My drink of choice is Bells Scotch whiskey with milk as a mix. The milk brings out that nice smooth lovely flavor. We don’t get that brand here in NZ though, so I basically stop drinking whiskey, however, the other day I really wanted a good shot of whiskey and then decided to try American bourbon. I looked at the different bourbon they had on the shelve, and ended up getting a bottle of Jim Beam and how super surprised I was with my choice! It really tasted smooth and good. I am not a regular user of alcohol, but the bottle of Jimmies just disappear in no time. I buy NZ brewed bear called Tui, I do not like the European beers at all. Here you can easily get your own brewer license and start brewing, we have two breweries just down the road and a bit further many more! But beer of these kind are very expensive. When I use to visit my daughter in Paarl where she is a wine maker, I would always buy a bottle of Amarula and bring it back here in NZ.

Checking in from Nelson, New Zealand. I have already retired and making meat products for my leisure is just fun. I first started out in 2002 with making cheese and kept it going until a few years back when the price of milk here did not make it worth the while. But as from 2004 I also started making my own farmer sausages and later trying salami which was a disaster on the first try. Now I have a grip on the know-how and make fermented, dry and fresh sausages all the time. I started to smoke products with my BBQ, but it did not go well. I bought a drum BBQ, cooker, smoker and I quickly realized it was to small. I watch some guys on YouTube and made my own little smoking devise, got a 44 gallon drum and now it just work perfect. I hope to get some great ideas here from all the nice smoking cooking people on Meatgistic!

YooperDog Yeah, this onion thing is a cold preserve/salad, we just love spicy food! This year we did not have fruit or veggies from our garden, seems to much rain and low temp. We normally gather and preserve, loads of jams and jellies too. I saw somebody mentioned “down under”, now that would be in Australia and here we say “Just across the ditch” to indicate Oz is our neighbor.

My daughter and her hubby

calldoctoday Thank you, parents always think their children are special, which they are!

I did not much on meat though, just checked my salami’s then got into cutting a few pounds of Texas Grano onions, making curried onion salad for the winter. Yeah, I think I have arrived at the right site for my craving! Thank you all for the very warm welcome!

Luebke1219 Just the other day I smoked some “Russian” sausages, I am suppose to smoke them until they reach a safe temperature and dunk them in ice water, but I could not reach that high temperature and finished them of in the oven until they reached a safe temperature. I read somewhere you could smoke them some, do sous vide or finish them in a oven. They came out good and very taste. With time we all make some plans to get done what’s needed!

jlmust My daughter bought me a bottle of “Wild Africa” when I was there the last trip. She had taken me to the biggest wine cellars in the country KWV (Cape Wine Association) for a tour and I saw this new product (Wild Africa) they had on display. Look and taste almost like Amarula.

Yeah, we did some smoked cheese the other day. We use only cold smoking and the cheese of choice is Cheddar and Colby. It is a bit of addicting!

Looks so good! I will be around shortly to collect some Elk from you!

zbigjeff Thanks for the advice mates!