The world’s largest privately held spirits company designates US$2,000,000 in cash and other assistance to Puerto Rico, and the remaining US$1,000,000 to local relief agencies supporting communities impacted in Florida, other islands in the Caribbean, The Bahamas, and Mexico.

Bacardi will provide immediate relief and longer-term rebuilding efforts in collaboration with several non-profit partners and local governments, including the Government of Puerto Rico, in the affected communities.”

The beautifully grained bike is constructed from about 15 staves taken from second-fill Glenmorangie whiskey casks. The Glenmorangie Original by Renovo bicycle, 

They are the first in the world to feature a frame constructed entirely from used white-oak whisky barrels. This isn’t a bike to put in your living room as a showpiece. It is meant to be ridden. Wood absorbs vibrations better than carbon fiber and it only weighs 21.75 pounds due to its hollow frame. So, scotch-drinking bikers, get the bike of your dreams!

This is Glenmorangie’s second year for its Beyond the Cask series when it partners with another company to find unique uses for its staves. The ultimate in sustainability! Kudos for going green…

Let’s hope some innovative bottle maker decides to manufacture this much needed wine bottle. Hurry Hurry!

“…as the Auburn University Health Promotion and Wellness Services department points out, one average “drink” is about as intoxicating as any other — one can of beer is about as alcoholic as a regular-sized glass of wine, which has about the same alcohol content as one shot or a mixed drink made with one shot.”

Toss back a bunch of shots of anything over an evening and, yeah, you’ll be crazy drunk for sure. Nurse a beer or a cocktail – made with any booze – over a couple of hours, and you’re fresh as a daisy. Or a dandelion.

FIRST VENICE ART CRAWL OF 2017 TAKES PLACE MARCH 16: THIS IS VENICE!

www.veniceartcrawl.com

Venice, CA, March 10, 2017—The 7th Annual Venice Art Crawl (VAC) kicks off Thursday, March 16 with the theme: This Is Venice, highlighting what makes this beachside community unique with art, culture and entertainment from 6-10PM in dozens of venues across the city. The majority of the VAC will take place on a one and a half mile stretch of Venice Boulevard from Speedway by the beach to Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center, 681 Venice Boulevard near Oakwood Boulevard, and even on to Lincoln Boulevard. The VAC is always ticketless, free and family friendly.

There are many participants in this Spring-adjacent Venice Art Crawl. On the Venice Boardwalk, check out skate photography by Ray Rae at Paper Scissors Rock; photography by Dan Kacvinski at Sidewalk Café; and paintings by Mayon Hanania at Small World Books. Along Venice Boulevard near the beach, stop at Cave Gallery; James Beach; Canal Club; and the Sunny Bak Studio featuring Harold Cleworth, Sunny Bak, Stuart Berkowitz and DJ Todd Spero. Five minutes east, you’ll run into the Abbot Kinney Venice Library featuring Michelito Orquiola and the Night Owl Players, Leebs, Boys and Girls Club, Gary Palmer and Tim Joensen. Continue east and you’ll experience the Inaugrual LA Punk Film Festival at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center featuring the films Punk’s Not Dead and Code Blue, live performances– and more: http://www.beachdancerfilms.com/la-punk-film-festival/

Next door, the Social & Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) will be presenting their 20 Years of the UCLA/SPARC Digital Mural. Also at SPARC, trailblazer Latina and acclaimed queer writer/performer Monica Palacios will receive an Award of Recognition from City of Los Angeles at 8PM. Walk 50 steps east on the same side of the street and you’ll hit the Pacific Resident Theatre, where they will perform the play “It’s Time.” Head further east to admire handmade jewelry at 901 Venice Boulevard. Get your walk on by strolling over to local hotspot bar The Lincoln on Lincoln Boulevard.

Off the beaten path, check out the Pop Up Kitty Wine Bar, where you can mingle and cuddle with kitties, drink wine, listen to chill music and purrrchase kitty art. Other participants include photographer Walter Chism at Bank of Venice; Westside Global Awareness Magnet School’s fundraiser auction; Gotta Have It’s excellent after-party; The Rose Room; Flavio Bisciotti Studio; Late Sunday Afternoon; and many more.

Guests can experience pop-up galleries in studios, homes, parking lots, bars and restaurants that feature paintings, installations, performances, sculptures, live painting, music—the sky is the limit of what they will experience. An interactive guide to the crawl with a list of all participants and locations will be posted on the VAC website and on social media.

Enjoy the mild nighttime temperatures walking along iconic Venice Boulevard that intersects with the hip happening Abbot Kinney Boulevard and onward to Lincoln Boulevard where you can enjoy a scrumptious meal or cocktail before, during or after the Venice Art Crawl. Look for the Electric Bike Parade as these peddlers glide along the boulevard in their one-of-a-kind, brightly lit bicycles. Bring your own bike and join them.

The Venice Art Crawl takes place four times a year: March 16, May 18, July 20, and September 22 and 23. Also: Save the date for the VAC fundraiser Thursday, April 20 at the Runway at Playa Vista. For more information, art, invitations, graphics and more: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zvqss7uipbc1x8n/AAD7RXFYx8BGELxzjaivTZqFa?dl=0

The Venice Art Crawl is a Venice Chamber of Commerce Event: http://venicechamber.net.

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“CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE FOR MISCHIEF”~ slogan on Born and Bred bottle

For some people, however, the headache comes after drinking the wine, and it’s no joke. For those folks, the consumption of red wine in particular seems to cause headache symptoms, even with moderate drinking, leading to a phenomenon commonly called red wine headache (or RWH for short).

While we’re not medical professionals (everything presented here is for educational purposes only, and isn’t meant to be actionable medical advice), we do have some potentially helpful information on RWH. So if you often find yourself suffering a bit after drinking your favorite red, you’ve come to the right place.

First, we should talk about what probably isn’t causing your wine headache: sulfites.

Poor sulfites have been given the redheaded stepchild treatment when it comes to wine, and yet they’re an important and integral part of wine chemistry. Without sulfites, most wine would spoil from bacteria, and their shelf life would almost certainly be significantly reduced. Wine labels carry a sulfite warning only because a small percentage of the population can have severe allergic reactions to them. Per Chicago’s Diamond Headache Clinic, these reactions almost always manifest as severe asthmatic problems, rather than headaches. Dried fruits and lunch meats tend to have significantly more sulfite content than wine, so if you have ever eaten those without problems, the sulfites in wine are unlikely to impact you. If you’re still not convinced that your RWH isn’t caused by sulfites, consider that red wines generally contain lower sulfite levels than white wines.

So what is causing that vicious red wine headache? While no one knows for sure, and it’s likely that there are several factors at play simultaneously, science is honing in on the following as potential RWH culprits.

Source: Fix.com Blog

Histamines
If you’ve ever taken medicine for allergy or cold relief, you’ve likely heard of histamines; compounds that are known to literally create headaches for allergy sufferers. The bad news is that many bacterially fermented products contain histamines, and that includes items such as cheese and wine. Histamine reactions are thought to be linked to low levels of the diamine oxidase enzyme in the body, which might explain why histamines only cause headaches in a subset of the population.

Unfortunately, red wine has higher histamine levels than white wine. Adding insult to injury, drinking alcohol might increase histamine levels in blood plasma, even if the drink itself is low in histamines. Taking an antihistamine about an hour or so before drinking red wine might help to prevent red wine headaches, but care should be taken to avoid any known drug interactions (just as care should be taken when consuming alcohol with any medicine).

Source: Fix.com Blog

Tyramine
Tyramine (an amino acid) is one of the many natural by-products of the fermentation process, so it’s also present in most wine and cheese. What makes this stuff a RWH contender is its effects on blood pressure; it has been shown to trigger migraine headaches for some people whose bodies have difficulty breaking tyramine down.

If you’re one of those unlucky wine lovers, there isn’t currently a whole lot of relief to offer you. However, you can stack the odds in your favor against a wine headache by avoiding consumption of multiple fermented products together. In other words, skip the wine-and-cheese pairing and opt for just the cheese, or just the wine.

Source: Fix.com Blog

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Leica Store and Gallery
8783 Beverly Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90048

Taste some of the top small producers of the Napa Valley – meet the personalities and make plans for your future visits.
Through the lens of the glass – is a collaboration with LEICA’s showroom to pull together some of the best in wine and an awesome audience.

Each paid guest will leave with a complimentary wine glass

Feel like enhancing the experience? Petrossian Restaurant will be hosting our VIP dinner – gather and enjoy a few special wines and also enjoy a few of the personalities involved. Petrossian is one of our favorite restaurants – great venue – great food – and service – then walk over to our event and the night continues. Check out the wine list, the venue, the glassware, this is a world class event in a top location… featuring some of the best wines on Napa Valley.

Silent Auction benefits TJ MARTELL FOUNDATION – raising funds and awareness for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

TICKETS: http://www.winela.com/napa-valley-tasting/

“In a statement to sister publication The Spirits Business, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police commented: “Detectives from the Organised Crime Command are investigating an allegation of fraud involving counterfeit Whisky.
“The offence was reported to police on Tuesday, 17 January 2017.
“The offence involves purported vintage Whisky being sold at auctions in forged bottles and containing non-vintage spirit.”

As per The Drinks Business: “Fake Scotch whisky worth close to 1 million pounds has been removed from the market in what one broker has called “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Sorry about that.

You probably have the required two AAA batteries from your other thingamajig so you’re good to go for 30 minutes and hundreds of beers. The UltraBeer, for now, is only available in the U.K and they don’t ship to the U.S. But just in case you’re visiting the Queen, you can get one while you’re there or ask a friend to bring you one.

That Thing Store

Hurry, hurry! This bottle is going to auction on January 13 at McTear’s in Glasgow, Scotland.

“After his recent elevation to President of the United States, we’re eager to see how much this bottle of 26 year old GlenDronach will fetch at hammer, estimated in excess of £2,500,” said McTear’s of this Scotch in a statement. “All politics aside, this is a stunning whisky in its own right and true collectors item.”

Auction details here.

2017 ¡Latin Food Fest! Los Angeles

America’s largest annual Hispanic culinary celebration, ¡Latin Food Fest!, takes place March 24-25, adjacent the Santa Monica Pier (1550 Pacific Coast Hwy, Santa Monica, 90401). The 2017 action-packed line-up features tastings, a celeb chef dinner, parties and workshops.

The signature event, Gran Tasting, is an all-inclusive tasting festival. Guests pay one price to enter and indulge in a variety of local and international Latin food, wine and spirits; meet acclaimed chefs who will conduct demos, and you won’t want to miss the Best of Fest Awards – the fest’s showcase of culinary excellence.

For more information, visit www.latinfoodfest.com

Today’s consumers drink consistently in restaurants and bars and at home. Drinking at home outperforms drinking on premise across all generations: Between 66 and 76 percent of consumers reported drinking at home at least once per week, compared with 23 to 26 percent who reported drinking once per week on premise.

Millennials, Generation Xers and baby boomers make in-store shopping trips more than once per week, and 40 percent of buyers walk into the store undecided on what product to purchase. Of the 60 percent who do have a planned beverage purchase, 21 percent end up changing their mind in store, and 50 percent of those who changed their mind ultimately buy a different brand than they originally intended.

“There is sizable interest for beer, wine and spirits manufacturers and retailers to work together to win over consumers,” said Robert I. Tomei, president of Consumer & Shopper Marketing for IRI. “When you consider how often most shoppers are going to the store, and the fact that 21 percent of them changed their mind during the actual shopping trip, you realize the impact in-store signage, creative labeling and other marketing could have on your portfolio.”

Consumers across all generations also value quality and taste more than price: More than half of all consumers, regardless of their age, view premium beer, wine and spirits as an affordable luxury. Similarly, between 73 and 80 percent of all generations make their adult beverage decisions based on taste rather than price. Beer continues to reign at home overall, with 73 percent of these younger consumers preferring it to wine or spirits. However, consumers in all generations are looking for lighter alternatives across the entire alcoholic beverage landscape, demonstrating the possibility for existing brands to expand their portfolio and appeal to new demographics.

Leveraging the Generations

Although millennials are increasingly representing a more significant portion of dollars for the alcoholic beverage category as they rapidly become of age, manufacturers and retailers should not discount the role of other generations. Baby boomers — an almost equally large and arguably more economically powerful generation than millennials — are responsible for a disproportionately large proportion of overall cross-category dollar sales. Although they only make up 33 percent of the U.S. population, boomers represent 45 percent of overall beer, wine and spirits dollar sales, 46 percent of wine sales, and 41 percent of sparkling wine sales. While it is important for manufacturers to develop a strong and sustainable core connection with the millennial generation, they should also nurture the relationship with boomers, given that they account for nearly 50 percent of category volume.

Beer, wine and spirits companies should also pay attention to Generation X, whose preferences, values and tastes are similar to those of millennials. Generation X makes up 20 percent of total beer, wine and spirits dollar sales, a figure proportionate to their makeup of 21 percent of the U.S. population. Millennial and Gen X consumers are the most experimental in the type of alcohol they choose and enjoy trying different kinds of alcoholic beverages, both at home and on premise. At the time polled, Gen X consumers averaged 3.6 different types of alcohol at home in the past three months and 2.8 on premise, figures higher than those for boomers and seniors. Both millennials and Generation Xers also prefer bars and restaurants that put a creative spin on the alcoholic drinks they serve, and they are the most willing to try the latest trends. Aesthetics are also important, as one-third of both generations choose a product based on what the label or bottle looks like.

In order to target the right audience effectively, beer, wine and spirits manufacturers need to understand the inherent differences between each generation’s wants, needs and preferences. Regarding the alcoholic beverage segment, millennials are driven largely by factors, such as alcohol percentage and flavor innovation — they want the most “bang for their buck” and crave new flavor combinations and experiences. Millennials also are highly attracted to creative labeling, citing fun and engaging labels as criteria for an in-store purchase decision. Boomers, on the other hand, are less likely to crave variety and experimentation, and their purchase decisions are more likely to be influenced by a low price point than by beverage taste. They also are less likely to purchase alcohol in a restaurant or bar.

Currently, many CPG companies are extremely focused on millennials, to the extent that they unknowingly may be neglecting Gen Xers and baby boomers. In doing so, they are walking away from an enormous portion of consumers’ dollars. For instance, boomers remain more likely than millennials and Gen Xers to drink once a week or more at home, and they account for a robust 42 percent of overall wine category growth.

As part of a detailed industry study, Chris von der Linden, senior vice president of Consumer & Shopper Marketing and beverage industry expert for IRI, noted, “Millennials also have a large exploratory nature, which is reflected in the choices they make in restaurants and bars, choosing domestic craft beer or vodka most often — 37 percent and 33 percent of the time, respectively. With a mantra to ‘Celebrate the Everyday,’ Champagne is also a frequent beverage choice. During a three-month period, millennials drank two times more Champagne than any other generational cohort.”

Additionally, 60 percent of millennials state that Champagne is great for drinking year-round. Of those millennials who indicated they had consumed Champagne in the last 12 months, 41 percent polled said that they had drank Champagne in the past month and 23 percent in the past week. Champagne and sparkling wine manufacturers that capitalize on this trend and sentiment within the millennial population could see a substantial impact on sales.

However, millennials are not a one-size-fits-all generation. IRI has identified six distinct segments within the millennial population, each of which has its own identity and ideals: free spirits, struggling wanderers, concerned aspirationalists, conscious naturalists, new traditionalists and confident connectors. To effectively engage the right group, beer, wine and spirit producers, retailers and on-premise establishments must be aware of their differences in philosophies and values and target them in ways that will be most meaningful. IRI MilleniaLink helps marketers assess which millennials offer the greatest opportunities for their products or services, why, how to reach them, and what messages will resonate most strongly.”

For more information on IRI’s study, please contact: Chris von der Linden at Chris.VonDerLinden@IRIworldwide.com.

Fake fine wines

$550M worth of ‘fine’ counterfeit wine is being sold over and over again. Rudy Kurniawan, now serving 10 years in prison for multiple counts of wine fraud for millions of dollars, polluted the fine wine pool with up to 12,000 bottles of fake vintages that are believed to have been manufactured by Kurniawan in 2006 alone. Kurniawan mixed old vintages with newer ones, often California wine, and passed them off as more expensive wines.

So much for wine experts and sommeliers who may think they’re swirling a vintage Romance-Conti or rare 1945 Mouton when it’s really a vintage Rudy Kurniawan. There are few safeguards to protect what you are buying, if is the real thing as just 29% of fine wine producers use anti-fraud technology in their packaging. People are paying thousands of dollars for…a Justin Pinot?

Great book about counterfeit wine: The Billionaire’s Vinegar “The New York Times bestseller, updated with a new epilogue, that tells the true story of a 1787 Château Lafite Bordeaux—supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—that sold for $156,000 at auction and of the eccentrics whose lives intersected with it.” Suggest a nice Italian wine while reading!