The Spirit World

I’m not sure how often some of the rest of you might run into this problem, but I find myself quite often needing to “go on the road” with my bar tools. Sometimes it’s because I’ve been invited to a dinner party where I’m expected to make the drinks, or perhaps I’m heading across country […]

Perhaps one of these days December 5th will be as celebrated a holiday in America as Christmas and Thanksgiving. Well, maybe not, but it at least is a day which many of us will still insist on doing a little bit of celebrating on. The reason is quite simple, it is the day when Prohibition […]

Wooo Hoo!
Washington State FINALLY has a fully operational distillery that is actively manufacturing spirits. We’ve had a few licensed distilleries for a while, but they weren’t in the business of producing things like Gin, Single Malt, Bourbon, or Vodka. All of which are now being produced in a new craft distillery in Spokane Washington.
Dry Fly […]

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit The Merchant Hotel in Belfast Northern Ireland. Wow. What an experience.
The bar manager at the Merchant is Sean Muldoon, and he is clearly a man with the sort of passion, drive, and vision that I love to see coordinating the activities behind the cocktails that I order. Through his […]

It wasn’t that long ago that the majority of cocktail books verged on the side of being comical in nature, with little in the way of any substance beyond simply trotting out a variety of fanciful drinks. It was usually even suspect if the author had even tried, much less even familiar with, the drinks […]

It is fair to say that there are thousands, no several thousands of different cocktail recipes out there, and it often seems like more and more being concocted every day. It is equally fair to say that far more than just a small percentage of those really never deserve to see the light of day. […]

The objective of this exercise is to re-examine some of the slightly more obscure products which might be gathering dust on the shelves of bars across America (if not the world), and to see if our intrepid little band of explorers can uncover some forgotten gems of recipes which might breathe new life into those […]

Photo by Gary Regan
Used with permission

Having been pontificating about spirits, cocktails, and specifically cocktail recipes for what? Ten years now? I clearly have a wide variety of information and details spread all over the web in various forms and locations. Recently, somebody pointed out that the recipe I just presented for a particular cocktail differed […]

Finding new and interesting cocktails is always a challenge. There are far too many drinks coming onto the scene which are almost as though somebody tossed some trendy ingredients into a glass with some vodka, and thought it was a pinnacle of craftsmanship. Clearly not.
There are two ways which I like to rely on for finding […]

It would be difficult to pay attention to bartending and mixology, without running across the name “Cheryl Charming.” Her first book, published in 2000, was “Miss Charmings Book of Bar Amusements,” and was a collection of the various magic tricks, amusements, and challenges that some bartenders use to entertain their customers, and some customers use […]