Category: Miscellaneous

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Miscellaneous

Your Flavourist and the plasma cutter

No, we’re not getting into plasma cutting 🤣 We were at our partner Paul’s brother Antoine’s house for the holidays.

A self-made man, Antoine is a jack of all trades. He knows how to work with wood, metal, he can make and build just about anything, from a jewel weighing a few grams to a complete house, not to mention fitting out a van or creating decorations for luxury boutiques on the Champs Élysées! 😮

This plasma cutter, Antoine built it with his own hands! And he very kindly offered us our logo, in metal, to hang in our lab in Paris! 🤩

And we were inspired by it. Finally, in metal cutting as in aroma creation or recipe development, you have to mobilise similar qualities: precision, agility, creativity…

And to make a living from your passion, like Antoine as an independent craftsman, like our partners as entrepreneurs in the taste and flavour industry, you need talent of course, but also determination, a taste for well-done work, the desire to satisfy your customers, adaptability and resilience in the face of failure.

And that’s what plasma cutting inspires us about! In the end, cutting metal and developing recipes are not so far apart! And that was worth a post, right? 😏

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Miscellaneous Recipes

Dry January – episode 4: Winter mocktail, by Quentin 🍹

Mocktails, or non-alcoholic cocktails, are an easy replacement for cocktails, as long as you can muster up some creativity. To start our 4th week of dry january, our flavourist Quentin dressed up as a mixologist, and it was really good, so we share 😋

Our winter mocktail has a reddish-orange coat and floats a slice of blood orange, the ultimate winter fruit. Its blood orange juice base gives it sweet floral notes, enhanced by a ginger juice that spices up this sweetness with spicy, earthy notes. An infusion of juniper berries completes the profile with notes of gin, reminiscent of the feel of familiar alcoholic cocktails. Finally, timut berries enhance the whole with tropical fruit notes and an electrifying tingling sensation ⚡

What’s interesting about this mocktail is that it manages to recreate some of the sensations of alcohol, which we associate with celebration or conviviality, but without consuming it: the drink is gourmand, warm, round and electrifying 🍊

Feel free to try it at home, and leave us a comment 😉

You can also share your mocktail recipes!

Categories
Miscellaneous Recipes

Dry January – episode 3: In the HOME-made family, I ask for Kefir!

For some time now, we have discovered kefir, which is always a hit at aperitif time, especially when it is home-made!

In short, kefir is a drink made by fermenting sweetened fruit juice or milk and kefir grains, which are a leavening of lactic acid bacteria and yeast. Many people praise its health benefits as a probiotic, particularly as it contributes to good digestion, strengthens the immune system and provides vitamins, minerals and complete proteins.

But we are particularly interested in the taste of kefir! For the occasion, we made a ginger kefir (fruit kefir). On the nose, it presents milky notes, yeast and lemon zest. On the palate, you can smell lactic acid, sweet yoghurt notes, lemon (citric acid), a buttery side with notes of very ripe fruit, as well as buttery notes. The ginger in our case brings earthy notes without being pungent. On the finish, the yeast remains quite persistent.

Like the kombucha we talked about last week, this is a rather typical drink that can be divisive: you either like it or you don’t… In any case, you can’t remain indifferent!

And how does it work at home? There are two aspects to take into account: the recipe of the drink, and the maintenance of the kefir grains to maintain a constant supply in your fridge!

Special thanks to Nico, our kefir chef 🙂

Our recipe

For 1L of drink (over 72h)

Ingredients: 25g kefir grains, 25g sugar, 1 organic dried fig, 1 organic lemon slice, seasoning of your choice.

Day D: mix all the ingredients except the seasoning in a closed but not airtight jar (this is important so that it does not explode during fermentation), which remains at room temperature for 48 hours.

Day 2: filter, collect your kefir grains (weigh them, you’ll see that your 25g has become 30g!), throw away the fig and the lemon slice, add the seasoning (for example: 1 lemon cut into slices, 1 piece of ginger cut into slices, a sprig of mint, … be creative!), and pour the whole into a sealed bottle that will stay in the fridge for 24 hours.

Day D+3: degas slowly (be careful, the quantity of gas can be surprising…) and enjoy!

Grain care

Your kefir grains can be used over and over again! Keep them in a solution of water and sugar (for 100g of kefir, a 250ml jar of water and 3 teaspoons of sugar). Every two to three weeks, soak the index finger, if it is no longer sweet add more sugar!

Gradually your quantity of kefir will increase, if you make drinks often. Don’t hesitate to give the surplus to your friends 😉

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Miscellaneous

Dry January – episode 2: it’s time for a drink!

It’s 7pm, the day has been long and tiring, and it’s time for a drink. But what should we drink?

For this 2nd episode of our Dry-January, we tested 3 non-alcoholic drinks, chosen by feel, to replace the traditional 7pm beer…

GALVANINA – THE BIO LEMON. Galvanina is an Italian mineral water that has been sold for more than a century, and has diversified its range and offers many fresh organic drinks. We stopped by their organic lemon tea. No doubt about it on the nose, which reveals itself to be powerfully lemon and lemon juice. On the palate, a nice citrusy attack, once again lemon and very typical of juice. The background notes are herbal and lavender floral. The drink is very sweet (a bit too much for our taste), a lower sugar level could have revealed a tangy side which we miss a bit for a lemon drink. As for the packaging, it looks like a lemonade, so you might be confused to find a flat drink… But despite everything, we liked it, and we recommend it to those who like gourmet drinks and lemon!

GALLIMATE – MATE. Gallimaté is a French start-up that has been offering mate-based energy drinks for a few years. And of course we wanted to test their “mate” drink. On the nose, we are already bewitched by notes of cooked fruits (cooked apple, cooked plum) and light herbal notes. In the attack, the green and herbaceous citrus notes delight us (dried grass, thyme, rosemary). The cooked fruits come back in the background, as well as very pleasant black tea notes with a slight astringency. The drink has a slight acidity. It foams slightly and fizzes in the form of fine bubbles. We LOVE it and it works completely in the spirit of the aperitif.

TO BE KOMBUCHA – INTIMATE. To Be Kombucha offers drinks brewed in the heart of Paris (kombucha is a drink made by growing bacteria and yeast in a sweet medium). We tested Intimate, with verbena and ginger. The nose may not seem very appealing: vinegary, acetic, fermented, rising. However, on the palate we discover herbal notes, lemongrass, an earthy side brought by the ginger, and a very pleasant astringency and acidity. In the background, there are notes of wild berries and blackcurrant. In the end, although very discreet in the face of the fermented, the verbena and ginger blend particularly well. The drink remains very marked and divisive, like all kombucha: you either love it or you hate it! In our case, it’s 50/50… Special mention to the reusable bottle: we fully endorse it!

In conclusion, it is not impossible in France to enjoy an aperitif without consuming alcohol and without stopping at a Coke. Let’s bet that in a future that we hope is very close, more and more tasty alternatives will be proposed to us!

And you, what do you drink during an alcohol-free aperitif?

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Miscellaneous

Dry January – episode 1

At QR Flavour Solutions, we are taking up the Dry January Challenge!

Wine, beer and cocktails are an integral part of the French art of living. For many of us, they are difficult to dissociate, culturally, from conviviality and sociability. However, alcohol remains an addictive psychoactive product that is harmful to health if abused. The January Challenge questions our relationship with alcohol and our lifestyle habits in a playful way. It also allows us to discover alternatives to alcohol and to reinvent, at least temporarily, our drinking habits.

So this year, for the third time, we decided to go for it! We put down the glass of champagne at 00:01 last Friday, and we’re sticking to the rule, whatever the cost. Our goal: not a drop of alcohol until Sunday 31 January at 11.59pm!

So far, so good. We promise to keep you posted 😉