Haven't tried Kummel since I was in my twenties so it must be, oooh, nearly ten years ago and my recollection is that it was very sweet, yes?
Mind you, I find most liqueurs a bit on the sweet side, so not ruling it out.

In the African and Caribbean French colonies, it was always frowned upon for caucasian men to fraternise with the local women. All it usually took was a session on absinthe to put such reservations to one side. Hence the phrase:

Absinthe makes the dark grow blonder

That's what your mouth tastes like in the morning after a heavy session on kummel - It's called Wolfschmidt. Love Kummel

Personnaly don't bother with the sugar with Pontarlier just water and ice.

Another blast from my past: Fernet Branca.

On a holiday in Benalmadena, I used to frequent a bar for my breakfast which usualy consisted of a bloody mary and a cheese & ham toastie. The morning after a particularly heavy session, I rocked up and declined my usual brekkie, in fact all I really wanted to do was crawl back to bed. The barman sensed my problems and offered his personal solution:

He filled a 12oz highball glass with ice then poured a 3rd of Pernod, a 3rd of Fernet Branca and topped it up with spring water. I was instructed to stand and drink it in one. I did as instructed, it tasted foul but apart from one brief moment when I thought the sluice gates would open at both ends, after about two minutes i felt fine again.So sat down and he brought me my usual breakfast.

A decent chilled Fino always goes down well as does a white port again chilled.

Pretty much the same here – well, a pescatarian, at any rate.



Absolutely agree.



Not even proper mayo anyway.



Nice stuff. Also great as an alternative to using white wine at the base of a risotto.



On the basis of how Rick Stein pronounces it: noir-lee pratt.

Indeed they do, and so many people are missing out on the dry white lightness of a chilled Fino, which is the absolute opposite of the sweet and sticky brown "grannie's drink" image that persists around sherry.

When I have a Fino, it's almost always Tio Pepe, available just about everywhere but no worse for that.

However, on a trip to explore the sherry triangle of Jerez, Sta Maria and Sanlucar de Barrameda a few years ago (preceded by London, Paris, Perpignan for t'match, Barcelona and Cadiz, all by train), I became an unshakeable fan of Manzanilla sherry, which is made only in Sanlucar.
It's "softer" than a Fino but with a slightly deeper flavour and still very refreshing, fabulous outdoors when the heat of the sun dips in the early evening, with a short procession of little plates of tapas before moving on to a restaurant for dinner.

Also before or after dinner, a darker but dry Oloroso sherry is delicious.
All the complex richness you'd expect of a darker sherry but dry and still light.

One thing for anyone who doesn't know ... a bottle of sherry should be treated like wine, once opened you can't cork it up again and save it for months and expect it to still taste fine.
It's often sold in half bottles for that reason.

They should be sold with crown corks as seals.

Someone once bought me a "wine saver", a device that you put into a bottle of wine an pump out as much air in the ullage space as possible. They couldn't understand my quizzical look and the simple question: "why?" It resided, unopened and unused in the "cupboard under the sink" until I parted with it at a car boot sale

And as for a chilled Banyuls – red or white – lovely.

When La Senora and I were (a lot) younger, we once bought a very large bottle of what I can only describe as cheapo "party" wine, the sort of stuff you'd only (inadvertently) order by the carafe in a pizza parlour.
The lady behind the counter told us that, if we put the cork(*) back in, it would keep for up to a week.
La Senora and I looked at each other utterly nonplussed, the words "bollox to that" implied but unspoken.

EDIT : It's coming back to me now ... there was no cork, she actually advised us that screw tops were great because you can put the top back on and it will keep.

Not just left-over wine ... but left-over food too.
I was puzzled watching Nigel Slater describing what to do with leftover lamb ... he went to his fridge and extracted a joint of lamb of about a couple of kilos to chop up for a shepherd's pie.
Sorry Nige, if I've got any roast lamb left, it won't be enough for a shepherd's pie.

Only tried the red, in Perpignan (of course ).
I always like to try local stuff wherever I am, it's part of the point of going to places, whether in this country or abroad.
Liked it but haven't seen it here.

I have a new bottle of Booth's own-brand Manzanilla chillin' in the fridge.
I may report back on the quality later.