Summertime and the living can be just that little bit easier with pitcher cocktails. Whether you’re mixing up margaritas for friends in your backyard or ordering mai tais for the table, pitchers are a quick and easy way to rethink your drink for a crowd. At Spoonbar in the wine country town of Healdsburg, Calif.,…
Category Archives: Spirits
Bitters adds bite beyond cocktails
News & Observer correspondent, Stacy-Lynn Waddell, recently wrote this article about Angostura aromatic bitters. It piqued my interest enough to go out and buy some myself so I could try her accompanying recipe for Pan-Fried Shrimp with Special Bitters Sauce. She writes: If you spend as much time in food stores as I do, you…
Distillers gin up an old drink with fresh tastes
Gin has a point of view. And that’s totally the point of it.Gin is the Joy Behar of the bar because it can be as opinionated as the feisty co-host of TV’s “The View.” It has flavor, it has aroma, it has personality.Unlike vodka, which is officially supposed to be odorless, tasteless and colorless, gin…
Spices, produce spike new vodkas
The more serious citizens of Cocktail Nation tend to look down on vodka. The colorless, flavorless spirit lacks the nervy character of rye or bourbon, the colorful history of gin or rum or the earthy punch of tequila.But vodka has something going for it that makes those other spirits envy it, even loathe it: Vodka’s…
Fact or Myth? The only heart-friendly alcohol is red wine
FACT: Beer, wine and liquors all confer the same health benefits.The so-called French Paradox elevated red wine to health-food status when researchers thought it was the antioxidants in the drink that protected the foie gras- and cheese-loving French from heart disease. More recent research, however, has shown that antioxidants aren’t the answer after all. Alcohol…
