Altoids tangerine sours from memory

Sometimes I get to reflect on how I am doing the only thing that I could be doing right now. Recently I was reminded that I was such a little acid head growing up. I ate mustard straight from the packet at camp. Put too much balsamic vinegar on my salad so I could drink it from the bowl after the salad was gone. Ate like half a barrel of gratis cornichon at a restaurant (the first time I had ever had them, I was 13). Around that time I spent a summer on the couch watching American Gladiators and only consuming Edy’s Lemonade popsicles. Also on deck, perhaps mostly obviously, was a somewhat large selection of sour candies, my memory of these is the dimmest of all just listed.

I wouldn’t have even really ranked them until my friend Olivia texted me a reminder a few weeks ago. The Youtube algorithm had taken her to a man who makes hard candies primarily using equipment from the Victorian era (and shares videos of the process) in Tallahassee, Florida named Greg. She sent the first video of his series trying to recreate Altoids Tangerine Sours. Have you had these? Greg has not. They were amazing and maintain a cult following to this day. I love this video, he uses the ingredients list, images, and crowd sourced feedback to recreate this iconic candy. What really got me was his commitment  to recreating flavors from stranger’s memories. I told Olivia that I thought it was so beautiful, she said she was struck by that too. What I didn’t mention to Olivia that I want to mention to you is that it reminds me that behind every taste and every feeling that taste produces there is a technique and a raw material. It can be hard to understand that in wine sometimes and while hard candy is not fermented grape juice maybe you can see where I am going with this. And approach your next glass as something that someone thought to make for you with some sort of end in mind. Reached or not. Anyway, here is the first video embedded below. I also like this one about Lime Sours the drink and why acidic beverages are thirst quenching.

One of the ways wine is potentially not like hard candy to me is expressed here, in one of my favorite quotations from M.C. Richards:

The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. With food, with children, with building blocks, with speech, with thought, with pigment, with an umbrella, or a wineglass, or a torch. We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. any more than a man is wise only in his library. Or devout only in church. The material is not the sign of the creative feelings for life: of the warmth and sympathy and reverence which foster being; techniques are not the sign; “art” is not the sign. The sign is the light that dwells within the act, whatever its nature or medium.

We have many new wines in the shop right now, we couldn’t help ourselves. Lamoresca Rosato finally rolled in for those who were waiting to pop it with their crush. Also if this has got you craving something that embraces acidity in the most beautiful exciting way may I recommend the Sonoma Mountain Winery Chardonnay? Tasting notes will be making their way on to the site but in the meantime email rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or DM @rainbow_wines with your questions. Ciao.