 340g of sloes
• 170g of caster sugar
• 750ml gin (the better quality gin the smoother the end product) 

Cheers. 

Embrace the Dark Side

As cooking programs dominate the TV listings these days, more and more of us are finding our way into the kitchen. Whether you are looking to cook up some home comforts, chef inspired gourmet or bake your own loaf there seems to be something for everyone. In this recipe I hope to give you a good, 'manly' recipe cooking with a fantastic ingredient, beer.

Bristol Beer Week has just come to a close and numerous breweries and pubs have been showing off their wares across the city. For this dish I have gone with Bath Ales 'Dark Side', a punchy, dark and stormy number from one of my favourite local breweries. Based on the outskirts of the city, in Warmley, these guys put out some great beers from their flagship brand 'Gem' to their 'Beerd' branded craft ale products such as 'Razor'.

For this dish you need:

A boned out pork leg joint
A whole 500ml bottle of 'Dark Side' stout
300ml of pressed apple juice
3 tbsp of mustard
3 tbsp of honey
3 tbsp of black treacle
3 tbsp of golden syrup
3 tbsp of dark brown sugar
3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp of tomato puree
1 tbsp of cayenne pepper

The method is really simple:

1 - Pour the stout and the juice into a pan and bring to the boil

2 - Whisk in the other ingredients starting with the honey, treacle and syrup to make sure they have fully melted into the liquid. follow these with mustard, sugar, vinegar, tomato puree and finally the cayenne pepper.

3 - Place the leg into a deep, ovenproof dish and pour over the liquid mixture.

4 - Place into a pre-heated oven at around 130 degrees for 4-5 hours.

5 - Remove the pork and pour half of the liquid into a pan. Put the pork back into the pot with the remaining liquid, baste the meat well and place back in the oven with the lid off for another 20 minutes.

6 - Heat the sauce in a pan on the hob to reduce by about half, this will create a lovely BBQ sauce for the pork similar in texture to that well known Jamaican variety from Dragons Den.

7 - When the sauce is reduced remove the meat from the oven and with a couple of forks (no knives) shred the meat into strands of deliciously flavoured, melt in the mouth goodness.

8 - Serve the pork in the middle of the table with white buns, mayo/coleslaw and your sticky BBQ sauce.

It is as simple as that and trust me it tastes amazing. Why not try it this weekend. Get the pork in the oven, get yourself down the pub for a few hours and you will have a delicious pulled pork dinner waiting to be served up when you get home.

I'd rather be a starving artist than be successful at getting f**ked!

Not my words but a sentiment expressed by Seattle's new rap phenom, Macklemore. I am sure many have written him off already, he is white for a start never a good thing for 'true' hip hop fans. Secondly he has had commercial success with songs like 'Thrift Shop' which may cause some to see he as a pop start sell out. Far from this Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have followed in the steps of Tech N9ne and Krizz Kaliko and put out a hugely successful album on an independent label.

Firstly I love independent stuff; food, bars, restaurants, drinks, clothing, anything that gives the massive corporations a run for their money is a good thing in my eyes. I also love hip hop and don't really care what colour the artist is or where he/she is from so long as they put out good music. 'The Heist' is a great album, you could say it is self indulgence that he has put out purely to deal with his own demons and to promote his recovery. You could say that. Or you could see that this subject matter is already a whole lot deeper than a lot of 'mainstream' rap that you will hear. On top of that Ryan Lewis has done a great job in producing a wide range of tracks from catchy pop hooks to quite dramatic instrumentals and chilled out mellow beats. Macklemore rapping about his relapse from sobriety is no different than a certain Mr Mathers who gave us three albums worth of substance abuse (Encore high, Relapse flushing them out, Recovery as it says it the tin!). However, there is more to it than this. People will write off 'Same Love' but the message is amazingly positive and 'Wings' is a fantastic ode to the perils of consumerism, Macklemore commented via his own blog on the song:

"The song “Wings” is about the pursuit of identity through the means of consumerism. The attempt is to dissect our infatuation and attachment to logos, labels, brands and the fleeting happiness that is intrinsically linked to the almighty power of the purchase."
This brings us onto the track 'Jimmy Iovine' (from which I stole the title of this post) a story of Macklemore's desperation to get signed before realising the truth behind it.

"Now I'm sorry, I've had along day, remond me now what your name is?
That's right, Macklemore, of course... today has been crazy
Anyway, you ready? We'll give you a $100,000
After your album comes out, we'll need back that money you borrowed"
"So it's really like a loan?"
"A loan, Come on, no. We're a team 360 degrees, we will reach your goals!
We'll get a third of the merch that you sell out on the road.
Along with a third of the money you make when you're doing shows,
Manager gets twenty, booking agent gets ten,
So shit, after taxesm you and Ryan have 7% to split.
That's not bad, I've seen a lot worse.
No one will give you a better offer than us."

Don't overlook these guys just because 'Thrift Shop' blew up on You Tube with the kiddies, there's a lot more to it than that (and even that song has to be given credit, not just a highly catchy hook but a great line about R Kelly's bedsheets).

Variety is most definitely the spice of Bristol Life

It is officially 'hump day'. After this it is cruising toward another weekend and on top of that it is the start of a new month, which means we have recently been paid. What better way to celebrate these small victories than tearing yourself away from Netflix, getting out of the house and meeting up with some friends? Two places you may want to check out our The Stable and The Beer Emporium.

The Stable's original advertising was a pretty straightforward piece of marketing by any one's standards. A big poster/banner and an A board with three words. Pizza, pies, cider. Sounded good to me when I received it sent as a picture message from a friend. The details of this simplistic venture are as follows. Set up a small network of eateries across the South West from Bridport to Bristol. Offer a tasty range of pies and pizza's utilising local suppliers and products served up with a plethora of ciders. Simplicity itself. On top of that you get the reassurance that the organic sour dough bases are hand made rather than mass produced and the menu changes across the four locations due to the locally sourced produce. So far so good.

The pizzas come served up on large boards with a pizza slice to cut your own, this was somewhat problematic for some of my fellow diners but I can't for the life of me explain why. Super thin and crispy bases topped with Bath Pig Co. chorizo, long horn ground beef, goats cheese and even hazelnuts (this was not all on one pizza) went down extremely well. This was aided by a 5 1/3 pint tasting board of ciders (£7.50). This is an ever changing selection from; Bridgefarm Dry, Severn Cider Med/sweet, Severn Cider Perry, Orchard Pig Explorer, Orchard Pig Navel Gazer, Joe’s Purbeck Med/sweet, Joe’s Purbeck Dry, Joe’s Purbeck Perry, Burrow Hill Dry, Ashridge Cider Med/dry, Ashridge Cider Blush, Lyme Bay Scrumpy, Lyme Bay Vintage Jack Ratt, Dorset Draft, Dorset Draft Single Variety Dabinet, Somerset Glory Medium, Westons Old Rosie, Westons Traditional, Burrow Hill Half ‘n’ Half, Bee Sting Pear Cider, Lilley’s Fire Dancer, Copper Press and Sandford Orchard.

Food and cider apart the place has a really lively vibe to it. It is certainly not the place to take a first date because it is exactly the right place to make a bit of a pig of yourself and over indulge. A great venue for groups though some confusion did arise as we were told we could not make a reservation with a group under 8, yet when we got to the venue the doorman was less than helpful as we did not have a reservation! Once this was sorted out however, the food and drink came to around £45 per couple and we left very full and a little tipsy. On to The Beer Emporium. 

I may have mentioned in a previous post (http://shaftosgoodthings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/bands-beers-and-breweries.html) I am quite the fan of craft ales, even the telegraph is talking about them at the moment. It has then been a long time coming that I dragged some people along to Bristol's new Beer Emporium. This is no ordinary bar with a couple of extra 'guest ales'. This place takes that term to a whole new level. The range on draft alone was impressive, the Portobello Porter a particular highlight, but the bottled menu was crazy. 

Split across the USA, Belgium and the UK this place showcases the best of beer drinking more extensively than anywhere I have seen in a very long while. As always bottled beers appear less cost effective than draught, but here you are not paying for packaging and brands that have all been made in the same factory in Burton on Trent, you are paying for a quality product that you probably have never tasted before. 

The setting is equally as interesting as the menu, using an old storage facility for wines built in the 1860's, the vaulted ceilings adding to the atmosphere. The room is expansive and there are plenty of tables, nevertheless at around 9.30pm when we arrived it was near full. 

If you are serious about your beer drinking I would highly recommend giving this place a try. Even if you are not then you can't go too far wrong with a pale ale or even an Orchard Pig cider (it is in Bristol after all). There is a British Tapas menu if your peckish and live music and quizzes throughout the week. Overall, it seems whether your a cider drinker or beer swiller Bristol has got a hell of a lot to offer.