watson home-making part 02: (finally!) geneva, switzerland
Posted by christolles | Filed under Home-Making, Switzerland
Bienvenue chez Chris et Tory!
watson booze cruise part 02: panach’ (switzerland [france])
Posted by christolles | Filed under Booze Cruise, Switzerland
Today I had the pleasure of sampling the finest of historical, revered, storied French beverages: Panach’! What is that apostrophe doing there, you might ask… no clue. If you roll francophone, please check out their homepage and fill us all in, because it certainly is ugly to have two punctuation marks in a row. That’s right up there with using periods in an acronym at the end of a sentence: U.S.A.. Ugh! What do I do with that second period?! Which reminds me of another despised punctuation faux pas: attempting a “smiley” emoticon within a parenthetical: (of which I use many :)). Leaves a terrible taste in my mouth.
But we’ve come full circle, because so does Panach (no apostrophe from now on). First of all, what is Europe thinking with these ridiculous 250 ml bottles? 8.454 fluid ounces for the imperially-inclined among us, it’s like serving beer in a glass juice box - a little silly, although perhaps it’s proportional to their stomach sizes, because Tory and I have noticed many things sold in surprisingly tiny portions, from yogurt to pasta (more on that in a later post). I would describe Panach as weak lemonade that was accidentally mixed with a small amount of water-flavored light beer. Not inspiring. But at 1.8% ABV, you needn’t worry about it getting you in trouble, either. Even Tory didn’t feel anything!
Enjoyed at a church BBQ afternoon in France, one thing I’m pleased with is that it was free. Panache is like a wimpy Euro version of Mike’s Hard Lemonade: a lot softer, and made by a smarmy mustachio’d guy named Michel (pronounced Michelle). Overall taste grade: B-, but only because it is also as inoffensive as it is uninspiring…
Design-wise, the same. Gradients, swooshes, annoying Flash website, blah blah blah: C+.
What’s this?! Classic scripts? Foil? Embossing?! Also discovered at the BBQ was a package of Lindt’s 99% pure Cacoa chocolate, if you can even call it that. From the brilliant perforated pull-strip to the restrained typography, you can tell that this is a product of distinction. As I raised a bite-size bit of the nearly black bar to my lips, I was glad to get the Panach aftertaste out of my mouth… NOT. This stuff is gross.
With the consistency and flavor nuances of black chalk, 99% Cacao would be Excellent as fertilizer. Would your car run on 99% crude, even if it did cost $23/gallon? Taste: F. Design: A.
NB: The Google can also do other neat calculations.
“when in rome…”
Posted by christolles | Filed under Switzerland
Geneva is the 8th most expensive city to live in, worldwide. Yikes! Apparently, that means even McDonald’s needs to be a high-class (read: high-cost) experience:
Yes, that’s the Air Chair by Jasper Morrison - about 120 of them in fact. At $140, it’s actually a pretty good value if you’re in the market for a high-quality, attractive, indoor/outdoor dining chair. Don’t forget the (disappointingly sterile) matching tables! And inside? L’Eiffel des Eames, bien sûr! (yes, that’s actually what the inside of McD’s Géneve looks like…)
