Greetings from Crete: One Too Many Frappes

by Iva Skoch on

The coffee junkie that I am, I must confess that the frappes here in Crete kick ass. I am on my third one as we speak.

The drink goes like this: you take spray-dried instant coffee. Yeah, I know. You wonder how anything made out of Nescafe (aka “no es cafe”) can make a decent drink. Really though, it does. Except, you can’t use the Nescafe sold in the US because it is usually freeze-dried, which ruins the formula. Sorry.

In Greece, they have been drinking them way before Starbucks found a lucrative market for fluffy coffee drinks, specifically since 1957. That’s 50 caffeinated years! And I mean caffeinated. Some sources say, a frappe has four times the caffeine as an espresso.

Wikipedia has a great blow-by-blow chemical explanation of exactly what’s happening, but suffice to say, this stuff is an excellent summer drink.

Recipe:

2 teaspoons instant coffee
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon evaporated milk (optional)
Cold water

1. Place coffee, sugar, and 5 tablespoons of water in a drink mixer. Shake vigorously for 30 seconds to produce a thick, light-brown foam.

2. Place three ice cubes in a tall glass. Slowly pour the coffee foam into the glass. Add milk. Fill with cold water until the foam reaches the top of the glass.

3. Insert a thin, flexible straw (colored) and gently stir. Serve with an accompanying glass of cold water.

4. Drink in the company of old, tan men smoking cigarettes.

Odd Statues from Around the World

by Brett Atkinson on

Weird statues are usually the end result of a city councillor with too much time and other people’s money on their hands. Some of the planet’s oddest statues include a giant Optimus Prime from Transformers and the kids jumping into the Singapore River outside the Fullerton Hotel.

Check out those and other odd and offbeat constructions here, and let me know any that have been overlooked, especially from your neck of the woods.

Some of most poignant and imposing statues I’ve seen are at Statue Park in Budapest. While other former Communist countries destroyed their statues of Lenin, members of the Proletariat, and brave Socialist soldiers, Hungary moved them to a park on the egde of Budapest.

Click here for an article I wrote about Statue Park, or read more travel information about Budapest.

News via Oddee and pic of Statue Park thanks to nicol_b on Flickr.

%Gallery-7453%

The World’s Most Expensive Cocktails

by Catherine Bodry on

Wine from 1830 — a taste of France’s “zenith of glory.” 125-year-old cognacs poured over rubies. A martini with a sterling-silver pick holding a pair of diamond earrings. A cocktail mixed with a rare African aphrodisiac. You could spends upwards of $500 to be one of a few to enjoy a rare vintage or a cocktail embellished with jewelry (which seems a bit like cheating, don’t you think?). Here, Forbes Traveler describes some of the most expensive cocktails in the world.

The holder of the Guinness Record for most expensive cocktail goes to the Ritz Sidecar, served at the Paris Ritz’s Bar Hemingway. Bartender Colin P. Field follows the classic sidecar recipe: cognac, Cointreau, and a drop of freshly squeezed lemon juice shaken and served in a martini glass. The magic (and cost — $515) lies in the cognac, 1830 Ritz Reserve. The cognac comes from vines that predate the phylloxera plague; in the 1860s, insects from America wiped out many of France’s finest grapevines, and only a handful of bottles of the Ritz Reserve remain.

If you’re considering imbibing, you might also want to check out Gadling’s list of drinks men shouldn’t order, as well as the worst places to be hungover. Both might save you some embarrassment.

The Diamond Cocktail in the Piano Bar at London’s Sheraton Park Tower Hotel combines Charles Heidsieck Vintage 2001 champagne and Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac (which can go for $1,750 a bottle) with three drops of angostura bitters, poured over a sugar cube with the customer’s choice of diamonds or rubies. A 0.6 carat diamond will produce a $4,350 drink, but the price could more than triple if a customer wanted a more expensive gemstone.

Is it worth it? The article doesn’t discuss flavor, but at that price I’d certainly want to taste the alcohol — and it better be good.

Check out Forbes’ slide show of cocktails that break the bank.

Photo of the Day (09/10/07)

by Iva Skoch on

Haystack Rock, Oregon, taken by Pijavice.

Beautiful shot capturing exactly what the Pacific Ocean is like here: cold as hell. Wild. And kind of lonely.

***If you’d like to contribute a Photo of the Day shot for consideration, please visit our Gadling Flickr pool and upload your favorites.***

Monty Python Day: Reenact the Holy Grail

by Jamie Rhein on

Neil wrote a post about the best swear words in various languages, some perfect for lobbing insults. How about this bit of dialogue? Sound familiar?

“ French Soldier: I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”

“Sir Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to?
French Soldier: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.”

(Quotes from IMDb: Memorable Quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

The first time my friends and I saw the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we recounted this particular scene afterwards just to laugh some more. I’m not quite sure why “I fart in your general direction,” is so funny, but the scene is still a hoot. And I’m not the only one who still thinks so.

Today, 500 lucky people who snagged a ticket are at Doune Castle in Scotland to reenact scenes from the movie as part of Monty Python Day. The 1300s castle is a real one and not just a set. The rest of the year, it’s open for people to tour the rooms and imagine life back in when it was occupied by Robert Stewart, the Duke of Albany. However, on Monty Python Day, it’s turned over to silliness.

The tickets are already sold out, so it’s too late to go this year’s event, but keep this in mind as a September thing to do next year. This year is the event’s third. Since the movie is what mostly brings tourists to this Scottish location, I bet that Monty Python Day will continue to flourish. To tide you over until you can get there, here’s the insult scene (starting before Sir Galahad and his men reach the castle) posted on You Tube. I wonder if at the event today any animals came hurling over the wall? Thanks to Marilyn Terrell at Intelligent Traveler for pointing out this fun and frolic happening.