Potluck 2/26: The Wine-al Countdown

Mike, the man who can always be counted on to bring a 12 pack of beer or an extra-large bottle of wine, hosted the last potluck in February. In typical Mike style, he came up with a potluck theme that combined scientific rigor with a love for wine: an old fashioned wine-tasting. We brought bottles of wine, put them in paper bags, and then numbered them, so we could taste unencumbered by the knowledge of the quality of the wine or who brought it.

There was also food, of course. A delicious lentil dish, a cheesy tuna bake, pasta with homemade pesto, spicy cheesy potatoes, and a bourbon apple cinnamon bundt cake (which was my contribution). My cake was tasty enough, but really nothing special. And I didn't adequately butter the bundt pan, and when I tried to un-bundt it, it broke apart. So we ate it from the bundt pan. I can assure you, it was much better that way. Did I mention the bourbon glaze that got poured over it? I guess it was a little special. I got my recipe from The Kitchen Sink, and you can go there if you want the cake recipe. But let me just give you the glaze recipe, for pouring over whatever you want to taste like bourbon. Mmm.

Bourbon Glaze
from The Kitchen Sink

Shake a scant 1 cup confectioners sugar and 2 Tbsp water in a mason jar to mix. Add 1 or 2 Tbsp good quality bourbon. Shake some more. Pour over cake, ice cream, poached fruit, or just into your mouth.

But back to the wine... here were the rules. Pour yourself a small (or large) cup of wine. Remember the number on the paper bag you poured from. Drink wine. If you are a true connoisseur, make mental notes on the flavor profile and think long and hard about what rating (between 0 and 10, with one decimal place allowed) you should give the wine. Write your rating in the row next to the wine number you drank. If you're just a regular person, sip wine, swish it around in your mouth, and pick a random number that may or may not correlate to the actual tastiness of the wine. Write said number in the correct row.

I personally only found a few wines that inspired either praise or serious dislike. Otherwise I went more with the "pick a number" method. There was plenty of good conversation, so it was also common for people to forget what number wine they just tried. What I'm saying is, that it wasn't a perfectly scientific study. But it sure was fun.

Near the end of the night, Gabriel took a calculator and tallied scores. Mike had provided prizes for the best wine, and for the best value wine (the wine with the highest score to price ratio). It should be noted that ratings of "i" and "pi" were disqualified for being imaginary and irrational, respectively. The rating, "ASS," was counted as a 0.

Katie and Kevin won the Best Value award, with their wine, Green Fin White Wine, at a price of $3.99 at Trader Joe's. Here is Katie accepting their prize, a princess bubble kit! (Yay!)

Gabriel's wine won the Best Overall award. He brought an Ulrich Langguth Riesling. Here we are accepting his prize of a scary inflatable pig punching balloon. It was truly scary, so I have spared you all by not posting pictures of it. It should be noted that Gabriel also brought the worst wine: Zarafa Sauvignon Blanc. Apparently, a giraffe on the bottle does not a good wine make. If you can decipher Gabriel's handwriting, here are the full results:

Potluck 1/28 - Peaches!

The theme for the last potluck in January was "Travel." I had flown in from a research collaboration trip earlier that Thursday, and was only hosting because no one else had volunteered. I had a new Peruvian cookbook, so I decided to try making Arroz con Leche, or rice pudding. I had rice, but needed condensed and evaporated milk, an orange, and some port. So I went out to my car, turned the key, and... sighed in frustration. The bitter cold had agitated my finicky car battery, and my car wouldn't start. I called Gabriel and he agreed to pick up the food items at the new campus area grocery store while I went to a nearby liquor store for port.

I followed the directions, but felt that there was not enough rice for the prescribed amount of liquid. So I turned up the heat and figured I'd boil it away. Silly me: condensed milk+too hot pan+stepping away to put out dishes=terrible burnt milk smell. I rushed to the stove, turned off the gas, and started frantically stirring. Of course, that aggravated the problem, as I was now mixing liquidy (but unburnt) rice pudding with the horribly burnt stuff. I transferred the pudding to another pan, skimming out the blackened bits, and hoped someone would bring a better dessert. I was in luck: Geoffrey brought flourless chocolate cake (hallelujah!), and we also had salad and stuffed shells to round out the meal.

Now you're probably looking at this picture, thinking, "But Andi, I don't see anything like cake or salad or stuffed shells. All I see is beer!" I swear we did eat, but the talk of the party was really the beer. Mike brought this Audacious Apricot Ale, that we happily drank. I used to like a good fruity beer, but now I usually don't. Except for this one. It was delicious, and some of us began to wax eloquent about it. "It tastes like sitting on a porch, sipping something cool, on a warm summer evening after a hard day of work outdoors," I said. Lana said it reminded her of sitting in a field, eating a picnic consisting of small bites of different foods. Carlos was perhaps less of a fan, saying that it made him think of asking for the barkeep's recommendation, and then being disappointed. Mike was reminded of the first time he tried this particular beer, standing in the circle of a beer-tasting club, sipping beers and describing them. When Ed was asked what he thought of when he drank the beer, he replied, "Peaches!"

We've had the beer again since then, but not the rice pudding. Take from that what you will...

Thanks Mike for introducing us to such a conversation-sparking beer!