A Valerie Valentine: Valerie Confections

You would think that to find not one but two amazing handmade European-style chocolate stores on the same block in LA, you would have to head down to Beverly Hills, but the block of First Street just east of Virgil has become an unsurpassed chocolate lover's paradise. Adjacent to the excellent L'Artisan du Chocolat is Valerie confections, a newer addition to the chocolate scene.

Valerie has a smaller selection than L'Artisan, but their chocolates are excellent. They specialize in toffee (too bad I tried some too late for my Holiday Toffee-Off), and also have various truffles including a lovely, caramel truffle with a liquid filling akin to those at Boule. I also enjoyed an almond teacake, a dense cake with a strong almond flavor.

And of course, it's hard to go to Valerie without stopping next door to try the latest experiments at L'Artisan (the latest and greatest: the Mango Wasabi chocolate...it really is good!).

It's fantastic that, in only a few years, LA has had such a renaissance in artisanal chocolate. If you or your loved one is a chocolate fan, you can't do better than First and Virgil this Valentine's Day.

Valerie Confections
3360 W. First Street
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(888) 706-1408

Don't worry Cognac fans, Brandy Friday will return next week!

Whiskey Wednesday: Who's Your Grand-Daddy?

The thing I love most about American whiskey is that there are still great, affordable whiskies to be had. One of my favorites in this category is Old Grand-Dad 114.

Tasting

Old Grand-Dad 114, Kentucky Straight Bourbon, 57% alcohol, made by Jim Beam (under $25).

Old Grand-Dad is made by Jim Beam, and while I am generally none to fond of Beam products, I really like the OG...D. This is a big, high alcohol, rye boosted Bourbon. The flavors run from big rye spice to wood and barrel char. It's strong, it's in your face, it's not subtle and not really complex, but it's good and reliable stuff.

Quickies

Animal

I went back to Animal recently, just for more of the marvelous poutine, but also tried some other desserts, both of which were very nice. My favorite was the chocolate pudding, a rich, dark pudding topped with an inch of whipped cream in a glass jar (from appearances, we guessed an old yogurt jar). Great stuff. We also had the doughnuts with apple filling in an apple/caramel sauce. It's hard to beat piping, hot doughnuts.


Third & Fairfax Update

The Farmers Market now has a selection of real farmers selling goods. I've seen local Farmers Market stalwarts Ha's Apple Farm and Soledad Goat Cheese as well as a few others. There are just a few, but it's nice to see some real farmers at the original Farmers Market.

Breadworks is a new bakery at the Market which replaced The Bread Bin. It's just as mediocre as the old place.

Brandy Friday: Le Reviseur

The two Cognacs we've tasted so far have been from the acclaimed Grande Champagne cru of Cognac, but now we have a brandy from the adjacent subregion of Petite Champagne. As with all of the Cognacs we have been tasting, this is from a small house; it is made from vineyards that have been with the Abecassis family for seven generations. Along with the Le Reviseur line, they also make Cognac Leyrat and the club-ready ABK6.

Tasting

Le Reviseur X.O., Fine Petite Champagne, Single Estate Cognac, 40% alcohol ($65-$75).

Beautiful, sweet wine scent. The flavor is bold, fruity and quite sweet early in the palate; there is some oak but it is less prominent than one would think for an X.O. the finish, though, is a bit flat. I certainly think this is as good as the Cognacs we've had from the acclaimed Grande Champagne Region, though it is a bit sweeter and less oaky.

St. George Drinking Chocolate

Now, I love whiskey and I love chocolate, so when Recchiuti Chocolates suggested a hot chocolate with St. George single malt whiskey, I was all over it.

Recchiuti is a San Francisco based chocolatier, widely credited with introducing the now ubiquitous salted caramel to the US, and also a maker of wonderful homemade marshmallows and other candies. As you may recall from my review of American single malts, St. George is single malt whiskey made by St. George spirits, just across the Bay from Recchiuti, in Alameda, California. Now, as a malt whiskey, St. George was a bit too fruity for me, but as a hot chocolate additive, I thought it just might work.

So, I whipped up a batch of my drinking chocolate, using Valrhona chocolate, added a shot of St. George and topped it off with on of the excellent vanilla marshmallows from BonBon Bars.

Sounds heavenly, right? It was good but a bit too rich. Partly, my hot chocolate is super-duper hot chocolate. The super chocolatyness and the whiskey was a bit overpowering, though the whiskey's fruit flavor did do well with the strong, dark chocolate component. If I do it again, I'd probably add a bit more milk to cut the chocolate strength, which should make it just right for a cool winter's day.

Whiskey Wednesday: Whiskey, Age and Oxygen

For how long can you keep an open bottle of whiskey?

Whiskey is a distilled spirit and distilled spirits, unlike fermented alcohols such as wine, are very hearty. Whiskey in a sealed bottle can last decades, maybe even longer. Once you pop the cork, you are still good for a long while compared to wine, which needs to be had within days, but exactly how long will that Scotch or Bourbon last?

Answering this question is harder than you might think and there are different schools of thought. Once you uncork the seal and pour a glass, you let oxygen into the whiskey bottle so oxidation is a possibility. Just how long such oxidation takes and under what circumstances is not clear.

It is common lore among whiskey fans that once a bottle is half full or less, you should drink it within 18 months to prevent oxidation and a change in flavor. Others, however, swear that whiskey can last for years at a low level and have virtually no ill effects.

Well, I decided to find out a little more about the effects of oxygen on whiskey, so I set up a little experiment. I filled three mini bottles with varying levels of whiskey, in this case Longmorn, a single malt Scotch. I filled one to the absolute top such that no oxygen was left in the bottle, a second about half-way and a third about a quarter full. I will now store these bottles, in a cool, dark place, for two years. In early 2011, I will revisit them and see how they've done. It's a long time to wait, but the results will be interesting and will hopefully give us some clarity regarding this age old question.



While we wait, I'll give you my tasting notes on the Longmorn:

Longmorn, 16 year old, [owned by Pernod Ricard] 48% alcohol ($92).

Nose has light sherry and malt, very pleasant. On tasting, the first thing you get is a rush of sherry, followed by some sweetness and then a nice little whisper of malt. Mostly sherry on the finish. A mildly sherried Speysider that is pleasant but not particularly distinctive. I'd say it's overpriced for what it is.


Tune in around February 2011 and we'll see what the result of our ageing experiment is.

UPDATE: Results are in!

Ig the Noble - Vella Cheese

I grew up in the wine and cheese rich town of Sonoma, California. I was practically weaned on Cabernet Sauvignon and the cheese on my brown bag school lunch sandwiches was inevitably a Vella's Monterey Jack. Trips to the musty, stone building that housed Vella's factory and shop on Second Street East and tastes of the voluminous free samples were a staple of my childhood from age 5 to 18. Let the tourists have their Sonoma Jack cheese on the town plaza, with its caraway and jalapeno versions; we were a Vella's family.

I didn't know then that Ig Vella had been making cheese in that same spot since 1931, nor could I have predicted that in the American artisanal cheese explosion to come, Vella's would be seen as the patron saint. No less an authority than Steve Jenkins writes in his influential Cheese Primer, "Let there be a visible aura around this text, because elder statesman Ig Vella and his magnificent cheeses are driving forces behind the emergence of American-made cheeses that must be ranked among the world's finest."

Vella's has five age-levels of Jacks. Outside of Sonoma, you are most likely to come across the Dry Jack, which is Vella's most vaunted product. This hard cow cheese tastes more like an aged American cheddar than the Parmigiano-Reggiano to which it is often compared. The cheese is aged seven to ten months and coated with cocoa. There are now older versions as well, the Special Select Dry Jack and the Golden Bear Dry Jack, aged two to four years.

While I love Dry Jack, one of my favorite Vella's cheeses is not widely available outside the wine country. The Mezzo Secco, partially dried Jack, is the level between the young, high moisture Jack and the popular Dry Jack. In the Mezzo Secco, you can still taste the rich, creamy Monterey Jack character along with the beginnings of the aged flavors that will take over in the Dry Jack. It's a window into the aging process and it creates a unique cheese that is equally good on a sandwich, in a salad or on its own. I find the Mezzo Secco to be just as good as the Dry Jack, though it is underappreciated.

Mezzo Secco Jack along with other Vella cheeses are available on the Vella's website.