Bring Back the Medicine
As imbibers, we saunter up to a bar and ask for our medicine with a sagacious smirk. The bartender knows what we mean. Libations have been affectionately referred to as “medicine” for as long as they have existed. From...
Spice up your rum
Spiced rum is the beach in a bottle, a dash of pirate in a cocktail, or a sophisticated and eminently palatable spirit to sip. With this wealth of guises it is no surprise that spiced rum is increasingly popular....
Apple Brandy
Various ‘testimonials’ could be gathered showing that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Fox and other personages either made, drank, or sold apple brandy or did all three or express themselves upon the merits of it, but it...
Interview: Spirit Hound Distillers, Craig Engelhorn & Wayne Anderson
A “little” brewery by the name of Oskar Blues brought Craig Engelhorn and Wayne Anderson together. Meeting and working there in the late 1990s/early 2000s, their distillery idea cooked for years before they opened Spirit Hound Distillers in Lyon,...
Interview: Denver Bar Manager, Chad Michael George
St. Louis-born Chad Michael George has been keeping busy the last few years. He oversees the drink menu and staff at Denver’s celebrated The Way Back restaurant and bar and is a partner in the restaurant and consulting group,...
How Do You Define an “American-Style” of Rum?
Rum is the most malleable of spirits. It’s a liquid shape-shifter that can vary by region and culture, from the full-bodied double-retort pot still rums of Jamaica to the grassy agricoles of Martinique to the crisper, dryer rums of...
An excerpt from the book— The Maturation of Distilled Spirits: Vision and Patience
The reduction of alcohol from cask to bottling strength should always be done slowly, with the water and the spirit at the same temperature. Because of the hundreds of components in the alcohol, the assemblage—or blend—needs time to absorb...
A Surge in Craft Bottled-in-Bond Whiskey
Bartenders and bargain hunters have rejoiced in recent years with the return to prominence for bottled-in-bond, or bonded, whiskeys. I’ve long said the best $20 you could spend in a liquor store was on bottom-shelf bonded bourbon. Now, though,...
What’s in a Glass?
Sensory perception is such an intangible thing. There are so many variables at play in evaluating a spirit, from the emotional and environmental factors to our own inherent biases, that it is a wonder that there is any kind...
Native Nuts: Liqueurs and Bitters
As autumn arrives in America, one of the great seasonal pleasures is seeing a scattering of nuts across a path and looking up to see the tree that made them. Nut liqueurs and nut bitters might seem opposite expressions,...
