werbung
Every nerd has his limits. I’m sure Bill Gates could give a shit about carburetors. David Embury probably couldn’t care less about garden tools. Robert de Niro drinks vodka cocktails. And until a few weeks ago, nuts occupied very little of my thinking time, which I usually divide equally between earning money, spending money, beautiful ladies, and reading, with the occasional daydream as to whether I would be a better Hannibal or Face Man (or, heaven forbid, Murdoch) if I were a member of the A-Team.
In my business partnership with the illustrious Mr. Fokke, I am generally the chap who is expert in drinks and cocktails, but there are two aspects in which Sergej’s knowledge far exceeds my own: one is coffee and the other is nuts. Like any other decent gentleman, I will cheerfully inhale a kilo or two of mixed nuts at any bar, washing it down with large amounts of exotic booze. The finer aspects of nut-ology had always eluded me, however, in as far as they intruded into my thoughts, crowded as they were with wondering when Tim Willocks will write a new book, if redheads are inherently less stable than blondes and whether or not I’d get a cool nickname if I joined the A-Team. That all changed a mere six weeks ago in Amsterdam, or 020 as us hipsters call it.
In all the hectic days of opening our unfeasibly small bar, Sergej called me up one day and asked to meet at our nut place. I had an idea of a little shop with hundreds and hundreds of bags of nuts from which we might chose something based on appearance, cost and weight, with perhaps a few wasabi shells thrown in for sheer hedonism. Was I wrong.
Gotje Nuts is a large unit on an industrial estate in Amsterdam, and it’s been family-owned for all of it’s sixty years of existence. It imports, treats, blends, packages, sells and exports all over the world from it’s warehouse. And what a warehouse they have. Cranberries from Maine, raspberries from Peru, nuts from just about everywhere nuts can be got, a dozen types of salt…I was humbled. I felt like the guy who wanders into The Rainbow Rooms for a Coke. This was an entire, albeit small, aspect of running a bar I’d never really thought of before.
Everything was still pretty much done by hand, except for shifting pallets, for which the chaps wisely used a fork-lift truck. The nuts came in, were steeped, roasted and oiled to order in enormous vats by a cheerful Turkish couple, before being mixed and packaged on prep tables by Benjamin and his crew. Benjamin? Oh yes, our nut sommelier. A more pleasant young man you couldn’t find, and Benjamin (picture to the right) tuned out to have a back story that wasn’t entirely surprising: before scoring his sweet gig at Gotje, he used to work for a gourmet chocolate company, hand-making cacao delicacies.
We got to work. Ben had been supplying Sergej in Feijoa bar for years, and Sergej had prepped Ben on what door 74 was all about: late-night drinking, no food, strong, classic, dark-spirit cocktails and a snack tray that was to consist of the nuts and Bella de Cerignole olives. Benjamin had already roasted and smoked a few batches he thought we might suit that flavor briefing, and we immediately got to work tasting. Right off the bat, Smokehouse Mix #2 appealed, and it was time to pimp our mix: what do we want in it? Razz-apples, wasabi nuts, spiced figs….I was loving it.
We settled in the end for dried cranberries, which work just beautiful with the Smokehouse #2. And just like that, door 74 had it’s very own, exclusive, can’t-get-them-anywhere-else mix of nuts. Lovely. In case you’re wondering, our number 2 choice was a very, very close number 2, but as different to the ‘74 mix as can be: it was a blend named [Edit: the blog software does not recognize the language, so it must be from another planet H.A.], which (I hope) translates as "head of the shop" and include delicious macadamia nuts and a great North-African seasoning that put us in mind of couscous. Excellent chance we’ll be serving that up at Feijoa in the future, while just a few meters away discerning guests slurp
Jefferson’s muscovado-whiskey-barrel-bitters Old Fashioneds in between scarfing down handfuls of door 74 mix.
And, of course, no article about nuts is complete without this piece of classic cinema from the evergreen British Isles:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=kAPXGuRIXsA
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Ryan Cheverie (3 years ago)
I’m wrestling with the nut issue (that just sounds wrong) at my bar as we speak , anyway, so far I’ve been maple glazing pumpkin seeds on a hotplate behind the bar to good reviews but, I’m not quite there yet. Had no idea there was an actual industry around getting nut mixes just right, amazing.