February 5 Apple Brandy

An epicurean friend of mine travels the world, sampling the cuisines in remote corners and popular spots alike. He shares his finds by cooking up culinary delights and uncorking bottles of interesting vintage. He shares a recent experience. "A close friend of mine used to make an apple brandy. Pretty powerful stuff: 112 proof.
He no longer does that and I have not seen him recently. However, last night (my wife)and I shared the last of our cache of apple brandy.

"I served it over ice in a tall tequila glass. The alcohol content was so high that the lower half of the glass was all frosted. On first taste, the brandy was warming (to say the least). After the first blush, there was a strong but slowly emerging taste of green apples."

My friend suggested a painting.

"The image we have to offer is the glass, bottom half frosted, tendrils of smoke rising from the glass, and a green apple floating in space above the smoke."

My intent was to do a fairly straight forward rendition of my friend's idea. As it developed, the effect of the apple brandy called for movement in the glass and effervescence rather than smoke. So, I went with it.

The painting was the quick part of the process tonight. Earlier today, I was marveling at the wonders of technology. Tonight my camera wouldn't transmit my digital photos to my computer, not by cable nor by card reader. I tried Ron's camera but my card reader wouldn't read his either. I finally resorted to cranking up my laptop which has a memory card reader, transferring the photos to a file and then e-mailing them to my desktop computer. Blather ugh. Not my idea of a good time. I'm hoping that a full battery charge will help my camera's transmission problems but am lacking confidence that that's the problem.

8" x 10" $360