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In 1935, the United Kingdom Bartenders' Guild opened a club at Old Compton Street, Soho. For this merry occasion they held a cocktail contest, which wasn't unusual, since they seemed to hold one every year. However, the winner of this cocktail competition would have their cocktail named the Donegall, in honour of Edward Chichester, 6th Marquess of Donegall, who would be attending the ribbon cutting at the new club.
After preparing all of my test solutions on a, sunny, Saturday afternoon, I decided that a beautiful Tuesday evening was perfect to spend in the lab, the same lab I spent all day in. But the effort was for a good cause, which was to answer the nagging question: Does Grey Goose Contain Glycerol? It's one of those questions that people have debated for a long time, but as far as I can tell, nobody has ever tried to answer scientifically. Today, you will get an answer, but as with any scientific endeavour, we need to look at the results and decide what they really mean.
The people who market vodka are ripe with praise for their product. The machismo from these companies is enough to make Kim Jong-il blush. With a large enough marketing budget, you can create any image you want, and Grey Goose was the first vodka company to prove it. They made an unaged, technologically simple spirit into an ultra premium, must have product. The down side of making a very simple product, and charging twice as much, is the need to justify the price to the drinker. To do that the marketing types came up with complex stories of water, technology and grain. They also blathered on about purity. So here's the question: Is vodka as pure as virgin snow, or is it a hooker dressed in a school girl uniform?
Summer has finally arrived where I live, so I’ve been enjoying it, which means less posts. But don’t worry I have a couple of big projects up my sleeve, so expect to see one in about a month. For now the slides for the Drinks from the 1600’s session are now available. The file is a hefty 14MB, because of the large number of images, so be patient.
