Day 94 - Liberty

Liberty 

Liberty has it's blemishes.  It can be sweet, it can be sour.  We refer to our cat Eliza as sweet and sour.  She's a sweet girl but sometimes she turns on a dime and claws your face off.  We put up with it because it's what we know.  America is sometimes like this but I'm talking about an apple, the Liberty apple.

The Liberty apple was first developed in 1955 in New York state, a mix of the Macoun and the Purdue 54-12 with the Macintosh as a grand-parent but was not available to the public until 1978.  It is a small, uniform shaped apple with a mostly dark red color.  It was developed to be resistant to disease (like America?) and therefore, yields a good harvest but only lasts a couple months after being picked.

I bought a half peck of these at Peck and Bushel Organic Fruit Co.  It has a crisp, white flesh, a juicy bite and is fairly sour.  My wife made an apple crisp (see future review) with these and some Crimson Topaz apples.

Liberty has a short growing season but is supposedly an easy apples to grow so if enough of us work together, maybe we could have enough liberty for all!

Next time, I review Laura's Ginger Apple Crisp.  Crunch on!

Day 93 - Honeycrisp Apple Spumante (Non-alcoholic)

I did not drink alcohol for almost 4 months starting in Mid-February, what a year to go sober!  It was the longest I've gone without drinking since my freshman year of college.  On November 22nd 2019, I went to the doctor because I had some soreness in my chest and some dizziness.  They sent me to the hospital.  It turned out I had a blockage in one of my arteries and I had to have a stent put in.  I was put on a few different meds after, some that I need to take for life, one was a blood thinner called Brilinta (later it changed to Plavix) that I need to take for at least a year.  This was all quite a bummer so I was determined to get healthy.  I started eating better and exercising regularly.

Early February, Laura and I went on a lovely trip to Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean.

It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen but I was scarily out of breath while we were down there.  I thought it was a side-effect of the Brilinta, which can sometimes cause shortness of breath.  When we got back, I went to the cardiologist to switch from Brilinta to Plavix.  They suggested I get a chest CT to check for possible blood clots and lo and behold, I had 'em, a pulmonary embolism, hooray!  So then I had to start taking Eliquis to break up clots in my lungs.  I would need to take it for 6 months.  I was now taking two major blood thinners so would need to be very careful about getting hurt so I wouldn't bleed out, and I bruise like a bastard.  My doctor said I should stop drinking while on Plavix and Eliquis because alcohol also thins the blood.

I did not make it the whole 6 months without drinking.  As a world-wide pandemic kicked in and things were stressful, I started drinking a little the last couple months but during the sober period, I experimented with non alcoholic beers, cocktails and wines.  It was a learning experience.

There are a lot more NA beers than there used to be.  There are NA versions of every style: Stouts, Porters, Lagers, IPA's, Weiss beers, Radlers, ect...  I tried several.  Unfortunately, most of them taste like a watered down version of the real thing.  I found two German options that were pretty good, Buckler Lager and the best one, Paulander Weizen-Radler.  I am not usually into Radlers (more commonly known as Shandy) but this is the only NA I have tried that tastes like a High-Octane beer.

I tried some NA cocktail mixers:  Seedlip Grove 42 Citrus and Ritual Whiskey Alternative.  They have a variety of ingredients that try to mimic alcohol, heat from peppers, citrus, herbs and I made some cocktails.

Now for the review:  Lautenbach's Orchard Country Honeycrisp Apple Spumante (Non-alcoholic).

It is from a vinyard in Fish Creek, WI.  It is very sweet, not very exciting.  I would rather go for Welch's Sparkling Cider than this.  As a kid, I would sometimes have Welch's sparkling cider or grape juice for occasions like Thanksgiving and that stuff is pretty good!

Live and learn and then get Luv's!  Next time I review the Liberty apple.  God bless us, every one.  Crunch on!