Growing My Johnson

I have had a couple of successes in my Johnson challenge. To start with, i was in Salvos Mitchell a couple of weeks ago, and i was gobsmacked when i saw a Coffee pot behind the counter. My heart was set racing when i as i looked at it and saw, that there was no staining inside it, so it must have been unused. And it had no price tag on it.

My conversation with the sales staff there went something like this.

"damm, it does not have a price tag on it, how much do you want for it?"

"About $7."

Put my best poker face on, and count to five. "mmm, do you have any other matching pieces back there?"

She has a quick look, "Nope"

"Well i guess i will take it."

So i now have a Johnson Brothers Regency White Coffee Pot for my collection.

I have picked up some other bits, but i will talk about them in a later blog.

My Teapot (that i bought retail) and my Coffee Pot.

How time flies

It has been nearly a month since i blogged, and a few milestones have passed in my free range money challenge.

1. I passed the $10 mark for cans collected. In fact i am now approaching the $15 mark. I only need 65 cans and if i can keep my average of 10 cans a day going i will pass this total soon.
2 I passed the $60 total in my challenge.

I have decided to no longer keep the money as coins in my home. While Jars of 5 and 10 cent pieces made for a nice photo, i found the concept of keeping (and advertising) that i had that much money lying around my house to be a poor idea. While $60 is not much money (in the scale of things), if i can make $60 in four months, then by the end of this challenge i will have around $200 in small change at my house (and you would not want to go advertising that you had that much money in lying around).

I also have to come clean here. Not all the cans i get are ones i find lying in the street. A couple of friends drink large amounts of brown fizzy drink and they pass their empty cans on to me. I will not mention which makers of brown fizzy drink they drink, however if these fizzy drink makers want to sponsor me i will give them a plug.

But about half the cans in my totals ido find, so the search continues. And my dog enjoys the walks.

Johnson Challenge update

Taph has to get the best girlfriend award. She was in Salvos in Tuggeranong last week and she picked up a set of Johnson Brothers Regency White. This addition to my collection now gives me a table setting for 15 and i have the following pieces:

• Dinner plates 27 cm 15
• Dinner Plates 22 cm 4
• Side plates 17 cm 17
• Side plates 18.5cm 4
• Cereal bowls 17
• Soup plates 3
• Soup Touraine 1
• Saucers 24
• Tea cups 25
• Coffee mugs 16
• Teapot 1
• Sugar bowl 2
• Milk jug 1

Of course the search continues for some other bits, like the serving platters etc, but the main search can now be scaled back into a watching brief.

Free Range money update.

For the past three months i have been collecting free range money around Canberra, and i have finally cracked the $50 mark.

Now i hear people saying that $50 over three months equals, not much money. But this is not much money that i would have missed out on, and it has cost me nothing to collect it.

A person i work with asked me if i was worried about disease? Well there are risks involved in picking up cans that are lying around, but there are also things you can do to minimise these risks.

1. If you have a grabber use it, if you do not, then pick up the cans by their base only (and not the bit you drink from). This way there is less chance of touching the drinkers saliva.
2. Always carry plastic bags and put cans in the plastic bag. If I do not have a plastic bag, i will squash the can, and leave it there until i can come back with a plastic bag.
3. There are three ways to squash a can. One was is stand the can on end and step on it. Only do this if you are certain the can is empty, and if you are wearing heavy boots. Otherwise squash the can lengthwise.
4. Finally, get used to not touching your face/ eating unless you have just washed your hands. It takes a little while to get used to doing this, but it can be done. If you are the sort of person who when handling raw meat in the kitchen and not scratch your nose when it itches then you will know what i mean. I also carry a little bottle of antibacterial hand wash, but i will only use it if i need to wash my hands and have no other options for washing them.

Anyway, my tally's for Free Range money stand at:

• Trolleys Returned $12.00
• Cans found $8.93
• Petrol dockets $30.00
• Money found $5.50
• Free range money total $56.43

What I learnt at Whiskey live.

What I learnt at Whisky Live.
There are four or six whisky distilling areas in Scotland (depending on who you ask).
After it has been Distilled, all whisky has to be matured for at least three years in Oak Barrels, some will be matured for much longer.
If a blended whisky has an age statement on it, that is the age of the youngest whisky in that blend.
A Blend Whisky will usually have a mixture of Grain (Distilled in a continuous "patent" or "Coffey" still) and Malt Whisky (distilled in an onion-shaped "pot" still).
A Pure Malt Whisky will only use Malted Whiskey.
Blend and pure Malt whisky will mix whiskies from several different Distilleries until the blender achieves the taste and smell they want.
A Single Malt Whisky will mix a number of different whiskies, that have been produced from the one distillery, until the blender achieves the taste and smell they want.
Most of these whiskies will add colouring (usually Caramel) so every bottle produced is identical. If the bottle says nothing about colouring not being added, then it has been artificially coloured.
As the whisky is matured in oak casks, the whisky will sometimes have fats and or oils from the wood in it. When ice is added to the whisky, these fats can go cloudy, so they are removed from mass produced whiskies (usually by a cold filtering process). The problem is fats contain flavour.
A single cask whiskey that has not been cold filtered or had colouring added, is the best to aim for. The problem is quality costs and you will be lucky if you can find a bottle of this whisky for under $100 a bottle.
But they taste divine.

Whiskey Live - Day Two

The Whiskey Live-Whiskey show was not due to begin until 4pm in the Afternoon. This left me a day to kill in Sydney. With so many options, and such little time, i decided to visit Paddys Market, and Darling Harbour. While in Darling Harbour, I stopped and drooled a little in the Lindt chocolate shop.


took a Ferry around to Circular Quay.


and jumped on a Manly Ferry. I had first lunch at Manly.

I did not eat at the bald mans chocolate shop, but i wish i had seen it earlier. I was so tempted to pick up the dish of chocolate and see how much i could drink before they caught me. It was sitting righ there, on the bench, and it was so tempting
Took the Ferry back to Circular Quay, And wandered up into town, for second lunch at Harrys Cafe.

I only remembered to take the photo of the pie at this stage of eating it, and i did not think that i could eat a second pie, so i could not stage that photo either.

The Whiskey show was at the Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, and i got there to discover tables and tables of whiskys and whiskeys.

My pick of the evening would have to be the Limeburners from Western Australia.

Although the Amrut from India

and Edradour from Scotland were also worth noting.

We ran into some other whiskey lovers from Canberra.

Yes that is right, Brendan Smyth loves a wee drop of the Dram too

And had a wonderful time. If Whiskey live in on again next year, I will be going.

Whiskey Live - Day One.

The international whiskey show (Whiskey Live) was in Sydney in the First week of September. Wild horses were not able to keep me away so on Thursday morning, Rocky and myself packed our bags and headed up to Sydney.

We arrived at our motel with 30 minutes to spare before our first masterclass was due to begin. Luckily our digs were only 10 minutes walk for where the masterclasses were being held, so we were able to get there on time.

Our First masterclass was about the Whiskies of Islay. It was presented by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and was well worth the trip. Six whiskies were presented in the masterclass, five were single case bottlings, and the sixth was a commercial whiskey from the same distillery as whiskey number four (the Laphroaig 10 year old).

The evening session was a Journey Around Scotland and was presented by a Brand Ambassador from Diageo Brands. This meant we spent the night being shown only brands from the Diageo stable.

But it was not that bad. We had eight whiskies. The first six was one whisky from each of the whisky areas in Scotland, and then we did a vertical tasting of the Talisker, as we tasted the 10, 18 and 25 year olds. He also produced a bottle of pure grain whisky, and i had a sample of it, but as i had spent the day drinking heavy peaty scotches, the pure grain had no taste whatsoever.