Bucket of bungs.

New French oak barrels come with rough hewn oak bungs, held securely in the bung hole with a disc of cotton or hessian, which are generally discarded (in favour of silicone bungs for barrel aging).  I salvaged a bucketful of these bungs that were being thrown away at TWWIAGE.  Why, you might ask?  Because they make great kindling, that's why.  There is no better wood to start a fire with, on a cold winter's night, than wood from 200 - 300 year old trees that has been air-dried for up to 48 months.  It's my own version of toasting oak.
Most of the trees that are felled for the production of French oak barrels (predominantly Quercus sessiliflora and Quercus petraea) come from a handful of forests (e.g., Allier, Limousin and Tronçais) that were planted during Napoleonic times for shipbuilding.  Call me old fashioned, but I always feel warm and toasty when I think that some of the wood intended for the French navy meets its Waterloo in my hearth.  Ouch!
And happy St. Trifon's Day everyone!

True Wine Lover 2.

Le Petit Corporal undoubtedly quaffed a lot of bubbly after the English exiled him to the island of St. Helena.  Defeat must have been hard for the Emperor to swallow.  His trouncing, at Waterloo, when washed down with a few good glasses of champers probably made the whole ordeal seem a lot more tolerable.  I'm sure being a Corsican, of Italian descent, and supreme leader of France, predisposed him to indulge in a lot of still wines too.  I even hear that he was fond of Cognac.
Boney was probably a right plonky.  The hand tucked into his waistcoat stance? It conceals a corkscrew no doubt...look, you can even see a couple of corks in the hand behind his back.