The Spirit World

In the blockbuster movie “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” actor Nicolas Cage expertly maneuvers a Mercedes through the narrow streets of London as beer kegs drop off the livery truck exploding Fuller’s London Pride in front of him.  But that’s not just any truck and those certainly aren’t just any kegs.  To capture the flavor […]

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, people will be uncorking bottles of wine the world over.  After all, when you think romance, wine is never far behind.  In her book, The Simple & Savvy Wine Guide, author Leslie Sbrocco suggests “a deep red wine such as a sparkling Shiraz” as the perfect drink to celebrate the […]

Cisk Lager is about to become available in the United States for the first time in its brewery’s 168-year history.
For those who just said ‘what?”, Cisk Lager is the signature beer of Malta.
The Maltese producers have won numerous international awards, including Cisk’s prestigious distinction as the World’s Best Standard Lager from the 2007 World Beer Awards, […]

Apparently I don’t get out much.  Until recently, I didn’t know that some restaurants charge as much as $250 per bottle for their corkage fee.  Excuse me, but that is insane.  As Lettie Teague in Food and Wine magazine asked recently, “What could you get for $250 that you couldn’t for, say, $25?”
The average cost […]

You cannot have a better match with a plate of salumi than with this wine. Chill it up a little bit, and start your engines. From the Grasparossa grape, I took a bottle over to a chef from Emilia-Romagna the other day. He has known me for years, but has rarely if ever acknowledged my presence in his world. When […]

Few glasses present a more iconic representation of the cocktail than does the now ubiquitous “Martini” glass. You know the one, that “V” shaped glass perched firmly atop a slender stem. You see them everywhere, from high-end cocktail lounges to bedraggled dive bars. Every store you go into always seems to sell them amongst the […]

I wonder if 2008 will be as good as 2007 was for English Wine?The year has certainly started well with the lifting of the European Union planting ban. This was put in place in 1999 to compensate for the excessive volumes of low quality wine being produced elsewhere in the EU. It prevented the UK […]

Just as I was preparing for Mixology Monday came a reminder that I have another blog event I need to step up for: the third installment of Raiders of the Lost Cocktail.
The first round was devoted to Strega, and the winning cocktail was contributed by Anita and Cameron at Married…With Dinner (as if they haven’t […]

I’ve had the good fortune to visit the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region, featured in this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, several times on business. I went to Trieste which is about as far round you can go in Italy in a north east direction before you hit Slovenia. It’s a very pleasant place, obviously Italian but with a […]

I spent a few days on the Alabama coast recently, and stumbled upon a whiskey that was new to me – Clyde May’s Conecuh Ridge Alabama Style Whiskey. Being the curious sort, I tried some and asked my friendly bartender about it.This was a whiskey with an interesting story. The bartender told me that it […]