Even though the crisp days of fall are well upon us, I have a couple summer projects that I haven't yet had a chance to post. One was delayed because of the vagaries of ordering supplies online, and another simply never made it on the posting schedule.

The latter is a neat BBQ tip that our friend Mike shared with us. Perfect BBQ firestarters, for use with chimneys or just charcoal alone, can be made using nothing more than a cardboard egg carton, some old candles or other wax, and dryer lint. I happened to have a couple ugly old purple candles hanging about, but if you're the type who doesn't keep a junk drawer full of cruft like that, you can also buy candle wax in craft stores.

Simply stuff a little dryer lint into each egg cup, and then melt the wax in a double boiler and pour it in to fill. When the wax has hardened, you can tear the cups off one at a time as needed. Simply light a corner and toss it in under your chimney or pyramid, and you've got a nice, guaranteed light. No need for spraying that lighter fluid all over! (Seriously, we used to look like something out of a comic strip when we lit our Webster— you could practically see the all-caps comic sans "FWOOMP!" as the pillar of flame spewed up past our eyebrows. Our eyebrows are pretty happy that we switched to these firestarters.)

My second summer leftover was a long time coming. I ordered a bottle of quinine powder about two and a half months ago, thinking that I would have my tonic water made in plenty of time to refresh us on those hot August evenings. When did the quinine arrive? About a week ago, after multiple unanswered customer service inquiries. I feel a little bad calling out a supplier, but I try to run honest blog here, so folks, while I highly recommend making your own tonic water, I cannot say the same for buying quinine from ZooScape.

Homemade tonic water actually takes the form of a syrup, which you add to carbonated water. This is great, because not only can you make a big batch of syrup all at once and not worry about it going flat, but you can also mix your tonic water to taste. When serving some gin and tonics with this stuff, I definitely noticed that people had different preferences. To make the syrup, water, sugar, quinine powder and seasonings are boiled together— I adapted a recipe from this Washington Post article by adding just a dash of Chinese five spice powder. Notice that homemade tonic water is not clear, but brownish, because the kind of quinine available to you and I actually comes undistilled, in the form of ground cinchona bark.

I loved the sweet and spicy flavor of my tonic, so much richer and deeper than a storebought tonic, and its many-faceted character, with the hint of five spice, had me thinking of not just cooling gin and tonics, but tempting champagne cocktails, warming spiced whiskeys, and a myriad of other cocktail possibilities. It also made me think of the wide variety of simple syrups that you can make using roughly the same technique. For example, last year I made a syrup of sugar with a spoonful of lavender that also made a delicious cocktail with gin. Quinine is what sets tonic apart, however, and as delicious as this tonic was, I found that the sweetness overwhelmed the bitter bite (of course, it could be that my quinine powder is a little wimpy). Next time I make this, I'll definitely dial up the quinine, and leave the simply sweet syrups for other cocktails.