The Spirit World

Cider you have heard of, but unless you are devotee of fermented fruit juice you probably haven’t tasted a perry or fermented pear juice. While I have yet to find a pub serving real perry, I did find one pub in England serving real cider.
The White Horse in Oxford had a firkin of real cider […]

Lichido is a new liqueur, created in France, that capitalizes on the recent focus on lychee as an interesting and light element for beverages. If you are not familiar with lychees a quick web search will turn up lots of information. For a short summary, the lychee is a sub-tropical fruit first grown in South […]

Photo courtesy of Paul Gibson

Starting this weekend beer drinkers in the Seattle area can sample 10 different Pumpkin beers at all three Elysian locations (Capitol Hill, TangleTown and Elysian Fields) during their 2nd Annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.
The Festival will held one day at the Capitol Hill and Elysian Fields locations and five days at […]

By the time you read this post, or shortly thereafter, I should be arriving at JFK airport, after a hopefully restful red-eye flight, and making my way into the city. This is my mostly annual trip to the city to celebrate my birthday. This year, as in some previous years, my best friend […]

While we are busy celebrating the harvest and the crisp, clean, fall weather the folks in the southern hemisphere are looking forward to all that spring and summer have to bring.
And those folks in New Zealand always have a special way to celebrate with just an extra layer of zaniness tossed in!
Just about a month […]

One of the really beautiful aspects of the English pub is that they are comfortable, relaxed places where you can walk in, have a seat, and have a pint. The act of going to the pub is therapeutic. In fact, on one of the podcasts I listen too regularly, the hosts mentioned that people who […]

The art of the true mixologist doesn’t stop at the glass. Cocktails are a cuisine, and as such can, and should, participate with the other culinary arts as much as possible. One of the books that I have often recommended to various mixologists across the country has been “Culinary Artistry“ by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. […]

This little book, Kitschy Cocktails, while small in size holds a whole lot of fun! The name gives you a hint of what’s to come but the subtitle, “Luscious Libations for the Swinger Set”, really gives you an idea of the author’s sense of whimsy.
As you might guess the cocktail recipes are […]

Continuing with our Harvest theme we are going to visit a mixology book that we reviewed way back in January.
The book, Sharp Shooters, you may remember, is a collection of (mostly) layered shots. The layering brings some interesting color and flavor combinations to these little sips.
Today’s recipe is called the […]

Today’s harvest recipe comes to us from Sazerac via the Seattle Times Cocktailing column.
This cocktail was created at Sazerac where the focus is on a well-balanced drink and there is a definite avoidance of the syrupy sweet. This particular drink showcases sage, an herb that is all about fall and winter in […]