Grog and Victuals
Guy Venables Honey rum? I had my doubts, as one does with local brews. But I risked a purchase to try out on the brig’s crew. We finished the bottle... and several more over the week Over the years, whenever I’m travelling for the magazine, I’ll ask a barman what the local hooch is and [...]
By Guy Venables If gin was last year’s drink, a new trend seems to be mead. I know. Mead?! My mother was a beekeeper and used to make her own mead out of just honey and rainwater. The water, if collected at the right time gathers the pollens in the air and supplies itself with [...]
It is always a testament to design to see things meant for your boat ending up in your house. This is an astonishingly efficient, fuel-saving ‘eco-friendly thermal cooker’ with an internal pot that, once brought to the boil is put inside the locking outer "vacuum pot" and has no more need for power or gas [...]
Food and Foraging by Guy Venables Laver After spending 40 years of my life surfing I’ve discovered, through necessity, many ways to forage at the seashore. We were always broke but never hungry. The most abundant and initially surprising food source was seaweed. More precisely, Laver, or Porphyra Umbilicalis to be exact. It looks like [...]
BY GUY VENABLES Not far from where I live the first English gin to use alcohol distilled from grapes, rather than grain, is to be born. And Chilgrove is its name. Praise be. For gins that use wine-based spirit are in a different class. It’s akin to the di erences [...]
By Guy Venables We’ve all been there, late night, sitting on the internet trying to gauge how much to bid on a brand new foreign spouse. The trouble is you simply can’t tell how much you want to pay until you’ve been properly acquainted. The same is true nowadays when trying to choose between [...]
By Guy Venables I’ve often thought that when it comes to drinking toasts there’s invariably something sentimental about them. “Well, obviously,” I hear you say, as they’re usually conceived with an arm around a best friend and a bellyful of wine. Being a keen amateur enthusiast in the life of libation, I’ve collected in my [...]
Is anything better than Calvados? asks Guy Venables. Yes, and it comes from Somerset Whenever I hear that someone’s going to France I ask them two questions. The first is “Can you bring me back some Calvados?” The next question is along the lines of “Why the hell not?” The answer I usually get is [...]
By Guy Venables Most people, when they think of pressure cookers wince and tell stories of extra portholes blown through various parts of boats. These were the old aluminium ones that did indeed creak and hiss at you and would sometimes get a bit jumpy. The next thing that people imagine is that all you [...]
