Everyday Drinking

04/01/2022

New Everyday Drinking post on grapefruit cocktails! I always think about grapefruits when winter transitions into spring. I love grapefruit. For me, the complexity of its bitter-sweet-tart flavors puts it head and shoulders above any other citrus.

When it comes to booze, it’s hard to beat the grapefruit for sheer mixability. Gin and aquavit, brandy and bourbon, amari, and herbal liqueurs—you name the spirit and there’s a good drink calling for grapefruit. Click on the link in my bio for 5 variations on Salty Dogs, Greyhounds, and Palomas!

But before we get to the recipes, you’ll have to read 1,000 words on The Lamest Food Writing Joke on The Internet! Cheers!

#cocktail #cocktails #bartending #bartenderlife #foodwriting #gin

03/17/2022

Remember last summer, when tinned fish was declared “hot girl food?” For glugmag, I delve into the ideal pairing of conservas and Portuguese @vinhoverdewines, perfect for the coming warm weather. Link in bio.

03/15/2022

I love natural wine. Love it. I drink it, I write about it, I always defend its honor against insults from the older generation of wine snobs.

But uncomfortable as it is to admit, the cultural context of natural wine is feeling a little…tired. Yes, ok, so I guess I’m going there. Like a lot of things in 2022, natural wine feels…tired. Natural wine—as a movement, as a trend, as a category, as an argument, as however you want to characterize it—feels tired.

I was thinking about this last week in the Loire Valley, where I attended La Dive Bouteille, which bills itself as the world’s largest annual natural wine fair. It’s held in the town of Saumur, with more than 200 natural winemakers from throughout Europe, pouring their wines deep in the labyrinthine, troglodyte cellar of Caves Ackerman.

Read the essay. Link in bio. #wine

03/09/2022

I’m very proud of this essay in @washingtonpostmag @washingtonpost about my trip to Spain last summer, where I traveled from Madrid into Basque Country and La Rioja and then ended up staying an extra couple weeks because I caught covid. It’s about a lot of things: the siesta, a couole guys running around “de Rodriquez,” great food and drink, @francoismonti trying to ride a bike, the unavoidable Mr. Hemingway, and something of a meditation on aging into another phase of travel. Amazing photos by @jamesrajotte - link in bio.

02/24/2022

There’s a library of articles on how brandy works in cocktails, but relatively little chatter about Cognac or Armagnac at the table, alongside food. In the latest issue of The Brandy Advocate, we dive deep into food pairings that work with both brandies. (Link in bio)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Just a few days ago, in fact, I attended a beautiful dinner hosted by @vosselections We tasted @armagnacdartigalongue alongside an incredble, traditionally Frenchy menu: guinea fowl and foie gras terrine en gelée; fricassée of goose aux Armagnac; mushrooms a la Gasconne; celery root and apple purée; endive tatin.

I also explore Cognac pairings with oysters, tuna, citrus salads, endive and Roquefort cheese, sweet potato tacos and more - I used several ages of @cognacpasquet as my guide.

Photos by @a.janelle.b

#brandy #cognaclover #armagnac #pairings #winepairings

02/17/2022

It’s become an annual exercise for me, sampling wines made from the obscure Austrian grape, roter veltliner. Every year, the roter veltliner I taste is delicious. Every year, the wines feel like precisely the type of full-bodied, ripe whites that Americans would love. Every year, I grow excited and effusive about their complexity and uniqueness. And every year, in the weeks after the tastings, when I sit down to write my love letter to roter veltliner…I come to the sad realization that almost none of it is available in the U.S. market. I’ve repeated this cycle for at least the past five years.

This year, I’ve had enough and I’m making it my mission that 2022 is the Year of Roter Veltliner.

New Everyday Drinking post. Link in bio.

@setzerweinviertel @mantlerhof @wimmer_czerny @austrianwineusa @austrianwine @slowfood_international @slow_wine_guide @constancechamberlain @bbosker @smeltzmonger #wine #winelover #austria🇦🇹

02/09/2022

You probably don’t think very much about lemons, and possibly never with pasta and wine. But maybe you should think about pasta al limone and Sicilian whites.

New Everyday Drinking with wines from @ariannaocchipinti @donnafugatawine @winesofsicily and classic pasta al limone! Link in bio.

#wine #winelover #winetime #winetasting #sicily

02/03/2022

My latest piece for Everyday Drinking is a new look at Sancerre. Certainly, lots of people like Sancerre, but too often it’s seen as a sort of middling or “safe” choice. But during my recent visit to Loire I stopped to visit producers such as Domaine Delaporte and @domainevincentpinard - let me just say, there is so much more to Sancerre than what most of us know.

“Ten years ago, it was different,” Florent Pinard told me. “Now, you find Sancerre in all the best restaurants in the world. Now it’s not just popular, it’s serious. When you see Burgundy, the prices are crazy. But Sancerre is still affordable. Everyone can buy Sancerre.”

Link in bio

#wine #winetasting #winelover #sancerre #sancerrewine #france🇫🇷

01/24/2022

Baby’s first barrel pick! When I was recently in Armagnac, I did some barrel tasting at @lencantadaspirits with @vincentcornulencantada and we found an amazing, unique 23-year-old barrel (vintage 1997) from Domaine Cutxan. My partner @offpremisechicago and I decided to buy the barrel and sell it as the very first Brandy Advocate Selection! Like all good brandy, it’s not cheap, but we think it swims against the current trends in @armagnac (ie. it’s not “French bourbon”) and hopefully will change people’s perceptions of the spirit. I wrote about the process we went through as sort of a meditation on taste and tasting (link in bio).

@brandy_advocate @pmspirits @captncognac @kozinnski #brandy #wine #armagnac

01/11/2022

In this week’s Brandy Advocate newsletter (link in bio) I profile Guilhem Grosperrin, whose rare, small-batch Cognacs are some of the most sought-after by collectors. Guilhem hunts unicorn barrels from family producers throughout the region.

@cognacgrosperrin insists that a merchant must be sensitive and respectful to the liquid history that’s entrusted to him, and to the people who’ve made it. As an example, Guilhem pointed to a sample that had been brought to him by a 75-year-old man. This Cognac came from casks of the man’s brother, recently deceased, which had been distilled after the brother’s first harvest, in 1961.

“This was a guy who sold everything, every cask, during his whole life. But he kept two casks from his very first harvest. He kept these casks for 60 years,” he says. “It’s not a question of money. That’s not why he’s selling this. It’s very very emotional. So, how can I take this and then just blend into an XO? These barrels have to be respected.” That’s why every Grosperrin bottle has a short essay on the label, giving a brief history of the family, the place, and an explanation of why this batch is unique.

Right now, these Cognacs are very hard to find in the US because Grosperrin doesn’t have an importer. But they’ve recently been acquired by a deep-pocket investor and I’m sure we will be seeing more of them very soon.

#cognac #cognaclife #brandy #bartender #bartenderlife @brandy_advocate @offpremisechicago @maisonvillevert @jean_sebastien_robicquet

12/29/2021

Eggs Poached in Red Wine: Best Hangover Dish Ever

In the latest Everyday Drinking newsletter, I discuss a decadent hangover dish of eggs poached in red wine. Happy New Year!

Oeufs en couille d’âne (aka donkey ball eggs) for New Year's Day

12/28/2021

My latest pairing piece for Everyday Drinking sings the praises of oeufs en couille d’âne, a classic Loire dish of eggs poached in red wine (with lots of bacon and shallots and herbs). The name literally translates to “donkey ball eggs” because they look like…well…just trust me it’s delicious. And it is A+ hangover food. Link in bio.

12/20/2021

This week’s Everyday Drinking newsletter is about nostalgia, roasted chestnuts, and obscure Austrian wines—specifically rotgipfler and zierfandler from Thermenregion.

I ended up pairing the rotgipfler and zierfandler with a chestnut and mushroom soup, and it was the very definition of “anemoia”—a word invented by @thedictionaryofobscuresorrows meaning “nostalgia for a time you’ve never known.”

I am always on the lookout for winter whites, and these wines made me so happy. I’m always surprised how completely wine lovers abandon white wine when the weather turns cold, as if white wine’s only purpose is to be poolside on a sunny day. “No white between Labor Day and Memorial Day” is equally vapid advice in both fashion and wine.

Link in bio.

@austrianwineusa @austrianwine @weinland_thermenregion @weingut_johannes_gebeshuber @weingut.stadlmann @heinrichhartlwine @constancechamberlain @thedictionaryofobscuresorrows
#wine #winelover #austrianwine #chestnut #austria🇦🇹

12/01/2021

An Armagnac Pilgrimage

Check out our new sibling publication, the Brandy Advocate newsletter! Just launched this week! It's a free signup!

Inspired by the world's oldest brandy, we started a new newsletter

11/16/2021

Is the Cosmo a Thanksgiving Cocktail?

The heralded return of the Espresso Martini this past summer signaled peak 1990s nostalgia. But my favorite 90s cocktail has always been the Cosmopolitan. Made with fresh cranberry juice it's the perfect simple pre-Thanksgiving cocktail.

Yes. And it’s a perfect with homemade cranberry juice.

11/03/2021

Pardon me, would you have any...viognier?

On Grey Poupon, perfumed wines, and the grape formerly known as "the next chardonnay" -- I dive into viognier in the latest newsletter.

On mustard, perfumed wines, and the grape formerly known as "the next chardonnay"

10/28/2021

I’ve been seeing a lot recently about surprising mixes of soda + booze, such as Suze + Mountain Dew (“oddball highballs” as @creativedrunk calls them) and so I thought I would add a few of my favorites to the conversation.

A favorite of mine (pictured here) is the Pennsyltucky: 2 ounces bourbon + 3-4 ounces black cherry soda + 2 dashes Angostura bitters.

As a kid growing up around Philly we always had Frank’s Black Cherry Wishniak soda. So that’s the old Pennsylvania flavor I’m channeling when I mix it with Kentucky bourbon for my favorite “oddball highball”

I’ve been extolling the virtues of the “1+1 Equals Cocktail” for years (See link in bio for lots of E-Z recipes ideas!)

These are drinks that require the mixological technique of opening a bottle of spirit and then a bottle of something fizzy (soda or whatnot) and then pouring both into a glass filled with ice cubes. You can call this a highball. Call it whatever. I do not care what you call it.

I like the classic Paloma, with tequila + grapefruit soda (ie. @izzeofficial, @frescausa , Squirt, etc). The Calimocho (or Kalimotxo), a Spanish concoction of red wine plus Coca-Cola, is an excellent use of the previous night’s leftover wine. One of my favorites is the Buck, which calls for ginger ale and a spirit (I happen to like Dutch genever in mine). I also love mixing @averna and soda.

Other faves include:

Palomaverna: Averna + grapefruit soda + squeeze of lime

Vertigo: Averna + ginger beer + squeeze of lemon

Cloudy Sky: Sloe gin + ginger beer + squeeze of lime

Check out the link for more 1+1 recipes.

#cocktail #cocktails #cocktailrecipes #bartender #bartenderlife #blackcherrywishniak

10/25/2021

Five years ago today, @afarmedia published my weird travel story about obscure wine grapes in the Alps (along with great photos by @harrymitchell who traveled the Alps with me). That adventure led directly to me writing Godforsaken Grapes, a whole weird book on the subject of rare and obscure grapes. (links in bio)

That crazy ampelographic journey went through French Savoie and Isère, Swiss Valais, and Italian Valle d'Aosta — in homemade mountain gondolas, racelette temples, and an 18th century Alpine prison that held the Marquis de Sade. I traveled with Wine Mosaic, a nonprofit group committed to saving grapes from extinction. We could call them Indiana Joneses of grapevines.

It doesn’t take a wine geek to appreciate the biodiversity—and accompanying cultural diversity—these grapes represent. In a globalized world, it’s the local specialties we seek out. These grapes carry with them a sense of place. And it’s possible that in a few decades, if the world’s climate grows too hot in the famous wine regions for the popular grapes we currently know and love, these so-called obscure wines could be the ones we’ll be drinking.

Maybe the last place to produce great wine will be high in the mountains. We save these grapes, then, for the same reason we save heirloom tomatoes and apples and heritage cattle, and build vast seed banks.

#wine #winelover #winelovers #winetasting #winery #swisswine #savoie #valais #aostavalley

10/22/2021

Juniper > Pumpkin Spice! In my latest Everyday Drinking newsletter, I look at newish gins and newish gin cocktails for fall. (Link in bio)

Despite all the usual talk of pumpkin spice, sweater weather, and root vegetables, it’s not exactly resembling autumn around here. Though it’s already late October, I don’t believe we’ve moved beyond the confusing shorts-and-sweatshirt temperatures that once upon a time were a tween-season blip. Now it seems shorts-and-sweatshirt weather drags on until almost Thanksgiving (when you can debate climate change with your anti-vax relatives!).

Perhaps a better way to the mark the change of seasons is with cocktails. For many, October marks the annual migration from white to brown spirits. From gin-and-tonics and daiquiris to bourbon and scotch and whatnot. Negroni Week, in late September, seems to set off a sort of unofficial signal to the booze publicists to start sending me emails about their aged spirits for my “forthcoming holiday gift guide” (which is perpetually forthcoming because I’ve never published one).

In any case, since we’re literally and figuratively still in shorts and sweatshirts, I propose a longer-than-usual Gin Season. Over the past few months, I’ve been enjoying a bevy of new and new-to-me gins, and I’m not ready to give them up just yet. So today I’m presenting several gin cocktails to take us into cooler and colder weather, should it ever arrive.

Sage Remarks: sage leaves + @isolationproof + @cynarusa
+ egg white + simple syrup

Coconut Hanky Panky: @biminigin Coconut + @cynarusa + dry and sweet vermouth

Bijou: gin + @chartreuse1605 + sweet vermouth + orange bitters + cherry

Breakfast Martini (my variation): @6oclockgin + @benedictineliqueur
+ lime juice + marmalade + grapefruit bitter

#cocktails #cocktail #gin #ginlovers #bartender #bartenderlife #drinks
@6oclockginus @chartreuse.fr @chartreuse_uk

10/22/2021

Juniper > Pumpkin Spice

It's Friday, so why not some gin cocktails for fall, from some of my favorite new (or new-to-me) gins. From the latest Everyday Drinking newsletter.

If cold weather ever arrives, rethink seasonal drinking with these gin cocktails.

10/16/2021

This travel feature I did for @travelandleisure on visiting Cognac ran in print last fall, but it’s only just now appearing online (link in bio; 📷 @celineclanet )

“As a city, Cognac—which sits on the banks of the languid Charente, at the heart of the appellation of the same name—had always been a sleepy destination, the sort of place that rolled up the sidewalks at 10 p.m. A decade ago, while running up a hefty tab with friends at a local bar, I remember being asked to leave because the staff wanted to close early. In the aughts, a friend who'd moved from Paris nearly went crazy with boredom and fled.

But on the heels of the cocktail renaissance, people are seeking out spirits destinations the same way previous generations flocked to wine regions. Cognac is now a must-visit, much like Kentucky's bourbon trail or the scotch whisky circuit in Scotland, and the city is responding accordingly.”