Drink Blog of the Day Archive

I am always on the look-out for a low priced blend that delivers good value for my hard earned cash. With inflation and rising taxes eroding my purchasing power, I really have to have some reasonably priced spirits.

If time travel were possible, and we could deposit ourselves at the dinner table of one of the Founding Fathers, we’d surely be drinking Madeira. Madeira was the King of Wines, enjoyed not only before and after dinner, but throughout the meal.

This is a beautiful blend from Antinori’s wine project in Puglia, cleverly named for the first two letters of the three red varieties: NEgromaro, PRimitivo and CAbernet Sauvignon. It displays tasty black fruit and good spice with moderate tannins. It’s eminently rinkable right now with all sort of foods. In other words, a fun and uncomplicated wine! Priced anywhere from $8-12, how can you go wrong?

The "Bon Amigo" is my own drink, but don't let my last minute name fool you. This one has some thought behind it. It was inspired by Bryan Dayton, a local bartender who is the beverage director and part-owner of "Oak at Fourteenth" in Boulder, CO.

With Christmas fast approaching and the decorations are going up, people are starting to consider (or panic!) about what presents they are going to buy.

I had lunch with Dr. Bill Lumsden the day before WhiskyFest New York. Bill is the Head of Distilling and Whisky Creation for The Glenmorangie Company. That includes Ardbeg and Glenmorangie. I asked you what questions you would like me to ask Bill. Here they are, with his answers.

November is a good month for the world of Scotch whisky, thanks to a change in legal protection in one of its largest prospective markets. Scotch whisky as a product is to enjoy greater protection in the lucrative Chinese market after an agreement was reached between the UK and China this month.

There has recently been some arguments on twitter and coffeed about the validity, relevance, importance and execution of weighing espresso shots. This arguing about accuracy and information has me wondering why there is so much resistance to measurement and why we as an industry are playing unnecessarily with variables?

It’s barely a stretch — a counter-stretch! — to say high-end coffee learns a lot from trending food movements. this blog wonders if it’s not missing the cuttingest parts, though.

Because of our stay at the Ace Hotel in Portland and New York I had a very good look at Stumptown Coffee Roasters these days. You can see this as a review of this coffee company, but for me it's more like a market search and comments on how they work. This is all purely personal and discussable of course.

The winners haven’t been announced yet (January?) but if you’re looking for some new coffees to try at home, this would be a good place to start!

In a previous post, I neglected to mention one of the most charming things I discovered about coffee in Sweden, the tradition of fika. Fika is an afternoon coffee break, often with sweets and baked goods. It's similar to English tea time, but does not have such a formalized background. In fact "fika" can mean a break of any kind, or even a little date. But usually the term refers to a break in the afternoon for refreshment, the chief form of which is coffee.

It’s unreliable, unaccountable, frequently unattainable, and I love it so. It, in this case, is Yemen Mokha, the stuff of heirloom varietals grown in village gardens and courtyards and tiny greenspaces carved out of the walls and warrens of ancient Arabian cities like Sana’a and Ismaili, where folk have tread for more than two and a half millennia.