The Spirit World

Blueberry juice has to be one of my favorite “occasional” juices. It’s potent enough to indulge only on special occasions to avoid burning out on it’s high impact flavor. So, it only makes sense that it would be a great juice for cocktails, particularly as spring is rolling around and my head is craving berries […]

This afternoon I wanted to sit out in the warm sun and enjoy a lazy afternoon outside. Lounging in the sun is best done with beer in hand so naturally my thoughts turned to what I should grab from the cellar. I was in the mood for something refreshing — a wheat beer seemed the […]

Pernod is one of those products that everybody is probably familiar with, but few people actually use very much. The first thing most people notice when they sample it, is simply that it tastes like licorice. When sipped straight, the overall flavor is fairly intense, and the licorice like flavor of the star anise that […]

 
In the UK the pressure group CAMRA, the Campaign For Real Ale, has just released new research showing that a shocking 26.6% of pints served in pubs are short measure by more than 5%. This is costing consumers a whopping £1.3 million every single day. 
It might not sound like much but over a busy week, stretching over […]

A few weeks ago I was out with my friends. We went to two different pubs. At both places someone came up to the bar and ordered an Irish Car Bomb. Alright, this was right after St Patrick’s Day and the bartenders seemed to be sick of people ordering Irish Car Bombs […]

I first encountered maraschino liqueur while perusing through Paul Harrington’s cocktail website that was being published by HotWired back when the web was young. He presented a couple different cocktails which used this product, but warned that it was nearly impossible to find. Today, Paul’s site is gone, but fortunately maraschino liqueur has seen a […]

The UK’s chief beer competition, the International Beer Challenge, has just opened their website. The competition bills itself as the largest packaged beer competition in the world.
Each year, the Challenge discovers and rewards the finest beers from across the globe and, in association with Off Licence News, a UK trade newspaper, publishes it’s list of […]

Last week, I gave a list of the classic barleywine beer blends that Judy Ashworth served at her pub in Dublin, California. Looking over that list got me thinking about two things: the principles of beer blending art and the joy of making up names.
One of the beautiful things about being on the bleeding edge […]

Consider the Egg. A product that holds a variety of fascinating uses, including as being an ingredient in many excellent cocktails. The Pisco Sour, and Ramos Gin Fizz are perhaps the most well known, but the time was when one of the most popular cocktails of the day was one that included the use of […]

Today, all the really cool beer bloggers are writing about Belgian dubbels as part of The Session. So if you don’t have any clue what a dubbel is, today is your lucky day.
My first experience of Belgian beer was sharing a Chimay Premiere (Red label) with one of my best friends (my beer mentor, actually, […]