Liqueur.

My wife speaks fluent French and has made sure I spell that correctly. She asked me to describe the difference between liquor and a liqueur. My explanation came in the form of an analogy.

Liquor is to liqueur as water is to tea.

Well… sweetened tea.

Really, really, really, extra, super sugary sweetened tea.

But y’all knew that.

I was just reminded of that particular exchange when I saw a reference to black tea liqueur. Reminds me of Shrimp Scampi, the Sahara Desert or Robbie Robertson.

But that doesn't answer your question, sorry.

Erik, you are under no obligation to send anything to reciprocate the first offering. Consider this a thank you for the recipe and the advice. Plus, this is only a supplemental Liqueur di Noci, something to get us by until season.

We'll talk exchange when I prepare the proper Nocino.

Erik, my black tea liquer (how does one spell that word anyhow?) turned out very well. I will have to make a larger quantity. Would you be interested in trading for some Nocino or Cynar? Also, do you or anyone have a recipe for a hazelnut cordial? I still have close to a liter of everclear with which to work.....

Erik,
I will have you know that in the peasant dialect that I speak we turn vowels into consonants and the reverse, thus Capicola become GABAGOO and Mozarella becomes MOZADEL. This makes Italian both very hard to pronounce and spell. Also, it means I need constant editing.
RAM

Jim,

Sounds great. I would love to try your nocino. Should I send a bottle of limoncino or homemade Cynar in return? My current batch of nocino is undergoing a different aging experiment and will not be ready for another year. If my thinking is straight on this I should have my best batch yet. We'll see. If you would like a bottle of it, I can send it when I get to the bottling, probably in June.

Alicia,

Everything about Ryan in illicit. He's Sicilian and just can't help himself!

As for my excuse, well, I never claimed to be fully fluent in any Low German dialect. Never could undestand why the Englisch chose to abandon good, old-fashioned German. They even imported a German princeling to play king, so they aren't really that anti-German.

German is very easy to spell in. Italian is, too, so long as you do not grow up speaking some peasant dialect that fails to make distinctions between the sound of doubled consonants, as is proper to the language. Those get me every time.

Thank you for helping police my language. I can be very sloppy without external editors threatening me.

Alicia,
I purposefully goof up the words as a means to keep Erik going. Apparently this time it didn't work.
RAM

Ryan - if you choose to use $64 words, please use them carefully. I think you meant elicit (to draw forth) rather than illicit (illegal, unlawful). And Erik, it is singular anchovy, plural anchovies.
I love anchovies in any context.

Nocino test batch completed and results are in....

If Nocino prepared with regular, run-of-the-mill, store bought, already dried out, and still in the shell walnuts is this good - the real stuff is going to blow me away.

I know this has nothing to do with the topic on hand, but I wanted to get back to you all. At last contact, I was planning a test batch with the aforementioned walnuts I happened to have on hand using a recipe I had discovered on the Internet. I only made four bottles of which only one I was planning on keeping. That one (admittedly opened a little early), I have spent the whole week sipping. I was especially pleased with the results, as were my wife and next-door neighbor.

I just started test batch #2. This will produce between 28 and 34 bottles (with the same walnuts) - most probably right about 30. It is the last test before the real batch starting in late June.

I located a small Bed and Breakfast in South Carolina, which has 11 walnut trees. The owners desperately hate cleaning up the fallen walnuts in Autumn - and told me to cart any and all I could pick off the trees in June - FOR FREE!!

My favorite price is free.

Anyhoot, should this last test batch of regular walnuts go well, I'll send 2 bottles your way – one for you and one for the other gentleman - should you want to try it.

Jim Nocito

I should have known that would illicit such a response. You well know that no cheese with fish is the only rule I regard as Iron Clad. It has more to do with me being Japanese then a Mediterranean. I believe firmly that good seafood should be eaten raw, as its delicateness can be truly appreciated when it has not been touched by a flame. Any type of cured dairy product only eliminates the taste of the fish, thus masking the taste of the seafood. For me there is no enhancement of seafood when it is paired with cheese of anykind.
As for the other rules about drinking red wine with fish, etc, you well know that I drink anything, provided it isn't tequilla or vermouth. As alcohol enhances not only the taste of food, but our quality of life.
RAM

Yes, Ryan, it is a basic culinary rule, but not iron-clad. I could pull out Escoffier and nail you bang to rights on several points that you would find outlandish. I could also point out within the same volume several examples of each rule being broken.

It is the same with drinking red wine with fish, red wine with spicy food, any wine with Mexican food, etc. If you follow the prohibition you will certainly preserve yourself from some hideous combinations. However, by being too strict about it you will deny yourself some wonderful ones as well.

By the way, I would like to see some knuckle-scraping Island dweller take his anchovie-laden arrabiata without a glass or red wine! Huh, Muscarelli, have you? Huh?!?

Well,
At least I have gotten you to admit that I follow a basic culinary rule in the kitchen.
RAM

I like an olive tapenade, heavy on the anchovies, layered with Neufchatel and garnished with capers. It is more of a pate kind of thing than an entree, but the color and taste contrast is excellent - oh, and chooed red onions in one layer of the Neufchatel is also a great addition.