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Puttin’ on the Spritz

Michelle Locke
Features
2 min read
What do you drink when you’re sitting on the Sound of Music lakeside terrace?  An Aperol spritz, naturally. At least, that’s what I drank when I visited Salzburg recently, channeling Baroness Schraeder for all I was worth. (Sorry, Maria fans, I’m not really a tea-with-jam-and-bread kind of girl.) Turns out

To peat or not to peat?

Roger Morris
Features
5 min read
Whisky doesn’t have to smell and taste smoky to be Scotch. In fact, some very fine blends and single malts have little or no traces of the smoldering peat that for centuries has imparted its distinct smokiness during the malting process. All the same, I believe all Scotch master distillers

Conservation with Condensation

Michelle Locke
Features
2 min read
It’s not every day you walk into a vodka tasting and find winemaker Randall Grahm sitting at the table. But then, it’s not every day you taste vodka that’s been distilled from wine (Grahm’s Bonny Doon, naturally) and cut with water captured from real, live San Francisco fog. That’s the

Walk down Gin Lane with these gin-centric books

Gary Thomas
Features
4 min read
GIN GLORIOUS GIN: How Mother’s Ruin Became the Spirit of London by Olivia Williams Headline Press, $14.99 (Paperback), available on Amazon “Gin was mother’s milk to her.” –Eliza Doolittle, “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw Is there a spirit both loved and reviled more than gin?  Many people cannot stand its

Kosher for Passover Vodka and Gin

David Honig
Spirits
1 min read
Distillery No. 209, in San Francisco, makes two special spirits which are Kosher for Passover. Before Passover, Jewish families cleanse their households of any grains, or anything made from grains. That includes the obvious, like bread, and the less obvious like single malt scotch or aged bourbon (don't get too excited,

Top-shelf Tequila

Michelle Locke
Features
3 min read
Tequila used to be known as the drink of cheap thrills and bad choices. Pour yourself a tot of something like Gran Patrón Burdeos – aged in French and American oak, finished off in ex-Bordeaux wine barrels and sold in a custom-engraved crystal bottle for around $500 – and you realize the traditional

Bitters and the mystery of blending

Erika Szymanski
Features
5 min read
I had expected great things from my first experiences with cocktail bitters. Bitter flavors are great, and so are condiments. Make me a kale and radicchio salad spiked with anchovies, garlic, and mustard and I'll nosh contentedly. So I was surprised, when I splashed some of the classic Angostura on