This is the glorious result of my first ever attempt at making my own tonic syrup. It tastes delicious — better than nearly any other tonic I’ve had. The chinchona bark I started with is a bit more floral than I’d prefer, but I have a few other kinds on order to play with.
I followed Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s basic recipe, and it couldn’t have been easier. First, I pulverized the chinchona bark in a coffee mill. Then I added it to a sauce pan with water, citric acid, salt, allspice berries, and the zest and juice of a lemon, lime, and orange (I had no lemongrass, but will next time). Brought to a boil, simmered covered for 20 minutes, and then strained through cheese cloth and a french press.
Once strained, I reheated and incorporated the agave syrup. The taste is bitter, tart, sweet, and awesome. I don’t have any seltzer or sparkling water on hand, but that’s fine. My first goal was to recreate the fine Tonique Gin cocktail Ed made for me at Bar Tonique in New Orleans last year. Mission accomplished! I used 3/4 oz. tonic syrup, 1 1/2 oz. gin, stirred with ice. Delicious.
I ordered a few different sources of quinine to make my own tonic water. This is the first to arrive! Chinchona bark from Tenzing Momo in Seattle. It’s almost exactly a year since our gang from DisneyToon Studios descended upon Ed’s Bar Tonique in New Orleans to be educated by the man himself about homemade tonic. I’m finally getting around to making my own. Will update as I go.
Make: television is up for an Emmy award and the winners will be announced tonight! We’re up against Martha Stewart, This Old House, and two Style network shows. Wish us luck!
Producer Richard Hudson, Make: publisher Dale Dougherty, myself and my wife Erin will be attending. I’ve got a tux and everything! I’ll be tweeting @johnedgarpark and try to get some photos.
I’m almost done packing for Maker Faire. So excited to see lots of friends, meet people, learn new skills, and see what amazing project people have been cooking up. I’ll be bringing a few projects to show at the Make: Projects Stage and Maker Shed, including the Arduino Nerf Sentry Gun. Hope to see you there!
I just picked up 70lbs. of green coffee beans that I’m splitting with a friend of mine. Sadly, a friend of a friend’s roasting business just went bust, so they had quite a supply of beans to sell off at bargain prices. Normally, I pay about $6 per lb. for beans, I got these for $1.50 per lb.
It’s going to be fun roasting them over the coming year. Left alone they should keep for a year, and I can get another 6 mo. to a year out of them if I bag and freeze them.
The lovely Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh sent me some packs of Sugru modeling repair/mod/hacking silicone to review for the next volume of Make: magazine. Here’s a preview of the tea kettle repair I performed.
I’m very pleased with these goggles I got from my mother-in-law and father-in-law for Christmas. They’re getting a lot of wear around the house, as well as when I’m in the shop doing pointy, dangerous things.
I made this short video to demonstrate the assembly of the laser-cut Mystery Box. While there is an instruction sheet packed in with the kit, this seemed like a nice way to show the particulars.
Blueant sent me this to review, and I’ve got to say it’s pretty darned good. It’s a handsfree bluetooth speakerphone for the car, which hooks to your visor. Actually, a little metal clip hooks to your visor, and the Blueant clings to that with two powerful magnets.
Once paired with your phone, it can answer and place calls through a quick jab at the buttons, or via voice command. I don’t have the patience for voice commands, but hitting the buttons works just fine. The speaker and voice quality are both quite fine.
You can get one for under $100. This is quite a bit more than the free earbud that came with my cell phone, but this does make it easy to have speakerphone conversations where all the kids in the minivan get involved. Maybe that’s not such a good thing after all…
Another plus is that its battery holds a charge a for good week, if you keep calls to one or two a day. I charge it with the supplied DC wall wart, but it can also be charged via USB.
Hello. I'm John Park, this is my blog. I write about things that interest me related to building contraptions, coffee, bicycles, CG animation, and more. I work at DisneyToon Studios as a character rigger. I'm also a writer for Make: magazine and the host of the Make: television show on Public Television.
Along with Brian Jepson and Tod Kurt, I've started a company called WingShield Industries to design and build electronic and mechanical hardware hacking/prototyping kits.
My other company is Magnolia Atomworks LLC, which I started to pursue product design, including the Mystery Box kit.
