home made soda

We made homemade soda. You combine two litres boiling water with some
honey, teabags, and some sort of fruit (we used blueberries), and let
it steep together a while. Remove teabags, leave everything else
until the water is about room temp (65-85 degrees). Then strain it
into a bottle and add some yeasties. Cap it, let it sit 24 hours
(again at room temp), then refrigerate.

The yeasties devour the sugar (honey) and poop out carbon dioxide,
which essentially carbonates the drink.

I told someone at work about this and they said, "What's the alcohol
content of that?" I evaded the question at first, because I didn't
think there should be and slowly began to wonder myself. "What does
yeast making carbon dioxide actually do, then?" he asks, smiling.
"Uh... well, I guess it sort of ferments... well, there can't be MUCH
alcohol in it...?"

I still didn't think alcohol would be an issue. However, the problem
I have with this drink, now that we've tasted it, is that it tastes
like beer without the beer aftertaste. Needs more honey next time?

Dammit...

~nv

The Internet

I have pretty nearly obliterated an entire day by being online.

I don't even remember where I started. I've played Bubblez; read
about the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England; checked out a
bunch of bugs on whatsthatbug.com and bugguide.net; learned of and
researched Lundy Island and Flat Holm; found out that Naples has a
cemetary with 365 pits which are opened once per day to receive a pile
of dead bodies, which are mostly decomposed when each pit is opened a
year later; that some cemetaries feature brick-lined graves that cause
decomposition to happen far more slowly; people who deal with dead
bodies typically have very few illnesses (!); there's something called
Chilblain; infections were called "corruptions" in the early 19th
century; the Pound is currently equal to 1.66 American Dollars; God
only knows what else I stumbled across today in all my click-happy
time-wasting.

But you know what? This has been one of the best, most relaxing days
I've had in quite a while... other than sitting atop Mount Battie in
the mist, that is.

~nv