Thursday, January 1, 2009

Cellar archeology, 001

Hey, kids, we're dedicated to making the cellar more usable / less creepy-scary in 2009. Not exactly a resolution, more like a survival tactic.

So! Cellar Archeology entry 001!
There's a grape carton that a lot of our supplies are in - B's had it since I don't know when and it made it's way over to out cellar on September of 2006. It's got all sorts of stuff in it, some new and useful, some old and useful, some corroded metal implements that are just begging to experiment with your blood, some empty containers and some full but spoiled. I've decided to get rid of some of the older jazz, but am using Cellar Archeology to document them.
  1. One half filled 500 cc jar of formerly liquid food grade enamel yellow paint, O'sullivan Paint Co., purchased some time in the past from Presque Isle Wine Cellars. Last year we bought a fresh jar of the same. Still liquid. It's what we paint the iron bottom piece of our press with. The current term of art is Gondola Enamel. Available in black, red, white, and yellow.
  2. 4 oz. plastic container of formerly powdered sodium metabisulfate, packaged by Crosby & Baker, and - judging by the $1.75 price sticker - purchased at Party Creations. Who'd a thunk? We haven't used sodium metabisulfite for cleaning these past three years - we use potassium metabisulfite. Probably why this sat around until it solidified.
  3. Plastic container, empty, which formerly held 50 Campden tablets. Another form of sodium meta. Price tag says it was purchased at L.J Lapide, Inc., $2.49. Mrs. Lapide is who the group has traditionally bought it's (CA) grapes from - until this past year when we bought LI grapes directly from the grower.
  4. Cracked, dirty, empty plastic container. Skanky. 120 cc of nothing you want to put your tongue near.
  5. This I like, and if I wasn't dedicated to cleaning out the cellar, I'd keep it, just as it is. 10 oz. Kerr "self sealing" mason jar, once filled with peach butter from Centennial Farms, Augusta, MO 63332 (Send for our catalog), and re-used to hold tartaric acid, with a sticker over the original label and on the lid. Rust on the lid, residue inside the jar. A thing of beauty. Who ate the peach butter?

No comments: