5 important wine facts

1.  Never smell the cork

When the waiter opens the bottle and presents you with the cork on a small platter, it is not for you to smell it as most people do. When you smell a cork the only thing you can smell is cork itself, not the aroma of the wine or what ever people say they are smelling. The cork is presented so that you can examine that it has a proper brand stamp of the winary on it so that you know that the bottle wasn't tempered with. 

2. Champagne is not meant to pop open

The winners of formula one races do it, in movies they do it when they celebrate, most people do it at home cause they have seen it done watching tv... But the truth is, champagne bottle is, if you are playing by enologist rules, not meant to pop. The champagne bottle is closed with larger cork that keeps all the air inside, and the cork widens over time (thus the funny shape), and it will pop if you don't hold it. But the faster it opens the faster air goes into bottle and more wine is spilled and all the bubbles will soon disappear. If you open the bottle slow, by turning the cork clock wise wile firmly holding it and the bottle it will open without a pop or flying cork and the sparkling part of champagne will stay in the wine and the taste will be batter. So if you don't want to waste the overflowing precious wine or to just open it for the sake of fun, don't let the cork fly through the roof.

3. Holding the glass

There are several reasons why wine glasses are not held by the bowl, but by the stem or base. First thing is that you leave the finger marks on the crystal. Second reason is that if you hold it by the bowl you will warm the wine with your hand and thus compromise on it's taste.Third and last, have you ever tried to cheer while holding the glass by the stem? If you haven't than you don't know that the clinking sound is only heard when you hold the glass properly.

4. Decanting the wine

There is no rule that says you can't pore any wine into a decanter. But the process of decanting is effective only with stronger older red wines, and this is why. When the wine is older and you open it, at first you will be able to smell just alcohol and none of the wines fragrances. So for the wine to breath you pore it into decanter and swirl it a bit to let all the extra alcohol to evaporate. It is similar like with perfumes. The other reason is related to cork crumbling and possible sediments. If there are some in the bottle, you can't see them. So the decanter is once again useful cause of it's unique shape. If there are sediments in the wine, when you pore it from the decanter they will stay in it instead finishing in your glass.

5. Tasting the wine in restaurants

When you order the wine in a nice restaurant, the waiter will serve you the wine in this manner:  

• show you the label on the bottle
• open the wine
• present you the cork (see fact no 1.)
• pore only one sip of wine in the glass of the person who had chosen it

That person then has to taste the wine. Swirl a bit, smell, look and taste. And then?

Then there are only two options. If the wine is good, as in most cases is, the waiter will pore it to everyone else. The second, rather rare, outcome would be that the wine is somehow not good, in which case the bottle would be replaced. So, if you were wondering if you could return the wine if you don't like it, the answer is NO. Only if the wine has gone bad or sour you can exchange the bottle.

 tripleclicks.com

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Premium Electric Wine Opener Set w/Wooden Case

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Best ways to boost your traffic

To successfully get quality traffic to your website, blog or any other page, you need to get familiar with all that is out there and what is best for you.

First things firs, there are three types of traffic: cold, warm and hot.

Here is their meaning in short, just to get the idea about what you are working with. These are not the official definitions, but my understanding of them:

1. cold traffic - those are all the people out there that basically don't know you or your business exist.
2. warm traffic - people who you already approached or made a first contact, or have a rather general idea on what is it you are offering.
3. hot traffic - when people know and recognize you and your business, take interest by themselves even and recommend you further, that is hot traffic.

So, the warmer the traffic the better results you are going to get. The most common hot traffic of course is to start promoting to your family and friends. They already know you and is easier to talk to them and introduce new things. Through them you can generate a substantial warm traffic (ex. friends of my friends friend). So for someone who is just starting i think that this would be the best way to start. You can get a good feedback from all those people, fine tune what ever needs your attention, and continue from there.

The hardest step, from my point of view, would be to continue widening your audience, because than you have to start with completely cold traffic, and warm it up step by step. You have to be patient with new people, give them information piece by piece, unless they ask for more on their own. People that don't know you can easily get scared, because lat's be honest, there are a lot of scams out there.

Knowing all this, not as few months ago, I started exploring all kinds of different "boost your traffic" options for my small blog. And to be clear, i am talking now only about starting from the cold traffic, and there are several sources that you can easily use.

The most obvious choice is the social media - Facebook, Tweeter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest... You can post to any or every and make it simple and easily appealing to anyone out there. The trick is to make them stick with what you are offering. So my advice would be to create a page or blog post where there are some explanations or information on what you are promoting, or something that will keep people on your page a bit longer than 10 seconds. It will not happen overnight, you have to be patient.

Another option is to write comments and articles on other peoples blogs or forums. It sounds strange, but it is rather effective. That way you are already reaching masses that are there to read something and will look for more content. But choose well rated sites, those that you yourself would read or are similar topic to yours.

There is also an option to use third sites that offer traffic exchange. So far i tried two different free types: automated and click to verify. 

Automated ones are easiest to use. You just spin your address in their system and let it roll in the background, collecting hits from all over the world. It is easy to use, it can run all night if your computer doesn't go to sleep and it does boost your traffic a lot. The one downfall is that also people who surf on the other end and visit your page, you guessed it, don't really see it or read it. So you are basically boosting your numbers and not the number of potential readers.

Click to verify traffic exchange is a bit better in that area, because it requires a physical confirmation (usually to solve a small puzzle and click the answer) that a certain page has been visited. That way you know that people at least looked at your page and maybe read something. On the downside, from my experience the maximum of pages i have managed to confirm in one day has been around a 100 so that will boost traffic a bit but with more quality views. This is a good option to use simultaneously when you are already doing something on the internet.

As a final suggestion from me, there are all these different options: 

• you can use sites that host posts and answer questions (like Quora), 
• you can use so called click sites (Clickworkers, Rapidworkers...) to basically pay a cent or two for people to visit your page, 
• you can go through an influencer (a person that has a lot of followers and has influence to promote your business), 
• you can even use payed adds and advanced marketing strategies... 

But my advice is to leave payed stuff for much later, when you have used up most of your other options. Paying money for an add will guaranty the prime placement and that more people will see the add, but there is no guaranty on how many people will actually go from cold to warm or hot traffic.

What ever you choose, this is summing it up in short: Some traffic is better than no traffic, but if you can choose always go for quality over quantity and be persistent and patient.

Tips and tricks for fast and healthy cooking

1. Make french fries in the oven

Sometimes when you don't have time to deep fry your favorite snack this is a good tip. There are a lot of different frozen french fries out there. Buy some and try just spreading it into the baking tray covered with some baking paper. You can season with some salt and bake in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Best fries ever and without all that extra oil!

2. Prepare meat portions, freeze them and bake in the oven 

Similar as french fries, you can prepare almost any meat and use the same trick. The difference is that meat has to be seasoned and oiled so that it doesn't dry up. My favorites, and you won't believe it till you try it, are minced meat patties, fried chicken or pork chops. When i buy fresh meat i prepare a lot of these and without thermally doing anything to them, i deep freeze them. So then i have a ready meat dish n 15 minutes and you can bake it without defrosting just separate them with transparent foil. 

3. Use baking paper to bring back life to stale bread

When you have a bread, any type really, that has been laying around for one or two days and you want to renew it's glory, all you need is a piece of baking paper. So you grab a piece large enough to wrap around your bread (all or slices). Then you crash that paper into a little ball, just don't tare it, and make it wet like that. When you open the piece of now wet baking paper wrap it around the bread, and if you like you can add a little oil or spices like salt and Rosemary. Put it in the oven on a medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes and there you go. 

4. Make chicken stock and freeze it

Usually when i by chickens i go free range and i tend to take the entire chicken just butchered into pieces. When you do that you are left with a nice portion of meat but also with all those other parts that most wouldn't even look at. So i am talking about chicken legs, bones, neck... And it is really easy to use this parts for making chicken stock. Take a big pot fill it with water put in chicken bones, some onions, salt and pepper, a little parsley and boil for at least half an our in the pressure cooker, or an our in a regular pot. When it is done and cooled, drain the liquid (that is your chicken stock) and take out any leftover meat parts if there are any. You can use that meat for a salad or risotto. Take the molds for muffins (rubber ones if you have) and fill them with chicken stock you have just made. Freeze it for an our or so and after that take the disks out and store them back in the freezer in bags or what ever way you prefer. And that is it. So next time you want to prepare broth, chowder or soup you use those disks as the base. You can also use them in risottos and sauces. Just keep in mind that is concentrated version and sometimes needs a little more water added when cooking.

 

5. Wooden spoon over the boiling pot

The most often small accident or oversight in the everyday kitchen cooking is definitely boiling liquid that overflows the pot and makes a lot of mess everywhere. There is a simple solution to this problem that happens to all of us. Just put a wooden spoon over the pot while it boils :)