Wednesday 3 February 2010

A Grappa Frenzy

The arrival of The Intrepid One meant that vaulting off the wagon two days early was forgiveable I think. Saturday evening came and went in a wonderful haze of decent local wines of both colours and some serious nosh (rabbit since you ask preceded by Combo own label mushrooms and stuffed chilli peppers). On Sunday TIO tootled off but there was no stopping Ronnie and lunch at a local restaurant seemed in order. To mark the occasion and to help the digestion (of course), the owner pulled this one off the special shelf, age unknown but at least 40 years old as the company stopped making grappa in 1960.
It was surprisingly mellow with a pleasant aviation fuel afterburn.

Then it was on to Bruno's where he pulled these two babies out, from profoundly different ends of the grappa spectrum.
The Tagliatella is from my favourite grappa house, Nardini, and is a terribly moreish grappa - amaro cross. The other bottle needs to be drunk wearing the sort of kit bomb-disposal experts don before they approach some roadside device in Afghanistan. Not for the faint-hearted.

8 comments:

Nicodemus said...

Some people (fools most typically) disparage grappa per se as being the product of 'leftovers'. But Tagliatella has rather more claim to this dubious accolade. In the distiller's famous grapperia on the bridge at Bassano they used to serve the wide range of Nardini grappas, liqueurs, aperitivi and amari from huge copper vessels. The taps of these vessels leaked and the barman collected all the drips in a large jug, the contents of which were eagerly consumed by certain regulars. When the switch to glass bottles was made, these regulars were vociferous in their complaint, so the distiller set about bottling the same extraordinary cocktail as 'Tagliatella'. While I'm not sure it is made from all of the Nardini products today, I have made my own cocktail using 12 different drinks from the Nardini range. It tasted remarkably like the Tagliatella they bottle today.

Diplomate said...

yeah yeah - but does it work ?

Ron Combo said...

Nicodemus: crikey - you know your, er, onions!
Diplo: yes.

Toby Savage said...

Pah. Wish I'd stayed longer now.

Affer said...

Please advise Wartime Housewife if it cures migraine.

Percy Weiper said...

I very much like Doppelkorn. Very strong but quite smooth.

Thud said...

I would give both bottles a good going over.

Peter Ashley said...

I don't know, all you chaps drinking colourless petrol. I'll send some boot polish sandwiches over Ron, to go with it. In the meantime, have you tried running the gas through a jug of milk?