If the wine stains you lips red then tonight you might forget

[venta]

On account of, since Thursday night, a work Christmas party (cava, cocktails, wine, cocktails), a friend's party (champagne, champagne, champagne), a pre-Christmas dinner with friends (prosecco, red wine, port) and a pub quiz (beer), I feel like I ought to let my liver have a little rest.

On the other hand, the pre-Christmas dinner has left me with half a bottle of quite nice red wine that it would be a shame to waste. And the dinner has also left me with enough leftovers that I won't be cooking again for a while, and there is no space in the freezer to put the nice stew or something I could make with the wine.

I hate waste. Then again, I'd probably hate liver damage as well.

[Poll #1948315]

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Is it so nice that mulling it would be a waste? Cos that's what I'd do.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I do like mulled wine, but (rather surprisingly to me) it appears my instinctive reaction is that it's nice, so I don't want to mull it.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

The general rule is that mulling good wine is a bad idea. Mulling actually works best with a rough, low-grade wine; if you mull something really nice, you wind up with mulled wine that's inferior not only to the original un-mulled wine but also to mulled wine made from own-brand cheap plonk.

[ailbhe]

Freeze it to put in stew later.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Does that work? I mean obviously (unless it's very alcoholic wine indeed) it's physically possible - but does it come out the other end all right?

I feel like it shouldn't, but can't come up with a single sensible, scientific reason why it wouldn't.

[ailbhe]

I have no idea since I almost never have wine, when I do it's in 187ml bottles, and then I don't cook with it, but it's a tip I've read LOTS of times and it seems to me as though it ought to work.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, in an attempt to please everyone I have drunk some of it and frozen some of it :) Using my favourite receptacle-for-freezing-things-you-want-to-end-up-bigger-than-ice-cubes, the silicon muffin tray.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does. And it doesn't come out significantly different - it's a faff to defrost enough to drink, obviously, but for stew it's ideal. It's what I was coming here to suggest had I not been beaten to it. We've got various ice cube trays with the ends of several nice bottles of red in them...

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Freezing it (or concentrating it and then freezing the concentrate, if you're short of space) would have been my suggestion too :)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Ha! I think it's illegal, like distilling, but you probably won't get locked up for it. Until after you've used the concentrate ;-)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm aware, in the UK, it's only steam distillation or whatever the boil-the-bugger-and-try-to-be-canny-when-collecting-condensation method is called that's definitely illegal - and as far as I can tell this is for several reasons: the revenue man likes to tax the drinkable stuff; you can blow up your own eyebrows*/house/etc if you don't build your still right; and you can send your drinks blind/dead if you collect the wrong fraction (wee dram of meths, anyone?)

Freeze distilling may fall foul of some obscure footnote, but nobody is going to care that much unless you managed to make it a commercial operation - it's inefficient when done in a domestic freezer (I've tried it on 18% homebrew - the 'alcohol' portion came out at 19%, and the significant quantity of 'ice', once defrosted, at 17% - you'd lose a lot of booze as bi-product/waste for very little bump in ABV), and you're unlikely to hurt yourself or anyone else with it, because you're simply trying to separate the alcohol from the water by freezing the water & leaving the alcohol as liquid, whereas (as far as I understand it) heating can create those unsafe members of the alcohol family...

That said - all of this is predicated on the idea that Venta was intending to try to dunk ice out of her wine slushie - simply freezing & defrosting wouldn't have any effect on the alcohol content.


* I know someone who did this. Who has a degree in astrophysics. No, the rocket science jokes haven't died off even now that his eyebrows have grown back...

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Give the wine to somebody who'll enjoy it.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Your mention of stained lips reminds me of betel nut http://www.wikihow.com/Chew-Betel-Nut-in-Papua-New-Guinea

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Put it in the stew (but you know that's the only way I can tolerate red wine)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I would drink it, but I was going to say freeze it. So you've certainly pleased me :-) hope it was nice and remains so!