Ingredients & Formulations

The founder of award-winning Wood Hat Spirits, promoter of ancient varieties of whiskey’s cheapest ingredient, says in the future everyone must have their own corn. You don’t know jack about these topics compared to Gary Hinegardner: Yellow Dent corn, Bacillus...

In early 2021, Aimsir Distilling Co. in Portland, Oregon, had only been open since the previous December and COVID restrictions were finally scaling back. “We were talking about things we could do in the bar for St. Patrick’s Day...

Last autumn, I spent a month journeying through the great brandy producing regions of France, meticulously researching their varied warehousing, maturation, and blending techniques. One morning late in the trip, as I was cautiously navigating the fog-enveloped, narrow country...

Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters and Amari: 500 Bitters, 50 Amari, 123 Recipes for Cocktails, Food and Homemade Bitters Mark Bitterman Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2015 216 pages ISBN 9781449470692 $25.00 Mark Bitterman is the author of Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters and Amari: 500 Bitters,...

Ever since the invention of the Gin & Tonic, there has been debate and discussion on what is the best garnish to use. The two main contenders are lemon (Citrus limon) and lime (Citrus latifolia or Citrus aurantiifolia), although...

The Cocktail Chronicles: Navigating the Cocktail Renaissance with Jigger, Shaker & Glass Paul Clark Nashville: Spring House Press, 2015 200 pages ISBN 9781940611174 $24.95 Paul Clarke is Executive Editor of Imbibe magazine, author of the drinks blog The Cocktail Chronicles, and writer of numerous articles...

Salt: good old sodium chloride. It brings flavor to food and has been the object of armed rebellions and wars on most of the Earth’s continents. But what has it got to do with spirits? Beyond its use as...

These words are as true today as they were in 1924 when Cole Porter wrote them. Okay, so perhaps a cocktail can’t give you grail-like eternal life, but the combination of these two ingredients is one that endures. But why...

Sometimes old texts offer a window into the past that is also a path toward the future. Other times they include ingredients that are best left behind. Old texts can be used as inspiration by distillers so long as...

For Americans, and Japanese who live in the US, Maryland’s Takatsugu Amano distills the rice spirit that is more popular in Japan than tequila is in Mexico Why don’t you know your Shochu? On a per capita consumption basis, shochu...