Letters From Readers

Aaron from Washington Heights writes:

Dear Ray,

Awright, I'm game, is it easy to make hard cider? Cuz I've heard it's hard
to make easy cider.

Signed,
Washington Heights reader

Aaron,

Both, in fact, are true. Making hard cider is like making compost. It shouldn't be more work than you want to put into it. And once you know how the basics, the secret is just letting the little critters living in there do their thing.

I promise to publish posts on both hard cider and easy cider in the near future.

Another reader writes:

Dear Ray,

I just used wine.net to calculate the amount of liquors i will need at my
next party of 40 guests, for 10 hours with a 40-20-40 beer-wine-liquor ratio.
But it says that I only need 112 servings of beer, 56 servings of wine, and 112
servings of 750ml bottles of liquor, which seems a little low. Is this somehow
related to infusing bacon into vodka?

Thanks,
-thirsty

Dear Thirsty,

Yes, that's right.

Letters from Readers

Occasionally we take time respond to a few of the many letters we receive from readers. Today's letters are from Pennsylvania and from Brooklyn.

Dear Ray,

Mmm. That is the most delish blog on the web. I hope you find ways to work pork and pork products into yer vodkablog. Cuz vodka and pork are essentially the food of the gods.

-Ego in Park Slope

Dear Ego,

I remember when I was in college there was a house that was rumored to have a bottle of "pork schnapps". I never actually saw it, and assume it was a homemade concoction that gained mythical status only because no one dared drink it and it stayed there on the cinder-block-and-stolen-lumber shelves.

Just for you, Ego, I plan to go to the grocery store this afternoon to buy some Nueske's bacon to make some bacon-infused vodka. I promise to share the results.

A friend recently suggested pastrami vodka. Too bad I can't find any REALLY GOOD pastrami in Minnesota. I believe Katz's has a slogan that says "Send a pastrama to your boy for good karma". I'm just sayin'.

Dear Ray,

We've got spirits. Yes, we do. We've got spirits. How 'bout you?

-Eamus in Pittsburgh

Dear Eamus,

I'll cut to the chase here: We've got more.