Continuing with my Vice Cream endeavor, I made a homemade fro-yo in the tangy Pinkberry-style, flavored with Campari, the bitter Italian apéritif, and fresh squeezed blood orange juice to get great color, and a flavor that starts off sweet and ends on a clean, lightly bitter note. Campari Frozen Yogurt 1 24-ounce tub of Greek …
Category Archives: Spirits
Wine Purse, Where’s My Bourbon Briefcase?
Recently released by the Scandinavian Design Center, the Baggy Winecoat is a poorly named purse that holds the internal bag from boxed wine with a convenient pour spout and sturdy base for fashionable picnic drinking. In this age of Mad Men mimicry, when we can’t all keep a fully stocked bar in the office, I …
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SF World Spirits Competition
So, I did a little research, and it seems that I am the only media person who has ever covered the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Check out the story in the next issue of Drink Me Magazine. I took a look behind-the-scenes at the premier spirits competition, and they just released the in-front-of-the-scenes results. …
Brilliant Blend Buys: New Scotches On The US Market
I got to meet the Ian MacMillan, the Master Distiller of Burn Stewart Distillers, this week and over lunch we sampled a broad array of the Scotch whiskys produced at his many distilleries. I’ll admit, the surprise stand-outs for me were not the fine single malts, but the more accessible and reasonably priced blends, particularly …
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Home State Heroes: Vermont Spirits Vodka
It’s a month of spirits awards. The results for the Ultimate Spirits Challenge were just released, and the results for the SF World Spirits Competition are about to be. I had the honor of attending the World Spirits Competition last weekend, and got to sit and sample a few rounds. Two of the vodkas we …
Wine Cocktails
As mentioned yesterday, a shorter version of this article is in the latest issue of Drink Me Magazine. For most, wine cocktails are what we drank while backpacking across Europe at 19 years old – before we knew better. No longer relegated to bottomless Bellini brunch specials and champagne cocktails served to octogenarian knitting circles …
Hey Look, I’m In A Magazine
I was asked to write a piece for Nirvino in Drink Me Magazine on making cocktails with wine. There’s a longer version of the article that I will post here tomorrow, but I wanted to give you the magazine page, which you can click to enlarge and read. Drink Me is having a party for …
Maple Rhubarb Old Fashioned
Maybe it’s just the wacky growing season in California, but I just found rhubarb at the grocery store, so I’m making a new-fangled old fashioned. The rhubarb mush isn’t pretty, so I opted to shake and strain this cocktail, rather than the traditional muddle and stir. I used a blood orange because I had one …
Ginger Rooted Rye
Jim Beam Rye is a solid, low-cost American whiskey, but a little too one-dimensional for simply sipping. I use it in punch recipes, and following the same process I used for Ginger Infused Vodka, I roasted fresh ginger and let it sit in rye with raw sugar for two weeks. The end result was spicy …
Pickleback (and the Randolph Handshake)
It seems pickle juice is all the rave in New York. I have a feeling it will be a short-lived fad, so enjoy it while it lasts. The Pickleback is simply a shot of whiskey, followed by a half-shot of pickle brine. It’s the only chaser that needs its own chaser, so a can of …