Archive for February, 2012
• Washington wine country loves your doggies
The Yakima Valley Visitors & Convention Bureau has launched a website for visitors traveling to Washington wine country with their dogs. Winedoggies.com features a plethora of dog friendly attractions and activities in the AVA. Highlights of the site include a “doggie bloggie” hosted by a local canine, an interactive map of dog-friendly businesses and a [...]
• And now, Port cocktails! Remember Port?
When I think about port, I think of my earliest, clumsy attempts at seeming — with requisite air quotes — “sophisticated,” or at least “fancy.” Back then, in my 20s, port seemed like the fast track to connoisseurship. “I’ll take a glass of the ’85 Fonseca,” I’d say to a waiter as everyone else was [...]
• Let’s hear it for wine-based cocktails!
Hunter Valley winemakers may have raised their eyebrows when local bar manager Jamie Walker (below right) began using their wines in his cocktails, but he says the concept is taking off. Walker, of Goldfish Hunter Valley, told TheShout the idea of wine-based cocktails came from his experience bartending in fine dining restaurants with cocktail bars [...]
• Tales of the Cocktail 2012 Official Drink Contest
Create Your Signature Truly Old Fashioned! Tales of the Cocktail invites you to submit a winning recipe for the Official Cocktail Competition of the 10th Annual Tales of the Cocktail. For our tenth anniversary, we are shaking things up with our annual cocktail competition. If you think your skills are up to the challenge, we [...]
• The Hooch Life Launches Interactive American Whiskey Guide
Discover the varied world of American bourbon, Tennessee, rye, corn, malt and wheat whiskey brands and cocktails with The Hooch Life Guide to American Whiskey. The Hooch Life, a lifestyle website that gives enthusiastic drinkers ideas about what to drink, where to drink and how to drink, has consulted with industry experts to create The [...]
• Smart! Gosling’s to launch Dark ‘n Stormy in cans
Bermuda-based distilled beverages company Gosling’s Brothers is set to launch Dark ‘n Stormy cocktail in a new 8.4oz/250ml can in the US. The cocktail is a blend of Gosling’s Black Seal Rum and Gosling’s Stormy Ginger Beer, and is described as ‘Bermuda’s National Drink’. The new canned version of 9% ABV drink will be available [...]
• Napa auction nets more than $3m, 31% increase over last year
Napa Valley’s Premiere Auction has netted a record amount, with a 31% increase on last year’s total. The fast-paced bidding brought in a million dollars an hour at the Napa Valley Premiere Auction event held on Saturday, 25 February, at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California. Over the course of [...]
• Worst Winter Wipes out Wine Harvest in Russia
Worst winter weather in half a century has wiped out up to half this year’s wine harvest forcing Russian producers seek government help to avert a crisis, reports Decanter.com. Temperatures dipped as low as -30C in some areas, with Chateau Le Grand Vostock, based in Krasnodar’s Krymsk district, recording 15 days with an hourly average [...]
• Moët Hennessy brand manager jailed for theft
Brand manager for Moët Hennessy, Romain Brunot, has been jailed and fined for stealing £75,000 of Champagne and spirits. Over a four year period he appropriated 400 bottles of Krug and 400 bottles of Belvedere vodka that had been left over from events, including those held at the Dorchester Hotel and Heston Blumenthal’s restaurants. Brunot [...]
• Wine Tasting at Tam O’Shanter: March 3rd. Be there!
Tam O’Shanter Wine Tasting News from Brien McNally the Tam’s Awesome Wine Manager “On March 3rd at 3:00pm we will be featuring Pinots from around the world and I have selected some interesting wines for us to enjoy. The first wine is from the Tarras Vineyard on the South Island of New Zealand. The region [...]
• Valentine bans beer in Red Sox clubhouse
Saying it’s what he’s “always done” as a manager, new Boston Red Sox skipper Bobby Valentine told his players that alcohol would not be allowed in the team’s clubhouse, or on the last flight of road trips, this season. The new rules come after a tumultuous 2011 season that ended in collapse on the field [...]
• Congrats! Another Mondavi Enters Vintners Hall of Fame
The Vintners Hall of Fame in St. Helena will induct Peter Mondavi Senior tonight after eight decades of making fine wine. Peter is far less famous than his late brother Robert, who was as good at self-promotion as he was at making great wine. Peter keeps, in his own words, “plugging along” at 97, as [...]
• Dogfish’s Noble Rot blurs line between wine and beer
Thousands of years ago, notes Sam Calagione, our distant ancestors didn’t draw a semantic line in the sand between beer and wine. Whatever fermentables they had, whether grain or fruit, went into a common pot to produce their unique tipples. That’s the concept behind Midas Touch (made with Muscat grapes) and Chateau Jiahu (flavored with [...]
• High End Jewish Whisky Society Bottling Rare Single Cask Malts
If you’re an avid whisky drinker, you might want a membership. Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin, well known whisky connoisseurs, have partnered with Seth Klaskin, to form the Jewish Single Malt Whisky Society. “Joshua and I started as whisky bloggers. He actually had the name Jewish Single Malt Single Whisky. As bloggers, we started to [...]
• California resolution declares February to be Craft Beer Month
The California tourism commercials we all know and love (“Come to Caleeforneea”) are about to get better. This week the California Senate passed a resolution to declare February “Craft Beer Month.” The vote to get hammered for a month passed 36-0, and is allegedly to honor how important California has been in the evolution of craft [...]
