Instead of buying costly liquor, gargle with raw sewage once a day and then hit youself in the forehead with a ball peen hammer 50 times in a row.

The sewage-hammer maneuver doesn’t look as suave in a bar, however.

Anyone who wastes money on expensive liquor has gotten duped. Instead of buying costly liquor, gargle with raw sewage once a day and then hit youself in the forehead with a ball peen hammer 50 times in a row. You’ll save yourself immense amounts of cash and accomplish the same thing.

http://www.johnandkiras.com/site/Welcome_business.htm

Their biodynamic ginger one was amazing.

Or paying in terms of time. Ever tried making chocolate yourself?

Since i stopped drinking (now sixteen years ago) i have had to take my “holic” needs away from great Scotches and superb wines (and indeed there are amazing and expensive qualitative differences in both of those beverages) and put them towards chocolate and ice creams. As with any palate, it is a matter of personal taste and preference, but the essential underlying constructs are the same. The quality of the cocoa bean (and SA is better than Africa–African child slave labor is what drives the price of cheap inferior beans), the quality of the sugar, and most importantly the quality of the butter/dairy sources. Chocolate makers in different countries have used regional recipes for the last 500 years or so, and while some prefer the European taste, i am happier with the recipes created in the Americas, long before the bean went east.

That being said, find a chocolatier who uses a chocolate made in the way you prefer, then work through their selections. From Europe i prefer the Italian Vente rather than the versions from the North. From the US, i am a CA boy and really enjoy the work of some of the Sierra and Gold Country studios (yes chocolatiers are artists working in studios). I passionately recommend you find a sample of one of my favorites (and yes, i used to live in the same small town for 15 years) DeGroot’s The Truffle Shop in Nevada City, CA. The Chocolate Oblivion Torte is to die for, and if you like quality Scotch, try the Highlander Truffle.

What a joy to see political correctness thrown to the winds just once! Hurrah for money and the pleasures it brings!

Some See’s Candy stores honor a discount for teachers. Just show them your university ID and get the discount!

Not any more. From wikipedia (figures are millions of metric tons)
Africa is clearly far in the lead, and I’d no idea Cambodia was a significant producer.

Côte d’Ivoire 1.33
Ghana 0.74
Indonesia 0.43
Nigeria 0.37
Brazil 0.17
Cambodia 0.13
Ecuador 0.09
World Total 3.6

(1) Ice cream. B&J and Haagen Daasz cost perhaps twice what Dreyers and the store brands cost, but are, IMHO, clearly different and better.
(2) Both Quiznos and Subway will sell you a sandwich containing steak, but the Quiznos one, while costing twice as much, will not have any fat or tendon in it, and will be a whole lot more tender. The same goes for steak burritos at, say, Baja Fresh rather than Del Taco.

Oddly, again IMHO, chocolate is one of those items where this holds rather less, or to put it differently, the bulk stuff (Hersheys or Cadbury’s) that you can get in most supermarkets is actually pretty good, and the expensive stuff seems obsessed with making a *different* product (namely very dark chocolate) rather than a superior version of the stuff I like (namely milk chocolate). You can, at Safeway/Vons/Pavilions, and maybe other supermarkets, buy milk chocolate made by Lindt which is about 1.5x the cost of Hersheys and which is, to my mind, clearly better tasting.
If you want to see what a better class of chocolate might taste like, but don’t care for dark chocolate, and would rather spend about $2 than $100, I’d recommend trying a bar of the Lindt milk chocolate (the basic one, not the weird stuff with coconut or orange or whatever added).

Are you enjoying See’s candies regularly now that you are in California? Best quality/money ratio out there by far, in my experience.

-Sam

Scott, I’ve certainly joined the Ath, but not sampled the Scotch there yet. Next time you’re in town!

Thanks for catching the Bonnat link, fixed. I’m not sure that it’s a good assumption to think that the Noka chocolate tastes exactly like the Bonnat (although it may be true); it’s possible just to melt the couverture down and re-shape it, but it can also be altered in all sorts of ways.