Hello! I just wanted to quickly announce that I will be soon launching a YouTube channel for any video content I might create. So, stay tuned and check back often! If you’re into video games, especially Skyrim, you might be interested in a new series I am currently working on! Thanks again for stopping by and have a great Wednesday!
It’s summer and after a long week of work (or work from home) it’s nice to sit down and relax with a seasonal cocktail. I practice a Low Carb/Keto lifestyle and while most hard liquor is low or zero carb, a lot of liqueurs and mixers such as Triple Sec or sour mixer are a little on the carby side. Luckily, I had a copy of The Low Carb Bartender, so I had a little bit of knowledge on how to make my own low-carb mixers and liqueurs. But, the book was published a while ago, and I wondered if the Liquor Quik flavor essences were even still available. Lo and behold, they are still available from Amazon. I was pretty excited to finally be able to make a low-carb version of my favorite summer cocktail, the Sidecar.
The sidecar has unclear origins, but it is commonly thought to have been invented at the end of WWI in either London or Paris, with the popular Ritz Hotel of Paris claiming the origin of the drink. The drink’s name, quite obviously, is derived from the motorcycle attachment, which was commonly used during that era.
There are a few ways to make the Sidecar, but I opt for what is known as the “English School,” which is 2 parts Cognac or brandy, 1 part Triple Sec, and 1 part lemon juice.
Now, “How do I make low-carb Triple Sec?” you may ask. Fortunately, it’s pretty simple to do. I grabbed a ½ gallon Mason jar to mix everything up in, a 750mL bottle of vodka (I used Tito’s), some sucralose, and a bottle of Liquor Quik triple sec flavor essence. I followed the instructions on the bottle and used ⅞ cup of sucralose. I combined the ingredients in the jar and gave it a good shake. After everything was well mixed, I returned the finished product into the original bottle — there was about an ounce left over, so I decided to make myself a sidecar!
Here’s how to make a Sidecar:
2-3 ice cubes
2 oz Cognac or Brandy
1 oz low-carb Triple Sec
1 oz lemon juice (about ½ large lemon)
Add the ice, brandy, triple sec, and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker and shake well for about ten seconds. Let it rest briefly before straining into a cocktail glass or your drinking vessel of choice. Sit back and enjoy!
The Raspberry Pi is a great little computer for various projects. At less than $100 it’s fun to experiment with because if you mess it up or break it, the loss is minimal. I haven’t pushed any of my Pi to the limit, but an overclocking project may be in the works!
Lately, I’ve been installing various flavors of Ubuntu and Twister OS on my Raspberry Pi 4. I was able to run all of the desktop environments but not all of them ran optimally. The Xfce and LXDE desktops ran the best, likely due to their light weight. The KDE desktop seemed kind of broken. While loading it, it would tend to hang, forcing me to login using the CLI and it loaded fine from there. The GNOME desktop worked fine, but it wasn’t my favorite and was a little laggy at times. Finally, the MATE desktop worked nicely on the Pi 4 with minimal issues.
Twister OS is really a nice desktop environment that allows you to flip between a Windows 10 (Raspbian X) style desktop or a OS X (iRaspbian) style desktop. There’s even a shortcut that you can double click to easily switch between the two. If keeping tabs on CPU temps and overclocking are your thing, the CommanderPi app allows for keeping tabs on temps and CPU speeds and allows for overclocking as well. It also includes RetroPie for retro gaming and even a Steam client, although I didn’t end up trying it out. Twister OS works flawlessly on the Pi and is definitely worth putting on an SD card and trying out.
There are so many distros out there, and several probably would work on the Pi as well. Just don’t expect them to run flawlessly as many are not optimized to run on the Pi hardware or won’t run at all on the Pi’s ARM architecture. A lightweight desktop should run well on the Pi and the new 8 GB model should be able to handle some of the heavier desktops better. Whatever your flavor is, grab a Pi and some SD cards, and have fun!
Welcome to my blog! This blog focuses on my interests of technology, health and wellness, the outdoors, and a little bit of this and that. Currently, I’m experimenting with different flavors of Linux on the Raspberry Pi 4 and working on other various projects as well as studying web development. Thanks for stopping by and check back every Friday for new content!
Benny's Bits and Bytes