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Road Trip
Gin is green
Resigned to the fact they're not allowed to drink and drive, the TG guys drive a Toyota Hilux that imbibes alcohol and releases clean emissions
Words by Sharleen Banzon; Photography by Chino Acosta
We at Top Gear have had our share of crazy road trips. It's all part of the job, and you'll never hear us complain about it. In fact, we look forward to going on one adventure after another throughout the year; driving away from the office gets us all recharged and ready for the next tsunami of deadlines.
Then this Green Issue rolled along, and while thinking up ways by which we could get others to be environmentally conscious car owners and enthusiasts, we thought: "Why not do a stripped-down, back-to-basics road trip this time around?" Because isn't that what road trips are all about—getting away from the pollution and confusion and being closer to nature? That was when we set Kusina Salud in San Pablo, Laguna, as our destination.
Wait a minute, you must be thinking especially after seeing the pictures of our road-trip vehicle on these pages. Promoting eco-friendliness? That's a big-ass Toyota Hilux they used for the trip! These guys are kidding us! No, sirs, we kid you not. Installed in this 3.0-liter 4x4 turbodiesel Hilux is the DevilsOwn (yeah, that's the name) alcohol-injection system, which injects an alcohol-water mixture into the engine's combustion chambers to—among other things—flush out the resulting carbon buildup from fuel combustion. The emissions from this vehicle are clean as can be.
Despite being a green machine, however, this Hilux is a certified road monster—just check out the size of those off-road tires! Before I picked up the pickup from owner Ed Mercado, Speedlab (the exclusive distributor of DevilsOwn in the country) had assured me that it wasn't difficult to drive at all. Besides, it had an automatic transmission. No worries, right? But when I saw the car in all its off-road glory, my first instinct was to flee. I will forever be grateful to Ed for suppressing his surprise—and probably panic attack—upon realizing that a 105-pound punk would be driving off with his vehicle. I was already thinking about what a field day the others would have the following day when they saw me with the Hilux.
And I was right on the money. Photographer Chino wouldn't stop laughing from the moment he saw me behind the wheel of our monster truck. More joking ensued when we picked up Paulo and Carmela at the office. They'd have continued laughing all day, too, had I not suddenly asked: "Can we stop at a convenience store? I need to buy gin."
Immediately, Mela was in mommy-mode. I hastily explained that the gin was for the alcohol-injection system of the Hilux. Ideally, the system should run on a 50-50 mixture of methanol and water. But since methanol is expensive, Speedlab had advised me to use 100-proof gin, which is 50-percent alcohol by volume. So you see, this is one road trip where booze is an absolute necessity.
We stopped at a store and bought two 750ml bottles of 80-proof gin, which was the most potent we could find. After repeatedly being asked, "Sheng, sigurado ka?" I tipped the contents of one bottle into the alcohol-injection system tank, wondering if I should've knocked back a shot first to calm my nerves. No such luck, though—Mela had already confiscated the other bottle for safekeeping.
My fears turned out to be unfounded. Once I got used to the car's size, driving the Hilux was easy. The alcohol-injection system also made it fun to drive, as it altered the performance of the car significantly. The alcohol-water mixture injected into the engine's combustion chambers cooled the charge air and lowered the chamber temperature, thus preventing detonation. This temperature-lowering effect is particularly useful for cars running in tropical-climate countries like the Philippines.
Also, the alcohol raises the effective octane level of the fuel that the engine runs on, resulting in a notable increase in boost. Our Hilux accelerated at a surprising rate, zipping through highways with a nimbleness belying its weight of 1,880kg. We ended up reaching Kusina Salud much too early as a result. Overtaking tricycles, jeepneys, and even ten-wheelers on provincial roads had been a breeze, thanks to the pulling power of the Hilux's engine and the added boost from the gin.
While waiting for Kusina Salud chef and owner Pol Poblador to finish preparing lunch, Paulo did some catching up with Pol's wife Nina, whom he'd known since they were kids prowling Baguio in search of ghosts. It was in Baguio that Pol and Nina first started out in the restaurant industry. They owned and ran Salud! Bistro, a nightspot famous for its French cuisine, until their 2004 relocation to San Pablo.
Meanwhile, Mela and I wandered around. Besides being a restaurant, Kusina Salud is also part-paradise and part-bird sanctuary. Lush greenery fills the entire compound, making the indoor restaurant (where dinner is served) and the open eating area (where breakfast and lunch guests are accommodated) look like they were built in the middle of a rainforest. The beautification of the place was a project of Nina's mother, the fashion designer Patis Tesoro, known for her exquisite designs of traditional Filipiniana dresses. Nina pointed out that her mother's design influence could be seen clearly in the indoor restaurant, which had been decorated to replicate the look and ambience of century-old traditional Philippine homes.
Every few feet, we came across birdcages with exotic-looking birds inside. There were at least a hundred different species of birds in Kusina Salud, and the place was alive with their singing. Mela was all a-twitter as well; she'd caught sight of a sign that read "kolasisi", indicating the specie of one of the birds in the cages, and the name triggered quite a laughing fit from her.
Lunch was served soon after. Pol started us off with a paco salad topped with a creamy, cheesy dressing. I never would've thought of combining paco and cheese in a single dish, but that's probably why I'm not a chef. We also had sinampalukang manok served Hainanese-style, with the juicy chicken pieces separated from the broth and vegetables. More plates bearing fried lumpiang ubod and pinakbet Ilokano with lechon kawali had the table creaking under their weight, but since we finished everything quickly, the table had no time to collapse. We TG staffers saved the day with our appetites.
I chatted with Pol and Nina after the meal and found out that their restaurant's bestsellers include calamares at kulawo (a salad of banana hearts with a char-roasted coconut cream dressing), kalabaw salpicao, and kare-kareng dagat. This "classic Pinoy made more modern" approach to cooking is quite a departure from French cuisine, but it better fits the rural location of Kusina Salud. Pol said that opening restaurants in the provinces is fast becoming a trend among chefs nowadays and has many advantages. For instance, ingredients are fresher since they are sourced locally. Also, once a provincial restaurant starts generating buzz among the urban crowd, it's somewhat easier to sustain hype because these people would keep coming back not only for the good food but also for the chance to get away from the city.
I also learned that Pol and Nina are both very much environmentally aware. They have a sewerage treatment system in the compound where all the wastewater passes through; after the process, the treated water can be reused to water plants. The non-biodegradable wastes are segregated, while the biodegradable ones go into the compost pit. It's a matter of balancing, Nina said—waste is a natural byproduct of human activities, so it's our responsibility to clean up after ourselves, literally.
It must've been from hearing about all these environment-saving efforts that Paulo found inspiration for a Top Gear first. "Hey, guys!" he suddenly said. "Why don't we plant a tree?"
He sounded so perky that for a moment, we thought he was just messing with us. But no, Paulo was serious, and after being told that there were some banana saplings we could plant in the backyard, he herded us to a clearing and thrust gardening tools in our hands. He himself took hold of a spade and started digging a hole in the ground with such enthusiasm that if we hadn't stopped him, he would've probably dug a hole big enough to bury all five feet, eleven inches of him in. We were hopeless at gardening. Chino's exasperated instructions fell on deaf ears as we continued on our ninjitsu-inspired brandishing of gardening tools. (For the record, we were hopeless at imitating ninjas as well.)
Having done our good deed, it was soon time to leave. As usual, Chino took care of the drive back home. We stopped at a fuel station on SLEX to have our beast of burden tanked up again (I had it filled up the night before). Since the alcohol in the alcohol-water mixture raises the effective octane level of fuel, fuel is burned more efficiently, which translates to better economy and mileage. We used up roughly a quarter of the full tank of diesel, so the rate of fuel consumption was pretty decent. This, however, was not fully attributable to DevilsOwn; also installed in the Hilux were a K&N drop-in air filter and a Unichip programmable piggyback fuel computer, which also contributed to better fuel economy.
Besides, as I was pouring the second bottle of gin into the alcohol-injection system tank, I couldn't help thinking that our savings in fuel had simply been negated by the cost of alcohol. Going green, like anything else, comes with a price. Also, the long-term effects of the system on the engine are not fully known.
According to our very own Beeboy Bargas, who had his Land Rover fitted with the system, it's possible that the life expectancy of the engine's valve seats may be shortened by up to five percent. I checked the DevilsOwn website (www.alcohol-injection.com), but there was nothing in there about possible accelerated wear of the engine as a result of the system's installation. But of course.
Now let's not end this on a negative note. The important thing here is that, with this system, we were able to accomplish what we had set out to do. It did its part, just as we did ours. Hopefully, you'll also do yours.
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Top Gear Philippines - August 2008
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