The garden, mid-December

With a little rain, and some respite from searing summer temperatures, many of the garden plants are growing like crazy.  After weeks and weeks of poor weather we’ve finally had a change; yesterday the sun shone once more.  The air was sweet and mild and it was a pleasure to potter in the garden and then sit quietly in the sun with a cup of coffee.

On the citrus trees – lemon, orange and what we think are clementines – we have a healthy cross of ripe fruit  and a good supply of still ripening to follow.  At least one of the lemon trees has a second crop coming.  To us it is still strange to see the fruit in all of its stages on one tree; ripe, unripe , immature and blossom.

Bucket loads of fruit

... with plenty more to come

Meanwhile the lilies are determined.  Now is their chance to flourish and that’s exactly what they intend to do, whether in the ground, or in pots or even in a bucket, waiting to be planted.  Clearly they should have been in soil some time ago.  The ones that were missed during the removal process are also growing quickly.

Determined Alum or Calla lilies

Yet more lilies

Finally, with a little spare time, some of the yucca offsets were re-homed.  These six were the smallest on the tree, and the only ones that could be easily removed.  Soon we’ll need to use some force to separate the larger ones, perhaps even sawing them from the main trunk.

When we moved into our Aradippou rental home a friend gifted us three offsets about twice the size of these.  Within three years they had grown to over 5 feet tall and were producing numerous offsets of their own.  We, in turn, removed those and gifted them to a friend in Oroklini.  She had no room in her garden but is happily cultivating the open ground beyond the boudaries of the property in the hope of improving her view and providing a screen of mature plants should the land eventually be developed.

Yucca offsets

Party nibbles

Well, pre-Christmas/psuedo house warming drinks are done and dusted.  The rain stopped for an hour or more and the garage roof didn’t collapse further.  Going on the turnout and the food and drink consumption it’s probably fair to say that people enjoyed themselves.

All told our 50+ guests devoured 663 canapes.  663!  That would be exactly 100% of the number of canapes produced.

In case anyone is looking for some inspiration for their own party, and to capture our thoughts for future events, below are notes on what was served.  The intention was to take photos as things were finished but it all got just a little busy towards the end of the prep time.

As we’re in Cyprus some things that are readily available in the UK just aren’t available to buy here. Similarly some things are available but are expensive; smoked salmon, processed stuff such as pastry. The flip side is that other things are absurdly cheap in comparison; herbs and spices for example. Comments below about costs therefore relate to the prices paid, which may be significantly different to those in the UK.

Roquefort shortbread

From this recipe in the Times.  Half topped with walnut halves, half with cream cheese. Going on the comments of the guests it was one of the favourites. It was also the one for which we had the most recipe requests. The dough/pastry is tricky to work with but once it starts to behave it is fine to roll and handle. The shortbread was one of the cheapest things to produce.

Rare roast beef bruschetta with caramelised onions

These worked really well in the test batch but were a little disappointing on the day. That said, they were all eaten. Toasted slices of ciabatta topped with wholegrain mustard, slivers of rare beef and onions. The beef was (uninspiring, it’s about all we get here) lean steak which was seasoned, seared in a griddle pan, allowed to cool and then cut finely across the grain. The most expensive item in terms of ingredients.

Smoked turkey, tomato and pepper vol au vents

Store bought frozen vol au vents filled with finely chopped smoked turkey mixed with tomato and roasted pepper relish. These went down surprisingly well, so much so that we didn’t get a chance to try one. Easy to prepare, moderately expensive due to the cost of the imported vol au vent cases.

Miniature roasted potatoes with chive yoghurt dip

Easy as anything. Prepped the day before so they just needed throwing in the oven on the day. They were eaten at a furious rate; next time they’ll be twice, if not three times as many. Absurdly cheap and pretty effortless.

Honey mustard sausages

What’s not to love? They were as popular as the potatoes, particularly with the male guests. Cocktail sausages aren’t widely available here so chipolatas were used instead. Baked the day before, allowed to cool, cut on the diagonal into three or four pieces and then tossed back into their roasting tin. Re-cooked on the day and then glazed with a glaze of equal parts of honey and whole grain mustard.

Pastry olives

A suggestion from a professional caterer.  Whole pitted black olives rolled in puff pastry and dipped in cumin.  Baked until the pastry was golden.  Since there’s no indication what’s inside the pastry parcel folks needed to be told they contained olives. The most commonly made comment was that people didn’t like olives but that these were lovely.

Oven dried tomato & goat’s cheese bites

Squares of very thin puff pastry topped with oven dried tomatoes and goat’s cheese. Not worth the effort to dry the tomatoes, might as well have just use thinly sliced fresh cherry toms. The goat’s cheese didn’t melt as much as hoped so back to a regular cheese for those.

Smoked salmon bites

Smoked salmon mousse on thinly sliced brown bread, topped with gravlax. These went down a storm, as popular as the shortbread but for significantly less effort. They looked fantastic, were easy to prep and were mid-range price wise.

To finish, and to accompany cups of coffee, there was a batch of thin rocky-road type chocolate affair. Unfortunately it didn’t get to be eaten with the coffee ‘cos it didn’t make it out of the kitchen. The very same folks who claimed they couldn’t possibly eat another bite, and who were camped out in the kitchen, devoured the entire plateful. Next time it’ll need to be a double batch.

All told we had about 50 people through the house over a four hour period.  They are folks with healthy appetites :-) Most of the componants were made over a two day period (whilst sorting out essential finishing touches on the house) and then assembled on the day. Average cost per item worked out at about 11¢.

Olives from the tree

Chaos theory at its finest.  Isn’t it strange how two random observations can come together in the mind?

A week or two ago cyber-friends Chris & Catherine updated their blog, The World is our Lobster.  At the risk of a paraphrase too far, they decided to step out of the rat race and take a different track.  They sold their home, quit their jobs and bought a camper van to allow them to tour Europe.  Actually, the order was rather different and a massive amount of planning went into their adventure.

They are currently in Italy, in Hector the campervan, having done about 4,500 miles so far.  Their intention is to visit all 47 countries in Europe; for an explanation of how they decided on 47 it’d be best to read their RAQs/FAQs.  All being well we hope to see them in Cyprus early next spring.

While they were back in Northern Italy Catherine complained that her idyllic image of wandering through olive grove was being ruined by the olive harvest.  Poor old Hector’s roof was, once more, at risk from falling things as they were parked under a tree due to be harvested.

However, keen to see the benefits of all the work that goes into harvesting olives they tried olives straight from the tree … and were not impressed.

“Four hours for one tree! I taste an olive and it’s disgustingly bitter, obviously the cheap oil variety rather than the marinate-in-garlic type.”

We sometimes exchange emails with them after each weekly update but didn’t get a chance that week.  Had we been able we intended to mention that olives are not edible straight from the tree, not something we knew until we arrived here.   They need to be split and washed and soaked in a brine solution.  The brine solution needs to be changed every three days.  This part of the process takes at least a couple of weeks.  Then, and only then, are the olives fit to be tasted and possibly flavoured.

All of which begs the question;  who first discovered that the olive becomes edible when treated in this way?

Anyway, we didn’t get the chance to email them and then the moment passed and then the whole thing disappeared from the mind.  Until this week, thanks to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.

Their Personal Finance section has a regular finance/entertainment cross-over piece where a celebrity is asked about how they handle money.  Articles typically cover types of investments, property purchases, financial mistakes, the importance of family and lessons learnt.

This week’s interviewee was Peter Andre.  Peter has strong ties to Cyprus, his family are Greek Cypriot and many of them still live on the island.  He visits regularly and he refers to it as his second home; he and his ex-wife Jordan/Katie Price built a large house over towards Pervolia.  During his acrimonious separation from his wife he came to the island to be with by his extended family.  Occasionally we see him and members of his family in Larnaca.

In the Telegraph he comes across as surprisingly level headed.  Presumably the reason for agreeing to the article was to put behind him much of the recent speculation and gossip about his life.  The aim of the piece seems to be to get across how down to earth he is.  How important family is to him.  How he’s worked hard to stay close to his roots.

WHAT DIFFICULT LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT MONEY?

I think the biggest problem people have is spending money before they earn it. If you learn to live so big, there will come a time when the money isn’t flowing in, so what do you do?

Yes, I do have a beautiful home in Cyprus, and dad and I like to sit outside and eat olives right from the tree. We do love the simple things. Making a conscious effort like that does make it easier to adapt your lifestyle if you’re ever forced to.

So, until we moved here we didn’t know the work that goes into making olives edible.  Neither did our fellow cyber-blogging friends.  But Peter Andre … how is it he, with his time spent here and with his family and still close to his roots, didn’t know?

The full interview is here.  We’ll leave you to wonder whether one careless statement may lead to people wonder about the remainder of the piece.

The garden, mid-November

The weather is changing.  Daytimes are bright, sunny and hot out of the wind.  But dusk comes early to our valley at this time of year; the sun starts to disappear behind the hill to the west of us not long after 3pm.  The temperature falls quickly once the sun has gone but the house, with its half metre thick walls still retains the heat well.

In the garden the citrus fruits continue to ripen.  In England all our fruit came from the supermarket so it is still strange to us to see the different stages the fruits, particularly the small satsuma/clementine/tangerine goes through.  Right now we have plenty of green fruit alongside those that are both pale yellow and weak orange in hue.  We think it will be a least a couple more weeks before the first of them are fully ripen.

Meanwhile the lemons continue to ripen and plump up.  Surprisingly, it is our first full year of owning a lemon tree, we have a small second blossom and therefore some new lemons setting just as the early crop is finishing its ripening process.

Elsewhere the pomegranates are ripe to the point of splitting.  The 20 foot high yucca has decided that outward, rather than upward, expansion is the best course of action and is producing offsets at an alarming rate.  These need to be broken off and potted up for friends.   While we had our backs turned clusters of bulbs have woken up; best guess is that they are some sort of narcissi.  From last year we know that they are similar to paperwhites but rather smaller and without such a pronounced fragrance.

Finally Mands efforts earlier this year to dig up the arum lily at the base of the large pithari appear not to have been entirely successful; the lilies are back again.  The flowers, and foliage, are wonderful but their position right at the bottom of the staircase is dangerous.

Assorted photos below.  Click on any picture for an enlarged version.

Satsuma … clementine … tangerines?

Ripening fruit

Almost ripe & totally unripe side by side

Almost ripe

Pretty much there

Yellowing lemons

Just-yellow lemons

New lemon blossom

Ripe pomegranates

Yucca offsets

Lilies

A lone rose

Thursday’s Tried & Tested

Freezer Herbs

Fresh herbs are a bit of a rarity here.  In due course we’re hoping to have a small herb garden up and running but clearly that’s a mid to long term solution.  In the meantime we have to make do with what’s available in the fruitaria, the fruit and vegetable shop.

Unlike in the UK supermarkets simply don’t stock many herbs regularly.  Corriander is widely available, and is absurdly cheap, but it is considered more a salad leaf than a herb.  Basil grows very well and is often cultivated in huge pots in restaurants to deter flies.  There’s a place in Larnaka that has an avenue of basil trees five feet tall for that very reason.

Those apart both of our regular fruitarias tend to have a single box of cut bunches of herbs.  Sometimes there’s a bunch of chives, occasionally some mint, and from time to time rosemary and thyme may make a rare appearance.  So, when we find something we tend to buy it and then try and figure out how we can make it last.

With that in mind, some of the lightly woody herbs not only freeze well but do so in such a way to reduce the necessary prep work.  How can this not be a good thing?!

So …

• Wash the herbs, discarding any stalks that are damaged or tired
• Line up the stalks as much as possible and place them in a sturdy freezer bag
• Place the bag in the freezer, flat on the freezer plate if possible
• Periodically (and ideally when the freezer is open for something else) rub the stalks, through the sealed bag, between your hands
• Smile as you realise that all of the work of stripping the leaves is being done for you by the freezer
• When the stalks are pretty bare snip a corner off the bag and decant the leaves into small container(s)

The total work is probably less than 10 minutes.  In return for that you get a handy stash of fresh herbs with no wastage.  The herbs can be used straight from frozen, just as you would fresh.

Freshly washed thyme

Bagged and ready for the freezer

Part-way through the freezing process. Leaves at the bottom, stalks near the top

Snip the corner from the bag, decant. No mess, no waste and very little work

The garden, mid-October

The sun is shining, jobs are done for the day so before we put the kettle on for a well earned cup of tea we thought it would be useful to get some photos of the fruit trees in the garden and surroundings. The fruit is ripening day by day so it’s a good time to capture where each of the trees is in their cycle.

The small citrus tree is absolutely laden with fruit … they are tiny, but there are plenty of them.

Mandarins ... tangerines ... satsumas ... clementines?

So far we aren’t entirely sure what they are … mandarins, clementines, satsumas, tangerines?  Mad Alex allowed someone to strip all the fruit from the tree before we took possession last year.  For some time this wasn’t clear, leaving us thinking the tree produced no fruit at all, until we spotted two stray fruit lurking right in the very centre.  Clearly too hard to harvest for whoever took the rest of the fruit!  We picked the remaining two and they were lovely … not too sweet or too tart and not oversupplied with pips either.

So far it looks like we’ll get a good crop but at the moment over 95% of the fruit are still a dark green.  The occasional one or two are starting to turn to a pale green, then yellow before becoming bright orange in late November.

Just starting to ripen

The two lemon trees are also doing well.  The tree near the gate has larger, still solid green, lemons; the garage tree  has smaller but more advanced lemons which are just starting to turn yellow.

Green lemons on the gate-end tree

Ripening lemon on the garage-end tree

The pomegranate tree is presenting some problems with regard to its attractiveness to local wildlife, but that’s an issue for another day.  In the meantime the fruit that have escaped such attention are ripening fantastically well.  One of our neighbours has three trees in her courtyard.  Last year she estimated that they produced over 100 kg of fruit between them.  Far, far more that she could use or give away to friends, so she ended up bagging up the fruit and leaving them outside her house with a note offering them for free to tourists.

Near-ripe pomegranates

Just around the corner, down the donkey track, there is a derelict plot containing the remains of a partially renovated two storey house.  If anyone is looking for an adventurous renovation project then look no further!  In the absence of any care and maintenance pomegranate and particularly fig trees have been growing unchecked.  The figs are coming on well, with a mix of under-ripe and hard green fruit and delicious looking ripe purple figs.

Ripening figs

Yet more figs

Those with a keen eye may notice an interloper in the second of the fig photos.

The photographer gets no points for observation today having missed the tiny praying mantis posing on a branch just off to the left of the figs.

All being well, updates to come in due course!

Thursday’s Tried & Tested

One of our hopes in quitting work and moving here was that we would be able to live a simpler life. In financial terms we certainly needed to live more frugally, but we also wanted to shift down a gear or ten and live a quieter life.  Not so much “The Good Life” but with a healthy nod towards the mindful philosophy of the “Slow Food” movement.

With that in mind one of the things that we have enjoyed since we arrived is having the time to research and investigate and experiment some of the things that previously we could only say “Oh, that’s a great idea. I wonder if it actually works?”

Three years in we’ve been able to do some of that so we thought we’d share some of the things that have worked well. Some are money saving tips, some are time saving, some are using resources differently, some crafty, and so on.

To kick off, a foodie Tried & Tested.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

From time to time (ok, a couple of times a month) we end up with a small bowl of sad and tired tomatoes languishing in the cupboard. Grocery shopping is approaching, it’d be a shame to waste the tomatoes but they’re, well, a little past their best.

And yet, it’s possible to not just refresh them but make them into something that can be used in any of half a dozen dishes. Their flavour concentrates, their texture changes entirely.  When Ian sees these being prepared he smiles. A suspicious soul would suggest that he over-buys tomatoes to make sure this happens regularly :-)

So;

• Cut the tomatoes in half, or quarters if they are absolutely huge
• Place them cut-side up in an oven proof dish (in this case, the lid of a pyrex dish bought for Mands by her grandmother as a housewarming present many year ago. Pyrex goes on forever!)
• Drizzle over a little olive oil, sprinkle a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Add some herbs if there are any hanging about … in this case some thyme straight from the freezer
• Put the dish in the oven on a very low heat for an hour, or two or even three, and allow the tomatoes to dry out
• Once they are cooked put them in a tupperware, cover them completely with oil and pop them in the fridge, or even the freezer. They’ll keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks, though they tend not to last that long in this house.

Slightly tired tomatoes, pre-cooking

To use them;

• Toss them through pasta or add them to an existing pasta sauce
• Add them to salads, using some of the oil to make the salad dressing
• Stand at the fridge door and eat them direct from the tupperware, remembering to mop up the telltale oil dribbles before anyone notices
• Drain them and pile them, with some parmesan or olives or herbs, onto lightly toasted bread to make bruschetta
• Add them to homemade pizzas, or to shop-bought to make them a little more interesting

Things worth noting;

• When the tomatoes are all gone the oil is great for adding a tomatoey flavour to other dishes
• If the oven temperature is low enough they can be cooking along with something else. If the oven is on but the temperature is a little high they’ll probably be ok but do keep a close eye on them
• They can be made in huge batches which is useful when the summer tomato glut comes
• They cook really well in a halogen oven, particularly if there are round containers to hand
• They are fairly robust in terms of the flavours they’ll accept. Thyme, oregano, garlic, chilli, balsamic vinegar (but skip the drizzle of oil) all work well
• They are a great fridge standy-by for when folks drop by unexpectedly … a little like biscotti

Post-cooking

Bruschetta with oven-dried tomatoes, smoked turkey & parmesan

Happy cooking!

Village Life #1

There is an olive tree just beyond our back door on a small piece of village land.  The land itself is a the dead-end of the donkey track that runs through the village and past our house.  In time we hope to adopt the piece of land, clearing the weeds and rubble and adding some seating and the like.   Until then, and since we moved in, we’ve been waiting with interest to see who owns or rents the tree.

Olive trees are a precious commodity here and often, if people don’t have space for their own tree, they rent one from someone else.  This tree is a good, healthy, mature tree and had been harvested last year so we knew someone would be around eventually.  Here in Cyprus olive harvesting starts as early as September and continues for a couple of months depending on the weather, the location of the tree and whether the desire is for oil or green olives or black olives.

The olive tree

Someone we met on our travels once asked us if our tree produced green olives or black.  Both, is the answer.

The olives start green and eventually turn black.  If they aren’t harvested by then they usually fall off the tree.  Until we arrived here, and rented a house with its own tree, we didn’t realise either.

Anyway, MrOliveHarvester appeared recently in search of this year’s crop.  Rather than walk through the village and up the donkey track he clambered up from the derelict plot below.  That would be the derelict plot full of other folk’s rubbish, some rats and a snake or two.  Suddenly the longer walk doesn’t seem too bad!

Curious to see what the noise was we popped our head out of the back (donkey/pomegranate/used to be front) door.  Having said “hello” in Greek and consequently used up about 25% of our combined Greek vocabulary he made the optimistic assumption that we must be able to speak the language – otherwise why would we have moved to the village?

Happy in his logic he proceeded to explain, in fluent Greek (actually, Cypriot … but that’s an explanation for another day) about his tree and how his olives looked this year and so on and so on.  Body language, gestures and context can give a fair indication of what’s going on, though the specifics can be trickier.

He then went on to explain how the olives should be treated.  Wait until they are fat with oil … pick them … use a heavy stone and a firm base (aka the wall) to crush to show the stone … then rinse them and soak them in a brine solution.  From previous research we knew some of this so were able to follow a little.  MrOliveHarvester appeared to be advocating soaking them and changing the water three times, but it could have been every three days.

Before he left he stuck his head through the kitchen window and gestured for a container.  When we checked back later the container was full of fat juicing olives for us to deal with … if only we knew the water needed changing three times or every three days.

A little language can be a dangerous thing :-)

Olives!

Yet more oranges

The orange-fest continues.  

 

To date we’ve been gifted around 40 Seville oranges by friends who have a tree outside their house.  They are happy that they have finally found people willing to take them, in previous years this has proved to be a challenge.  This year another friend is making marmalade and we have sent a bag of empty jam jars in her direction and are hoping for a filled jar in return.  With the rate at which we eat marmalade a single jar should last us a year!

 

This week, since it is Ian’s birthday, we had offered to take something food-wise to a regular gathering of people.  What on earth could we make/take that would feed fifty, could be eaten standing up, in a field, probably in the dark and without making a mess?

 

Yeah, we got rid of some of the oranges ;-)

 

Syllabub for 50, garnished with slivers of zest and served in small plastic cups was the order of the day.  

 

Generally it went down well although there was a slightly odd reaction from a brand new member of the group.

 

The male of the couple was busy helping himself to a second portion when his wife screeched at Mands …

 

That’s my pension you are jeopardising!

 

Apparently she was concerned that the double cream would cause a heart attack, kill him and then rob her of a stable financial future aka access to his pension.  Not a bad day’s work for 100mls of cream really. 

 

She then went on to say that we should have added oats to the mix as it would have “improved the flavour” and that raspberries would have been better than oranges because then “it would have been more Scottish”. 

 

Since we are in the middle of the Med and overwhelmed with free Sevilles neither of her suggestions made an ounce of sense.  However when we pointed this out she became distracted by the notion of Seville oranges and demanded to know where they had come from.

 

She would very much like some, she said, because “they are so wonderful and sweet and so much tastier than normal oranges!”. 

 

For those of you who have never tasted a Seville orange there is a reason why they are used for making marmalade.  Using the same volume of sugar as oranges goes some way to offsetting the overwhelming sourness.   

These oranges were, at some time in their evolutionary history, crossed with lemons … or perhaps battery acid.  We nibbled on a small piece of zest a couple of days ago and are still waiting for the sensation to return to the taste buds involved.

 

Anyway, new rude mad Scottish woman thinks they are sweet!

 

Meanwhile we’ve been finding other uses for the remaining oranges.  A friend suggested that she’d made an orange version of Limoncello … which got us thinking.  Wouldn’t it be lovely to be sitting on a sundrenched patio sipping a tiny glass of chilled orange flavoured limoncello equivalent?  A little searching established that such a drink existed, called Arancello.

 

So, we spent a happy afternoon paring the zest from some of the oranges and stuffing placing it gently into bottles of Zivania - the local fire water.  Only time will tell whether it is any good … more news in due course!

Meanwhile, feel free to learn from our experience.  There is a knack to zesting and paring.  Once you have the knack it isn’t too hard (note orange on front right of plate).  Until you acquire the knack it seems to be an awful lot of effort for little return (back right!).

 

 

 

 

 

Cold … but Orangey

These first few weeks of 2008 have been cold. Very unlike the rest of the year, but not entirely unexpected for the coldest and darkest months here in the northern hemisphere.

But Cypriot houses aren’t always built for warmth and, often, have little in the way of insulation. Since our rental house is built of concrete blocks and finished in plaster the wind not only whistles through gaps around the doors and windows but through the walls themselves.

Oh, and we have no heating.

Actually, that’s not true. There’s no heating installed in the house. Theo, the landlord, had some interesting ideas as to what was necessary and what wasn’t when finishing a house.

On the “Not Necessary” list was things like … heating … air conditioning … curtain poles.

On the “Necessary” was … a fitted kitchen shipped out from London because his wife was bored with it and wanted a new one … fitted wardrobes shipped out from London because his wife was bored with them and wanted a new ones. Hmmm, is there a theme there do you think?

Of course, the detail-orientated among you will realise that fitted cupboards and wardrobes are unlikely to fit in more than one location. So the fitted things …well … they don’t actually!

And, to add to the interest, it seems Theo forgot to mention to the electrician that these things would be arriving. Had he know it’s possible that he’d have put light switches and the like in different locations. No matter, there’s always a practical solution if you look hard enough.

And really, we’re getting used to opening kitchen cupboards to turn on the lights.

Anyhow, back to the heat. Theo didn’t install any so we’re making do with a portable gas heater downstairs. Most folk here have them to suplement their regular heating. Not sure we’ve found anyone who has just a heater to heat a 2,000 sq ft open plan house though.

We’ve given up trying to heat upstairs, particularly since it is often colder inside, than out. In the height of the summer we couldn’t get the heat in the bedroom below 37 degrees (99 degrees Fahrenheit). Right now, the bedroom is about 11 degrees (52 degrees Fahrenheit) and is unlikely to get any warmer until the weather changes. Thank goodness for thick fluffy duckdown quilts!

On an entirely different note remember the comment about getting more Seville oranges? Well, on Monday we saw the givers-of-the-oranges for the first time this year. Mands had hardly finished thanking them and saying how wonderful they were when she was handed another carrier bag full.

We’re starting to get the impression that they are looking for folks daft enough to be able to think of uses for yet another couple of dozen Sevilles.

Not to worry though … it wasn’t really dozens … when we counted them there were only 23!

Luckily we have a cunning plan. We just need to track down a local supply of Everclear or similar …