Why Can't I Find My Favorite Wine?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:43:00 -0800

Consumers tend to imagine wine being produced at a bucolic Napa vineyard by a guy in an apron, but that’s not necessarily so, says the Hungry Beast in “How Wine Became Like Fast Food.” Wine and spirits stores like Total Wine and BevMo! are making and marketing their own private-label wines now. “Such brands are highly lucrative,” writes Keith Wallace, “with profit margins often 20% higher than comparable wines.”

The trend isn’t limited to dedicated booze stores: “Trader Joe’s has its ‘Two Buck Chuck,’ Wal-Mart has its Alcott Ridge, and 7-Eleven has its Thousand Oaks Vineyards.” Retail chains love the private-label wines because Joe Glug-a-bottle starts to associate this wonderful grape beverage with the company that introduced him to it—and is tempted to stop by more often to get more.

WhiskyFest Recap, San Francisco

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:54:00 -0700

Last week WhiskyFest blew through SF, leaving behind a trail of dead. Joking aside (though seriously, the stuff will slay you after a few hours if you don’t force yourself to dump after tasting), there were more than 200 whiskeys to sample from all over the world, many master distillers on hand to talk about their products, and, well, a lot of those profusely sweating guys who always seem to show up to beer and spirits festivals. I concentrated on the domestic offerings, leaving the many great Scotches and other imports for next time.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Death’s Door Spirits: Out of Wisconsin, this small-batch distiller is named after the passage between Washington Island and the Door County Peninsula. It uses organic grains, and makes a “white” whiskey. The perfectly clear spirit is made by double distilling, resting the booze for three weeks, then popping it in oak barrels for less than 72 hours. It picks up some whiskey flavors, and even has a sweet suggestion of reposado tequila. Would be fun to experiment with in cocktails that call for gin, or to make something odd like a white Manhattan. They were also pouring a very good, creamy, almost buttery gin, with lots of botanicals but no overwhelming juniper bitterness.

High West Distillery: First off, you have to give some props to these people for not only starting a distillery in Utah, but also starting a ski-in distillery and pub. More importantly, they are selling some very good ryes. Since the company is only a few years old, High West’s own stuff is still aging. In the meantime, it’s been blending other distilleries’ booze to great success. I liked the Rendezvous Rye, a blend of a 6-year-old, 95 percent rye and a 16-year-old, 80 percent rye. It’s strong and spicy, with some vanilla in there. It’s not chill-filtered—a process many distillers put their whiskeys through to remove oils that will make the whiskey appear cloudy when it’s cold. Skipping the step leaves a little more texture in the Rendezvous and flavor in the finish.

Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey: Stranahan’s is a great microdistillery in Denver. Its Colorado Whiskey is aged in charred American white oak whiskey barrels, and contains both floral Scotch qualities and some of the brown-sugary spiciness of bourbon, with some hints of smoky, leathery, earthy funk in there too from, well, who knows. Like High West’s Rendezvous Rye, this is not chill-filtered. Don’t be scared off by the 94 proofage—it’s fiery to be sure, but still totally sippable.

New Finds: Parker's Guide to Cheap Wine

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:15:00 -0700

Yet another sign of the times. Hot on the heels of Michelin FINALLY reviewing moderately priced food in New York, along comes Parker’s Wine Bargains, a book from wine expert Robert Parker that covers the best wines costing less than $25. The book is organized by country and has tasting notes for more than 3,000 wines.

Parker’s Wine Bargains, $12.14

Cocktail Perfection, Found in Translation

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:30:00 -0700

The Atlantic’s food blog takes a trip to Japan where—no real surprise here—some exceedingly masterful bartenders work their magic on a daily basis. Washington DC–based sommelier Derek M. Brown does a good job of capturing the magic of a master at work:

“My cocktails are not Eastern variants, but simple, well-crafted drinks that bear the mark of a technician. Sometimes [bartender Hidetsugu Ueno] even brings out a thermometer to check the temperature of a cocktail. His White Lady, a signature drink culled from the classics, is made without egg whites but has the glistening texture of a melting brook with tiny, broken shards of ice.”

As a West-goes-East-to-encounter-West story, Brown’s cocktail essay is an engaging read. And a bit intimidating, to boot:

“The bartenders at these legendary barrooms are known for their ability to carve an ice ball whose brilliance rivals 500-carat diamonds and shake a cocktail so hard that it registers as a seismic event.”

Freaktoberfest in Williamsburg

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:03:00 -0700

Shmaltz Brewing, of Coney Island lager fame, debuted its new, blood-red beer at last Saturday’s second annual beer and music festival, Freaktoberfest. A packed crowd of craft beer fans partied at the Public Assembly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sampling a range of great mostly local brews.

Shmaltz’s beers are always tasty, and they were being poured in abundance. But a new discovery was the New Hampshire-based Smuttynose’s Farmhouse Ale. A little maltier than I was expecting, it was golden in color and nice and spicy-yeasty. Tasty ’til the last swallow. There’s something great about farmhouse ales and Saisons when the weather turns wet and cool. They’ve got enough body and funk to keep you warm and stand up to heavier foods, but are still fresh and crisp tasting, like the fall air.

A Gift from the Bay Tree

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:45:00 -0700

Bay leaves are good in more than just soups and braised meat dishes; they can also enliven vegetables and even drinks.

Beans and lentils are nice when cooked with a bay leaf or two, says nofunlatte, while sueatmo puts bay leaves under the skin of a chicken before roasting.

“Simple boiled potatoes with sautéed leeks are elevated to something higher when a bay leaf’s added to the boiling water,” says shaogo. Or turn on the oven: This recipe for potatoes roasted with olive oil uses 40 bay leaves. “It’s lovely!” says Ima Wurdibitsch.

dumpycactus adds bay leaves to chai, and lucygoosey likes bay leaf–infused simple syrup in cocktails, lemonade, and stirred into Greek yogurt. She uses five or more fresh leaves or two to three dried to infuse syrup, saying it gets strong fast.

CHOW’s Virgin Bramble includes bay leaf and juniper berry syrup.

Board Link: Bay leaves--anything interesting you use them for, besides meat dishes and…

Time-Saving Iced Tea Concentrate

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:48:00 -0700

You can have iced tea at the ready anytime by making some homemade concentrate, suggests opinionatedchef. She steeps eight tea bags in four cups of hot water (or around 1/3 cup loose leaves in two to four cups of water) long enough to get a strong brew, then stores the concentrate in the fridge. Diluted, this concentrate will make several pitchers of iced tea. opinionatedchef also takes small containers of the concentrate when traveling and adds water and sweetener while on the road.

Board Link: 9/09: ICED TEA Your Beverage of Choice? Space and Time Saving Technique

Where to Find Green Coffee Beans

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:07:00 -0700

Why roast your own coffee? The taste of freshly roasted beans is bright and has more depth than beans roasted and stored, says jayt90. And it’s a fairly low investment in terms of time and equipment for the pleasure that home roasting brings. (See CHOW’s Jiffy Roast story for tips on getting set up to roast simply and cheaply.)

Green coffee beans are available by mail order, and they are cheap compared to commercially roasted coffee. You can get a wide variety of green beans; the best advice is to try different beans and find out what you like, says scubadoo97, who likes Ethiopian and Yemeni varietal coffees for their fruit flavors, but also enjoys Central and South American coffees and Mexican Oaxacas. “I’ll often do 2–3 different beans and then blend them,” he says. At any rate, with home-roasted coffee, “I just know I’m drinking better coffee than I can get locally.”

grampart likes the Columbian Supremo beans from Coffee Bean Direct, roasted just past the second crack. jayt90 gets green coffee beans from Green Beanery in Canada, and from the Green Coffee Buying Club. Many coffee geeks also swear by Sweet Maria’s.

Board Link: Buying Good Coffee Beans

Carry a Torch for Tiki

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:52:00 -0700

New England seems like a funny place to go looking for tiki culture, but oishisoo has a yen for cocktails with a spear of pineapple in them. Where can one go locally to soak up some of that tiki kitsch?

There’s Tiki Lagoon, one of the dining rooms at Kowloon Restaurant. But, as bobot puts it succinctly, “The food/drinks at Kowloon suck.” Tiki Island in Medford has “cheesy murals and masks on the walls, stiff drinks in goofy mugs and better food than Kowloon,” says masterson.

Another idea is to head to prime local booze pushers Drink and Eastern Standard, where the bartenders are “reviving the authentic tiki mixology of Donn the Beachcomber and his heirs, which is not at all trivial,” says MC Slim JB. “It requires a lot of house-made infused syrups, fresh juices (fresh pineapple juice makes a huge difference), and a lot of rather obscure spirits and NA ingredients (pimiento dram, a battery of unusual rums, Cherry Heering, Velvet Falernum, etc.).”

Sunday afternoons at Drink are dedicated to tiki, with weekly parties starting in the afternoon, and Eastern Standard has periodic tiki parties with “authentic Polynesian food and amazing tiki cocktails,” according to MC Slim JB. But you can order tiki drinks any old time.

Kowloon Restaurant [North Shore]
948 Broadway Street, Saugus
781-233-0077

Tiki Island [North of Boston]
269 Middlesex Avenue, Medford
781-391-0477

Drink [Fort Point]
348 Congress Street, Boston
617-695-1806

Eastern Standard [Fenway]
528 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
617-532-9100

Board Link: Boston Tiki Bar?

Trend-O-Meter Says: Craft Lager Is In (9/21/09)

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:57:00 -0700

Until now, craft brewers were more likely to be producing ales than lagers—the kind of light, golden beer that Coors, Miller, Anheuser-Busch, etc. make. But recently they’ve been playing with more flavorful, playful versions of the style.

Spotted: Shmaltz Brewing’s Freaktoberfest beer, which pours red and may or may not contain zombie blood; Moonlight Brewing’s Death & Taxes, a superdark, chocolaty, coffee-tasting beer that’s light-bodied and lower in alcohol than you might think; Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils, featured as a top pick in CHOW’s Summer Beers with Brains story. We called it “the type of light, crisp pilsner you’re used to from Budweiser and Tecate, but classed up with a malty backbone and low-key spice from the hops.”

See more food trends, or tell us what trends you’re spotting.

We Want the Public Option, Please

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:54:00 -0700

Just when it seemed like there were no good names for cocktails anymore, the Hungry Beast offers up the Public Option.

It’s the site’s debut “News Cocktail of the Week,” and it also appears to be a sponsored feature for Le Tourment Vert absinthe.

I imagine many fine brainstorming sessions taking place before they came up with this one. The Jaycee Dugard cocktail doesn’t sound very good. Nor does the Michael Jackson cocktail (it just makes you sleepy). The You Lie! cocktail, on the other hand, is a real pick-me-up. I also look forward to tasting Kate Gosselin’s Hair, Swine Flu Nasal Spray, and Kanye’s a Jackass.

Doughnut Moonshine

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:02:00 -0700

For those not keeping up with the eclectic and seminal photographer Bill Owens, best known for Suburbia, his deadpan chronicle of 1970s cul-de-sac California, you may be surprised to learn he’s now way into craft distilling. He hosts a conference every year, through his trade group, American Distilling Institute, publishes a guide to distilleries around the country, and also apparently dabbles a bit on his own. Here’s a picture of some doughnut moonshine he sent out a few days ago to his mailing list. Go Bill! You always know how to push the envelope.

Photograph by Bill Owens

The J. Peterman of Beer

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:40:00 -0700

An absurdly enthusiastic mass of beer geek dudes practically mobbed Dogfish Head craft brewery’s Sam Calagione as he stepped into the Blind Tiger Ale House in NYC last night. For more than a half hour, the Delaware-based brewer was locked in pivot position, distributing gratis pints from the bar to his many admirers, who pumped his hand and had him pose for pictures. The Dogfish event, which featured 25 (!) of the company’s beers on tap, including some real obscure ones, was one of the most hotly anticipated events of the NY Craft Beer Week festival that kicked off last Sunday.

Calagione, a tanned, rugged guy (he once modeled in some Levi’s ads) with a bro-style friendliness, has become the de facto spokesman for the current craft brewing craze. His beers are easy to market and get excited about, in large part because of their J. Peterman-inspired marketing. Check out some of last night’s pours:

Chateau Jiahu: Developed from a recipe found in 9,000-year-old preserved pottery jars in the Neolithic village of Jiahu, China, using pre-gelatinized rice flakes, wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, hawthorn fruit, chrysanthemum flowers, and sake yeast.

Pangaea: An ale brewed with an ingredient from every single continent, including crystallized ginger from Australia, muscovado sugar from Africa, Antarctic water, Belgian yeast, and exotic grains.

Theobroma: “Based on the chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras” that contained residue of some boozy chocolate drink enjoyed by 1200 BCE partyers. Containing Aztec coca powder and nibs, honey, chiles, and annatto seeds.

Especially in a recession, there’s something great about the kind of armchair travel you can do from your barstool. Or, as Calagione proclaimed as soon as he had extricated himself from fans to stand on the bar, “The great thing about craft beer, is you can upgrade from the shittiest wine, and for the same price … try the shit from small, independent breweries!” Well said.

Humorless Heineken

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:28:00 -0700

The folks at Heineken must be really bored. The global beer behemoth has taken a swing at a tiny Swiss brew called Keineken, claiming the name infringes on Heineken’s brand. Swiss police seized 1,000 bottles of the stuff in response.

Well, sure, the names are similar, but how much damage could a locally brewed beer in Switzerland really do to Heineken’s worldwide juggernaut? One wonders if the real problem isn’t the meaning of the word keineken: It’s a German pun that apparently translates as “No Heineken.”

C’mon guys, that’s funny!

Image source: Flickr member leedsyorkshire under Creative Commons

The Most Metal Beer Art Ever?

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:43:00 -0700

Attendees of the upcoming Great American Beer Festival in Denver should check out the “Collaborative Evil” event in the Brewers Studio Pavilion, September 24 at 6:30 p.m.

What is Collaborative Evil? Steve Altimari, the brewmaster at Valley Brewing, explains the concept: Nine brewers (mostly friends and acquaintances) have agreed on a style (Belgian golden strong ale) and some basic parameters and limitations they wanted to follow (that “it be not loaded with spices, be fairly dry in finish, and … that each brewer would choose a secret sugar ingredient to differentiate the beers from one another”), and have all made different versions of the beer to pour at the festival.

The whole thing has been put together by Todd Ashman of FiftyFifty Brewing Company, and this is the second year he has organized a collaborative beer for the Festival. In 2008, the Collaborative Evil project only included three breweries, but all of them received A- or better reviews on BeerAdvocate. It will be interesting to see how this year’s batch of brews comes out.

(As well as FiftyFifty and Valley, the other collaborators are: Sacramento Brewing, Fat Head’s Brewery and Saloon, Flossmoor Station, Oakshire Brewing, Silver Peak Brewery, Speakeasy Ales & Lagers, and Lucky Bucket Brewing).

If all that isn’t enough to get you interested, how about the sweet metal-esque label art (pictured). Ashman commissioned it, and is also responsible for the name, an extension of a beer called “Evil” he was brewing. The art covers all your metal basics, and would look pretty awesome painted on the side of a van. “No, we are not all metal heads,” claims Altimari, while Ashman explains that “we’re trying to have fun with this … the beer, the GABF tasting, and working together of course.”

Chemex, I Loved You in that Movie

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:26:00 -0700

I love my Chemex* pot, because the design is so simple and it makes the cleanest cup of coffee I’ve had (sorry Clover). And, judging by this awesome tutorial video, Intelligentsia Coffee loves it too.

The text graphics aren’t the easiest to read, but it lists loads of great points, like wetting the beans first to allow for an even extraction, and pouring the water in a circular motion.

It’s a visually inventive, and entertaining video—so watch it and then go buy a Chemex.

*This blog post was not paid for by Chemex, if you can believe it.

It's Like MenuPages, But For Beer

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:00 -0700

So you hear about an obscure brew, like Supplication. You really want to try it, but they don’t carry it at BevMo! or your local bar. Now there’s a new site, BeerMenus, that tracks different beer-centric bars, and tells you what they’re serving on any given night.

So far, it’s only covering bars in New York City, Philly, and Milwaukee, but it has plans to go national. I discovered it when trying to find where I could try Gose, a wheat beer from Leipzig that’s brewed with coriander and salt. (Turns out they have it at Blind Tiger and several other NY bars!) The site also has info about upcoming beer events in the different regions. Hot damn!

A G&T and Tiny Lemon, If You'd Be So Kind

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:44:00 -0700

In their quest for the perfect gin and tonic, the British have gone one step further than anyone might have predicted: They have bent nature herself to their merciless will and wrested tiny, G&T-sized lemons from her grasp. The miniature lemons are grown in South Africa, and will be available for the perfectly agreeable price of £1 (about $1.65) per four-pack at British retailer Marks & Spencer.

Mmm, Numbing, Fishy Whiskey

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:05:00 -0700

From the “interesting weirdness” department comes Cognac.com’s handy list of “10 Asian Liquors Most Likely to Give You the Creeps,” a squeamish look at booze with a little something extra. Like, oh, whiskey with cobra snake (Spirits Review says it has a “fishy, hot taste” and numbs “every part that comes into contact with it”). Scorpion vodka. No, wait, maybe you want to get that good scorpion flavor with a dash of fruit, as in Banana Flavoured Scorpion Liqueur.

There’s a whole raft of this stuff for sale at Thailand Unique, which seems to specialize in products intended to shock the Western palate. Pregnant crickets, anyone?

Drink Like a Viking

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:05:00 -0700

You heard it here first: Norwegian craft brew is going to be HUGE! Well, maybe not, but it’s still really good. Here are two small, experimental breweries that are exporting interesting beer to the United States. Shelton Brothers is distributing both companies’ beer in the States, and you can order it online from Sam’s Wines & Spirits.

HaandBryggeriet: Brewmaster Jens Maudal is trying to revive ancient beer styles from back in the day when brewing was mandated by law in Norway and the beers would have varied from village to village based on the local yeasts, hops, malt, and gruit, spices and herbs that Maudal says might have been used in lieu of hops. (Today he says the country drinks mostly homogeneous pilsners.) The most traditional of HaandBryggeriet’s brews is Norwegian Wood, a smoky ale (“All old beers used to have some smoky taste because they dried the homemade malt over open fire,” explains Maudal) flavored with juniper twigs and berries collected from the woods outside the brewery.

Two others that are soon to be released: Hesjeøl, a smoky harvest ale brewed with three different grains, normally a low-alcohol beer for farm laborers to drink during the harvest but amped up “for today’s not-so-hard-working beer drinkers,” says Maudal; and Wild Thing, a farmhouse fruit ale made with red currants and mountain cranberries, and fermented with Brett yeast to give it a pleasantly barnyardy, sour taste.

Nøgne Ø: Nøgne Ø makes great saison, pale, and amber ales, imperial brown ale, and IPA. It just released Tyttebær (which means lingonberry), a sour fruit beer made with Danish brewery Mikkeller in 2007 that’s been aging in the fermentation vessels and then in the bottles. Nøgne Ø brewer Kjetil Jikiun is also experimenting with extremely high-alcohol beers (17 to 18 percent) made with sake yeast, which can stand up to the higher alcohol levels without dying off. A soon-to-be-released holiday brew called Special Holiday Ale was made as a three-way collaboration with Stone Brewing and Jolly Pumpkin same recipe was brewed at the three individual breweries, with their unique styles. The one brewed at Stone last year is already sold out, but Nøgne Ø’s version will be released this year for the holidays. Jolly Pumpkin is still aging its version, which isn’t slated to come out of barrels until 2010.

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