November 9, 2024
Karin Rockstad, Spanish translator, WSET Educator SWS, FWS, IWS, Certified Rioja Educator, Certified Advanced Cava Educator, Albariño Ambassador, Sommelier 1
@garbanzo.grrl
Yes, ice cream. If you’ve never poured Pedro Ximenez over vanilla ice cream, you haven’t lived (well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but anyway…). Actually, I can see other ice cream flavors working here as well, but I like the plain Jane stuff.
Next up was a pre-class tipple with Nikki at Estelle in St. Paul. We both had an Amontillado. Hers was the Lustau-Los Arcos and I had Valdespino’s Contrabandista. I can see how it could be contraband—OMG how delicious! Everyone would want to get their hands on it.
We then headed over to Minneapolis to teach a class on Sherry and Sherry cocktails. I absolutely love it when people try something and it blows their expectations out of the water. What delight on their faces that night!
The drink is called an Arawak, adapted from Trader Vic’s Bar Guide from the 1950s. It’s PX, rum, orange bitters, and an orange twist. I think we gained some Sherry converts after that!
Sherry Week continued with study. Yes, study. I’m in the middle of the WSET Diploma and it so happens that I’m doing the fortified wine module right now. Perfect timing 😀
I’m super grateful to have taken the Wine Scholar Guild’s Certified Sherry Wine Specialist course over the summer. Sherry can be complicated and the more I read and taste, the more it sinks in and the more I appreciate it.
It’s still Sherry Week today and I’m not sure what’s in store, but I think I may make up my own Sherry weeks during the year. Why wait until November? Why only once a year? I think I need to get a bigger wine fridge…
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