Present Joys
“We thank the Lord of heaven and earth
who hath preserved us from our birth
for present joys, for blessings past,
and for the hope of heaven at last.”

Back to blogging

I haven’t regularly posted in over a decade, but as time passes, I realize more and more how much I enjoy documentation. I’ve got a lot going on, but I think it’s worth taking the time to write. It’s a good time to start again.

I had such a great time on Tumblr back in the day, but the community is long gone, and I wanted some more control over my data. So (for the very few who are interested:) I’ve migrated my old Tumblr blog to my own web server. Everything has been moved over to the fantastic Kirby CMS through a painstaking process of web scraping, Perl scripting, and many regex operations. I’m pretty proud of how I’ve been able to transfer my old posts in a way that maintains their original spirit—and even more proud that old hyperlinks should all still work. As you might imagine, I have plenty of things I could have posted about over the past handful of years, and I plan to add some of that content and backdate it, just for purposes of organization.

We had an absolutely dreamy ten years in our home in Clintonville, but for the past few years we’d grown increasingly squeezed-in. After pursuing an expansion project in the form of building a second story on our detached garage and hitting a dead end, last summer we determined a move was necessary. So we ended up with a new house in Columbus’ historic Olde Towne East neighborhood.

Bonebrake is the project of a lifetime. In the posts that follow, I’ll attempt to keep track of what we are doing with it—things small and large. The work never stops.

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Pimento dram

Trying a no sugar grandparent’s delight pimento dram today.

  • 0.335 oz allspice (all I had—approx. 1/8 cup)

  • 2 black peppercorns

  • 0.004 oz cinnamon stick

  • 0.017 oz nutmeg

  • 100 ml Wray & Nephew overproof rum (126 proof)

  • 50 ml Plantation O.F.T.D. rum (138 proof)

  • 50 ml 151-proof spirit

Artichoke infusions

In today’s installment of no sugar grandparent’s delight, I’m trying some artichoke infusions.

Carciofo is Italian for “artichoke”, and also “artichoke liqueur”, I think. There isn’t much about how to make artichoke infusions at home on the English internet, but I found some Italian YouTube videos and lots of web pages in Italian that gave me some tips. It’s pretty easy.

I’m doing artichoke infusions because I keep Cynar on my bar and like it a lot, and Cynar is purportedly a carciofo. It’s clearly got more botanicals than just artichoke, though. In an attempt to figure out Cynar’s flavor profile, I tried three different infusions: one plain, one with citrus, and one with some more complicated flavors and bittering agents that seemed to fit.

From two globe artichokes, I collected about 200 grams of leaves. (Some Italian web pages I consulted said to avoid the outer layer of leaves, while others said to specifically select the firmest and biggest, which are the outer leaves. So I used all the leaves I pulled off.) I also cut about 30 grams’ worth of stems and threw those in, though I have no idea if that is a good idea… it may make the infusions worse. Oh well!

Carciofo 1

  • 66 g artichoke leaves
  • 11 g artichoke stems, diced
  • 300 ml 151-proof spirit

Carciofo 2

  • 66 g artichoke leaves
  • 11 g artichoke stems, diced
  • 0.2 oz dried lemon peel
  • 0.2 oz dried bitter orange peel
  • 300 ml 151-proof spirit

Carciofo 3

  • 66 g artichoke leaves
  • 11 g artichoke stems, diced
  • 0.2 oz purple raisins
  • 0.155 oz dried bitter orange peel
  • 0.06 oz rhubarb root
  • 0.052 oz gentian root
  • 0.02 oz wormwood
  • 300 ml 151-proof spirit

Yes, I know I am mixing grams and ounces. I have no excuse.

I tasted infusion 3 after three days and it seemed plenty strong. I don’t want to overdo the infusions, so I’ll plan to strain on day 4.

Update

After tasting my strained infusions, I’m declaring number 3 the winner… at least in terms of imitating Cynar. It’s clear Cynar’s flavor profile relies heavily on other botanicals, specifically bittering agents—not just the artichoke.

Infusion 1 (just artichoke) was interesting, and I think it was successful as a “pure” carciofo. It’s really not bitter at all, but quite vegetal, and when diluted 50% with 1:1 agave simple syrup, it was unsettlingly sweet. Not cloying, just odd to taste that much sweetness with the artichoke flavor.

Infusion 2 (artichoke + lemon + bitter orange) showed promise, but the lemon overpowers on both the aroma and palate. A second attempt with different ratios would taste more balanced, but I don’t think it’d be like Cynar—so not worth pursuing.

Infusion 3 is good to dilute and bottle. I’m going to blend infusions 1 and 2 together and macerate with the botanicals from infusion 3—that way those subpar attempts won’t go to waste. If all goes well, I’ll end up with an additional 600 ml of a decent Cynar copycat (I am hoping the lemon gets diluted and masked).

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