[Rainey]

Who knew there were "levels"?!? I did read at Christmas that they were introducing a new more highly refinded edition in The States. I wanted to try it and tracked some down. It was over $100 for the bottle. Too expensive for me to experiment with.

I wish they'd introduce smaller sized bottles but the distributor said they only come along eventually if the product works out and finds a market. Seems backward to me -- people can afford not to like OR to fall in love with a few ounces. I can even afford to fall in love with or be utterly disappointed with a full bottle of $30-40 liqueur. But at $100 I'll never know because I'll never get to try it in the first place.

[Barbara]

I have not tried the Navan but I'm sure it would be very nice.

Justme - The GM Jaune was made specifically for certain markets and not available world wide.

Dawna - I like the GM Centenaire which was produced to celebrate the 100 year annniversary of the company. Regular GM contains cognac aged up to 6 years, the Centenaire has cognacs aged up to 25 years and the Cent Cinquantenaire (150 anniversary) uses cognac aged up to 50 years.

The GM website is at http://www.grandmarnier.com/ and has cocktail recipes posted.

The Casa Lapostelle wines from South America are also part of the GM family.
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Barbara

[Sarape]

Just saw that Emirl Live tonight on The Food Network has an hour on Tapas. I don't have a home TV, so I won't be watching.

Hate to promote the pompous Emirl, but all in the name of cooking.
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' She says, 'I am the glamorous type.' I said, 'So what?'

[Feste]

All right, I will put my two cents in about GM & Cointreau:
I love GM for sipping, but unless it is a featured ingredient in a cocktail, like a cadillac margarita or a Beautiful (shudder), I find it too rich as just an ingredient. In a Cosmo, I find it competes with the fresh lime and weighs down the body of the drink. I am clearly highly opinionated about this, but I am a bartender, so it goes with the territory, I suppose.

And about tapas:
As Simona discussed, they are part of Spanish culture. The style of eating is very attractive: the portions are not huge, you can share with friends without inviting the ire of the server and kitchen for splitting plates, and you get to try lots of different things. Once people started getting comfortable with this style of dining, more and more restaurants noticed customers ordering several appetizers and sharing them as their meals rather than the prescribed formula of appetizer-entree-dessert, and the restaurants started trying to appeal to this desire. Tapas places began springing up, but then, (and this is what hairs me out), all kinds of restaurants started serving small plates and calling them tapas! In San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, we have more tapas places than I can count, because "tapas" sounds better than "small plates." I mean seriously, Asian tapas? French tapas? Mexican tapas? Come on! Call it "small plates" and quit appropriating other cultures already!

All right, that's my diatribe for the day. Thanks for putting up with my rant.

[Chicago Bear]

Feste, since you're a bartender, you'll appreciate this. Last weekend we had friends over, and started the evening with mojitos. I picked fresh mint from our backyard, mashed it up with sugar to make a paste, enfused it into the rum and fresh squeezed lime juice overnight, strained it and poured it over ice with club soda, and the effect was magic. I want to tell you about fresh mint and fresh lime juice in an alcoholic beverage. We ate dinner about an hour later than planned as a result. I'm wondering how it would taste with a darker rum, and I aim to find out.
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The goal is to fit it all in.

[Feste]

Bear,

Sounds delicious! I've never tried a mojito with dark rum, but one of my favorite cocktails is a simple daiquiri with aged rum (my current favorite is Pampero Anejo Aniversario), fresh lime juice and simple syrup, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass. Mmm.. aged rum...

The restaurant I work at puts a tiny drop of bitters into their mojitos, and it adds a complexity that is quite nice.

Enjoy the summer while it lasts!