you can keep your coconuts

My friends across the ocean are playing with rum and noix de coco and those other fancy colonial fruits, but screw them. Here in Paris we have walnuts. That's right folks: straight up, old-world noix.

I saw this bottle on the shelf of our neighborhood fancy bread/cheese/booze store, Juhlés, and quickly became obsessed. Some quick internet research told me that both walnut wine and walnut liqueur are actually quite easy to make, if you can get your hands on green walnuts and have time to kill. Of course, it's not the season for green walnuts, and we're out of our apartment in less than a year, so we don't really have either.

I was little over excited about the whole walnut thing and didn't read the bottle correctly. It's neither vin de noix nor liqueur de noix, but rather apéritif à BASE de vin et de noix, which means it's basically walnut-infused brandy. But fuck it, it's good. I don't know if we'll be using it on top of ice cream any time soon, but it's a lovely for a little nip. Think port, but with nutty overtones. It is an apéritif, that is for sure, and with the right snacks (probably some good strong cheese) will make the perfect sucré/salé opening act for a good meal. I'd like to see if I can get my hands on some actual vin or liqueur de noix for comparison.

On the agenda this weekend: La Maison du Whisky or maybe Lavinia (which sells a crème de rose that I've got my eye on. I imagine it will make bangin' kirs). I hope they fulfill all my fancy French booze fantasies, or have something that resembles reasonably priced bourbon, because stocks in the secret lair are running pitifully low...

Bisous,

Plenty