National Margarita Day official? No. But who cares. Celebrate Feb. 22!
Congress has finally convened and proclaimed the way our Founding Fathers intended them to – BEHOLD, Wednesday, February 22, 2012 – National Margarita Day. Those pesky Margie lobbyists made their way inside the hallowed halls of Congress and emerged with yet another special interest victory. Care to ask how many margaritas went down the gullets of our elected officials before this day became “national”? Apparently, the ...
Bartenders petition to protest proposed Mexican tequila regs
IN THE WAKE of Internet "blackouts" protesting SOPA and PIPA (anti-piracy legislation currently before the U.S. Congress), a smaller, but no less passionate regulatory protest has been circulating among the world's bartenders this weekend: Legislation sitting before the Mexican government. NOM-186 as it is called, is designed to tighten naming and production of regionally delineated agave-based spirits like tequila, mezcal and bacanora. But opponents feel ...
Shit Bartenders Say: You Tube (Aquavit Bores Me)
Just three years after Jonathan Gold wrote about Los Angeles's blossoming craft cocktail scene, comes this hilarious YouTube video poking fun at the often extreme measures bartenders take to fix you a tasty drink. The viral video features several second long frames in the style of other popular "Shit ______ Say" YouTube video series. It stars a handlebar-mustached mixologist talking about things like making his ...
Top 10 Chinese luxury liquor brands announced
While French spirits and wines lead the charge, a premium Guatemalan rum brand and a Scottish single malt producer have also been named among the top 10 luxury liquor brands in the world. In an awards ceremony dubbed the 'Oscars' of the luxury world held in Beijing, the World Luxury Association (WLA) announced the top 100 brands in categories like aircraft, yachts, cars, fashion, jewellery, cosmetics ...
Booze News
See Your Brain on Booze
The human brain is a tangled mess of somewhere between 80 and 120-billion neurons, and these neurons are continuously creating and breaking trillions of connections with one another. What the incongruous results of Nutt and Vollenweider call attention to is the fact that neuroimaging studies have to approach the complexity of the brain from as [...]
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Beer News
YAY! New Orleans International Beer Festival debuts in March
New Orleans gets a new beer festival on March 24. For the past two years, Red Mountain Entertainment of Birmingham, Ala., has produced the Top of the Hops beer festival on the north shore. Today they announced that the festival will move to Champions Square and be renamed the New Orleans International Beer Festival presented [...]
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Wine News
Natural wines “not for the masses”
One of the UK’s top natural wine importers has spoken out about the natural wine movement, comparing the wines to the works of Karl Marx. “Natural wines require a critical approach. They’re a bit like the works of Karl Marx; not intended for the masses,” Giuseppe Mascoli of Aubert & Mascoli told the drinks business. [...]
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Spirits News
Boozehacking: Make Cheap Whisky Taste Like Fancy Whisky
You like whisky. You looooove good whisky. You can’t afford to drop hundreds of dollars on high-end bottle. You stick with rotgut, right? Nope. There’s a new process of hyper-aging booze that apparently turns run-of-the-mill whisky into dark and delicious firewater of the gods. The process is called TerrePure, and it was dreamt up by [...]
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Industry News
Skyy Vodka gets nod to add lip gloss to its disingenuous marketing
AN ALCOHOL company has been given the green light to offer free lip gloss as a promotional tool because the make-up product does not appeal to young people, the alcohol industry’s advertising complaints panel has determined. A research centre at Curtin University complained about the promotion, which offered a free Napoleon Perdis lip gloss with [...]
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Shop
Winner Best Cocktail Book: Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails
This book was the winner at Tales of the Cocktails in New Orleans for best cocktail/bartending book. 100 rediscovered recipes and the stories behind them. A fantastic read. Drink your way through it! Enjoy!
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Events
Don’t Miss! Stars of Cabernet at the Peninsula Hotel, November 16
By D.R. Stewart The Dutch gave us Stars on 45, with its relentless disco drum beat and all the hits you could hope for. Now, Ian Blackburn and Learn About Wine give us Stars of Cab, with a relentless big bottom and all the top wineries you could hope for. November 16th [...]
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