TSL Cocktail of the month Year end review – December 2021

We decided to do a review of the cocktails we drank over the last year. Turns out we didn’t get up and going until April. Not sure why that happened but we did get started. There was some discussion regarding the name of the Meukow – seems there is some variability with it. And, here’s the rundown:

April – Blue Hawaii (Rum, Vodka, Pineapple juice, Blue Curacao

May – Mint Julep (Bourbon, Mint simple syrup)

June – Father’s day – Harvey Wallbanger (Vodka, Galliano L’Autentico, Orange Juice)

July – Christmas in July – (Whiskey, Rum, eggs and cream)

August – Raspberry Beret #1 (Cointreau, Lime juice, fresh lime juice, egg whites, soda water) and Raspberry Beret #2 (Raspberry Vodka, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Raspberry Liquor, cream, grenadine)

September – Bumbo (Dark Rum, Lemon juice, Grenadine), Bonus track – Sailor’s Sunrise (Spiced Rum, orange juice, Grenadine, cherry garnish)

October – Corpse Reviver #1 (Vermouth, Apple Brandy), Bonus track Skeleton Key (Bourbon, Elderflower Liquor, lemon juice, Ginger Beer, bitters)

November – Autumn Apple Snap (Apple Cider, Hendrick’s Gin, lemon juice, Ginger Beer), Apple Ginger Snap (Apple Cider, Ginger Beer, Bourbon, lemon juice), Apple Cider Mimosa (Apple Cider, Champagne, Cointreau)

December – Year in review and Meukow review

After it was all said and done, we agreed on our favorite – which is a real surprise for the Mad Farmer and Miss Mercy. We hope you will join us in 2022 for more fun and all the ridiculousness that we will have to share. Happy New Year!

Drink Responsibly and Get into the Spirit of Things!

TSL Cocktail of the month – Happy Fall Y’all November 2021

Autumn is a great time of year and this one was particularly lovely. The weather was actually fall like and we didn’t have early snow either! We thought it would be fun to showcase drinks that had apple in them since pumpkin gets all the airtime. Also, since there is an upcoming holiday, instead of doing one drink we selected three. We continue to have some technical issues, so this video is from our camera and we aren’t looking into it – but it is the best version. As always, if you try any of the drinks do let us know what you think of them. Remember to drink responsibly and get into the spirit of things! Happy Autumn and Happy Thanksgiving!

Autumn Apple Snaphendricksgin.com

1 1/2 oz Hendrick’s Gin

3/4 oz Lemon juice – we used fresh

3/4 oz Apple Juice or cider – we used spiced cider

Top with Ginger Beer – we used Black Seal

Combine all ingredients in a highball glass filled with cubed ice and lightly churn.

Apple Ginger Snaptheshakencocktail.com

3 oz Apple Cider – we used spiced cider

2 oz Ginger Beer – we used Black Seal

1 oz Bourbon – we used Blue Note

.5 oz Lemon Juice – we used fresh

All all ingredients and ice to a mixing glass. Stir until mixed. Strain over rocks into a mug or highball glass. Garnish with cinnamon.

Apple Cider Mimosaacouplecooks.com

1 T sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

2 oz Apple Cider – we used spiced

4 oz Sparkling wine – we used prosecco

1 t Cointreau (optional)

Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and rim a champagne flute (don’t do this too early or it will stick). Tilt flute and add champagne. Top with the cider and a splash of Cointreau.

Wheaton Labs Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree 2021

So the Mad Farmer just got back from the Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree that took place at Wheaton Labs. If you are not familiar with Wheaton Labs it is the place where Paul Wheaton, the Duke of Permaculture (Paul was given that title by Geoff Lawton), holds his events and experiments with all things permaculture, natural building and cool technology, like the Rocket Mass Heaters.

The RMH Jamboree was a nine day event that took place in early October with multiple instructors and multiple build tracks.

Kirk ‘Donkey’ Mobert was there:

Sky Huddleston, the inventor of the only UL listed shippable Rocket Mass Heater core, the Liberator:

Chris ‘Uncle Mud’ McClellan

Also instructing were Rodney Morgan, Isaac Workman, Christina Keegan and of course, Paul Wheaton himself. Several instructors scheduled to be attending had visa issues, and other various things that came up so were unable to attend. All things considered, there were a lot of people there and a lot of things going on.

Sky brought one of his Liberator RMH cores to install at the shop and a Bulgarian Gamera RMH was sent to the lab for installation and testing. Sadly the Gamera inventors were unable to get clearance to come to the event but I did get to say “hello” to one of them over a video chat that Uncle Mud was having. Both the Liberator and the Gamera are very cool stoves and I will be posting more about them in future posts.

Over the course of the nine days there were quite a number of projects that were started and most of them completed.

  • Sky installed his Liberator into the Shop and performed the initial install of the Gamera into the Red Cabin (one of the rentable buildings at the Lab).
  • Uncle Mud took on a Rocket Heater Assisted Solar Dehydrator and a rebuild of the pebble mass bench in the Red Cabin where the Gamera was installed.
  • Donkey Mobert tested a Rocket Kiln concept and started work on a portable 8 inch Rocket Engine that can be “plugged into” various types of experiments, the kiln, a forge and anything else Paul can dream up.
  • Christina led the build of a Rocket Sauna and installed a smaller Rocket Mass Heater into a small WOFATI (Woodland Oehler-style Freaky-Cheap Annualized Thermal Inertia) home for one of the boots (more on that program in other posts).
  • Isaac led the build of an eight-inch Pebble-style Rocket Mass Heater in the new Solarium
  • Rodney led the build of a Lorena-style Rocket Cooktop and outdoor kitchen, repaired the electric “Bad Boy Buggy” and lent his myriad areas of expertise to many of the other on-ongoing projects.
  • Special Mention for Jamboree attendee JR who designed and replaced the plumbing in the Rocket Heated showers!
Lorena Rocket Mass Cook Stove

That’s a brief overview of what was going on. In future posts the Mad Farmer will do a deeper dive into the individual projects and what it’s like to visit the Lab (this was my second trip and boy did things change in just three years)!

If you can’t wait that long you can always go sign up at Permies.com and check out all the things happening a Wheaton Labs.

TSL Odysee Channel  https://odysee.com/@TSLHomestead:3

TSL YouTube Channel  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-_13yNtVZ5j0uag8EgqHXA

MeWe  https://mewe.com/i/erictolbert

Flote https://flote.app/user/MadFarmer

TSL Cocktail of the Month – Corpse Reviver #1 October 2021

Happy Halloween month! The Mad Farmer and Miss Mercy had a crazy amount of technical difficulties on our FB live and so there was a little lag on the video and this one was from the camera. We will continue to work on the AV issues and hopefully, as we go forward, move to a different platform that is more stable.

On to our cocktail, the Corpse Reviver #1! This cocktail has a spirited history – see what I did there – and has been around since the late 1800s! It was a diverse group of mixed drinks that were used as “hair of the dog” remedies. Miss Mercy found on books.google.com a copy of The Gentleman’s Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas from 1871. Pg. 45 offers recipe No. 92 and says: Use a wineglass 1/2 of brandy, 1/2 of Maraschino and 2 dashes of Boker’s bitters. In the late 19th century and early 20th century being in need of a Corpse Reviver was an indicator that a person had had a night out on the town the night before.

VintageAmericanCocktails.com gives a great history of the drink and Harry Craddock, the bartender credited with putting the drink in The Savoy Cocktail Book. The recipe listed in the article is from the 1934 version of the book. We used the recipe from Liquor.com more closely resembles the recipe the 1930 version of the book.

Corpse Reviver #1 from the 1930s Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock

1/4 Italian Vermouth

1/4 Apple Brandy or Valvado

1/2 Brandy

Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. To be taken before 11 a.m., or whenever steam and energy are needed and the recipe is:

Corpse Reviver #2 from the 1930s Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock

1/4 wineglass lemon juice

1/4 wineglass Kina lillet

1/4 wineglass Cointreau

1/4 wineglass Dry Gin

1 dash of Absinthe

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Four of these taken in swift succession will unrevive the corpse again.

Corpse Reviver #1 – Here is the recipe we used from Liquor.com:

1 oz Cognac – we used Meukow

1 oz Calvados – we used Calvados Selection

1/2 oz of Sweet Vermouth – we used Martini and Rossi

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass and add ice. Stir and strain into a cocktail glass.

Miss Mercy also mentioned a bonus Halloween themed cocktail during our video and it’s a Skeleton Key – this was a tasty follow up! Here is the recipe we used.

Skeleton Key – our recipe is from The Spruce Eats

1 1/4 oz bourbon whiskey

3/4 oz elderberry liquor

1/2 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice

3 to 5 oz of ginger beer

8 dashes of bitters

Build bourbon, elderflower liquor and lemon juice in a collins glass with ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with bitters.

Happy Halloween to everyone!

TSL Cocktail of the month – Bumbo September 2021

Ahoy matey! We’re happy to greet you on Talk like a Pirate day and share a new, however old, cocktail with you on such a fun day. After a few (not so good) pirate jokes, Miss Mercy shared a bit about how Talk like a Pirate day came to be. It was created in 1995 by a couple of friends, John Baur and Mark Summer, in Albany, OR. In 2002 the friends wrote to columnist Dave Barry and he promoted the day. Now it is celebrated all over.

What would be a great drink for such an auspicious day? A pirate themed drink of course! Pirate Grog is a very common pirate drink and usually is just watered down rum. Bumbo was identified as an updated version of Grog that can be made to the drinker’s taste. That seems like it would b a good thing, right? So we decided to try Bumbo. It was something. Here is the recipe we used:

Bumbo – recipe from: https://www.tastemade.com/articles/6-drinks-that-are-sure-to-bring-out-the-pirate-in-you/

  • 2 oz Dark Rum
  • 1 oz Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 tsp Grenadine
  • 1/4 tsp (grated) Nutmeg

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all of the ingredients. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass.

I would say the Mad Farmer and Miss Mercy were unprepared for the flavor of this pirate inspired drink – although the Mad Farmer thought it might keep you from getting scurvy.

Our First Paw Paw

TSL Homestead Paw Pas Trees

So it’s past the mid-point of Summer, and you can start to see the days become shorter (just a little) and things are coming on strong in the garden and the weeds are making an effort to take over and rule the land (and in some cases, succeeding). At the start of the garden season it was very cold, then very wet, then hot – not really the best start for growing things. Because the Mad Farmer is a chaos gardener (more about that in future posts), he threw caution to the wind and planted Tomatoes (the diva of the garden), Cucumbers, and, because I’m a perpetual optimist, Squash (curses, you squash borers).

Tomatoes are doing great. A neighbor who doesn’t particularly care for tomatoes but is happy to watch us try, allowed us to plant along a shared chain-link fence line. Those tomatoes are going gang-busters. One Tatume (also called Calabacita) squash managed to put out one early squash and one fall squash (Sidenote: Tatume is an awesome squash and can be used when young just like a zucchini or yellow squash and if allowed to getter bigger can replace a butternut or winter squash). So overall, like normal in Zone 6a, hit or miss on a lot of what got planted.

The most positive thing (okay, I’m sure this isn’t a spoiler because of the title of the post) our very first Paw Paw fruit! The Farmer first tasted a Paw Paw at a Rocket Oven Kickstarter reward event that took place at Wheaton Labs. Michael Judd, the author of “For the Love of Paw Paws” sent a box of Paw Paws to Wheaton Labs in honor of Paul’s support for Michael’s Kickstarter. If you have never had a Paw Paw it’s hard to describe the taste. Most people describe it as a strawberry-banana custard, it’s pretty close to that but better in the Farmer or Miss Mercy’s opinion. Suffice it to say, it’s good. Why can’t you get it in the store? Because it’s ripe for about three days and then you are all done. It doesn’t travel well, but it is great in Ice Cream (ask us how we know)…

So, when are Paw Paw’s ripe you ask? Great Question, the best answer I’ve seen so far is “if you shake the tree and the fruit falls off” (thanks Nicole Sauce)! At our Urban Homestead we had to place a small nylon bag around the fruit to keep the squirrels from getting them all, so our first Paw Paw fell into the bag. Miss Mercy was pretty excited when she brought the first Paw Paw into the house.

Inside of our first Paw Paw

Size-wise it was not the biggest Paw Paw I have ever seen but it sure was cute. When we sliced it open and tried it the flavor was very good. We also got quite a few seeds, which the Farmer is going to stratify (cold storage in the fridge over winter) and plant in the spring to see if we can get some more Paw Paws to grow.

Overall, a great experiment and we liked it so much we planted two more for a total of five! I guess we are now Paw Paw people!

If you like our content please help support us on our other channels:

TSL Odysee Channel  https://odysee.com/@TSLHomestead:3

TSL YouTube Channel  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-_13yNtVZ5j0uag8EgqHXA

MeWe  https://mewe.com/i/erictolbert>

Flotehttps://flote.app/user/MadFarmer

TSL Cocktail of the month – Raspberry Beret August 2021

Our cocktail of the month for August is a hat tip to one of Miss Mercy’s favorite artists – Prince! We decided to take advantage of a wonderful gift from our Pacific Northwest cousin, a bottle of Raspberry Liquor from Skip Rock Distillers in Snohomish, WA. Their website includes a nice list of products including a rye whiskey and a potato vodka.

Miss Mercy discovered two different recipes for the Raspberry Beret and so we decided to try both of them. We found the first recipe to be pleasantly refreshing. The second recipe we thought was a great dessert drink. If you decide to give either of these a try, let us know what you think!

Raspberry Beret #1 – from www.cointreau.com

1.5 oz. Cointreau

.5 oz fresh lime juice

3 fresh raspberries

.5 oz egg whites

1.5 oz soda water

Combine all ingredients apart from the soda water in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake until well chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Top with soda water and garnish with raspberry.

Raspberry Beret #2 – from https://www.barnonedrinks.com/drinks/r/raspberry-beret-2-4080.html

1 oz. Raspberry Vodka

1 oz. Bailey’s Irish Cream

1/2 oz. of Raspberry Liquor

2 oz. cream

1 splash of Grenadine

Blend with 8 ice cubes. Pour in a glass rimmed with red-colored sugar, top with whip cream and sprinkle with red colored sugar.

Homestead Mishaps

Sometimes stupid happens – sometimes it’s preventable, sometimes it’s an accident and sometimes it’s not knowing there is still chain link fence inside a tree stump (you can decide which category that falls into gentle reader). So the Mad Farmer is typing this post with with one less working finger than the last post, bringing up a great time to talk about first aid on the homestead.

First we will tell the tale of woe on the homestead. One of the recent projects on our list has been to reconfigure the fence around our urban property to put a gate into the “back 40” so we have easier access to an easement area and can also put a little more privacy around our back yard. New readers may not know this but several years ago when we built the Pub Shack the area was overgrown with scrub trees that we had cut down to make space for the Shack. Some of the stumps were still producing a lot of new growth (great if you are coppicing for fodder, not great for using the space for pumpkins) so before the fence gets extended the stumps have to go.

Turns out over the years before we bought the property some of the trees had grown up around and through the chain link fence that used to be on that section of the property. Turns out some of that chain link is inside the stumps but barely, or not at all, visible when looking at the stump. So in the interest of getting the project done the Farmer was paying a little less attention that perhaps was warranted, resulting in a sudden twist of a shovel handle and the rapid acceleration of the handle into the top bar of a partially existing chain link fence. As it turned out the Farmer’s little finger was not nearly as sturdy as either the shovel handle or the chain link fence rail. This sad state of affairs provided the Farmer with a spectacular attention-getting moment, a few choice words and a trip to the Minor Med to check out the problem.

Some folks may or may not know the Mad Farmer is a Kansas Certified Emergency Preparedness Instructor, which in theory should mean he knows a little more about first aid than the average Joe walking down the street. In reality it means that the Farmer set the bone without putting any real thought into if that was the right thing to do (it probably wasn’t), realized that he might go into shock (a possibility), so should have Miss Mercy drive him to get everything checked out (probably his best idea under trying circumstances). So, finger in a cup of crushed ice and off to the Minor Med we go.

So a couple of X-Rays and an hour later and the Farmer finds out that not only did he break his little finger (spoiler alert – he already knew that) but it turned out to be a “compound fracture”. In case you are not current on your first-aid-speak, a compound fracture is when the broken bone breaks the skin and allows the outside world inside access. Not the best thing ever according to the Doc. Usually there isn’t much to be done for broken digits, typically they tape them to the next closest finger and that’s about it. In this case the Farmer got a shiny new splint, an antibiotic prescription and a prescription for pain killers. Keeping the finger on ice kept the swelling down initially but boy howdy, did it start to throb after a while.

So to make a long story slightly shorter, broken bones usually take 6-8 weeks to heal. Fingers and toes can take longer because they typically aren’t immobilized completely and if you are not a Spring Chicken (and the Farmer is the other side of Spring at this point) it can take even longer than normal. So that this time, 10 weeks in, the finger is out of the splint, has been seen by a specialist who says it’s healing okay and the Farmer is mainly experiencing stiffness in the joint. Turns out you do use your little finger more than you might think so most of the homestead projects ground to a screeching halt while the finger was healing.

Good news is that the finger is mostly useable at this point, so with a little more care the projects will be moving forward again.

TSL Homestead Cocktail of the month – Egg Nog July 2021

This month the video is from our camera angle, so there is some behind the scenes dialogue between the Mad Farmer and Miss Mercy as we were figuring out the Facebook ‘go live’ feature. This is the same feature we struggled with last month. Hopefully we will get all that sorted.

Now, on to the July Cocktail of the month – Egg Nog! We decided to do a little Christmas in July here at the homestead and nothing says holidays like Egg Nog (according to Miss Mercy).

This was a fun cocktail to research and fun to make. The recipe I used was from my 1941 Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer. The first edition of this book came out in 1896, and the earliest edition I have is 1912. The 1941 book is the first one in which this eggnog recipe appears, as far as I could tell. As a side note, a very similar recipe is included in Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, published in 1949.

Known during the medieval period as ‘posset’, it was made with hot milk curdled with ale, wine or something similar and then sweetened and spices added. Because of the high cost of ingredients, it was a drink enjoyed by the upper class. How the drink came to be called Egg Nog is a bit of a mystery. One possibility of its origin comes from the wooden cup used to drink it was called a “noggin”. Egg Nog was a pretty common drink in England and the United States by the 1700s. Here in states, we swapped out the alcohol for some that was not being taxed. Read more from the History Kitchen from PBS.

One of the more sensational notes about our cocktail this month comes in the story of the Egg Nog riot of 1826. This riot took place at West Pointe – and it was a doozy. The Superintendent of the school had forbade the consumption of alcohol by the cadets, which really put a wrench in their traditional Christmas celebrations which included spiked Egg Nog. The cadets spiked the Egg Nog and things, as they say, escalated. Cadets were expelled and Christmas celebrations were no more. Smithsonian Magazine had quite an article about the riot, which you can find here.

I am a big fan of Egg Nog, even more so now that I have this delicious recipe to make. It makes 5 quarts, which does sound like a lot, but it goes surprisingly quick! And while not everyone enjoys the tasty drink, as a country we manage to drink 15 million gallons of it during the winter holiday season.

If you decide to give this recipe a try, do let us know what you think!

Virginia Egg Nog – The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer

12 eggs

12 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 quart milk

2 cups whisky (we used Weller Special Reserve)

1 cup rum (we used Bacardi light rum)

1 quart heavy cream, beaten

Beat egg yolks with sugar until very light. Add milk, whisky, and rum. Fold in cream and egg whites, beaten until very stiff. Add more sugar or liquor to taste. Serve very cold with grated nutmeg on each cup. Makes 5 quarts.

Enjoy!

TSL Homestead Cocktail of the month – Harvey Wallbanger June 2021

This was our second attempt recording this video as Facebook made some changes to its “go live” function. Pretty sure we still don’t know what we are doing! We managed to get something recorded though.

Our TSL Homestead Cocktail of the month was chosen by the Mad Farmer in celebration of Father’s Day. The Harvey Wallbanger became popular in the 1970’s . Here is an interesting post on the history of the drink. It was fairly extensive, albeit a little underwhelming. It provided the ridiculous tag line “Harvey Wallbanger is the name and I can be made!”

The Harvey Wallbanger is a dressed up version of a screwdriver – the dress being Galliano. Galliano has a licorice like flavor and is yellow. The bottle says it has over 30 herbs and spices – seems like maybe there could have been a different note to bring out instead of licorice. A little surprisingly, it does add a nice flavor to the drink. However, if you are not a fan of licorice, you may want to stick to the screwdriver.

We took our recipe from the Galliano site and you can find it here. If you give this cocktail a try, let us know what you think!

Please, drink responsibly and get into the spirit of things!