Quotes from Amy Stewart

Gin is really nothing more than a flavored vodka whose predominant flavor is juniper, so gin drinkers who say they won't drink vodka misunderstand the nature of their addiction. The base spirit itself is generally a mixture of barley, rye, and perhaps wheat or corn.

When Coca-Cola made its ill-fated switch to New Coke, the Wall Street Journal reported that the economy of Madagascar nearly collapsed because of the sudden drop in demand for vanilla.

Absinthe is legal today in Europe, the United States, and many places around the world. Some governments regulate the amount of thujone that may be present in the finished product—this in spite of the fact that many other culinary plants, including sage, are even higher in thujone and aren't regulated at all.

Romans thought the vine killed trees by strangulation and named it "little wolf," which explains the origin of the plant's genus, Lupulus.

AROMA (OLD WORLD) HOPS Cascade Cluster East Kent Goldings Fuggle Hallertauer Hersbrucker Tettnang Willamette

He understood perfectly the connection between booze and botany, which fascinates me as well.

1737 recipe for fig liqueur involved steeping figs in brandy along with nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, saffron, and licorice, "'till the whole virtue be extracted from them.

Farmers in the United States are also permitted to spray the fruit with a synthetic dye called Citrus Red No. 2. The dye is banned in California but may be used by Texas and Florida growers. It is only permitted for fruit that is going to be peeled and eaten or juiced, not for fruit whose rinds will be "processed" into food or drink. Because fruit sold at the grocery store is assumed to be for eating or juicing, it may be sprayed with the dye—and not always labeled as such.

She had forgotten the only trick her mother had taught her about marriage: the more impractical your husband's ideas are, the more you get behind them.

John Adams, writing to his friend William Tudor in 1818, said, "I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence. Many great events have proceeded from much smaller causes.

One is deep indigo blue," he said. "Eighteen inches long and about a thumb's width in diameter. It's got big white spots with yellow centers, like fried eggs, all over its back, if you can imagine that. And get this—it crawls on the forest floor, doesn't burrow in the ground, and its infants live in trees until they're mature.

Aconitine is so powerful that Nazi scientists found it useful as an ingredient for poisoned bullets.

They are near the bottom of the food chain - a meal for fish and birds - while humans eat from the top of the food chain, consuming an astonishing array of what lies on the planet. But eventually, even we become food for the worms. Shakespeare saw this connection, writing in Hamlet, "A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of a fish that hath fed of that worm.

a driveway and a garage built more for automobiles

Dogfish Head makes a cacao beer called Theobroma that is intended to be a modern recreation of an ancient Olmec recipe. Based on residue analysis of pottery dating to 1400 BC, plus some hints from the reports of Spanish explorers, their recipe includes honey; chili pepper; vanilla; and annatto, a reddish spice derived from the achiote tree

WHY DOES QUININE GLOW UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT? Shine a blacklight on a bottle of tonic water and it will glow a bright radioactive blue. The quinine alkaloid is "excited" by ultraviolet light, which means that the electrons absorb the light and take on extra energy, throwing them out of their regular orbit. In order to return to their natural position—their "relaxed" state—they release the energy, causing a bright glow.

What I'm trying to say is, you can't wait for somebody else to decide whether you get another chance. What if nobody ever does?

Recipte for the Eyaws Take 1 pint of hogs Lard 1 handfull of earth worms 1 handfull of Tobacco 4 pods of Red pepper 1 spunfull of Black pepper 1 Race of Ginger Stew them well together, & when Applyed mix Sum Sperits of Brandy with it.

If I could give something to Fleurette?—if I could give her one silent gift from a mother she didn't know she had?—it would be this: the realization that we have to be a part of the world in which we live. We don't scurry away when we're in trouble, or when someone else is. We don't run and hide.

What I didn't say to Francis was that when Lucy grabbed me on the street in Paterson that day, I couldn't understand how anyone would take hold of a stranger and pour out their troubles. But now I realized that people did it all the time. They called for help. And some people would answer[.]

We had arrived at the liquor store by then, and I was gesturing wildly at the shelves around us. "This is horticulture! In all of these bottles!

time has come when an honest man can't take an honest drink without having a gang of revenue officers after him.

In fact, tequila and mezcal both work beautifully in any cocktail that calls for whiskey, rye, or bourbon.

If we were being honest, we would admit that what a liquor store sells is, chemically speaking, little more than the litter boxes of millions of domesticated yeast organisms, wrapped up in pretty bottles with fancy price tags.