If I told you that there is one activity that you can do today to make you smarter, what would you guess it is? Would you guess listening to classical music? Doing brain-teaser puzzles? Proving why the theory of relativity isn’t actually how Einstein described it?
Would you be surprised if I told you that the one thing that you can do today is …
When it comes to tasting wine, some people have an advantage. It’s called “supertasting”, and it’s a superpower that YOU might have and not even know it!
So how do you discover your superhero-ness without getting bitten by a radioactive spider? It’s easy, and it involves drinking wine (so of course, we’re all for it)!…
Join us June 21st-23rd for a beach party (without the beach). We’ll supply the wine cocktails, surf music, and summery food… you bring, well, you! Dress in your favorite beach party outfit – we encourage straw hats, sunglasses, Hawaiian shirts, sundresses, and flip-flops. (You can even wear your pool floaties if you want to.)
Some beachy offerings we’ll be featuring: the Hot Hawaiian pizza, our All-American Cheeseburger, Ace® Pineapple Craft Cider, and Blake’s Hard Cider Company “El Chavo” – infused with mango and habanero peppers! Of course, we’ll be making three refreshing cocktail options, as well.
As the weather gets warmer, a cold hard cider is the perfect refreshing beverage. Here are some reasons you should consider a hard cider next time you want a delicious drink:
Although a lot of hard ciders are made from apples, others are brewed completely from other fruits. Some examples are pineapple cider and pear cider (also known as perry). A lot of ciders mix both apples and other fruits to make unique flavors.
Some of our favorites are:
We all like to know that something we’re drinking anyway is actually good for us, and with hard cider, this is true!
Hard cider is made from fruit (usually apples, but not always). The fermenting process doesn’t remove the vitamins and minerals you would get from the fruits themselves—that means you’re getting your vitamin C and antioxidants. In fact, hard cider has more antioxidants than green tea!
Obviously, like any alcoholic beverage, drink it in moderation.
The sweetness of the cider depends on the alcohol content. In general, the more alcohol there is in the brew, the less sweet it will be.
Although the four main flavors – sweet, salty, sour, and bitter are all your tongue is really capable of tasting, the long-lasting impression that wine leaves in your mouth is far more complex. When you drink or taste wine, your taste buds and your sense of smell are involved, adding to the way you interpret wine overall. The flavors, aromas, and sensations that wine is comprised of provide the interaction that you taste when you sample wine.
Sweetness is something that wines are well known for. With most types of wine, grapes are responsible for the sweet taste. Grapes contain a lot of sugar, which breaks the yeast down into alcohol. The grapes and yeast that were used to produce the wine will leave behind various sugars, which your tongue will be able to quickly detect. Once your tongue detects these various sugars, the stimulation of sweetness from the wine will be present in your mouth.
Alcohol is also present in wine, although your tongue doesn’t really know how to decipher the taste of alcohol. Even though the tongue doesn’t really taste the alcohol, it is present in the mouth. The alcohol found in wine will dilate blood vessels and therefore intensify all of the other flavors found in the wine. After you have sampled a few types of wine, the alcohol level can easily have an effect on your taste buds, making it hard to distinguish other drinks that you may have.
Another flavor is acidity, which will affect the sugars. With the proper balance of acidity, the overall flavor of wine can be very overwhelming. Once you taste a wine that contains it, the flavor of the acidity will be well known to your tongue. Although acidity is great with wine, too much of it will leave a very sharp taste. With the right levels, acidity will bring the flavors of the grape and fruits alive in your mouth – providing you with the perfect taste. A good wine will have balanced acidity to support the other flavors.
Yet another variable that affects flavor is tannins, which are the proteins found in the skins of grapes and other fruits. If a wine has the right amount of tannins, it will give your tongue a great feel, and bring in the sensations of the other flavors. Once a wine starts to age, the tannins will begin to break down in the bottle, giving you a softer feel to the taste. Tannins are essential for the taste of wine – providing the wine has been properly aged.
The last flavor associated with wine is oak. Oak isn’t put into the wine during the manufacturing process. It is actually transferred during the aging process, as most wines will spend quite a bit of time in oak barrels. Depending on how long the wine is left in the oak barrel or cask, the ability to extract the flavor will vary. Most often, wines will be aged just enough to where the oak taste can be detected, and to where it adds the perfect sentiment to the taste.