Fire Dancers, Hot Cake House, and Peach Jalapeno Wine

I am sometimes at a loss for words to explain the way that crafting beer and wine make me feel. It's not just a hobby, it's a calling, in the sense that we all have something which turns the light on in there heads and hearts through which we channel feelings and thoughts. If nothing else I've learned that ignoring the demands of tending to my beer has often had detrimental effects on my state of mind. I can always depend on having a clear head after I've worked with my wines or worked on some beer recipe I want to try. When I lived in Minneapolis my kitchen was a closeted rainbow factory, with all my beer and wines in cupboards or under blankets. When I brought them out on bright days the sun shining on them made my kitchen light up and spirit even more so. I think that's what so heartbreaking about not really having a place to live that's my own space is that I feel like my happiness is confined to a dark cupboard but with no chance to come out and shine. It's hard to remain cheerful and even harder to be motivated to create.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I dream. I dreamed last night about a wine made of peaches and jalapenos. I know from experience that if I didn't write it out and try to figure the proportions I would continue to dream about it in some way or another this wine would haunt even my waking hours.

It began with Beer and Boobies night with friends with whom I usually do happy hours with on Fridays. I posted that I was looking for a ride to the festivities and the person who would usually let me tag along with them couldn't, so I had originally planned to just go to the one stripclub and head home after. Then I got an email from a friend that he was going because he didn't have to work and he would be willing to drive and even pick me up.

So the first place we met up at was our standby Union Jacks but it was really slow, even the dancers looked a little bored. After an hour we left and went to Devil's Point because rumor had it there was a fire dancer there...and there was. She was no joke, really impressive.

There is a point to this story, the wine comes in soon I promise.

So at around 11:00pm there was only 3 of us. Well chris called it a night and left but to be honest I was having such a good time talking with my driving buddy that we decided to not call it a night. Instead we went for breakfast at the Hot Cake House on Powell. We must have talked non-stop for over and hour about lots of weird things about the world and ourselves. Well it turns out he doesn't really drink a lot and doesn't really like beer. I know I should have just walked away from such blasphemy but I was seriously intrigued by the notion of not liking beer. He was quick to point out that he liked Framboise, which is a beer. He's a fan of Mike's hard lemonades. He mentioned that he liked the peach margarita, which I do as well and I mentioned that I had once made a jalepeno wine.

I got home around 1:30am and fell asleep a couple hours later. I dreamt about peaches and jalapenos last night and woke up thinking about them. I spent a couple hours looking through my wine forum to get insights on making wines from peppers and fruit together. I imagine something light and a little on the sweet side with a bit of jalapeno undertone and spiciness. I don't want the heat so much, though if it was a darker wine and had the right balance of sweet and tart that might carry the heat a little better than a light wine.

Anyway to make a long story a little longer I mapped out a tentative peach jalapeno recipe and think I'll get started on that sometime this fall.