Wine Saver

If you like wine, but don’t want to finish the entire bottle each time you open it, check out the 3-botle wine saver. I have fiddled around with several different type of caps and corks, but none of them really seem to prolong the life of a bottle of wine once it has been opened. The reason is because the wine comes into contact with oxygen. If you want to prolong the shelf-life of wine, you have to remove the oxygen. That is what the wine saver does. It replaces the dispensed wine with argon, an inert gas that does not interact with the wine.

Sweet Comfort – Southern Style

Firefly Sweet Tea Flavored Vodka

While spending a little time in the “Low Country,” I was recently introduced to a new beverage. Firefly (not to be confused with the other beverage “Southern Comfort”) is distilled and bottled in South Carolina. It is an infusion of American Tea and Firefly Vodka to bring together Firefly Sweet Tea Flavored Vodka (70 proof). Drink it over plenty of ice, with a squeeze or two of lemon. All of the comforts of the south, with a nice little kick!

Firefly Vodka is located on Wadmalaw Island, thirty miles South of Charleston, South Carolina. This Charleston based distillery grew from a locally known product to a nationally recognized brand. The company currently produces a Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, Firefly Muscadine Vodka and soon to hit the shelves: Firefly Hand Crafted Vodka, Firefly Peach Vodka and Firefly Coffee Vodka. Products are currently available in South Carolina, Colorado, New York, and Nevada. Firefly Distillery is the largest producing distillery in South Carolina.

Red Wine May Slow Aging

Red Wine Lover, originally uploaded by LollyKnit.

Studies now show what I have believed for some time…

Red wine may slow aging. But stay tuned, because I think that you’ll see additional studies in the near future that show Vodka to enhance everyone’s appearance!

This is from the New York Times. I’ll be doing some additional research on my own and report back to you in twenty years to let you know how things are going. You may want to bookmark this site.

Here’s the link
“Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

The report is part of a new wave of interest in drugs that may enhance longevity. On Monday, Sirtris, a startup founded in 2004 to develop drugs with the same effects as resveratrol, completed its sale to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

Sirtris is seeking to develop drugs that activate protein agents known in people as sirtuins.

“The upside is so huge that if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine,” Dr. David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of the company, said Tuesday.

Serious scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs, but the door has now been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

Top 10 French Wines

Although the euro is working against us, I have found myself turning more and more to French wines in the past few months. Listed here are 10 that I have particularly enjoyed.

read more | digg story

Channeling the Spirit of Zinlightenment…

Cocktail, originally uploaded by kspoddar.

In Atlanta?

Next time you have an overnight layover in the ATL or if you’re a local… you should checkout the Sutra Lounge. Rated in the Top-100 clubs by Nightclub & Bar, Sutra Lounge is sophisticated, stylish and seductive.

Weekend Beer Suggestions

Adventure is the spirit of Zinlightenment. So why not try out a new beer? Selecting a new beer in the cooler section of your local grocery store is an exercise in marketing. Not good taste. Don’t know where to start? Head on over to Beer Suggest. From their website, ” Beer Suggest is a niche wiki/social community for beer lovers. You can read more about this website in the about section. After you’ve read what the site is about feel free to register an account.”

A Visit from the Green Fairy

Absinthe (a.k.a The Green Fairy)

I firmly believe that different types of alcoholic beverages produce different effects. I have tried most of your everyday bar libations and have become rather bored by them. From the fancy mass marketed vodkas, to the new fancy mass marketed tequilas… blah, blah, blah. Upon returning from a visit to the U.K., a friend turned me on to Absinthe. Entranced by it’s calming effect (the best way that I can describe it is that it feels like your floating in the deep end of a swimming pool) I searched everywhere… to no avail.

I soon found out that it could not be imported into the US. Recently, laws have changed and certain types of Absinthe can be imported. That’s when I discovered Lucid.

On the Lucid website is also a brief but interesting history of Absinthe.

Unique is Zinlightened.

~Zin

According to Wikipedia, “Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic (45%-75% ABV), anise-flavored spirit derived from herbs, including the flowers and leaves of the herb Artemisia absinthium, also called “wormwood.” Absinthe is typically of a natural green color but is also produced in both clear and artificially colored styles. It is often called “the Green Fairy.”

Although it is sometimes mistakenly called a liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a liquor.^[1] Absinthe is unusual among spirits in that it is bottled at a high proof but is normally diluted with water when it is drunk.

Absinthe originated in Switzerland. However, it is better known for its popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Due in part to its association with bohemian culture, absinthe was opposed by social conservatives and prohibitionists. Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, and Aleister Crowley were all notorious “bad men” of that day who were (or were thought to be) devotees of the Green Fairy.

Absinthe was portrayed as a dangerously addictive, psychoactive drug. The chemical thujone, present in small quantities, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915 absinthe had been banned in the United States and in most European countries except the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although absinthe was vilified,^[2] no evidence has shown it to be any more dangerous than ordinary liquor. Its psychoactive properties, apart from those of ethanol, have been much exaggerated.

A revival of absinthe began in the 1990s, when countries in the European Union began to reauthorize its manufacture and sale. As of February 2008, nearly 200 brands of absinthe were being produced in a dozen countries, most notably France, Switzerland, Spain, and the Czech Republic.^[3]“

The proper way to prepare Absinthe