It’s a weird feeling to sit down to write a somewhat negative review. I know several bloggers and vloggers who won’t do it. If a product is bad, or falls beneath a certain threshold, they won’t review it. I can respect that. Especially when it comes to restaurants and such, a bad review can really damage a reputation, and if it is based on only one visit, maybe it’s not even representative. I distinctly remember a very lackluster evening at one of Montreal’s perennial best restaurants. It might have been unfair to judge them on that one off night, though the argument could be made that when you demand a certain (very hefty) price from your customers, you really can’t afford off nights, but I digress. So yeah, speaking ill isn’t chill and all that, plus it feels like trashing somebody else’s dream. That being said, it would not be doing you a favour (all eight of you), to pretend the Snowbird doesn’t have substantial woes to work out, or in corporate-speak “significant opportunity for improvement”. This is all according to my own tastes, of course, most people seem to love the place and it currently rates a 4.6 out of 5 on google. Kids these days…Read more
The mighty mai tai, with mint springs too damn long, newbie mistake.
It’s the middle of winter (don’t let the unseasonable thaw fool you), and maybe you’re getting tired of the white stuff, the grey skies, or perhaps the short cold days have got you down? If that’s the case, I have just the cure for you: it’s mai tai time. Because if you can’t go to the tropics, the tropics can come to you. That the drink was created in a suburb of San Francisco by a man who had never been to the south Pacific is immaterial. Sort of, because maybe it was created by someone who had actually been to Polynesia, and maybe we’re not drinking the right cocktail at all (for several reasons that’s almost a given). Sounds complicated? It is. However, the drink I will encourage you to discover has been described as one of the best rum delivery systems ever invented (along with the daiquiri), and I agree completely. Read more
Perhaps because the Universe has a sense of humour, I suspect it does, I have something of an empirical streak in me. I’ve always been interested in what I drink. Its history, nature, and thus the quest for the best. Not THE BEST as in experts and pundits and lifestyle magazines for men declare, but my best, my favourite I should say. Okay, enough kidding myself, more likely that tendency is just a fancy excuse for trying a lot of different alcohols. I figure it looks a lot less disreputable to be engaged in a exploration of rums and the search for how provenance affects taste, at ten in the morning, than just swilling back a shot in your underwear and making pirate jokes.Read more
I have not posted as much as I like lately and not much about diving. My brain is a little scattered by a new contract, where I’m encountering a steeper learning curve than expected, or perhaps I’m a touch slower than advertised, jury is still out on that, but meh. Also we have not been diving in a while (I’m not ready for ice diving, doubt I will ever be) and most of you already know all of my scuba stories.Read more
I’ve never had any curiosity about Bacardi products. I don’t know if that comes from being turned off by the fluorescent breezer drinks at the grocery store, or the notion that anything produced in such leviathan-like proportions must of necessity be meh at best, and possibly even quite blah. However, after reading a history of the Bacardi family I grew a little intrigued, and I decided to educate myself by making cocktails keeping with Cuban drinkskultur. Please say hello to daiquiri, mojito and of course Cuba libre. For this experiment I chose Bacardi rums from opposite ends of the spectrum.Read more
Scuba diving, quality cocktails, taking it easy and other treasure maps.
