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We’re interrupting our series break to bring you a very special episode of the Oddrop Drinks Podcast. We hear from a team of women who have spent the last few months researching and recreating a 5,000-year-old beer from Ancient Egypt. Part of the Pleasant Vices YouTube series, they’ve been working closely with the British Museum to reproduce this ancient boozy beverage.   Our fantastic guests in this episode are: Tasha Marks – food historian and founder at AVM Curiosities.  Michaela Charles – brewer at AlphaBeta Brewery  Susan Boyle – drinks specialist/consultant, performer of A Wine Goose Chase and brewer at Two Sisters Brewery For more information on this amazing brew, read Tasha’s blog on the British Museum website and watch the Pleasant Vices series on YouTube. Keep in touch with us at @Oddrop_Podcast on Twitter/Instagram www.oddrop.co.uk

In our last episode of the series, we look at a drink that’s particularly close to Lucy’s heart – dry sherry. We look into three of the key styles of dry sherry and their unique ageing processes, with Certified Sherry Educator Karen Douglas, who is also the Director of Global Education at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). Plus we FINALLY let producer Lou have a drink! She tries dry sherry for the first time and gives us her unique take on how to describe colours in wine… The sherries we tried in this episode were the Fino, Amontillado and Oloroso from the Pedro’s Almacenista range, available at Majestic Wine. Other favourite sherries of ours include Valdespino, El Maestro Sierra and Fernando di Castilla. Or for some super old and complex sherries, try Bodegas Tradicion. A list of the best sherry bars in the UK (as nominated by Sherry Wines) can be found here. Enjoy!

This episode will start anyone’s morning off right – coffee. This delightfully addictive beverage rules over our mornings and is part of many people’s daily routine, yet we don’t always take the time to appreciate the hard work that goes into each and every cup. There's much more to a cup of coffee than a simple caffeine boost! We learn from Laura Bratti, Head of Training at the Artisan Coffee School, all about the beans themselves, optimum brewing methods, the best kit for brewing the perfect cup at home, and how to conduct a professional coffee ‘cupping’! To learn more about coffee, visit www.artisancoffeeschool.co.uk The two roasteries we tried coffee from in this episode were: The Barn Roastery, Berlin - https://thebarn.de/ Gardelli Roastery, Italy https://shop.gardellicoffee.com/

This week’s episode is one of our favourites. Cider is perhaps the most misunderstood and underrated drink around, despite being the UK’s indigenous beverage. Often lumped in as an add-on to beer, cider is much more akin to wine. It’s the fermented juice of the apple and each apple variety that goes into it will go a long way towards determining its unique tastes and flavours. We speak with Gabe Cook, AKA the Ciderologist. Gabe’s on a mission to change the UK’s perceptions of this this amazingly diverse drink and help us understand all the different styles available. Your challenge, listener, is to seek them out, so go get some cider inside your insides!   To learn more about cider, and about Gabe, visit www.theciderologist.com. If you’re keen to formalise your cider knowledge, Gabe has developed a series of qualifications with the Beer and Cider Academy. Check them out at https://www.beerandcideracademy.org/cider-courses/ Check out our website at www.oddrop.co.uk/podcasts/cider to find out where to buy the ciders we tasted  and mentionedin this episode.

This episode discovers Sake, a Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice. Not a beer, not a wine, not a spirit, sake is a category all of its own. We talk to sake educator Honami Matsumoto, who gives us a run-down of the very specialist polishing and brewing process that goes into making sake and helps us to break down the category into different styles.  Sake is a hugely diverse drink with so many nuances and sub-styles - this podcast gives just a little taste of this amazing drink. We hope to follow this episode up later down the line by looking at some of the super-special and slightly more off-piste styles of sake, so watch this space! A little heads up, there's a lot of new terms to learn, so we've plonked a little glossary on our website at www.oddrop.co.uk/podcasts/sake The incredible sake we tried in this podcast can be purchased online from Hedonism Wines:  Keigetsu Gin no Yume Junmai Daiginjo Keigetsu Aikawahomare Tokubetsu Junmai For more info on Sake and Honami herself, or to purchase some beautiful sake ware, visit www.houseofsake.co.uk To book onto a sake course, visit www.wsetglobal.com. 

This week we take our first excursion into the spirit world, and what better spirit to begin with than gin. We talk with spirits/cocktails educator Hannah Lanfear of The Mixing Class. Hannah has an enormous knowledge of the history and production of this fascinating spirit. She takes us on a journey through time from gin’s arrival in the UK from Holland through to the present-day gin boom (teaser: it has not been a smooth ride!) Hannah also offers us her advice on how to taste spirits neat, how to avoid screwing up a G&T and how to craft a classic Martini. The three gins tasted in this podcast are, in order, Jensen’s Old Tom Gin, Nicholson London Dry and Four Pillars Navy Strength. You can find them all online from spirits retailers such as www.thewhiskyexchange.com To learn more about spirits  and cocktails, visit Hannah’s website: www.themixingclass.com  To book a spirits qualification course through the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) head to www.wsetglobal.com to find your nearest course provider. Have a favourite gin you think we should try? Get in touch with us on Instagram/Twitter @Oddrop_Podcast or at www.oddrop.co.uk.     

This week’s Oddrop is the oddest yet. Kombucha is a soft drink that can be simply defined as 'raw fermented tea'. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Touted by some as a health drink and by others simply as a fantastic alternative/accompaniment to alcohol, we have recently become quite fond of this delicious, fizzy, acidic beverage. This week we learn from Adam Vanni, co-founder of JARR Kombucha (and Europe’s first Kombucha tap room) about the origins of Kombucha and the slightly Doctor Who-esque process behind it. Also, producer Lou buys Lucy a new pet for Christmas, a SCOBY… To follow our Kombucha brewing efforts, check out our Instagram/Twitter feeds at @Oddrop_Podcast  To get your hands-on Adam’s Kombucha, head to www.jarrkombucha.com For tips and ingredient for brewing your own, visit www.happykombucha.co.uk

Feeling a little nippy this winter? Spare a thought for Icewine grape pickers. In the depths of mid-winter Canada, these cold-hardy wine-loving troopers are called from their beds in the dead of night to trawl vineyards laden with frozen grapes, often in temperatures of -10°c or below. The reward? A few tiny droplets per grape of pure, sweet and tangy juice – the purest essence of the wine grape. This nectar-like liquid is used to make Icewine – the world’s purest, freshest and fruitiest sweet wine. This week I chat with Mark Torrance and Renee Wright from Peller Estates Winery in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada. Temperatures there have dropped below -25°C over recent weeks – pretty unpleasant for humans, potentially wonderful for Icewine! Apparently there’s quite a nice waterfall nearby too… To learn more about Peller Estates Winery, visit www.peller.com. To learn more about wine in general and to book onto a course, visit www.wsetglobal.com The Oddrop Drinks Podcast is hosted by Lucy Stevenson and produced by Louise Mulroy. For more information about the series or to get in touch, visit www.oddrop.co.uk or find us on Twitter/Instagram @Oddrop_Podcast 

Tea is the UK's favourite beverage (besides boring old tap water) but most of us know next to nothing about where it comes from, how it's made or how to extract the best flavour possible from our brews.  In this episode Lucy talks to tea specialist Kyle Whittington about different types of tea, why Brits always reach for the kettle in times of stress and the huge influence that the unassuming little tea leaf has had on the history of global politics.  To learn more about Kyle (and tea), visit www.kyle-whittington.com or or tweet him @TeaWithKyle The Oddrop Drinks Podcast is hosted by Lucy Stevenson and produced by Louise Mulroy. For more information about the series or to get in touch, visit www.oddrop.co.uk or find us on Twitter/Instagram @Oddrop_Podcast Checkout our other podcast, We Made a Beer at www.wemadeabeer.co.uk 

In our first ever episode, we start by exploring the ingredients behind the UK's favourite alcohol, beer! Wine educator Lucy Stevenson meets Ben Richards, a journalist who spent 2017 growing all the ingredients needed to brew his own beer. Most brewers buy in their ingredients from wholesalers or specialist retailers, but not Ben! He tells the story of "the least commercially viable beer ever made" and along the way explains how beer is made, what it's made from, and exactly how much hard work goes into achieving a great glass of beer.  To learn more about Ben, visit www.growingbeer.co.uk  For more beer know-how, listen to our other podcast, We Made a Beer at www.wemadeabeer.co.uk  The Oddrop Drinks Podcast is hosted by Lucy Stevenson and produced by Louise Mulroy. For more information about the series or to get in touch, visit www.oddrop.co.uk or find us on Twitter/Instagram @Oddrop_Podcast

Preview the brand new Oddrop Drinks Podcast, from the creators of the award-winning We Made a Beer podcast series. Hosted by drinks educator Lucy Stevenson DipWSET, the Oddrop Drinks Podcast explores curious drinks for curious drinkers. Launching early 2018!