2009年2月20日 星期五

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2009年2月19日 星期四

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2009年2月18日 星期三

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2009年2月11日 星期三

Skittles Vodka Tutorial

http://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/

Infusing vodka with Skittles is a very popular trend right now. There are a couple of different ways to do it. My way involves separating all the Skittles into their separate flavors and making five different bottles of Skittles vodka.

final

For this project, you’ll need:

ingredients

  • One 1.75 liter bottle of vodka (I used Stoli - you don’t need the most expensive vodka, but do avoid the cheap ones)
  • Five 8.5 ounce flasks or bottles
  • One 1 pound bag of Skittles
  • Five empty plastic water bottles
  • A funnel
  • Bowls for separating the Skittles into flavors
  • A measuring cup (not pictured)
  • Coffee filters or paper towels

You’ll also want to cover your workspace with newspaper or

freezer paper - this infusion can get messy. If you’re making a different sized batch, here’s the formula you need to know: I used 60 Skittles to 6 ounces of vodka, which yields about 8 ounces of infused vodka. If you want to make 1.5 times that, or 3 times that, just multiply your amounts.

Step 1: Separate Skittles into Flavors

Start by simply separating the Skittles into flavors. You want 60 of each.
separating

Step 2: Setting up your Infusion Bottles

Fill your water bottles with 6 ounces of vodka each. It doesn’t need to be exact - you can always even it out later by pouring in a bit more vodka to the ones that come out with less.
waterbottles

Step 4: Add the Skittles

addingskittles

Pour the Skittles of one flavor into one infusion bottle, then pour the next flavor of Skittles into the next infusion bottle, and so on until all five bottles have a pile of Skittles soaking in the vodka.

orangeYou could certainly be more sophisticated than I was here, and use a funnel to pour the Skittles of each flavor into one of the bottles. The reason I did it this way was that I felt it would be easier to wash each flavor of Skittles off my hands before moving onto the next one than it than to get that flavor out of the funnel each time - that plastic tends to hold onto the flavors, skin doesn’t.

Step 5: Shake ‘em, shake ‘em, shake ‘em

shakingNow your infusion bottles all have Skittles in the bottom. Give each bottle a good shake - the more, the better. In my picture here, you can see that the colored candy coating has already rubbed off into the vodka, but the white insides of the Skittles still have a lot of dissolving to do. After shaking them, set them aside for a few hours. It’s a good idea to shake them again then, especially if you’re making a bigger batch. My Skittles all dissolved overnight.

Once they’re all dissolved, you’ll notice a lot of white muck floating at the top. We’ll take care of this in Step 6.

infusion

Step 6: Strain

funnelandcupThere are a number of ways to strain this stuff and get all the white gunk out. Some people prefer paper towels, but I used coffee filters and found they worked just as well. I put a funnel inside a measuring cup.

coffeefiltersThen I put four coffee filters in the funnel. It’s hard to say exactly how many you’ll need, since not all coffee filters are exactly the same. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn, though: orange and green needed more filtration than the others. I discovered this when I thought I was finished, and found a little bit of white stuff still floating in those two flavors. No problem, though: I just strained them again through one more coffee filter, and that took care of it. So if you find you haven’t strained it thoroughly enough, the good news is: you can always fix that later.

pouringThen I poured one of the infusions into my strainer setup. I had to pour about a quarter of my infusion in, then wait for some of it to soak through, then pour another quarter in, until I was done. In the end, you’ll have about 8 ounces of Skittle infused vodka. Then I dumped the funnel and coffee filters into one of the bowls I’d used earlier for counting out Skittles, to catch drips as I carried it over to the sink. I washed everything out for re-using (except the coffee filters, of course - those I just rinsed before disposing of, so the sugar wouldn’t attract ants).

intobottle Then I took the liquid from the measuring cup and poured it into a flask, via the now-clean funnel. You can see here that the green is a little thick, and it shouldn’t have been - that’s why I ended up having to re-filter it. Then I rinsed the funnel out again.

Repeat this process for each flavor.

Here you can see about how much gunk the filtration takes out:

gunk

Step 7: Chill and Serve

Now you’ve got 5 flasks or bottles of Skittles infused vodka:

flasks

Stick them in the freezer for several hours - overnight is fabulous…

freezer

…and they’re ready to serve:

chilled

Now, these are pretty strong on their own - nearly pure vodka. They are also very sweet. You can drink them straight, served up in a chilled martini glass, or you can use them in a cocktail:

  • Mix them with ginger ale, 7-up or Sprite to taste
  • Mix them with cola to taste (diet cola cuts the sweetness a little)
  • Serve them on the rocks to water it down a little
  • Some people mix them with fruit juice. I didn’t try this, because to me the Skittles were plenty of sweetness for my taste buds.
  • Everyone’s taste varies - there are so many directions you can take this drink in, you really should try anything that sounds good to you!

Cheers!

外行的裝內行?

‧udn / 網路城邦 (網誌) / 法蘭西國境之南 / 文章
‧原文網址:http://blog.udn.com/suewanleetw/2637757

一位溫柔內向又老實的法國女友最近被付予一個本行之外的工作,她必須幫忙一個賽車團隊尋求廣告贊助商。但是她投遞出去的提議書一一如同石沉大海,整個人於 是變得非常沮喪。大家都知道全球正在不景氣,不景氣得時候,肚子吃飽、衣服穿暖最重要,其餘的消遣姓活動… 嘿嘿 …能省就省了吧! 所以,娛樂性消費,尤其是奢侈性的高娛樂消費,就是排名第一個被砍。我認識這個朋友十年有餘,知道她的修養。人美氣質佳,非常客氣有禮善良心腸軟是她的優 點,但也可能是她在事業上的缺陷。比如說,她絕對不能去從商。為什麼不能從商呢? 因為心太軟,任何人跟她哭窮哭可憐,她可能會答應讓人賒帳永遠,然後自己借貸度日,最後變成她自己窮自己可憐。我還沒有看過像她這樣的法國人,除了我哈尼 之外。那天,她支支吾吾地跟我說,能不能麻煩我將一份提議書翻成中文,她必須寄到中國大陸去。我先請她轉寄到我電子信箱來,答應先看過了再說。簡短的提議 書並不難翻成中文,但是長達十六頁的 PPT 檔我就不保證有耐心撩下去翻了,這一翻可能天昏地暗起來,還有很多專業術語,必須邊翻邊討論的。 況且,翻提議書我倆交情可以套用,她不必欠人情,我估計十五分鐘可以搞定。翻大部頭的 PPT 檔,即使她的老闆願意出錢,我也不一定有熱情去做。當然,如果老闆願意出一百萬歐元的話我馬上捲袖子翻…( 開開玩笑…)我 的估計稍有差錯。提議書大約花了十二分鐘翻完。但是我越看越不對勁,於是自己又雞婆地花了三十分鐘改寫,用自認為最具行銷性的寫法。寫好後跟她及她的老闆 討論,最後說服大家以我改寫的版本郵寄出去。其實,我覺得大家聽我的,大部分原因是因為反正都看不懂中文,也沒有過跟亞洲的公司交手過,除了日本之外。我 又想,可以寄給大陸的,為什麼不能寄去台灣 ? 況且很多位於大陸的企業根本是台灣人在掌管經營;與其寄去大陸子公司,何不寄到台灣母公司? 所以,又雞婆地做了一些功課花了一點時間蒐尋台灣企業廠商,提供聯絡方式。當我忍不住得意地跟哈尼獻寶時,哈尼笑得斯文,但是一副 “妳不要再外行的裝內行了行不行啊?!”我知道自己從來沒做過產品行銷,不過,凡事都嘛有第一次,一回生二回熟,不幫忙則已, 要幫就幫到底,外行如我,只要能得到一點點好的回饋就會很有成就感的。三天後,朋友的公司接到回音。一家台灣廠商願意提供價值不菲的機械工具以換取廣告曝 光度。期間我又幫忙修改潤飾了英文版的提議書,也很快地接到英國一家機油大廠的善意回覆及應許,對方願意免費提供一整年的機油所需。老闆說,我修改提議書 之前,都沒有接到任何好消息,尋求贊助廠商其實就是找顧客,簡單的說,就是要大企業掏腰包買廣告。原先友人寫的提議書大多著墨在於介紹公司以及賽車團隊, 我所修改的新提議書則是站在可能贊助的廠商立場,消費者通常會問 :Where is the beef?Voila! 牛肉就是要先端出來,鮮美大塊多汁誘人,才會有人願意挑腰包買不是嗎? 台灣沒有世界級的賽車比賽,只有經由電視運動頻道的轉播看得到F1方程式賽車或摩托車GP(Grand Prix)的比賽轉播,這些比賽中常常可以看到很多廣告,張貼在賽車場圍牆護欄上的、貼在車體上的、賽車手衣服上的、甚至umbrella girls 的衣服跟傘上頭….的,這些都是廣告, 隨著賽車在全世界進行,經由電視轉播,報紙雜誌等平面媒體,廣告的曝光率是直接且全球性的。對於任何走國際化的企業,這是最好的全球性宣傳手法之一,當然 比起單一國家的個別廣告宣傳強多了。

再者,任何商品只要跟 F1 或 MOTO GP 連在一起,就已經代表身價不凡,有時候甚至是花錢也不一定買得到的。如今,因為全世界經濟的不景氣,本來可能需要幾百萬幾千萬才買得到的曝光率,現在或許 不到一半的付費就可以了,根本就是買方市場。景氣低盪的時機,有時可能正是布局消費或聰明投資的契機。舉例來說,如果我有閒錢,我可以讓一個方程式車隊或 摩托車GP用”七琴”的名稱去跑車,想想多拉風啊?! 車體上寫中文耶…. 啥人甲我比?! … 說笑而已啦! 這也太自戀了吧?! 再胡思亂想下去,哈尼可能又要用那迷人地微笑來嘲笑老婆外行裝內行了。不 過,話說回來,這外行的裝內行,一開始也裝出了一點點小成績來了。後續最新消息是說, 聽到英國機油廠願意提供一年份機油,原先拒絕贊助的法國機油廠起了同行相忌之心,不願意看到英國機油的廠牌大辣辣地掛在法國車隊上,所以競爭性地開出更好 的條件要擠掉英國機油廠。好啊,鷸蚌相爭,漁翁得利;廠商相爭,我們得利。友人跟我說,她的老闆很開心, 鑑於大中國市場區塊的潛力不可限量,說是搞不好將來可以請我去公司當秘書云云。我馬上就回答說:才不要!後來想想,why not?! 為何不要?! 經濟這麼低迷,裁員如此滾滾的時代,有人送工作上門來還說不要的太不道德了吧?! 說不定我可以在家裡用電腦上班,說不定我可以偶爾才去公司,說不定我可以撮合更多的交易,說不定….說不定有一天…我可以外行不用裝就變內行….~ ~ 先自首一下,這篇文章裡的圖片都是孤狗抓來的,對於賽車攝影我是真的完完全全的不用裝就是外行!

2009年2月10日 星期二

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2009年2月7日 星期六


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