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I was not a fan of the barley water when I lived in England. The golf course didn’t have Gatorade, but they had plenty of that crapola.

Two Chinese New Years ago, Missus and I were enjoying whelks in a lime-chilli sauce. Within twenty minutes, I got a pray-for-death, tunnel-vision migrane.

I get the same reaction every time I eat molluscs now, even oyster sauce! I’d be afraid to try those.

Perfect description of barley water, especially “Do I like it? I’ll have a think about it.”. I have always felt like that about it. However Vimto is horrible, even though it reminds me of childhood visiting grandparents in Manchester (England, not New Hampshire), as it was rather a northern drink then.

Indeed – vile muck, Vimto. Never could understand its appeal. Doubly so, now I read that it is the most popular drink in parts of the Middle East during Ramadan (is that like the Islamic Passover or something?).

Tripe sandwich eaters and left-hand arse wipers, that’s Vimto.

Tizer, OTOH, was the beverage for which my great, great grandfather used to press coins into the hand of my mother, when she was a girl, sending her out to the local shop for supplies. He’d been gassed in the trenches and said it was the only thing that eased the coughing fits. Poor bastard.

BTW – sorry Richard. I like Manchester a lot. In fact it’s my favourite Northern city – even though I support Yorkshire CCC!

You bet it’s the weekend, and as of about 4 hours ago, also my spring break.

Oyster-flavored chips sound positively revolting, though.

Does barley water have booze in it?

Costco now stocks beer flavored potato chips.

I’m thinking of buying a pallet to take home for the fambly.

Ye need tae try IRN-BRU, lassie. It’s made in Scotland, frae girders (or so they say.)

I’m personally a fan of the Lamb and Mint flavoured ones …

Bob, it doesn’t normally, but far be it from me to tell a man he can’t add booze to just about whatever he wants. Much like cheese, bacon, and tortillas, booze improves many otherwise disgusting things.

🙂

Try the Marmelite Yeast ones. I’m really curious what those are like.

I want this suit!

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Oh, that was a Dave in Texas find, from Twitter.

Marmite? I haven’t had the guts to try it yet. Dandelion and Burdock soda isn’t bad.

Fentiman’s? I love that stuff! World Market carries it here, along with their Ginger Beer. The first time we bought it was for the novelty – sounded like something right out of one of the offspring’s Brian Jacques novels – but it’s really tasty. I’m a fan of licorice and horehound too, though. The bomb-proof bottles always make me want to save them up for one of these.

Oh, Fentiman’s stuff is excellent. I made it a point to sample their whole range (rose lemonade is my favorite, I think).

But dandelion and burdock is a popular enough flavor that you can get the big plastic two liter bottles of generic.

I’m not sure whether to laugh – because it’s that popular – or cry. I’m staring at the label on a 9.3 oz bottle – 2 whole liters!?!11!! I’d be completely debauched.

I think I’ll stick with Orangina.

http://www.orangina.eu/en

Reminds me of “roast ox crisps” from the Young Ones.
http://tinyurl.com/3ukf58y

Go to 4:30 unless you want to hear some stellar alcohol related tunes from Madness. Good old Neil (Wheedon Watkins Pye), the quintessential hippy. Great show.

Fentiman’s shows up here from time to time – but not much. I’ve gotten the what is it – curious cola? And the lemonade.

You guys on that side of the pond had/like Strongbow (strong apple cider)? We have Ace here in CA, really nice on a hot day after working in the garden.

Medlar Swill!

no experience of the Old Blightey can be complete without this ambrosia of the Tudors, the elixir of Plantagenets, the nocturnal secretion of Baldricks!
Carbonate it with the expulsion of iguana’s methane for that frothy, effervescent j’en a sais quoix. Garnish sparsely with ocelot’s nipples, starling’s crests, muntjac’s oysters and hedgehog ovaries. Earthy, organic, redolent of the whirling dervish armpit at Stonehenge this was the great fuel that coalesced the ragtag militia of Picts and Celts and Woads into the British Empire.
Bouillon cubes of Medlar are available from Boots in 5 gramme dosage that goes virtually unnoticed at airports.

“Like fugu and absinthe, the medlar’s metaphorical notoriety far exceeds its culinary significance. Its homely appearance gave rise to derisory nicknames such as “open-arse” in Tudor English and ” cul-de-chien” (“dog butt”) in French. Although bletting does not involve any pathogens or decay, the process has often been considered akin to rotting. Chaucer, in the prologue to “The Reeve’s Tale,” wrote that the medlar is not edible “til it be roten,” and Henry Phillips, in his “Pomarium Britannicum” (1821), deemed its ripening a “putrefactive fermentation.” D.H. Lawrence poignantly expressed this view when he called medlars “Wineskins of brown morbidity / … The distilled essence of hell / The exquisite odour of leave taking.””

(David Karp, Exotic taste of the past, LAT 16th of Decembre, 2010.) Find your own goddamn link.

In Singapore for a few months, and they have Mark’s and Spencer’s here. Have to confess that I mainly hit them up for candies (Double Devon Toffees) and cookies – er, sorry, “biscuits.” I have bought bags of potato chips – damn it, “crisps” in various flavors, including curry. Mostly they serve to make me miss Tim’s Cascade Potato Chips from home.

Beverages made from weeds plucked from the roadside or scraped off the bottom of a lawn mower? None for me, thanks, you go ahead and enjoy.

Huh. I rather like barley water. But then, I’ve always made my own so don’t know how it compares. Slice of lemon and a sprig of mint over ice in a tall glass…just the thing on a hot day.