Datz 2011 Holiday Gift GuideTry not to drool on your keyboard while perusing through our holiday gift guide! To view gift descriptions, simply click on the picture to reveal more information. Happy Holidays!
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Leader of the FlockWould you drink a whisky called “Sheep Dip?” How about one called “Pig’s Nose?”
Sheep Dip has a good tasting rating – the name comes from the traditional nickname Scottish farmers give to homemade whisky. Pig’s Nose comes from the farming expression “soft as a pig’s nose” and has a mellow quality that comes together in a “muddy way.” These revived product names are being very proactive in using digital and social media to get the word out, appearing on various blogs and even Flickr. They also have a Facebook group called Sheep Dip Fold. Sheep Dip used to be a best selling whiskey at Harrod’s and its relegation to obscurity probably has more to do with the vagaries of global whisky marketing than anything else. Datz may not be Harrod’s just yet, but you can certainly sample the iconic Animal Farm seven days a week at the bar, or grab a bottle or two to share with fellow friends sharing a trough. The point here is that when it comes to reviving a brand name there is more than one way to skin a cat, or dip a sheep. About Sheep Dip About Pig’s Nose |
Chateau Jiahu – Beer as Time Capsule
“We don’t have just a wine or a beer or a mead, but we have like a combination of all three,” says Molecular Archeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – the man who went digging for pottery in Henan Province, Northern China and found this instead. The preserved pottery jars that McGovern unearthed revealed a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit. Using some fancy science that you can read about here and here, he was able to extract the recipe from that pottery and Dogfish Head Brewery, in keeping with their extreme posture on beer, actually brewed it! |
Restaurant Week is here!Bust out your elastic-waist pants and bring your and appetite to Datz for Tampa Bay’s Restaurant Week 2011. This two-week promotion, which runs from Friday, August 19 to Friday, September 2, provides those of us foodies with an opportunity to savor an array of specially priced three-course meals (we’re offering 5!) from some of the Bay area’s finest eateries. Prices vary by restaurant ($25, $35 or $45) and exclude beverages, tax and gratuity.
Although the menu you at Datz is so diverse you could eat here for at least a week, you may want to check out some other local favorites. |
Skip the juice… Eat chocolate for breakfast!
Dark chocolate and cocoa have more anti-oxidant capacity and more heart-healthy flavanols than fruit juice, according to a recent study in the Chemistry Central Journal. The study, conducted by the Hershey Co., compared cocoa powder and products with fruit-based powders and juices. Cocoa came out ahead on the anti-oxidant scale over blueberry, cranberry and pomegranate powder. The differences between pomegranate juice and dark chocolate weren’t significant, researchers found. Still, dark chocolate trumped other juices in the anti-oxidant test. “Cocao seeds should be considered a ‘superfruit’ and products derived from cocao seed extracts, such as natural cocoa powder and dark chocolate, as ‘superfoods,’” the researchers said. But chocolate milk fans, beware: The health perks don’t necessarily extend to this childhood staple. Nor does it apply to hot cocoa mix. When looking for a sweet snack, a single dark chocolate truffle from William Dean or Knipschildt might, in fact, be your healthiest choice. Hallelujah! |
‘Wich Craft
Everyone has a favorite sandwich, whether it’s mom’s homemade grilled cheese, a leftover Dagwood pulled together from kitchen scraps or a mile-high hoagie. Inspired by Saveur magazine’s April sandwich issue, Datz has decided that we want to know what you think is the best thing since sliced bread. So, here’s the deal: Create a recipe for your own ideal sandwich, take the best photo you can (this is as much a photo contest as a recipe contest!) and then email the photo and recipe to heather@datztampa.com. Up to six semi-finalists will be picked by the Datz culinary team in the next issue of Datz4Foodies (coming in June), after which you will have the opportunity to vote on your favorite. The winner – who will be announced via facebook on June 30 – will have his or her sandwich recipe featured on the summer lunch menu, and the photo featured on the website and newspaper! |
The Boys of Bourbon
Evan Williams is considered Kentucky’s first distiller, according to legend, said Veach. Williams set up his stills on the banks of the Ohio River in Louisville in 1783. Evan Williams bourbon is produced today by Heaven Hill Distillery in Nelson County. Rev. Elijah Craig was a late-1700s Baptist preacher, teacher and distiller, often (but erroneously) credited as the inventor of bourbon whiskey, Veach said. Craig had plenty of other firsts, however, such as forming in 1787 the first classical school in Kentucky, where scholars could learn Greek and Latin (it is today’s Georgetown College); building the state’s first cloth-manufacturing mill; building its first paper mill; and starting its first ropewalk to make hemp rope. Today, Elijah Craig bourbon is from Heaven Hill Distillery. Bourbon County claims the honor of invention, again by legend, Veach said, noting that by the time the county formed in 1785, there were dozens upon dozens of small farmer-distillers making a corn-based whiskey that came to be called “bourbon” after the county. Henry McKenna is another important early name. He brought his family’s whiskey recipe with him from Ireland in 1837 and, when he settled in Fairfield, Ky., founded a distillery, said Veach, adapting his recipe to local grain, especially corn. His 1855 product, billed as “Kentucky’s Finest Table Whiskey,” is still made today as Henry McKenna from Heaven Hill Distillery. J.T.S. Brown was the older brother by 20 years of bourbon great George Gavin Brown of the Louisville-based Brown-Forman wine-and-spirits corporation that started making bourbon in 1870. Moviegoers may know “J.T.S. Brown” from the patter between “Fast Eddie” Felson and “Minnesota Fats” in the movie “The Hustler,” where Fats calls for White Tavern whiskey, with a glass and some ice, and Eddie (Paul Newman) asks for “J.T.S. Brown. No ice. No glass.” You can get J.T.S. Brown from Heaven Hill, which is named for early Kentucky distiller William Heavenhill, who owned a Nelson County farm and let the printer’s mistake stand when his first labels were issued, Veach said. Old Forester is another name with a change over time. This famed Brown-Forman product is named after Dr. William Forrester of Louisville, a renowned Civil War physician, who endorsed the bourbon that young George Gavin Brown was clever enough to distribute only by the bottle, rather than from the barrel, said Veach. A barrel of whiskey could and, indeed, often did become an altered product, and since liquor was a major sedative, doctors complained about the uneven quality of whiskey by the jug. Brown put his bourbon in a bottle and added a handwritten label of assurance. Veach said Brown is sometimes mistakenly believed to be the first to bottle bourbon. That honor likely goes to E.G. Booz, a 19th-century Philadelphia distiller who sold whiskey in bottles, but stopped because the handmade bottles were so expensive. The first bottle-making machine was not patented until 1904. Old Forester is touted as the only bourbon in existence today that has been sold continuously for more than a century, including during the Prohibition years of 1919 to 1933, when alcohol sales were otherwise illegal in the United States. The distillery received one of only 10 government permits to produce whiskey for medicinal purposes. Basil Hayden Sr. moved from Maryland to Nelson County, Ky., in 1785. His bourbon was created with more rye than most, Veach said, and his taste was honored by his grandson’s creation of Old Grand-Dad, now produced by Jim Beam along with four different “Basil Hayden’s” varieties. That recipe, if not the whiskey production, dates to 1796. Col. James B. Beam is the man behind the Jim Beam label, which appeared in 1933 to honor the man who rebuilt the distillery after Prohibition. The original distillery was founded in 1795 by Jacob Boehm, who produced Old Jake Beam Sour Mash from the distillery known as Old Tub. Although the Beam and Noe families are still involved, Jim Beam Distillery is owned by Beam Global Spirits & Wine, which is owned by Fortune Brands of Deerfield, Ill. Frederick Booker Noe II is the name behind Booker Noe’s, a bourbon named for the grandson of distiller Jim Beam. Noe was a master distiller, and his Booker’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey helped spark the flagging bourbon business, said Veach, when it was eroding due to the new popularity of gin and vodka in the ’60s and ’70s. He created a new market around 1988 for small-batch bourbons straight from the barrel. Elmer T. Lee, a master distiller emeritus at Buffalo Trace, helped create the first single-barrel — in the modern sense — bourbon, said Veach. Lee developed the Elmer T. Lee label that apparently has no age requirement, but is bottled when Lee deems appropriate. Sibling brands at Buffalo Trace include Eagle Rare and Blanton’s. Pappy Van Winkle is the man behind Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve and other Van Winkle bourbons now produced in a joint venture with Buffalo Trace. Julian P. “Pappy” Van Winkle Sr. was a traveling salesman for William LaRue Weller and Sons wholesale liquors in Louisville. Pappy and Alex Farnsley (father of former Louisville Mayor Charlie Farnsley) bought that business and Stitzel Distillery and merged the two into Stitzel-Weller Distillery in south Louisville. Their brands include W.L. Weller, Old Fitzgerald and Rebel Yell — which was named by Charlie Farnsley as a marketing device to Civil War buffs. Pappy Van Winkle was succeeded by son Julian Jr., who sold the distillery in 1972, retaining one pre-Prohibition label, Old Rip Van Winkle. He and his son, Preston Van Winkle, create a “wheated” bourbon that does not use rye, Veach said. W. L. Weller is a distilling great with a long and important business history, but his biggest contribution, said Veach, may have been continuing the recipe of Arthur Philip Stitzel, using wheat rather than rye. The brand named after Weller and variations on it are currently made at Buffalo Trace Distillery. T. W. Samuels founded a family occupation when he started a distillery in 1844 at Samuels Depot, Ky., which is where William Clark Quantrill brought his band of Confederate irregulars — including Samuels’ stepsons, Jesse and Frank James — to raid at the close of the Civil War. The Samuels distillery shut down during Prohibition. When great-, great-, great-grandson Bill Samuels Sr. got out of the Navy, he sold the business in 1943 and began to revise the bourbon recipe, said Veach. His wife, Marge, came up with the name Maker’s Mark and the distinctive red wax seal. The first bottles of Maker’s Mark bourbon came out in 1958. Bill Samuels Jr. became CEO in 1975. Today, Maker’s Mark is owned by Beam Global Spirits and Wine Co. and T.W. Samuels brand is owned by Heaven Hill. - Diane Heilenman, Louisville Courier-Journal via Louisville MetroMix |
Help Your Favorite Man Win!Support one of Tampa’s leading men—and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society—next week. On April 13, Saks and blu present Tampa’s Ten Leading Men. Our neighbor, Michael Murphy of Michael Murphy Galleries, will be strutting his stuff on the runway to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Support Michael by buying a ticket in his name. You’ll not only be supporting a wonderful local businessman and a fantastic charity, but you’ll also get a goodie bag filled with fabulous swag in exchange for your purchase – including a free drink coupon redeemable at Datz! Now that’s Datz-tastic. Here’s how to sign up:
Tickets are limited, so act fast!! If Michael sells the most tickets, all the proceeds will go to his selected charity, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. |
Cheese? Yes Please! For a Billboard? Maybe…Now we at Datz certainly love our cheese, but one advertising firm may have taken dairy just a bit too far! Check out this billboard made of, you guessed it, cheese! |
Hold Your Nose, and Thank the Monks!There is only a slight difference between B.epidermis, the bacteria found on cloistered regions of the human body, and Brevibacterium linens, found on the skin of a washed-rind cheese. At least when it comes to aroma. So why then do we trust and enjoy, a cheese that smells like body odor, but not body odor per se? For enthusiasts of washed-rind cheese, its bodily odor activates our “cheese pheromones.” Indeed, the cheeses with the funkiest smell ((i.e. Epoisses, Taleggio, Cowgirl Creamery’s Red Hawk, all of which are available at Datz, by the way) often have the sweetest centers that melt like a dream. Their earthy funk adds flair to mild foods, and as they cook, the silkier ones form a sauce that coats food in a film of smooth, creamy luxury. These are cheeses that inspire cooks. You can thank the monks for this lovely discovery. During the Middle Ages, Trappist monks in Europe began rubbing the beer and spirits for which their establishments were celebrated on their cheeses to keep the rinds from cracking. The fact that the practice only made the cheese more delicious was simply fortuitous. Because washed rinds were traditionally Trappist cheeses, it is not surprising that they pair well with beer. The monks who make these cheeses are also master brewers and would naturally want their two creations to taste good together. I like them best with Trappist beers, but they go well with Belgian beers in general, whose slight sweetness plays off the flavors in the washed rind’s interior. Pairing with wine is simple, too. Aromatic whites are generally the way to go. Off-dry Gewurztraminers, Rieslings and lightly oaked Viogniers work like Belgian beers to highlight the cheese’s sweetness. If the cheese is European, it goes especially well with the wines of the region. Epoisses loves pinot noirs and chardonnays from the Burgundy area where it grew up, for example. So hold your nose if you must, but try not to judge a cheese by its odor. If it’s too strong for you on its own, try easing into a good washed rind with a recipe that incorporates it into a classic dish. Like grilled cheese, for instance. In honor of Grilled Cheese Month (April), we present the following recipe: Tallegio Grilled Cheese with Caramelized Onions and Arugula. In this sandwich, melted Taleggio makes one of the creamiest grilled cheeses you will ever taste. Offset by the sweetness of the caramelized onions and peppery arugula, the flavors are perfectly balanced. The crunch offered by country wheat and walnut bread only sweetens the deal.
Makes 2 sandwiches
Directions:
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