Step 1: Prepare your glassware and Garnish. For this I like to use a wide brimmed Coupette glass in order to get as much of the aromas of the drink as possible as well and enforcing the drinks vintage nature. If you don’t have a coupette glass do not fear, a martini glass will work just as well. Just ensure the glass is well chilled, ideally in a freezer before service. For garnish the drink calls for a good sized orange zest. When preparing this make sure the fruit itself is firm, this indicated that the skin is packed with the essential oils required when finishing the cocktail.

Step 2: Press your orange. As the name suggests the drink generally calls for the use of blood orange, a deeper coloured orange fruit with pronounced raspberry notes on top of the usual citrus. If you cannot source some of these good quality orange can be used which will still work in this mix. What is important is that you only ever use fresh fruits for this, never resort to any packaged varieties. For the very best results squeeze your juice to order in order to avoid any flavour distortion which can appear in older juices. Once done pour 20ml into a Boston glass.

Step 3: Choose your Vermouth. For this drink you need a bold, good quality Sweet Vermouth so for this task there really is only one option for me; Carpano Antica Formula. This vermouth was first created by Antonio Benedetto Carpano in 1786, and is much richer and complex than other brands which helps carry it through in this drink. Pour 20ml.

Step 4: Add a Classic. The first publication of this drink in 1930 stipulated the use of Cherry Heering Liqueur and to this day I must agree that this is still the best option. Cherry Heering, a product or excellent quality that has been around since 1818. The base of this liqueur is black cherries which have a pronounced taste without being overly sweet on the palate. Pour 25ml.

Step 5: Choose your Whisky. In my opinion this cocktail really works best with the smooth honeyed, orchard fruit styles of Speyside malts or blends containing high proportions of such whiskies. With this in mind Chivas 18yrs lends itself perfectly to the task of creating the body of this drink. It is bold in nature yet well rounded in character with notes that only compliment the other ingredients of this drink. Pour 25ml

Step 6: Short Shake. As much as we need some dilution and aeration to help round out the drink its very important here not to overdo it. Fill your shaker with good quality ice and shake hard but only for 5 seconds. This will bring all the ingredients together without over diluting the drink. At the end of the day with such a line-up of ingredients we really want to be able to enjoy them at their fullest.

Step 7: Strain and serve. Like all Martinis this drink should be clean so double straining is the nature of the day. I have read some books and reviews calling for single straining as the ice represents the sand element in the name, but for me I just feel this damages the cocktail as you can rest assure your drink will taste water in no time if you do this. Once you have poured garnish. Again you may read some recipes calling for cherries and flamed orange but for me I like the simple orange zest option as it finished the drink without being overkill.

By Angus McGregor | Beverage Manager, Hakkasan Dubai

Originally a drink for peasants, pomace brandies have become decidedly upmarket in recent years. Grappa, the Italian pomace brandy has caught on in American restaurants and bars over the last decade.France has a similar distillate, made from the leftovers from the winemaking process, but Marc brandy has yet to gain the following of grappa. Instead, France’s last undiscovered brandy, Marc, remains a mystery to most consumers and enthusiasts. It is a product overshadowed by Cognac and Armagnac brandies both at home and internationally, and overlooked in favor of Grappa in the world of pomace brandies.

Cognac and Armagnac are perhaps the greatest brandies in the world, so that helps to explain why Marc brandies are overlooked. Italy’s Grappa has a much better reputation and Distribution is also very limited, with only a small number of Marc brandies coming into the United States. Even in France, Marc takes a backseat to Cognac and Armagnac, often being dismissed as an old man’s drink. Luckily, those who take the time to discover Marc are in for a delicious surprise.

While Marc is made outside of Burgundy, especially Alsace and Bordeaux, the best marc brandies come from Burgundy. World class Chardonnay grapes (and to a lesser extent Pinot Noir) create this undiscovered treasure of France. Try pairing marc with the classic Burgundian cheese, epoisses, which has its rind washed with marc during the maturation process, or pair marc with fruit based desserts (think tarte tatin) for an excellent food pairing.

Marc brandies are distilled from grape pomace (skins, stems and seeds) leftover from the winemaking process. This pomace then has water added to it, unlike grappa and is then distilled, oftentimes using portable stills that are wheeled out directly into the vineyards. Like Armagnac, Marc brandies are distilled once before going into Limousin oak barrels for aging.

In Burgundy, the best Marc brandies are made from some of the top vineyards in the Cotes d’Or. Producer Didier Meuzard takes his still into the vineyards in places like Cotes de Nuits and Gevrey-Chambertin, where his work begins shortly after the harvest. Meuzard’s Vieux Marc de Bourgogne, an 18 year old marc brandy offers an intriguing bouquet of freshly roasted almonds, honeysuckle and oak, while offering dried plum and raisin notes on the palate.

Gabriel Boudier, another Burgundian Marc producer, offers both a young, fiery three year old marc brandy as well as an elegant but powerful fifty year old Tres Vieux Marc de Bourgogne with aromas of dried plum, petrol, black walnut and fig.

While marc brandies can be hard to find outside of France itself, these spirits are another delicious facet in the French brandy tradition.With a quiet dedication to quality and made from the remains of some of the world’s most expensive grapes, the marc brandies of Bourgogne deserve a place of honor amongst the finest brandies in the world.

My love affair with Venice started 25 years ago when I first visited the city as a student. But it wasn’t till 13 years later when I started to go regularly with my wife Jules that I started to fall in love with its cuisine too. Venice has an appalling reputation for food, largely because the vast majority of restaurants churn out disgusting crowd-pleasing tourist fodder (pizza, lasagne, cannelloni) washed down with Chianti from ghastly straw-clad bottles. But if you avoid the lowest-common-denominator tourist traps and seek out the authentic back-street osterie and bacari (taverns and wine bars) the food is actually rather good. In some places, it is even excellent.

WHERE TO SLEEP

Venice is divided into six sestiere. For a truly authentic feel of Venice, you should only ever stay in Dorsoduro. If you want crowded tourist hell, ignore my advice and stay near St Mark’s Square.

LA CALCINA (lacalcina.com) is a delightful pensione with beautiful rooms furnished traditionally. Many of the rooms have fantastic views of the Guidecca canal. It was once John Ruskin’s house and the owners are proud of that heritage. Next-door is PENSIONE SEGUSO (pensioneseguso.com), my new favourite, which feels like a slightly dilapidated palazzo. It has oodles of charm, beautiful furniture, ancient mirrors, Murano glass chandeliers and it boasts one of the few elevators in Venice – a clunking, slightly terrifying affair. Staff are delightful and very accommodating. LOCANDA MONTIN (+39 041 522 7151) is a little further into the centre of Dorsoduro but is situated on a blissfully quiet minor canal. Internally it is adorned with paintings of the artists who have stayed there and photos of visiting film stars and politicians too. The rooms are basic, traditional and unglamorous. It’s a real slice of yesteryear. But beware; the owners and staff are famously grumpy.

All three are inexpensive options in a city full of nasty rip-offs. The most you would pay is €300 for a fantastic en-suite double with a view, but, off-season, you could get a decent double for €120.

WHERE TO EAT LUNCH

ALLA VEDOVA (Ramo Ca’ d’Oro) – also known as Ca’ d’Oro – is the osteria that most inspired my London restaurant POLPO. There is a small bar at the front where locals stand and drink a small glass of regional wine, such as a flowery Bianco di Custoza from Lake Garda, and eat the house speciality polpette (meatballs) and, oh my God, they’re good. LA CANTINA (Campo San Felice) is very close to Alla Vedova and more modern in attitude than its traditional neighbour. Excellent local wines (ask for pinot bianco from Friuli for a really typical taste of the region) and a show-stopping house speciality, the cheese and meat cold plate. Ask for Andrea or Francesco, the eccentric owners, and follow their recommendations. You can’t go wrong. ALL’ARCO (Calle del’Occhialer) is a tiny, postage stamp sized bacaro (wine bar) that serves excellent cicheti (Venetian snacks). It’s mostly frequented by dialect-yakking locals so can feel intimidating, but if you engage in conversation with the father and son owners (Francesco and Matteo), they’ll get the good stuff out from round the back. I’m not kidding! Depending on the time of year, you get lung, spleen, ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers and tiny fried mozzarella sandwiches. In each of these delightful bacari the cicheti start at €1 or €2 and a small glass of wine might be €4. You can’t go wrong.

WHERE TO EAT BREAKFAST

Forget it. Breakfast is for wimps. Have a pastry in your hotel and get out onto the streets as quickly as possible. If you must have breakfast, go to CANTINONE (gia Schiavi, Ponte San Trovaso) for a caffè coretto and half a boiled egg with an anchovy (it’s actually very good!) Oh, didn’t I mention? Caffè coretto is an espresso with a shot of grappa in it, of course.

WHERE TO EAT DINNER

Venice is quite a sleepy city in the evenings. It is oddly quiet and still. Your post-prandial walk back to the hotel will feel slightly surreal as dim streetlights reflect like shimmering ghosts in the canal. Everyone will have different opinions on the best restaurants, but the following are places that serve real food, use local recipes, and offer an authentic experience. CORTE SCONTA (Calle del Pestrin, €60 to €80 a head) has been in its “hidden court” for ages. You get a lovely welcome from Rita, the flame-haired owner, and should order the signature dish of John Dory with orange and green peppercorns. The restaurant is jolly hard to find and its tiny entrance belies the generous, traditional interior. There really is a courtyard inside that is just gorgeous and often flooded with sunlight in warmer months. LA BITTA (Calle Lunga Sam Barnaba, €40 to €60 a head) is an anomaly in Venice – a restaurant that resolutely does not sell fish. Deborah runs front-of-house and speaks excellent English. She will also recommend delicious and inexpensive local wines and dishes cooked by her head chef husband. One of the POLPO dishes we stole from here is the melt-in-the-mouth duck ragu with black olives and tomatoes. Their fegato alla Veneziana (calf liver with melted onions and sage) is pretty good too. It is worth spending a little money on wine since the quality of the local reds is exceptional. I have had a stunning Ripasso here (Valpolicella passed over the lees of elegantly refined Amarone) for under €30. It’s a cosy place, only open in the evenings, but a delight. My favourite Venice restaurant, however, and one of the best I know in ANY city, not just here, is the tiny ALLE TESTIERE (Calle Del Mondo Novo, €80 to €100 a head). The owner is Luca; chef Bruno cooks (brilliantly) and the whole experience is exquisite, breathtakingly fresh, inspiring and unsurpassed in Venice. The décor is humble and simple with white linen curtains and frosted glass sconces, and the wall shelves are cunningly constructed from brass bedsteads – testiere means ‘headboard’. The menu is mostly verbal so you have to put yourself in Luca’s capable hands and trust his recommendations. You won’t be disappointed. If they are available, I always order the razor clams.

WHERE TO SHOP

RIALTO MARKET is open Tuesday to Saturday and is a delight to the senses. There is the fish market enclosed in a large brick hangar with the outside section flanked by huge red curtains. The fruit and vegetable market puts every greengrocer you have ever encountered in the UK to shame. I usually visit the market every day I am in Venice. There are great cheese and cold meats to buy in the shops that border the market, including a horsemeat specialist. If you are a cheese fan, like me, you will die and go to heaven, so-to-speak, in CASA DEL PARMIGIANO (aliani-casadelparmigiano.it) – family run since 1936 and packed to the rafters with excellent cheeses and meats. Take home a bottle of Planeta extra virgin olive oil. Everyone knows it’s the best olive oil in the world. CANTINONE, the place mentioned under ‘Breakfast’, is also a cavernous wine shop that is an essential stop to stock up on local varieties and Italian bitters and spirits. I always take home a bottle of Cynar – a delicious, slightly bitter digestivo made from artichokes. It is also an excellent bacaro in the afternoons for tasty crostini and superb homemade bacala (whipped salt cod.) And I love the unnamed bookshop in a small alley off Calle Longa S. Maria Formosa, opposite Osteria alla Mascaretta. You could easily get lost for hours amongst the second-hand Italian and international cookbooks and vintage maps and posters. I bought an old map of Venice here about four years ago for €25. It now sits above table 20 at POLPO.

WHAT TO DO

Travel like a local on a traghetto. These are decommissioned gondolas that ferry you across the Grand Canal at various points. The handiest one shuttles between a jetty beside the huge red curtains at Rialto Market and Ca’ d’Oro on the other side. For €2 you get the best view of the canal and palazzi. Remember, gentlemen always stand. And for a great people watching, go to Campo Sta. Margarita, look for the small cafe in the middle painted red (known locally as Bar Rosso but not marked as such) and get a table outside. Order spritz (the local aperitivo of wine, soda and Campari) and watch the world go by. This charming campo is frequented by the poets, painters and bohemians who live and study in the area. And, boy, they are fascinating! If you have crisps or bread, the sparrows in the campo are so friendly they will eat from your hand.

Russell Norman is the co-owner of Polpo, the hugely popular London restaurants that brought New York-style, Italian small-plate dining to London. His inspiration came largely from the wine bars of Venice. Previously he was Operations Director for Caprice Holdings. He also owns and operates Spuntino and Mishkin’s.

For more information on Polpo, visit www.polpo.co.uk

Amontillado, Oloroso and Palo Cortado

This is where things start to get intense; flavours concentrate and deepen, aromas multiply and the experience gets altogether more gripping. Amontillados and Palo Cortados start as white sherries, but during their maturation in barrel a splash of grape spirit is added, which kills the flor. This leaves the wines open to gradual oxidation, which creates complexity of flavour. An Oloroso is fortified with spirit as soon as it enters the barrel, so it never grows any flor. This makes for a fuller-bodied, nuttier wine.

True Amontillados are always dry (avoid the ones called ‘Amontillado Medium’, these tend to be inferior sweetened versions). True Olorosos and Palo Cortados are also always dry. They are all slightly higher in alcohol (typically between 17% and 21%) than their white cousins.

The intense yet subtle aromas centre around dried fruits (figs, dates, sultanas, raisins), nuts, spices and sometimes mushrooms, Marmite or spices. Good examples will have amazing combinations of flavours that remain lucid long after swallowing. Amontillados tend to be slightly lighter brown, spicy, toasty and fragrant; Olorosos are dark, nutty, with a more luxurious feeling in the mouth. Palo Cortados offer the best of both worlds.

When matching with foods, Amontillados and Palo Cortados go well with a wide variety of savoury dishes, particularly pâté, mushrooms, white meats and game birds. Olorosos can handle these types of foods but also more powerfully flavoured dishes like hare, boar and venison. They all go well with hard cheeses and also foods rich in umami, which can often be hard to pair with normal dry wines.

The best temperature to serve them is somewhere between room temperature and cold. Which, let’s face it, is slightly awkward; but it does make a difference. I tend to store the bottles in the fridge (they stay fresher for longer that way) then take them out a while before it’s time to pour (if I remember) or just warm the wine up with my hand through the wine glass (if I forget). You can keep them for at least a month with the cork in once opened, but they will gradually degrade in flavour after this.

Try these Amontillados: Lustau ‘Los Arcos’ Amontillado; Fernando de Castilla ‘Antique’ Amontillado; Lustau ‘Almacenista’ Amontillado de Puerto (Gonzalez Obregón)

Try these Olorosos: Maestro Sierra Oloroso; Barbadillo ‘San Rafael’ Oloroso.

Try these Palo Cortados: Gonzalez Byass ‘Leonor’ Palo Cortado; Valdespino Palo Cortado Viejo CP; Equipo Navazos ‘La Bota 34’ Palo Cortado (most of the wines produced by Equipo Navazos are not cheap but I can’t recommend them highly enough).

In the next edition, we conclude with sweet sherries.

Strainer

Bartenders use all kinds of strainers when making cocktails but the most commonly-seen is a Hawthorn Strainer; which separates the cocktail from spent ice while pouring a stirred cocktail from the mixing glass into the glass. It’s generally fitted over the glass half of a Boston Shaker or the metal tin of a Cobbler and is used to hold back ice and any other ingredients such as fruit or pulp. There are various designs and some are fancier than others but a basic Hawthorn in stainless steel should be just fine.

Boston Shaker

The Boston is the essential bar tool for creating perfectly balanced and chilled cocktails. Rule of thumb is to shake cocktails containing ingredients of varying density such as a Cosmopolitan or Whisky Sour. This shaker consists of two parts – a tempered 16 oz glass (roughly equivalent to a pint glass) and a larger stainless still tin, that fits over the top. the obvious benefit to the Boston shaker is the ability to see all the ingredients you are mixing. Using the Boston takes a bit of getting used as you have to make sure it is properly sealed and once shaking has occurred, the two parts must then be ‘cracked’ open. It takes some practice but is well worth the effort.

Muddler

A muddler is a long pestle used for crushing/bruising fruits, vegetables, spices and herbs like for instance in a Mojito. If you didn’t have one you could try using a wooden spoon but the ergonomics of a muddler are designed to make your life easier. They come in various sizes but are generally shaped like a small baseball bat. Use it to gently mash fruit or sugar-cubes soaked in bitters. You can bruise herbs to release aroma or even crush ice. Most muddlers are fashioned from wood, although stainless steel and silicone varieties are now available. Purists tend to opt for wood – just be careful that the wood hasn’t been treated with paint, lacquer or any other treatment that could chip off and wind up in your drinks.

I used to be in banking, managing a wine investment fund. We had to weather through two crises but the fund is still going. Back when we started in 1999, wine investment was considered exotic, but it is more acknowledged now. Nearly all members of my family are in the wine business and even my wife is in the wine business so it is safe to say it is in my blood.

People generally invest in wine through an emotional connection or if they have money to spare. It’s not something they do to make a fast buck.

I didn’t find the switch from wine to cognac difficult. Wine and cognac are very different but fine wine and LOUIS XIII are very similar. Customers for the two are of a similar profile in that they enjoy complex drinks. LOUIS XIII is not an easy drink most of the time – you need a bit of time, you need education, you need an experienced palate. This cognac requires lots of blending, lots of ageing and the complexity of the drink is very similar to that of a fine wine.

I spent a lot of time learning about LOUIS XIII – it’s a difficult liquid to make. I made sure I knew everything about it and I spent a lot of time in Cognac, with the cellar master – a woman called Pierrette Trichet. She’s teaching me many things constantly, which helps me greatly to share the LOUIS XIII story.

Our biggest challenge has been developing the brand even further, especially as it’s been present in this market for a long time. The house of Remy Martin was created in 1724 and LOUIS XIII in 1874 and the first bottle was sold in Shanghai in 1883, but I have had to find a way of sharing information with people in an interactive and interesting way. I adapt my speech to make it fun and educational to every country and every language; you just want to share your passion. Even now when I talk about the brand, I try and feel the atmosphere of the room and get a feel for the audience and focus my speech on what interests them. People ask a lot of questions so I’m lucky, but the challenge is to be informative without being boring and still being fun.

We’re trying to attract more female consumers and encourage them to enjoy LOUIS XIII neat. Louis XIII is such a smooth drink due to its 100 years of cellar ageing so it doesn’t have the sharp bite that some other, younger spirits can have. When I manage to get women in front of the liquid they always like it. The image of cognac that people have in their minds is that it is a drink for the more mature. So I have the challenge of trying to change this perception. Whisky is fashionable at the moment and everyone wants to drink it so there’s no reason why the same can’t apply to cognac. People who like single malts are sure to like LOUIS XIII for its complex flavor profile.

We want the brand to be aspirational – the average retail price of a bottle is US$2850 and a glass behind an average bar is anything from US$150 – $300 a measure. Digital communication is important for us as we’re targeting younger people who will strive to taste LOUIS XIII once they have the spending power to do so. They’ll start by drinking a glass and then move on to acquiring a bottle. By communicating with tomorrow’s consumers through digital platforms, we’re setting LOUIS XIII in their sights.

We have an active Silent Ambassador programme – every year we take about 15 people to Cognac; these tend to be opinion leaders, early adopters, individuals with a lot of influence in their communities. They get to experience being at Le Grollet the Remy Martin family estate, to meet with the cellar master and to drink cognac from the barrels in our cellars. We know that if they have a positive experience, they’ll do the work in spreading our message for us amongst their social circles when they get back home.

LOUIS XIII is a family business and we all have a responsibility to keep it going, which means investing money in the right way. It’s very difficult to build a brand – it can take 10 years to build and 6 months to destroy.

It’s really hard to increase brand equity consistently but it’s very easy to increase price. If you don’t increase the two in a parallel fashion, you risk damaging your brand overnight.
The fact is that LOUIS XIII is aged one hundred years and the stock of aged eaux-de-vie is diminishing every year, leading to scarcity and difficulty in producing a Cognac at the level of LOUIS XIII.
You have a lot of responsibility as a brand – consumers trust you. We try and reinforce this trust by committing to producing LOUIS XIII with the same quality and consistency that consumers have come to expect. We also meet regularly with our consumers face to face to get their feedback.

I’m looking forward to several things in 2013: we have some exciting news coming to the market but I can’t say much more at this point. We will invest more in Middle East and India, as well as in some ‘forgotten countries’ such as Bhutan. On a personal level I’m looking forward to taking some holiday! Skiing fascinates me – it’s one of my passions. It’s been my lifelong dream to own a chalet in Chamonix with an amazing view and this dream has recently become a reality. Everything’s constructed in wood and there is a 180 degree view of the mountains. I go there to recharge my batteries. I’ll also be turning 40 next year which is a big milestone and I’ll be getting together with some of my friends who are dotted around the world to celebrate this.

This spectacular event took place on the 5th of December 2012 at the Armani Hotel in the Burj Khalifa and was attended by over 250 prominent leaders of Dubai’s business and media communities.

Guests enjoyed a truly regal experience, indulging in a sumptuous 4 course meal, accompanied by the complete collection of Chivas expressions.The evening pinnacled with an immensely engaging and entertaining on-stage interview with legendary, Oscar winning actor, Sir Ben Kingsley. This was followed by a tasting of Chivas 25 years old led by Chivas Master Blender, Colin Scott.
http://www.chivaslegendsdinner.com/ — atArmani Hotel.

All of a sudden sherry is fashionable. How did that happen? Well the important thing is that it turns out that sherry is an amazing drink, incredibly good value and in all likelihood being served in bars and restaurants near you right now. Trouble is, it’s a diverse style of wine, from water-clear to midnight black, sweeter than sugar to dry as a bleached desert bone. So how do you know which one to order? This is your crash course.

Common misconceptions:

1) Sherry is sweet.
Most of it, including the best stuff, is dry.

2) Sherry is a liqueur.
It’s a wine. It’s made of grapes, without any flavourings.

3) Sherry is drunk before a meal, or after it.
It certainly can be, but it works brilliantly with food as well.

4) Sherry should be drunk out of little sherry schooners.
You need a big enough glass to swirl the wine to release the aromas, with enough space at the top to retain the scent so you can sniff it up.

5) Sherry is a nice name to call my daughter.
Maybe go for something else.

Sherry is an uncompromising drink. It is not for the weak or the easily scared. Sherry doesn’t try to make friends; it doesn’t entice you with attractive, easy flavours of ripe fruits, or flatter with a cheeky dash of sweetness. Unlike the carefully designed, manufactured and marketed wines from the big brands with cute animals on the labels, sherry doesn’t care what you think. It doesn’t reach out to you: you have to discover it yourself. And for that, sherry deserves respect.

Since sherry comes in so many different styles, it’s hard to generalise. What they all have in common is that they are made in the south west corner of Spain, near the sea. There are three small towns that produce it: Jerez de la Frontera; El Puerto de Santa Maria and Sanlúcar di Barrameda. Jerez de la Frontera is a lovely town with a great tapas scene and some lively flamenco bars. The other two are a bit more run down and shabby, but not without their own brand of rakish seaside-town charm.

The most important grape here is Palomino. It’s a pretty plain variety, and doesn’t taste of much when made into a normal white wine, but it’s transformed into something wonderful by the alchemist almacenistas (sherry cellar masters). The best is grown on brilliant white chalky soils; if you’re going to visit take some shades as it gets pretty sunny down there; it is just over the water from Africa after all.

The best way to approach sherry is to think of it in three very different categories: white, brown and sweet. The quickest way to understand it is to go to your nearest tapas bar and ask for a glass of each of the different styles. The following is what you can expect.

White sherries: Fino and Manzanilla

If you just order ‘a sherry’ in Spain, this is what you’ll get. White sherries are the most versatile of the three types; they are always bone dry which makes them a refreshing aperitif and means they work well with savoury foods. They are also the least challenging in flavour and the lowest in alcohol (typically around 15%, so not far off a normal white wine).

The typical flavours and aromas you can expect are apple, camomile, lemon and fresh bread. The base wines are aged in old wooden barrels that are only part full, which allows for the growth of the flor (Spanish for ‘flower’) on top of the wine. It is this unusual phenomenon that gives white sherries their distinctive flavour. ‘Flower’ may sound attractive, but flor is actually a layer of yeast that looks like grey mould. It’s not pretty, but this benevolent film protects the wine from oxidation, and also adds a subtle yeasty flavour.

The difference between the two styles is that Manzanillas tend to have more of a salty, yeasty tang. They are made the same way, but they can only be called Manzanilla if they are made in the town of Sanlúcar; Fino tends to be a touch more neutral. They go brilliantly with seafood, salads, salami and olives.

These sherries are best drunk straight out of the fridge. Once the bottle is open, you should store it there too as it will last longer – but try and drink it within a week or two. It won’t taste as bad as a normal white wine when that goes off, but it will gradually lose freshness.

Try these Finos: Lustau Puerto Fino; Sanchez Romate ‘Marismeño’ Fino; Equipo Navazos ‘La Bota 35 Machanurdo Alto’ Fino.

Try these Manzanillas: Pedro Romero ‘Aurora’ Manzanilla; Hidalgo ‘Pastrana’ Manzanilla Pasada; Antonio Barbadillo Mateos ‘Sacristia AB’ Manzanilla Primera Saca 2012 En Rama.

In the next editions, we’ll discuss the two remaining styles: brown and sweet sherries

The girl and I spent a lovely three days in the Tribeca area of downtown Manhattan, staying at the nicely appointed Smyth Hotel, which makes the corner of West Broadway and Chambers St. It is therefore very much in the thick of the downtown action, although they do a good job of making you feel closeted from the hustle and bustle of the street outside. However, we didn’t come all the way to New York to sit in a hotel room, we had dates to keep…

Our first port of call that first evening was the speakeasy joint PDT (which apparently stands for ‘Please Don’t Tell’). An attempt to bring back some of the illicit glamour of the prohibition era and inject an element of danger into your evening, the speakeasy concept is rapidly gaining fans in the US and around the world. I am not wholly convinced that it is an idea that will last for long but it is fun for now. It goes without saying that a speakeasy shouldn’t be too easy to find, what with the cops on the lookout, and PDT has a particularly impressive party piece in that regard. Arriving at a no frills hot dog joint called Criffs in the East Village, one could easily be forgiven for thinking the cab driver had misheard the directions. To the uninitiated, Criffs looks innocent enough, but the phone booth on the wall with the discreet PDT plaque belies its secret neighbor. Lift the receiver and you are asked for your name, upon confirmation that you are neither the law nor a rival gang member (or so I imagined), they let you in.

Once inside, it became immediately apparent that PDT and I were going to get along and not just because it is neither very big nor very bright. The well-stocked and comfortably appointed bar is tended by Jim Meehan and his team, and he really knows what he is doing when it comes to cocktails. The girl asked for something based on an Old Fashioned and he came back with a quite magnificent twist on this classic using a bacon-infused Bourbon. I ordered a Ron Zacapa (rum from Guatamela) and just to ensure consistency, ordered a second.

Speakeasy bars tend to follow much the same pattern. They are usually small and part of a larger bar or restaurant. It is also often the way, as with PDT, that you need to book a time and when your time is up you are politely reminded of this. As it was, when our hour was up we were ready to leave anyway. The bar is nice and the drinks were stellar but it doesn’t feel like the sort of place you would want to spend the whole night.

The Smoke Jazz club in Harlem is, however, the sort of place you want to spend the whole night. Having negotiated our way out of the PDT phone box, we made our way across town to this small but impressive jazz favorite. As with PDT we had to book a time for our visit and when our time was up, we were tipped back into the mean streets of the upper west side. However, that was not before we had experienced some of the best NYC has to offer.

Smoke does not try to hide the fact that it is bijou. It has a capacity of 50 people and ten of those are sat at the bar. Being up on 103rd Street makes the place harder to find but it keeps it free of the grazing tourist trade; the punters at Smoke really want to be there. This is reflected in the near perfect silence that falls when the band gets ready to play. That night we were treated to the magnificent George Cables quartet trading chops between 9.30 and 11.

The food at Smoke is surprisingly good for a place whose kitchen looked like it might be in the cupboard under the stairs. The staff are friendly (for New York) and the menu was impressively cultivated. We enjoyed the burger and citrus roasted chicken. The wine list was equally impressive, we ordered a bottle of Bruce Wayne 2009 which was a fine example of a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.

Although the strict timings observed by Smoke can make you feel a little hurried towards the end of the night (they have sittings at 7pm, 9pm and 11pm) this does not detract from the enjoyment. You know that you only have 2 hours there, so you commit to enjoying it for that time and at least they are good enough to be clear about the system in advance.

Overall, Smoke is an excellent venue. The acoustics are nice, the players are good and the food, wine and service are really high end. A great way to end the day.

One final note from our trip to the Big Apple, if you are in town and get the chance, be sure to take a stroll along The Highline. This project, which has regenerated a disused overland train line and turned it into an urban park, has been a huge success. We wandered down the stretch that carves its way through the meatpacking district and can highly recommend the views, the ambiance and the organic ice creams…

I arrived in the Burgundian city of Dijon from Paris on the high speed TGV train and immediately set off into town for lunch and a glass of wine or two. I was a bit surprised when my waiter brought me a Kir cocktail to begin the meal. In America, Kir is something that old ladies drink, but that is mainly because Americans make it wrong. A mixture of crème de cassis de Dijon and a local white wine called Bourgogne Aligoté (a rather sharp and acidic white wine). The French Kir, which originated in the area and was popularized by a former mayor of Dijon after World War II, does exactly what an aperitif should do. It prepares the palate for a meal with nice acidity and a clean, authentic cassis flavor. The American versions of the Kir had always coated my mouth in sugar, leaving me feeling slightly sick, but made correctly in France, the Kir is elegant and delicious.

While a Kir may be the most common use of crème de cassis de Dijon in modern times, crème de cassis de Dijon has a long history in France. Originally, half liter bottles of crème de cassis de Dijon would be placed on tables in bistros in Paris and throughout France. As refrigeration and modern viticultural techniques were not yet in use, some of the wines served during those times could be less than appealing. In order to make these wines palatable, or simply to add another dimension to the wine, patrons would add crème de cassis de Dijon to the wine to taste. Eventually, as time passed, ratafia was created. A cordial made from wine, crème de cassis de Dijon, sugar and fruits, Ratafia de Cassis would then be stored in jars in the sun to help the flavors come together.

While crème de cassis de Dijon may be most famous in the Kir cocktail, it is a very versatile ingredient in cocktails. From the classis Diablo cocktail, a combination of tequila, crème de cassis, ginger beer and lime to post-modern creations, crème de cassis is as versatile as it is unique. Try pairing crème de cassis with spicy flavors, citrus, vanilla and cinnamon for easy pairings. Peach nectar, berries, Champagne and even tarragon are also great matches with crème de cassis. Experimentation with this liqueur will be rewarded and don’t be afraid to take risks when mixing this liqueur.

While Dijon is famed for its wines, the Nazis had looted the stores of their great wines during World War Two.. At the end of the war, the mayor of Dijon, Felix Kir started to serve Kir cocktails, then known as “blanc cassis” to visiting delegations of officials. This was done to promote Dijon so crème de cassis became the focal point for these promotions and what was a national beverage became popular internationally. Domestically, crème de cassis de Dijon continues to be popular, with it being the number two aperitif in France, behind only pastis. Eventually, the “blanc cassis” was renamed after Kir to honor his work as mayor of Dijon.

Crème de cassis as a style of liqueur can be made anywhere in the world, but the very best crème de cassis still hails from Burgundy. The best offerings, such as those from Boudier and Briottet are designated crème de cassis de Dijon, meaning that these producers are in the original home of cassis. Other Burgundian cassis producers can use crème de cassis de Bourgogne, an indication that the cassis is made in Burgundy, but not Dijon itself. Much like wine appellations, a good rule of thumb is that the more specific the labeling, the better the crème de cassis. Crème de cassis is also made in other parts of France, especially Bordeaux, but connoisseurs of crème de cassis focus on the best examples from Burgundy.

Another indicator of quality when inspecting a foreign bottle of crème de cassis is simply to look at the list of ingredients. The best crème de cassis de Dijon liqueurs are nothing more than currants, sugar, water and alcohol. Their flavors will be intense and complex, with deep cassis flavor, a perfect balance between sugar and acid and a slightly floral undertone. Mass produced crème de cassis is the polar opposite, nauseatingly sweet, artificially flavored, with a thick and cloying mouth feel.

Crème de cassis de Dijon is undiscovered treasure for many spirits and cocktails enthusiasts. It is worth seeking out great Burgundian cassis and a bottle of Bourgogne Aligote to replicate the original “blanc cassis”. Tasting a true Kir cocktail is an eye-opening experience, one that resonates with French history and a beverage that can change the common perception of crème de cassis as just another boring liqueur.

I see my life as (an ambassador) like being a musician. To be successful you have to go on the road. When you go offstage, you don’t say that you don’t want to listen to or play music…

I’m on the road for 40 weeks a year. I haven’t spent more than seven days in any one place in the last eighteen months.

I have a reputation for being a little grumpy. I worry that by constantly stretching the envelope, we run the risk of sounding pretentious. The obsession with cocktails often takes away the focus from the guest.

A lot of people drank gin in college and associate it with their first over-indulgences.

A lot of people think that they don’t like gin because they have such a limited range of drinks; dry martinis, gin & juice, gin and tonic. They may just not like cheap tonic or an over-diluted martini.

America has had a long fear of flavor, however, gin has come roaring back into fashion. There is this desire for authenticity in spirits and cocktails.

If you are drinking a flavored vodka, what message is that sending your date or business partner?

There have been 119 new gins introduced in the last five years. Lots of them are trying to do something different with less emphasis on juniper. The difference between some of the these flavored vodkas and some of the new gins is the presence of juniper.

Gin is at a good place in the market right now, its got history, its got authenticity.

People are starting to realize that the quality of the base liquid is really important in cocktails. It comes down to the liquid in the bottle.

If you came out with a tequila in which you couldn’t taste the agave, we wouldn’t be saying that this is wonderful. Some products are great spirits but terrible gins. Do you like gin if you like a coconut-flavored gin? I don’t think so.

Some things in the cocktail world haven’t changed in 24 years, some things have changed massively. Its a big world and only getting bigger. The challenge is to keep up with all of that.

If I have to give you a reason to like Tanqueray, that’s going to demean us both, isn’t it?

Social Media is a way of creating a very dynamic community. I now have debates with bartenders on twitter and its only 140 characters.

Social Media is rather like TV; its a very seductive medium. The ease of social media means that a sense of perspective is being lost for some people.

In the first of a 3-part series, we make some recommendations for a home cocktail bar set-up sure to rival the world’s best cocktail joints. We suggest you include a balance of Japanese styled and antique-fashioned cocktail necessities (in gold of course); all function, no nonsense fruit and herb extractors; minimalistic glassware that will never go out of fashion; sexy, sharp blades; and the perfect, solid ice that will outlast any drink.

Measure or ‘jigger’

This is one of the most important bar tools as it ensures all drinks, including simple highballs, are properly measured and balanced. The classic jigger will have two ends to it – each measuring different amounts. Traditionally one end would measure 1 ounce (pony) and the other 1 ½ ounce (jigger). Jiggers are now available in different measurements according to country. The gold Japanese styles tend to be the most elegant and visually arresting.

Ice pick

Most bartenders will consider ice to be their most important ingredient as its dilution will affect the taste of their precious creations. Large shapes of compact ice are best for ensuring drinks remain cold with minimal dilution. However smaller pieces are sometimes required and an ice pick is an essential tool when working with ice. The pitchfork style shown here is often used for ice carving, especially when making Japanese-style ice balls.

Paring Knives

Knives need to be sharp for accuracy and safety in cutting fruit, vegetables and herbs. Paring knives tend to measure eight to 10 centimetres but a standard 20 centimetre chef’s knife is always useful behind the bar for chopping larger pieces of fruit and chopping herbs or garnishes. The choice of brand is very personal. We like Japanese brand Global. Chroma also does a good range and Swiss brand Kuhn Rikon knives are colourful and practical for transporting.

Americano by Santino Cicciari, Giannino Restaurant, Meydan Beach

This cocktail is a lighter version of the Negroni and is served long with soda water.

Ingredients:

• 30 ml campari bitter
• 30 ml sweet vermouth
• Top soda water

Method

Build directly into a short highball glass full of rock solid ice and garnish with lemon or orange wedge. Serve with a quality soda water such as Fever Tree.

The most generally accepted description of a craft distillery is that it produces small batches of handcrafted, distilled spirits equal to less than 50,000 proof gallons per year, and must be approved for a permit and licensed by the appropriate state agency. The reawakening of legal craft distilling in America began in 1982 with the founding of two small operations making brandy and eau de vie. Hubert Germain-Robin and Ansley Coale built their distillery on Coale’s California ranch whilst Yorg Rupf founded St. George Spirits in nearby Emeryville. In 1993 whiskey was first produced in an artisanal, small batch enterprise when Fritz Maytag established Anchor Distilling Company in San Francisco. Today, California continues to lead the nation in the number of craft distillers with about 30 at last count.

The dynamics of what products craft distillers make is market-driven, and changing. The number of distillers offering four or five different spirits is declining, probably due to the preponderance of easy-to-make vodkas and gins now in-market, while the number of producers offering three or fewer products is increasing – to over 90% of all craft distillers surveyed. Craft distillers are producing their products in almost all 50 states. In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine offers only “Tennessee’s First Legal Moonshine”, in a variety of expressions including White Lightnin’, Apple Pie Moonshine, Moonshine Cherries and a variety of other seasonal fruit moonshine. Montanya Distillers in Crested Butte, Colorado offers only two expressions of rum, Platino Light and Oro Gold. The distillery is one of the very few in the U.S. to be owned by a woman and staffed primarily by women and is located about 8000 feet above sea level, in the Colorado Rockies.

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania’s Wigel Whiskey has one of the most interesting craft distilling stories to tell. The pronunciation is “wiggle” which is what distiller Phillip Wigel did in 1794 when he got a bit uppity with the tax collector and was hanged. This obliquely contributed to the start of the Whiskey Rebellion, pitting George Washington’s troops against the distillers of Western Pennsylvania. Today, Wigel’s own troops are restoring a Pennsylvania tradition championed by their forefathers. A spokesperson says, “We make whiskey much the same way Wigel and his friends did – from scratch with a copper pot and local ingredients, producing distinctly Pennsylvanian whiskeys.” The distillery produces mostly rye and wheat whiskies. Koval Inc. is the first craft distillery within Chicago city limits since Prohibition. In addition to more traditional grains like rye, oats and wheat, Koval also uses millet and spelt for some of their whiskies. According to company literature, “We source all of our grains, fruits, herbs, and flowers from the surrounding Midwest region, and all operations are done in house, from mashing to packaging. Everything we make is certified organic and kosher.” In addition to aged and unaged whiskey, the company offers several brandies and six liqueurs.

Back at Arizona High Spirits Distillery, I talked with owner Dana Kanzler and distiller Steve Hendricks about craft distilling in Flagstaff, and learned that the distillery became the first licensed distillery in Arizona in 2004. The first major problem came in receiving the Arnold Holstein still from Germany. Following 9/11, US Customs was being very wary and placed the 17-foot tall still into quarantine pending confirmation it was not a weapon of mass destruction.

We talked about the distillery’s products, including Prickly Pear Vodka, the first product to be distilled and still a mainstay of the portfolio. The mesquite-smoked single malt whiskey came into being as a natural extension of the company’s existing Mogollon Beer production. Whiskey is basically distilled beer and the first 300 gallons of whiskey were an experiment in building on that experience. Dana rues the fact they did not make more, based on awards and public acceptance. Steve added, “Everyone loved it, except for a reviewer in Scotland. After bashing it, he ended his critique with “It’s the best thing to come out of the US in quite a while.” Go figure!

Both Dana and Steve agreed the single biggest challenge was the lack of available reference materials. Dana shared his original two book library on the subject: “Distillation of Alcohol and De-Naturing” by F. B. Wright, first published in 1906, and “The Manufacture of Whiskey, Brandy & Cordials” by Irving Hirsch, copyright 1937. The number of books on the subject has grown exponentially, as the number of distillers entering the fray has increased. Both men were surprised at how much capital it would take, especially in the areas of marketing.

The American Craft Distilling industry is robust and growing. Along with increasing numbers of distillers are scores of companies offering a variety of supplies like barrels, label design and printing, bottles, corks and closures and sourcing for both domestic and foreign copper stills. Michael Kinstlick, CEO of Coppersea Distilling LLC wrote in his comprehensive white paper,“The U.S. Craft Distilling Market: 2011 and Beyond”, the following: “The emergence of Craft Distillers as a recognized form, along with favorable changes in legislation, has led to the profusion of entrants in recent years, and these are just the leading edge of a return to the highly diffuse market structures as seen in the past.” He concludes with: “The number of Craft distilleries in the U.S. will grow to over 1000 within the next 10 years.”

Ceiba Restaurant

This Latin-American restaurant draws inspiration from the regions of Yucatan, Brazil, Peru and Cuba. Housed in D.C.’s historic Colorado building, Ceiba opened its doors in 2003 and offers lounge, bar and restaurant space, which means a solid atmosphere throughout the day. We arrived early evening for drinks and dinner and started off at the bar. True to its Latin-American influence, there was an impressive selection of tequilas and mezcals gracing the back bar, but we opted for one of the speciality cocktails, the Rosa de Salmiana. A mix of tequila, mezcal, grapefruit and peychaud’s bitters, there was a great smoky twang mixed with the bittersweet notes of grapefruit. If you’re not hungry and up for some counter-top snacking, the bar menu has a mouth-watering selection of light bites including guacamole (made to order), rock shrimp tacos and pulled barbequed pork pupusas. The wine list and restaurant menu are also excellent.

Capital Grille

If you like a bit of powerhouse with your porterhouse then the Capital Grille in D.C. is the steak place for you. Meat is aged on the premises, the menu is classic American, all served with a side of power broking. The wine list has over 350 bins, featuring wines from many regions. There’s a good balance of Old World versus New World, as well some showcase American producers. Personally, I prefer to sit at the glorious wood-panelled bar and just sip on a whisky. There’s a good single malt selection but this is America so why not sample a good old Kentucky whisky or a straight bourbon?

La Taberna Del Alberardro

This Spanish restaurant isn’t the most modern affair and the menu is somewhat ‘lumbering’ in its traditional approach but the atmosphere of the place is simply charming. The walls are painted a shade of red that suggests ‘classy’ rather than ‘Scorsese’ and the lighting harks back to an era when people took time to do things, like making tiny bite-sized snacks and calling them tapas. The night we visited there was a special dinner menu in place as part of DC Summer Restaurant Week so choices were limited to a set menu. The gazpacho was refreshing and piquant, the main course of meatballs was tasty and light. The wine list largely pays tribute to Spain’s wine-making regions as one would expect, as well as some interesting inclusions from US vineyards.

Café Bonaparte

This Georgetown eatery is dedicated to French cooking through and through. It’s a snug space and we turned up without a booking on a Sunday as brunch was in full swing, but were perfectly content to secure spots at the bar. We chose Gallic staples – quiche lorraine and croque monsieur – and both were excellent. You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to the drinks list; we watched as a seemingly endless quantity of Mimosas, Bloody Marys and Bellinis drifted across the bar. Being European, we preferred to have wine with our lunch and opted for a couple of glasses of smashing Vouvray. Crepes Suzette and coffee were the perfect conclusion to our French feast.

Columbia Room at Passenger

If this title seems cryptic, that’s because the Columbia Room is a bar within a bar. It’s a sort of trompe l’oeil as you walk through a rowdy sports bar almost until the end and then turn left through an unmarked door. There you are welcomed in an ante-chamber (bookings only) before being ushered into a petite room that hosts a bar along one side of the room and some seating along the other. We were seated at the bar that can take about eight people at the very most and were thus treated to a bespoke cocktail service for the duration of our visit. With such a small number of patrons to attend to, the bartender had time to quiz us on our preferences, make suggestions or to simply make the cocktails we requested without having to rush. We sampled a variety of classics such as the Clover Club and Aviation but the standout creation was the Last Word; the perfect blend of Chartreuse. Luxardo and gin was tangy and refreshing.

Kafe Leopold

Sometimes you just fancy a bit of Wiener Schnitzel washed down with a Gruner Veltliner. If you’re in Georgetown when this craving hits, head to Kafe Leopold, located in a charming mews off of M Street. Be sure to book ahead as it gets busy at the weekend although there is an annexe bar in which you can have a drink whilst you wait for your table. The schnitzels were good, the wine was excellent, the Sacher torte was divine. The menu is actually quite varied but sometimes you just can’t beat the classics.

Negroni by Santino Cicciari, Giannino Restaurant, Meydan Beach

Ingredients:

• 30 ml of Campari Bitter
• 30 ml of Beefeater 24 London dry gin
• 30 ml of sweet vermouth

Method

Stir the ingredients over ice and throw into a chilled old fashioned glass. Garnish with solid ice rocks and wedge of orange.

Photo by Oliver Marshall Doran | www.photosolutions.me

Wine and aesthetics have long occupied the same space, mainly with focus on the bottle and the artwork of labels. The several wineries and estates have developed collaborations with artists over the years and what lover of wine wouldn’t admit to choosing a bottle off a shelf based on looks alone? But what of the bricks and mortar that house a winery? Developments in wine making over the years have allowed us to mechanise many of the procedures that are used to produce wine and whilst some of the buildings that house winemaking facilities might be historic, the equipment inside them is not. This does not necessarily mean that modern wine structures cannot be visually pleasing and there are now a wealth of wineries that have combined cutting edge design with state-of-the-art facilities. We have a look at a small cross-section…

Marques de Riscal, Rioja, Spain

Maverick architect Frank Gehry was commissioned to give this 154-year-old winery a makeover as part of a bid to draw more tourists to the wine-making region of Rioja. The result is a dazzling complex that encompasses a hotel, spa, museum of viticulture and a wine shop. Gehry was inspired to incorporate the character of the region as well as the heritage of the winery within the building’s exterior. The structure is noted for its massive façade of gold and pink titanium ribbons, said to reflect the gold-mesh wrapper, silver cap and purple/pink hues of the wine itself. The Marques de Riscal complex has gained much acclaim since its opening, not only for its stunning design, but perhaps more importantly, for transforming the town and surrounding area into hot spot for general tourists and wine-lovers alike.

www.marquesderiscal.com

Clos Apalta, Colchuagua Valley, Chile

This estate is a horseshoe-shaped stretch within the larger Colchuagua valley and forms part of the Casa Lapostolle winery, which was founded in 1994 by French businesswoman Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband Cyril de Bournet. Upon discovering the Apalta valley and the property that stood upon it, Lapostolle said that she “realized its potential for producing world-class wines,” and that she “had the impression that I knew this place all my life, or maybe in another life”. The winery is a testament to its natural surroundings. It is 100% gravity-fed and spans six levels, four of which are nestled into the granite hillside of Apalta, providing a naturally cool temperature, perfect for cellaring. The winery’s dramatic setting only serves to highlight its avant-garde design. Visitors can tour the winery as well as stay overnight in wine lodges nestled into the forested hillside of the valley.

www.lapostolle.com

Merus Winery, Napa Valley, USA

Merus began life as a garage project. Literally. Founders Erika J. Gottl and Mark Herald were producing wine in the two-car garage behind their home in the town of Napa. Their debut 1998 vintage gained international recognition but they were soon faced with the limitations of operating out of such a small space. Wine storage had to be outsourced and legal restrictions barred tastings or visitors. Things changed when Merus was acquired by the Foley Family Wines Group in 2007. A brand new site presented itself in the form of an historic ranch, tucked into a canyon in the east side of Napa Valley. Amsterdam-based design house UXUS was hired to create new tasting salons and visitor spaces, delivering a provocative blend of elements and styles. Modern, sophisticated materials such as granite, custom turned wood and other contemporary furnishings deliver a concept that is ‘refined heritage’ giving ‘a sense of history and soul to the spaces’.

www.meruswines.com

- TOTC is a reflection of how bartending has changed and how the industry has grown. bartenders are now proper professionals and although people come here to enjoy themselves, it’s noticeable that the seminars are all fully attended during the day, despite the general lack of sleep.

- Balance is important – when I do consumer shows, it’s important to do beginner zones so that you can capture people who are brand new to whisky – otherwise the subject becomes too niche.

- Things have changed very quickly for the whisky industry – we’ve seen a massive shift in focus away from Europe looking towards Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Things are moving at an impressive pace.

- Whisky writing has been far too European-centric, or UK-centric; there’s an awful lot of writers who don’t understand that the reason that Scotch is so big, is because it’s a global spirit.

- The decisions that companies are making are a result of the way in which markets are changing and it would be foolish to think that UK alone is keeping the Scotch industry alive

- There are lots of exciting new markets for Scotch: Vietnam is interesting because of its growth, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Russia, Africa (Ghana, Angola). Once people start earning money, they’ll want to start drinking Scotch, it’s a signifier of wealth and always has been.

- I always wanted to write. I worked for Oddbins and they put me through my wine exams. I was running a pub for a while and writing about music when a job came up on a trade paper.

- When you go freelance, it’s always better to specialise. When I started, there were only three spirits writers in the UK.

- I keep things fresh by always asking the important question, which is why? Always assume you don’t know. Speak to the master blender, speak to the guy who’s been working at the distillery for years and ask them questions.

- I like the way that spirits reflect where they come from so there’s a cultural element that gets mixed in as well; a Japanese whisky is a Japanese whisky because of Japan. Each spirit is a reflection of ‘terroir’ but in a wider way

- I try and keep things simple and direct. And not be pompous.

- The reason behind the Whisky Atlas was to write about why whisky tastes the way it does when it comes from different parts of the world.

- I think Twitter is a great focus for discipline. From a writing perspective, I like the idea of having to write a tasting note in 140 characters.

- I don’t tweet after half past nine, or after two drinks have been taken.

- It’s tough to find time to unwind. I do a lot of walking, I try and sail if I can. I just try and get out and about

- I still love whisky; it’s endlessly fascinating. When I’m doing trainings and tastings, people always ask you something you’ve never thought of before. That forces you to think about the subject in a different way.

- There’s a difference between age and maturity in whisky – the focus on age is an interesting strategy but potentially flawed if you’re consistently encouraging people to drink older whiskies

- You will never know everything.

Dave Broom

www.twitter.com/davebroomwhisky

Jacquie Lewis explores a whole new world of wine in Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula

When those not from the large brown land think of Australian wines, they automatically relate our country’s proud wine heritage to the most marketed, and exported regions such as the Barossa Valley and Coonawarra in South Australia. The reality of our bountiful wine scene, however, is an abundance of boutique wineries and dynamic young producers in lesser internationally known regions making barely enough of their fantastic product to satisfy local demand, let alone export. Sadly, this means that what we are achieving down there in Oz goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated on an international level.

One region that I am constantly flying the flag for is the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. With a history dating back to 1803 and over 60 wineries, this is a stunning region that has much to offer the world of wine. With its vineyards and olive groves located on a ridge overlooking a charming coastline dotted with seaside villages, it truly is a stunning part of the world. It is a cool climate viticultural area virtually surrounded by the sea, providing the perfect home to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – both of which are produced with exceptional quality by a number of producers.

The wines here are a far cry from the full bodied, spicy wines from the Barossa Valley that are common on the export market. There are many producers dotted along the ridge high on the Peninsula making intelligent, elegant “old world” style wines that I just love to surprise international wine drinkers with. Sandro Mosele from Kooyong Estate is a very well known character and producer from the Mornington Peninsula. With his Italian heritage, he believes that wines and food should be unique to each village and is quietly making his mark on the wine world, producing a fantastic raft of Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from well made, easy to drink styles to more serious single-vineyard stuff that reflects the different ‘village’ styles. If you ever see his Faultine Chardonnay, it is a must try: so deliciously textural – power, minerality and precision is what this wine is all about.

Then you have one of the originals of the region – Nat White at Main Ridge Estate. His passion and authority on the region are infectious… should you pay him a visit be prepared to fall in love with his corner of the world. His Half Acre Block Pinot Noir is absolutely stunning (and almost impossible to get your hands on). Yabby Lake is yet another quality producer in the area. Their Pinot Noir is so elegant, polished and deliciously aromatic. In amongst all this old school class are people like Mike Alyward. Representative of the young, dynamic, hugely passionate new wave of Australian winemaker, he is flying solo and making the most cracking, Alsace-esque Pinot Gris at his winery Ocean Eight.

If you are lucky enough to find yourself planning a trip to our fair shores, be sure to include this hugely underrated and impossibly charming corner of the country on your itinerary. Join in flying the Mornington Peninsula flag to the world.

Jacqueline Lewis – Head Sommelier Zuma Dubai
www.intheglass.net

Nick Strangeway is the obsessive type. Obsessive about attention to detail and doing something well. He needs little introduction in the bar industry having made a name for himself in the early 90s as a talented bartender and subsequent successful restaurant and bar projects such as Che, Hawksmoor and the brand-spanking-new Tramshed. Although Strangeway’s talents inarguably lie in the business of mixing flavours, (he was voted World Mixologist/Bartender of the year in 2008 at Tales Of The Cocktail), his knowledge of distilling has been based on more of a theoretical rather than practical application. That is until recently.

Which at first glance, might make his selection by Absolut seem rather unorthodox. However, there are a couple of fields in which Strangeway’s expertise will have been of extreme value to Absolut; the first is his complete understanding of a product that will be relevant to bartenders. The second is his understanding of flavour composition. In other words, Absolut knew that Nick Strangeway was the right man for the job when they asked him to work on a new expression of Absolut that changes the face of the brand in more ways than one.

The brief was simple: create a series of flavoured vodkas that would appeal to bartenders and help them re-engage with the brand. Absolut was one of the first brands to explore the breadth of the vodka category through their use of flavour and even Strangeway admits that he fell in love with Absolut Citron and Mandarin when they were first released. When launched into the US in the early 80s was clear the Absolut strategy was clear – start a dialogue with the key bartenders and encourage them to spread the Absolut word.

The strategy worked so well that Absolut became to some extent, a victim of its own success. A series of innovative print ads – each more inventive than the last – transformed Absolut from a niche vodka drunk in select bars to a global powerhouse brand. People soon waited eagerly for each new flavour of Absolut to be released and as the 90s drew to a close, vodka as a spirit was enjoying a golden age of popularity.

Fast-forward a decade or so and things look rather different. Disillusioned with over-hyped, over-priced spirits, consumers have drifted away from vodka and bartenders have turned their attention towards gin and whisky. Throw the classic cocktail renaissance into the mix and it’s easy to see why vodka brands might be nervous about their positioning. For Absolut, it gradually became clear that somewhere along the way, it had lost the support of its most important ambassadors; the bartenders.

With this in mind, Absolut has decided to get back to basics and enlisted the skills and experience of a real bartender’s bartender. Strangeway himself admits he was humbled and daunted by the prospect of being allowed so much creative freedom: “ When Absolut approached me two roughly two years ago with the idea of creating a small, limited edition collection of vodkas designed specifically for bartenders, I was agog…It was just an unbelievably gratifying proposition to be offered this collaborative opportunity, to bring what I do to a wider audience”. Strangeway also adds that the current dissatisfaction with the vodka category only made the challenge a more interesting one.

Although convinced he was the right man for the job, even Absolut was surprised by the jaw-dropping temerity with which Strangeway threw himself into the deep end of distilling: “…we were astonished by the way Nick took off with it [the idea] like a smash-and-grab…he laboured fiendishly over the course of two years…frequently taking months to block out a single flavour profile through hundreds of essays from thousands of separate bottlings, at various strengths and stages. He will add and subtract doggedly, mathematically, until he reaches the exact admixture that fits what he’s driving at, and not one atom more”.

The result is the first three flavours in what the brand hopes to be a long line of bespoke blended vodkas, each distilled from 100% natural and ‘traceable’ raw ingredients: Herbaceous Lemon, Bitter Cherry and Smokey Tea. These were whittled down from an astonishing 2,500 samples of macerates and distillates. Once satisfied with a selection of flavours and blends, the challenge was then passed to the team at the Åhus distillery in Sweden who were tasked with the rather tricky job of translating the extremely small-batch blends that Strangeway had created into large-scale production. Strangeway acknowledges the skill that went into this part of the process: “ It is testament to the Åhus team that they managed to replicate my blends quite exactly, matching the interplay and depth of flavour bang-on”.

Once the flavours had been re-produced, the final challenge for Absolut was to create the vessel that would carry these new expressions. The Absolut bottle is the face of the brand, so to change anything at all seems either incredibly dangerous or incredibly brave. In true fashion, the bottle for Absolut Craft is as impressive as the liquid it contains. Each bottle has a subtle silver-grey metallic coating, inspired by Victorian medicine flasks. The text has been pared down to the minimum required and the logo on the bottle incorporates the alchemic symbol for distillation. Both the bottle and the first three flavours in the Absolut Craft series are a point of departure for both Absolut and the man that helped develop them. Whether the series will be well-received by bartenders remains to be seen, but judging from the reactions during the trade tasting, it could be safe to say that the collaboration between these two pioneers of the industry has been a success.

“Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called ‘bittered’ sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”

The Old Fashioned is the quintessential ‘cocktail’ and a must in any aficionado’s repertoire. Bourbon, Angostura Bitters and an orange zest has become common place, and muddle orange and/or cherry and even a soda press have been known to make an appearance. But the best rendition in my opinion is to let a luxury spirit have centre stage complimented with the other ingredients. My crowd pleaser rendition of this timeless classic is a Chocolate Old Fashion with The Macallan Fine Oak 12 Years Old single malt scotch whisky, putting to rest the outdated notion you shouldn’t mix a single malt. A serious sipper for a serious enthusiast.

Ingredients:
2 shot(s) The Macallan Fine Oak 12 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky
2 dash(es) Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters
1 barspoon(s) Monin Vanilla syrup

Method:
Stir all ingredients with cubed ice for 20 seconds, strain over fresh cubed ice

Glass:
Short glass

Photography by Oliver Doran | www.photosolutions.me

Our recommendations for eating, drinking and making your merry way around New Orleans

July is probably not the best time to head to New Orleans. The heat hangs heavy in the air with the threat of rain never far away. When the rain comes, it offers welcome but often-brief respite. Chances are, if you’re in New Orleans in July, you’re attending the Tales Of The Cocktail and probably not that fussed about the weather. You’re almost certainly more interested in knowing where to sample some of the best cocktails in town, accompanied by some interesting food and maybe hear some dirty brass jazz funk? We recommend the following…

SoBou

This relative newcomer takes its name from its location that lies south of Bourbon Street (can you see what they’ve done there?) and whilst it’s not that far from the Big Easy’s most famous drinking street, the quality of their offering sets them miles apart. We only made it as far as the bar, which has a classic-but-current feel to it. The Sazerac we ordered was top-notch and there was a solid beer selection. More interestingly, the non-alcoholic cocktail we asked for was also great – the bartender having invested no less effort into it than his ‘regular’ cocktails.

Loa

Located just inside the International House Hotel, this bar is probably the best thing this hotel has going for it. Rooms are comfortable but somewhat functional so you may find yourself spending more time at the bar than intended. The bar itself forms a horseshoe and its metal top lends an antique air. Jars stuffed full of fresh herbs adorn one side lending both decorative and aromatic quality to your drinking experience. The cocktail list offers a concise selection of classics and Loa’s own potations.

Carousel Bar

No trip to New Orleans would be complete without a visit to the historic Hotel Monteleone and it’s famous Carousel Bar. Immortalized in the writings of Ernest Hemingway, the charms of this bar have enticed many to sip, drink, entertain and simply enjoy New Orleans’ only revolving bar. Don’t be fooled – it’s not as cheesy as it sounds – the 25-seat bar was installed in 1949 and each chair is hand-painted. The bar turns on 2000 large steel rollers and is pulled by a chain powered by one-quarter horsepower motor. One revolution takes approximately 15 minutes so you needn’t worry about motion sickness. The drinks list is sizeable; we suggest you go for the atmosphere, as it’s one of the most popular drinking spots in town.

Café Beignet

If you’re feeling a bit peckish after a cocktail or two or fancy some lunch in the French Quarter then head to Café Beignet. The term beignet is French (pronounced ben-yay) and refers to a pastry that is somewhere between a fritter and a doughnut. It seems you can eat this at any time of the day although we’d recommend them as a breakfast item. Café Beignet has two locations but we definitely prefer the establishment at Musical Legends Park on Bourbon Street. This small courtyard hosts a daily jazz band so you can enjoy live music whilst you munch on a freshly-made sandwich and an ice-cold beer. What could be better?

Arnaud’s Restaurant and French 75 bar

Another historic establishment, Arnaud’s will soon be celebrating it’s 100th anniversary. Established in 1918 by French wine salesman Arnaud Cazenave, the restaurant has been serving quality Creole cuisine ever since. Arnaud’s has two dining rooms – one more formal than the other. We recommend the ‘bistro’ rather than the main dining room, which means gents, can leave their jackets behind and everyone can enjoy the jazz trio that plays live in the room. If you fancy a pre or post-prandial cocktail head to the bar, French 75. Both the bar and back bar are vintage and the place has a wonderful old feel to it. You may as well order the namesake cocktail although consume with caution – the combination of gin, champagne, lemon juice and sugar is said to pack a punch similar to a French 75mm Howitzer field gun.

D.B.A.

Once you’re fed, watered and ready for music that’s less ‘polite’ we suggest you jump in a cab and head to Frenchmen Street in historic Faubourg Marigny. This will see you firmly distanced from anyone who thinks it’s ok to drink out of plastic containers shaped like giant test tubes. The bar offers a great selection of beer and spirits (we suggest you try some of the local beers) and perhaps more importantly, has live music acts every day. The building dates back to 1818 and the all-cypress wood music room is a favourite with musicians due to its warm sound. The night we went there was a band playing what is apparently classed as ‘dirty jazz funk’. The music was pretty jazzy and pretty funky and the atmosphere was terrific.

The Ruby Slipper Café

If you made it to DBA the night before, you’ll probably be needing a decent breakfast the morning after. The Ruby Slipper we visited is in the Downtown area of New Orleans but they have an outlet in Midtown too. The breakfast menu is wonderfully American; pancakes, French toast, waffles, eggs, oatmeal are all available as well daily specials. We found it hard to resist the granny smith pancakes but did not regret our scrambled eggs and sausage, washed down with a Bloody Mary.

Sylvain

If you slept through breakfast then head down to Sylvain for lunch. This French Quarter eatery on Rue Chartres opened its doors in 2010 and offers ‘elevated bistro classics’. Think gastro-pub with some French/Creole thrown in for style. Everything on the menu looks good so just order a bunch of plates and share them between you. The wine and cocktail list is solid and the bar is a great place for an afternoon libation. Sylvain mixes its heritage with its modern approach to food in a way that makes it feel timeless. Just don’t tell too many people, it’s hard enough to get a table as it is.

For most westerners, sake is usually a beverage consumed warm at your local sushi bar. Over the last several years, sake has been pushed as a cocktail ingredient, the “new” vodka as it were, but sake cocktails have failed to catch on with a mainstream audience, leaving sake to remain a mystery to many.

With Japanese domestic sake sales down around 30% over the last forty years, one might think that foreign markets would be a key driver for a sake resurgence, but most sake producers (Japan has a reported 2,700 sake kuras) have largely ignored the export market, instead focusing on the shrinking domestic market. For those producers that have looked west, some have built sake kuras in America to reduce transportation, energy & material costs (rice is cheaper in the U.S). That said, these small satellites of large Japanese sake producers generally focus on the entry-level sake market, producing bulk sakes that retail in the $5 to $8 range.

This allows the sakes to be more competitive in the U.S. market as Japanese sakes coming into the U.S. start at around $15 and top out at $100+. Ultimately, the growth in sake is not in Japan, but in western locations like New York, San Francisco and even Sacramento. With sake consumption in Japan dropping at a 3 – 5% annual rate over the last ten years, the greatest hope for a sake revival may lie with America. Some industry experts think that if Americans embrace sake, Japanese customers will return to their roots and begin to drink sake again.

In recent years, a small craft sake movement has begun to take hold in the United States. Moto-I, a small brewery and izakaya-style restaurant brews its own sakes in Minnesota, while Austin Texas’ Texas Sake Company bottles two styles of sake. Finally, Momokawa, the Forest Grove, Oregon premium craft producer both produces sake and imports sakes designed for a western palate.

There are significant differences between the taste profiles of western palates and Japanese palates. Americans in particular enjoy big, bold flavors and they want the wine or spirit that they consume to have a discernible finish. The Japanese prefer subtlety, and a quick, ethereal finish, which is generally reflected in the style of sakes produced. While American sake enthusiasts may prefer the more traditional flavor profile of sake, it has been difficult for the general public to adopt sake as an every day beverage and this is partly due to flavor preferences. That said, sake consumption is up in the United States over the last ten years but major obstacles still remain.

Probably the biggest challenge to sake production in the U.S. versus Japan is rice. In the United States, rice is a commodity crop, much like wheat or corn. While the Japanese have around 80 different styles of rice available for use in sake, the American market is much more limited. California grows almost all of America’s supply of medium grain rice and the vast majority of that is one variety, Cal-Rose. Sake producers are either put in the position of doing very limited production runs with other varietals, like Texas Sake Company with its use of organic Texas rice or purchasing either medium grain rice from California or long grain rice from Arkansas. For any sake producer to grow to a considerable size, (as Momokawa has done), they are required to buy commodity rice to be used in an artisan product. While Momokawa’s sakes are of excellent quality, being able to use one rice variety versus eighty can limit the amount of creativity that the kura has with the rice.

While the Japanese kuras aren’t using eighty varieties of rice in each individual kura, instead using varieties preferred in each kura’s region, offering a certain terroir to each areas sakes. The American sake producers don’t currently have the option to experiment with a plethora of rice varietals, so instead of emulating the Japanese, they have to forge their own path and style.

Each American craft sake producer is doing just that. Moto-I specializes in namazake; fresh, unpasteurized sakes that are highly perishable and only available on site. Texas Sake Company embraces an all-organic line of sakes and, in typical Texas fashion, crafts the world’s only sake made from Texas rice. Momokawa, with greater distribution and a broader line of products, offers a line of organic sakes as well as naturally flavored sakes like lemongrass sake and plum sake for mixing into cocktails. Whether draft sake made in house in Minnesota, artisan Texas rice sake or organic and flavored sakes, each of these producers is taking sake in a new direction in the United States. If these trailblazers succeed in broadening the appeal of sake beyond just sushi bars in America, they may also have the effect of influencing the consumption of sake in Japan, perhaps making it trendy again to drink sake. Whatever the outcome, keep an eye on these pioneers of American sake as their biggest contributions to the sake scene are yet to come.

Why a long forgotten type of beer is having a 21st century renaissance. By Steve Morrissey

No one really uses the phrase “small beer” any more, but most people know that it means something of little or no importance, a trifle. But if recent developments worldwide are anything to go by, then it looks like small beer may soon be mixing it with the big boys.

Thanks to a change in the tax regime in the UK, which halved duty on beers under 2.8 per cent abv, brewers are rushing to make weaker beers. And the public are lapping them up, with leading supermarket trader Tesco reporting sales up by 47 per cent in a year. The story is the same further afield, in continental Europe, in the USA, Australasia, thanks to concerns about health, a tightening of drink/drive laws, a resurgence of interest in artisanal brews and a general realisation that increased abv isn’t the same as a better taste (the same trend is visible in the world of wine, incidentally).

Which is why we’re seeing a return of a type of beer that had died before grandpa was going down the pub. But what is small beer? And does it taste any good?

According to Fergus Fitzgerald, head brewer at Adnams in Suffolk, UK, there are two distinct ways of making small beer. “You either made a batch that was going to be small beer, in which case you put a lot more water through the grain, which dilutes down the sugars, and when you ferment it you get a much lower alcohol beer. The more common method is to try and use the last runnings of strong beer. If you’re making a beer you’re planning on keeping for a year or more, then by necessity you’d end up with some sugar being left in the grain (because you didn’t want to put more water through to get it or you’d dilute the beer). So you’d collect the strong wort by itself and you’d then put more water through and collect the weak wort which you’d then ferment as a small beer.”

The importance of small beer in days gone by can’t be overstated. Farm labourers and workers in heavy industry would drink maybe ten pints of it a day to keep them hydrated, energised yet not drunk – it was 2.5 to 3 per cent abv. More importantly, it provided a supply of safe drinking water (the boiling killed waterborne bugs, the alcohol helping too). The notion that disease was spread through bad water wouldn’t arrive until the mid 19th century but even so, Europeans in the middle ages must have instinctively known it because they rarely drank water. Small beer was your man, even at breakfast.

At Adnams Fitzgerald experimented with the “last runnings” version of small beer a couple of years ago. The result? “A bit tasteless, really” admits Fitzgerald. “So we used it to make a small ginger beer, adding some orange peel, lemon and lime, some lemongrass.” And very fragrant it is too.

“We’ve got a beer at 2.7 (Sole Star) – it’s not last runnings but it is legitimate to call it small beer. It’s going very well, once you’ve got over people’s preconceptions that a beer with a low abv isn’t going to taste of much.”

As for the future? “That tradition of heavy labour, industry, has gone now but even so most brewers I know have tried something that’s less than 2.8 per cent. Which is down to the tax break, for sure, but also to a change in focus. It’s now more about the flavour, the product, the appreciation of those flavours, the skill, the art and the whole process. Which fits well into the idea of small beer – you’re drinking it because you like the flavour not for the sake of drinking.”

Five to Try

Wadworth Small Beer (2.8%abv)
Six different malts, three different hops to deliver layers of complexity and character

Anchor Small Beer (3.3%abv)
A “second running” of the San Francisco brewer’s Old Foghorn, with extra Goldings hops

Adnams Sole Star (2.7%abv)
Black malt and citrusy hops help deliver that missing alcohol wallop

60 Shilling Mild (3.2%abv)
From the New Jersey Beer company, a sweet, grainy mild made from the second running of Wee Heavy

Limb & Life (4.2%abv)
A second running of the 10%abv Life & Limb, aged in maple, fragranced with American hops,
a local Sierra Nevada specialty

By the time you read this several Olympic records will have been shredded at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. None of them will be drinking related. Why?

Here’s a total irony. The Guinness Book of Records does not do drinking records any more. Since 1979 the book originally produced by the makers of an Irish stout, designed to be the final arbiter in pub disputes about the number of boiled eggs consumed, or the exact height of Robert Wadlow (8ft 11in/2.72m, in case you’re interested), has deemed it necessary to stay silent on the subject of booze-related world records.

Guinness might be good for you, to quote the old advertising slogan, but too much of it obviously isn’t. Nor is the PR fallout from some idiot drinking himself to death in the pursuit of record-breaking glory. So who can blame the book’s guardians for deciding to get coy on the subject?

Double irony. The book is more than happy to list the records of Olympic athletes, people who take liver-shredding amounts of painkillers, whose diet is mental, whose single-mindedness is pathological, whose exercise regime often leads to chronic problems in later life. As for all that illegal growth hormone stuff…

And all for pansy events like archery and beach volleyball. In the ancient Greek games, in among the ceremonies to placate the god, there was an event called the pankration, pan mean “all” and kratos meaning “strength”. It was a combination of boxing, wrestling, slapping, hair-pulling, wedgies – anything to deck the other guy.

This sounds remarkably like a drunken fight. Add to this the fact that the Olympic rings are clearly modelled on a tray of drinks seen from above and something snaps into focus. The reason why the Olympics have become a touch anodyne is that in the transition from the ancient Greek to the modern global games they’ve lost that “anything goes” attitude. What I’m saying is they need less urine testing, more ritual sacrifice.

So here, to redress the balance just a little, is Tonique’s Olympic guide to drinking records. Some good, some bad, some downright ugly. Enjoy responsibly.

100 metres

If it’s speed you’re looking for then Steven Petrosino is your man. He set his record of chugging a litre of beer in 1.3 seconds in June 1977. It still stands, as does Steve, who is still a drinking phenomenon. Swing over to youtube.com/watch?v=3JQhAhBtccY and watch him down a beer before a coin hits the floor. Amazing.
Athlete’s tip: light beer, warm, with as little fizz in it as possible

20km Walk

That toffee-chewing swing of the hips makes the Walk the Olympic event it’s easiest to mock. As a related unusual way to pervert a normal physical procedure, how about the crawl, the pub crawl to be more precise, and the one undertaken by 4,718 people from Maryborough, Queensland, Australia. Ask a Brit or a Kiwi and they’ll point to the 12,000 or so (unofficially) who annually navigate the Waitangi Day crawl, using London’s Circle Line as a route map. Americans point to the Charlotte, North Carolina St Patrick’s Day crawl in 2012 – 15,000 unofficially took part.

Athlete’s tip: a hearty breakfast or a similar starchy meal

The Mile

Ever heard of the Beer Mile? It combines running with speed drinking. Drink a beer, run a 400 metre lap, drink another, do another lap, drink another, and so on, until you’ve finished the 4x400m. If you vomit you have to do an extra lap. The tradition probably developed first in German speaking countries, where the Kistenlauf, or Bierkastenlauf run by pairs of people carrying a crate of beer has a venerable history. Current Beer Mile champ is Australian Josh Harris, 5 mins, 2.5 secs.
Athlete’s tip: You have to be good at drinking AND running

Marathon

Here’s one the Guinness people are happy to publish. Angelo Cammarata from Pittsburgh started working in his father’s bar the second Prohibition ended, midnight on 7 April 1933. He carried on working in Cammarata’s, stopping only to fight in the Second World War, until September 2009, making the 95-year-old’s 76 years tending bar (“I’m not a mixologist, I’m a bartender”) the longest documented anywhere. A marathon achievement.
Athlete’s tip: A Jim Beam bourbon and Coke (“one is enough” says Angelo)

Synchronised Swimming

A gold medal to Terri Comer of Klamath County, Oregon, who in 2008 was found unconscious in her car, which had ploughed through about 100 feet of snow. Her blood alcohol level was at 0.72 per cent (0.5 per cent is considered fatal), nine times the legal limit for driving. She woke after 12 hours, in hospital, and was charged with drunken driving.
Athlete’s tip: Er, don’t do it

And a few others:

Largest beer fest: Oktoberfest, Munich, with 7 million visitors.

Most popular alcoholic drink: Globally, it’s beer.

Strongest alcohol: Bolivia’s Cocoroco, 96% abv, made from sugar cane often sold in metal cans, like gasoline.

Most popular spirit: Korea’s Jiron Soju, at 63 million cases a year, though Smirnoff Red label would beg to differ.

Per capita whisky drinkers: Recife, Brazil, where they drink more of it per head than anywhere else in the world.

Biggest still: Suntory, Japan.

Strongest beer: Brewdog brewery’s End of History, 55% abv. Made using freezing techniques.

Most expensive whisky: A Macallan 64-year-old in a Lalique bottle, fetched $460,000 in July 2012,
all proceeds to charity.

Fastest bartender: Chris Raph, Minneapolis, USA, 662 unique cocktails in an hour on 4 May 2009.

Hannibal Lector jokes aside, I’ve been contemplating a glass of chianti, (liver and fava beans optional). A lot of it has to do with wanting to swill the rich ruby liquid around an oversized goblet and watch the legs streak down the side of the glass as my mouth waters in anticipation. A good accompaniment would be a hunk of rustic white bread, freshly baked, maybe even pouring the wine from some kind of terracotta vessel, Roman style. Clearly I’ve thought about it a lot.

I’m not a huge fan of Italian reds finding them slightly too heavy but recently out for dinner at a restaurant, a bottle of reasonably priced Chianti was ordered for the table and I took the opportunity to steal a swig. Technically that’s not abstaining, – I realize that, however temperance movements aside, it was simply delicious. Perfectly balanced, one could have drunk it all night were it not for the matter of a small boy growing inside me.

It got me thinking about other classic chianti moments. Sitting at the bar in the beautiful, vaulted Cantinetta Antinori in Florence glass gleefully in hand was definitely up there. More randomly, was the sheer happiness of delighting in something European, (another reasonably priced bottle) when working in Washington DC, garnered through a thrice weekly visit to the supermarket in the basement of the Watergate Centre where I was living. Rather fittingly, I was working as an intern in a think tank where I had been tasked with researching trade policy, specifically geographical indications for food products, something crucial to the protection of the Tuscan vineyards that produce chianti and Chianti Classico. The difference between these two? A matter of mere boundaries, but one that dates back to Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, a member of the Medici family and the first to establish a region for the production of the red stuff back in the 18th century – yet another string to the bow of the awe-inspiring family.

Now wasn’t that much more educational than some Hannibal Lecter quip?

We chat to the Founder of Tales Of The Cocktail Ann Tuennerman about organizing the bar industry’s biggest event, expanding the TOTC brand and her new puppy…

Ann Tuennerman seems remarkably calm for someone organising the 10th anniversary of Tales of the Cocktail. What started off as a walking tour of New Orleans’ best bars and restaurants some ten years ago, has grown into the event that most bartenders would give their back teeth to attend. This is a woman pulled in many different directions and no sooner has she joined us in the Carousel bar of the Hotel Monteleone, she is pulled away to take care of someone who appears to be slightly worse for wear. Displaying a poise and politeness for which southerners are renowned, Ann makes sure the person is safely escorted off the premises. When she returns to the table she shrugs her shoulders – it’s just part and parcel of the organization.

Tell us how TOTC got started

“ Tales started with a walking tour of bars and restaurants in NOLA. There wasn’t anything that talked about the dining history, or that recognized all the famous cocktails that have been invented here. The tour still happens every day – on the 1st anniversary of the tour, we came up with the idea for Tales Of The Cocktail as a way of celebrating the event. We just held it in this room with a few people. We managed to convince people like Dale [DeGroff] and Anastasia [Miller] and ten top mixologists to come to New Orleans and it started from there. I think it’s grown because we didn’t start out to create an event; it’s been curated by the bartenders and it just grew organically. My husband likes to say that it’s the industry’s event – we just organize it and that really is how we look at it.

“Three or four years ago some bartenders suggested that we ought to have seminars, so we started organizing them. Then someone suggested we should have a tasting room so we looked into that too. We’re constantly listening to people after each event so that it evolves constantly based on feedback, but we programmed this for the professional bartenders”.

Did you have any idea that event would grow to the extent that it has?

“I don’t think we had any idea that it would. I used to say that I wanted it to be as big as the Aspen Food & Wine Classic. The funny thing about that is, I’ve never been to the Aspen Food & Wine Classic. The things that excite us now are the economic impact that the event has on New Orleans and the blood line back to TOTC – we’ve had everything from people meet and get married through the Tales, to product launches and that’s what we’re most proud of now, is the way in which the event brings everyone together from all over the world. Bartenders are great about sharing information and experiences so we know that if they come here and enjoy themselves and learn something, it will only encourage more people to come.”

What are the things you enjoy most about Tales?

“ One is seeing old friends and meeting new people and see people enjoy TOTC for the 1st time. The second is giving out the money that we raise through the event. First and foremost, we’ve always been an educational and not a profit event and the funds we raise go towards the various scholarship programs that we have. The biggest one is our apprentice scholarship program; our apprentices apply for funds in order to go and study a subject area and we just ask that the apprentices share the information willingly with the Tales community. So this year we have a sensory analysis seminar by a guy who’s been working on studying the language of spirits thanks to our funding.”

What about your challenges?

“ Well I’m very protective of the event in order to maintain its authenticity and spirit. We don’t work with everybody and we’re constantly working against the carpetbaggers who try and feed off the success of the industry without contributing anything back. We want to support our participants as much as possible and we expect support back. Otherwise we’re facing the same challenges as any other business in growth such maintaining our inventory etc. but more than anything, we’re trying to grow in other ways. At this point we’re really happy with the size of the event – we’re not aiming to move into the SuperDome – so I will continue to grow the brand in different ways. For the past two years we’ve done small events in cities like Vancouver and we’re announcing the next city soon, demonstrating that we’re a global brand as well.”

That sounds like a lot of work. What do you do in your spare time?

“I don’t have a lot of spare time and I don’t relax well! I’m constantly doing something. I might go and visit my husband on his boat in Dallas but I genuinely love what I do and I love working so I’m happy to give up my spare time. I also have a new, 1-year old puppy that I have about 500 pictures of. She even has a cocktail named after her in one of the local bars here. I just gave up on balance a while ago – everything’s interconnected with me”

Do you have plans to take the event international?

“We already started with Tales on Tour Vancouver and it is in our plan to expand outside the US”

Do you find a lot of Europeans attending the event?

“Yes it’s interesting. We’ve always had a contingent from London and a contingent from Australia and New Zealand and we’ll look at those numbers every year. This year we have a large presence from Russia and even from India and the United Arab Emirates. If you’re a professional mixologist then we consider this a ‘must-attend’. And I’m always telling my team that we have to deliver and it’s the same for the presenters of our seminars. If you just flew 24 hours and paid $45 dollars and you’re giving up 90 minutes of your time then we better make sure we come up with something special. So we expect people to bring their A game.

So Tales must keep you busy for 6 or 7 months of the year?

“ It’s actually a full time job and we have four full-time members of staff. As soon as we finish this we’ll unload, decompress and people will have some time off. Then once we get to September we’ll start reading all of our surveys, start analyzing the feedback, we’ll be working on our economic impact report with the university and we’ll start putting together our recap for this year’s event and then start the process for next year. It’s pretty amazing how our team grows for the event – we had 58 paid staff this week, 120 volunteers, 70 cocktail apprentices and a whole juicing team. Once you’ve organized everyone and plus everything else, there’s not much time for anything else!”

The Alhambra, the jewel of Andalusia, stands proudly overlooking the town of Granada. Constructed in the mid 14th century…

Now shut the guidebook and show me the snacks. Call me a heathen but the thing that made an impression on me wasn’t the architecture, mind-bending though it is, but how well you can drink in this city. When it comes to growing vines, southeast Spain is a bit of a desert (literally). But Granada is an oasis for wine lovers – if you know where to go.

Take a walk down Calle Navas. It’s the street some guidebooks dismiss; a 250m stretch of touristy tapas bars churning out overpriced paella and burgers. But there are some hidden gems to be discovered; a stylish restaurant, a rowdy tapas joint, a smart wine shop, an extraordinary deli and a wine bar that of itself would make the trip worthwhile.

In the far corner of Plaza del Carmen, a quiet municipal square in the centre of town, you’ll see the start of the narrow street. Before you enter, on the corner to the right you’ll see the ornate windows of Puerta del Carmen – it’s one of the best restaurants in Granada, and it certainly looks the part. That’s why all the tables are reserved. But hang around and you’ll get a seat at the snaking bar. It’s worth the wait; they have a tempting wine list, mostly top-end Spanish reds and a good range of sherries by the glass. If you deserve a special bottle, and you’re in the mood for some relaxed luxury, this is the place to go.

Within a few minutes of walking down Calle Navas, you’ll see laughing, chattering groups spilling out of Los Diamantes. The plastic sign above the roller-shutter door might not bode well, but don’t miss it. Even if it’s heaving with people, squeeze yourself in. It’s a young, raucous tapas joint; a long bar with a few pieces of flimsy metal furniture sat amongst screwed-up napkins and paper plates that are strewn all over the floor. The seafood is as fresh as anywhere else in town, and the bottle of Barbadillo Solear Manzanilla behind the counter never gets put down. It just flows into the line of empty glasses, open-mouthed like baby birds, until it lands, empty, in the overflowing bin – and they pull the cork on the next one. For the remaining people out there who still don’t get sherry, this place is sure to convert you.

Refreshed, it’s time to escape the clatter and pop into La Carte des Vins over the road for a quiet browse. The name of this long, thin shop might be French, but the wines are Spanish and the English-speaking owner will be happy to guide you. It’s a concise range, but it’s expertly chosen, from traditional Riojas to oaky fruit grenades from Jumilla and Campo de Borja. Buying older bottles from shops in hot countries can be a gamble, but the Bodegas Áster Reserva 2001 from Ribera del Duero we picked up was wonderful.

When it’s time for dinner, ignore the identikit tapas restaurants with their dog-eared, laminated menus on the main strip and walk to the end of Calle Navas, until you get to La Oliva. A small delicatessen by day, its dark wooden shelves are crammed with delicious local specialities. In the evenings the owner, Francisco, makes room for a few tables and chairs, enough for ten people. He turned away a further 20 the night we were there – make sure you book. And arrive hungry.

There’s no menu. Francisco just brings you food, occasionally paired with glasses of local wines: olives, hams, cheeses; small cooked dishes of vegetables, fish, chicken, pork; a few sweet things to finish. It’s worth asking to see his kitchen: it consists of a single electric hob and a chopping board in the storeroom. It’s all he needs, as the ingredients speak for themselves. A small plate of salt cod, orange, radish and black olive needs nothing but a glug of fruity olive oil, a grind of salt and a spark of paprika and it’s ready to eat. If he gets inspired, he’ll phone a mate, jump on his bicycle, and return ten minutes later with more goodies. For us, it was some bright, fruity sorbets from his friend down the road. He describes himself as a ‘simple shopkeeper’ but he is hugely knowledgeable and a friendly, welcoming host.

Opposite La Oliva is a wine bar called La Tana. The cool, airy room is lined with stools along the walls, and behind the faded wooden bar is a solid wall of stacked bottles and a sprawling display of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Order a drink and you’ll receive a ‘tapita’ – a mini tapas that comes free with every drink, a civilised custom unique to this part of Spain. There’s no choice, you’ll just get a plate of whatever is at hand. We ordered a half bottle of the rich and toasty Bayanus Cava Reserva 2007 and a plate of tapas to share, and waited for our tapita.

Both plates arrived at the same time, and so generous is the tapita at La Tana that it was hard to tell it from the tapas. But with so many excellent wines to choose from, a firm foundation was just what was needed. We chose another bottle of Ribera, a Bodegas Aalto PS 2005 this time, and greedily piled our way through. The owner Jesús is a relaxed presence behind the bar and his wine list is extensive, covering even the smallest, most obscure regions of Spain. The prices at the bar are about the same as you would see in a shop back home, sometimes even less, so you can treat yourself without breaking the bank.

All of these gems on just one street. With only one of these places in our guidebook, it makes you wonder what else there is in Granada to discover. And, yes, eventually I did take an interest in the Alhambra. It’s the name of the local lager…

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In 1964, the U.S. Congress officially recognized Bourbon, made with America’s indigenous corn, as “a distinctive product of the U.S.A.” With a simple pen stroke, the august body elevated the alter ego of booze, firewater, moonshine, hooch, and sauce into something grand, like Professor Higgins’ proper language transforming a flower girl into a lady.

Colonists were making whiskey long before the Revolutionary War in 1776, or the Founding Fathers subsequently creating the United States of America. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton both initiated taxes and tariffs on whiskey to raise money to bolster the new nation’s economy and to help pay back war debt. Enactment of the legislation led to the Whiskey Rebellion, ultimately resulting in the taxes and tariffs being upheld, and Washington’s authority being firmly established. After leaving office, Washington became the new country’s largest distiller; his distillery measured 75 x 30 feet and produced about 11,000 gallons of whisky per year.

Like the country itself, American whiskey has evolved from being rough and untamed to becoming sophisticated and complex. Whisky production slowly migrated from the Mid-Atlantic States southward to Kentucky and Tennessee, taking advantage of the local limestone-rich water and abundant farmland on which to grow premium corn. American whiskey’s evolution was more than geographic. Over the years, techniques that today seem commonplace, were continually tried and evaluated, with successful ideas incorporated into the practices of aging, wood management, and bottling. Interestingly, Washington’s whiskey was never bottled; it was sold and shipped in wooden barrels. For the purposes of this article, Bourbon is what we mean when discussing American whiskey.

What is the difference between “whiskey”, “whisky”, “Bourbon” and “Scotch”?

“Whiskey” is the generic term for a distilled spirit made from grain. The grains are usually corn, wheat, rye, or barley. Depending on which grain is used, and in what country the whiskey is distilled and aged, it has different names and spellings. For America’s whiskey, the principal grain used is corn (at least 51%, by law, but usually between 70% to 90%), and the whiskies have various names, including Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey. Bourbon got its name originally from the county in Kentucky in which it was first made. Therefore, all Bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is Bourbon. For Scotch, the grain is barley, and the liquid must be distilled and aged in Scotland. Again, all Scotch is whiskey, but not all whiskey is Scotch. Derivation of the spelling is clouded in conjecture and there are no hard rules. For instance, a major American Bourbon brand spells its whiskey without the e in deference to the owners’ Scottish heritage.

What is charring and how does it fit into making Bourbon?

Charring is the process of using a flame to burn the inside of new American white oak casks before they are filled. Charring leaves a layer of charcoal (the char) through which the liquid “breathes” during expansion and contraction, throughout the hot and cold Kentucky seasons as it ages. The interaction with the char mellows the whiskey and imparts the distinctive color and flavor of Bourbon.

What is the difference between Kentucky Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey?

This gets a bit tricky. Tennessee whiskey is generally described as Bourbon that has been charcoal filtered, using maple charcoal, described as the Lincoln County Process. The federally-recognized definition of Tennessee whiskey used in the North American Free Trade Agreement only states that Tennessee whiskey is “a straight Bourbon whiskey … produced only in the State of Tennessee”. It is a misconception that all Tennessee whiskey must undergo filtration through maple charcoal. While the majority of Tennessee distilleries use it, at least one does not.

How is Bourbon made?

Modern whiskey-making is a far cry from George Washington’s day, but essentially similar. The major steps are:

Milling: corn, malted barley, rye and wheat are selected and ground into grist, according to each distillery’s specifications (called the mashbill).
Mashing: grist is cooked in several baths of hot water to create a sweet mash.
Fermenting: yeast is added to the cooked mash, which naturally converts sugars into alcohol. This process creates a “distiller’s beer” at about 7% alcohol.
Distillation: the beer is heated to the point where alcohol vapors rise to the top of the still, where they are condensed and redistilled in a container called a thumper, or doubler. After this process, the purified spirit is at about 70% alcohol, and called “white dog”.
Gauging and Barreling: Kentucky limestone water is added to the spirit to reduce the alcohol content to a standard 62.5%, then it is transferred into new, charred oak barrels.
Maturation: Casks are placed in aging warehouses called rickhouses. By law, the spirit must age a minimum of two years. Some Bourbons are aged as many as 20 or more years.

What about craft distilleries?

The spirit of America is alive and well, especially when it comes to the potent potable type of spirit. According to Bill Owen, President of the American Distilling Institute, there about 350 licensed distilleries in the US, with at least 50 craft distilleries currently under construction. These distilleries make everything from American whiskey to rum, gin and vodka. Craft distilleries are to be found in almost every state of the union, including Hawaii and Alaska. As with their Scottish and Irish cousins, American distillers must conform to rigid specifications for their respective spirits. Much innovation on both sides of the Atlantic is concentrated on the wood and its effects on the final product. Examples include inserting seared French oak staves into casks of finished Bourbon for further aging, and extracting the alcohol soaked up by the wood and adding it to an existing, finished product. Some distilleries are drying local barley with aromatic apple and cherry wood smoke, and others are using organic grains, including spelt, for their mashbill. Making blended whiskies by adding older and younger whiskies from the same distillery together is also gaining momentum.

The evolution of American whiskey has endured its own rebellion, boom and bust economic times, the country’s ill-fated “Noble Experiment”, aka Prohibition, and competition from the importation and popularity of Irish, Canadian, and Scotch whiskies. Recently, the Distilled Spirits Council announced that Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey sales are #1 in the U.S. within the whiskey category – some 20 million cases. George Washington, working in his 2250 square foot distillery, producing 11,000 gallons of American whiskey would feel even more patriotic and proud.

Penfolds has been long been considered a worthy investment with iconic wines such as Grange – a wonderful expression of the synergy between the Shiraz grape and the terroir of South Australia. Recent vintages of Grange start at approximately $2600 dollars for 6 bottles and older bottles of Grange have been sold at auction for over $50,000.

The newest bankable Penfolds cuvee is the Block 42 Kalimma Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004. The 10 acre block of vines was planted a mere 30 years after the 1855 Bordeaux classifications, making it some of the oldest plantings of continuously-produced Cabernet Sauvignon in the world. As a celebration of the wine’s provenance and in the spirit of innovation, Penfolds has released the wine in limited-edition format known as ‘Ampoule’. The ‘ampoule’ of wine is encased in a structure of glass, which has been hand-blown by international artist, Nick Mount. The structure is essentially a plumb-bob or ‘plummet’ – a weight that is suspended and is used as a vertical reference line. The plumb-bob is suspended in a cabinet made of ‘Jarrah’ wood – the aboriginal term for Eucalyptus, and is designed by furniture craftsman Andrew Bartlett.

A painstaking amount of craftsmanship and skill has been invested in producing only 12 of these vessels and whilst the artistic presentation is impressive, the real star here is the liquid. The fruit produced from Block 42 is high in quality and limited yields mean that wine is rarely released from this single vineyard. With vines dating back to pre-Phylloxera 19th century, Block 42 is investment not only in an exceptional wine, but also in Australia’s winemaking heritage.

RRP: $177,600.00

*Price may vary in different markets around the world.

TONIQUE’s top travel tips for Washington State’s wine country, courtesy of Lance Mayhew

Walla Walla Washington isn’t a wine destination for everyone. While the Napa and Sonoma valleys are a short drive from the San Francisco bay area and Oregon’s wine country is a quick jaunt from Portland, there really is no quick way to get to Walla Walla. Most visitors to the area come from the two closest cities; Seattle and Portland, both at least four hours away.

This isolation in the rolling wheat fields of eastern Washington’s palouse means that Walla Walla doesn’t have wineries that are recreations of Persian king’s palaces or filled with memorabilia from celebrity owners. Instead, this bucolic little college town is arguably the most authentic wine region in America; one that focuses solely on the quality of its wines rather than slick marketing or tourism. Even better, Walla Walla is one of the few places in the world without phylloxera, so the vines here are on their original rootstocks, adding to the authenticity of the wines. Walla Walla itself sits within the small Walla Walla AVA (American Viticultural Area -1,600 acres of grapevines currently), and is surrounded by the much larger, yet still highly respected Columbia Valley AVA. Most vintners use fruit from both areas, as available vineyard land is at a premium in the Walla Walla AVA.

Additionally, while Walla Walla is most known for Cabernet and Merlot, wineries are experimenting with a variety of grapes, both red and white and there is considerable debate as to which varietals Walla Walla will eventually be most famous for. Visiting Walla Walla is an eye opening experience, with a classic American Main Street for shopping, excellent food & restaurants and friendly locals happy to share tips or give directions. If you want to discover this hidden gem of America’s wine regions here is a short guide to some of the areas best hotels, restaurants and wineries;

Stay

While Walla Walla doesn’t have the lodging options that Napa or Sonoma offer, the Marcus Whitman hotel is the premier lodging destination in the area. Centrally located in downtown Walla Walla, the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel is mere steps from downtown tasting rooms, shopping and restaurants.

Abeja, the award winning winery, also features a small inn on the property, four miles east of the city. Set in a turn-of-the-century farmhouse nestled among 35 acres of gardens creeks and vineyards, the Inn at Abeja offers seven unique and romantic options for those looking to make their visit something special.

Essential Wineries

Woodward Canyon is one of the earliest wineries in the Walla Walla AVA, dating to the early 1980′s. With a focus on sustainable wine making practices and known particularly for their acclaimed Artist’s Series Cabernet, Woodward Canyon is an essential stop on any wine itinerary. In addition to their Cabernet, be sure to taste their estate Sauvignon Blanc. With racy acidity and a balance between minerality and green fruit notes, this is a wine not to be missed.

L’Ecole No. 41, housed in a restored former schoolhouse next door to Woodward Canyon, is another essential Walla Walla winery. L’Ecole makes two marques, their white label wines that showcase Walla Walla AVA fruit and black label, which features fruit from the much larger Columbia Valley AVA that surrounds the Walla Walla region. A visit to L’Ecole allows tasters to compare and contrast the two areas wines. L’Ecole offers some of the classic Walla Walla fruit characteristics in its wines, making it a good benchmark for comparison to other wineries.

Northstar winery is almost exclusively focused on Merlot. Beer brewer turned winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld produces big, complex Merlot wines with notes of cocoa, raspberries and black pepper, making these lush wines a perfect complement to food as well as enjoyable on their own.
Spring Valley Vineyard, located north of the city of Walla Walla features a downtown tasting room. Using only estate fruit from their vineyard carved out of hundreds of acres of the family’s wheat farm, Spring Valley produces wines that are as good as any new world wines made. While all the Spring Valley wines have won numerous awards and high acclaim, my personal favorite is the Katherine Corkrum. Named after the family matriarch, this 100% Cabernet Franc has notes of strawberry, licorice and tobacco along with good structure and a long finish, making this the star among stars of winemaker Serge Laville’s lineup.

Located just down the road from Northstar winery, Va Piano is best known for its hearty Cabernet Sauvignon and silky Syrah wines. Owner and winemaker Justin Wylie has built a Tuscan inspired winery and tasting room on the 20 acres of vineyards. With a focus on red varietals, Va Piano is just beginning to be discovered by wine enthusiasts but this is perhaps the most exciting winery to watch in the next ten years. The wines of Va Piano are excellent and keep improving with each vintage. Make sure to pick up some of the excellent and affordably priced art from Fr. Bruno Segatta, whose art adorns each label of Va Piano’s Bruno’s Blend release.

Eat

Whitehouse-Crawford is a culinary revelation for such a small town. With cuisine on par with the best restaurants in Seattle, New York or San Francisco, and a wine list of top Washington state producers to match, no visit to Walla Walla is complete without dining at Whitehouse-Crawford. Do not miss this restaurant.

The Marc Restaurant inside the Marcus Whitman Hotel is a favorite among local winemakers. Try the chef’s table where chef Antonio Campolio and the Marc’s sommelier work in tandem to create a unique culinary experience featuring the best of Walla Walla’s bounty of local meats and produce. An extensive wine list and creative cocktails also enhance the experience here.

JimGermanBar located in nearby Waitsburg is the best cocktail bar in Washington state outside of Seattle. Etruscan snacks (think tapas), inventive cocktails and a warm and friendly staff make this unassuming spot a perfect diversion from a day of wine tasting. After visiting, drive over to nearby Monteillet Fromagerie to pick up world-class artisan goat cheeses from the charming owners Pierre-Louis and Joan Monteillet.

If you were looking for a metaphor to describe the Sicilian wine industry, you could do worse than Etna. It, too, has its roots in history – the Greeks and the Romans both rated the vino produced here – but is in its infancy as far as fine wine is concerned. Sicily has a couple of “historic” wine styles – the fortified wines of Marsala and the sweet Muscats from Pantelleria – but that’s about it.

Until the 1980s, Sicily was dismissed, even in Italy, as a faucet pouring a never-ending stream of cheap plonk into the European wine lake. The wines, dubbed “bianco carta” (white paper) because of their lack of personality were some of the least distinguished in Europe: thin, over-cropped brews made from dull grapes like Trebbiano and Catarratto.

To a certain extent that’s still true. Sicily is the largest wine region in Italy and still churns out a lot of highly forgettable wines, but that’s only part of the story. In the last 30 years, a handful of winemakers have been on a mission to change the island’s image. It’s no exaggeration to say that, almost from nowhere, Sicily has become one of the most exciting wine regions in the world.

The potential was always there, to be honest. Sicilians knew how to grow good grapes when they had to. It’s just that there wasn’t much incentive to do so if the price of the resulting wines didn’t make the effort worthwhile. In Sicily, there are always other things to do: go to the beach, eat well, or just sit in the sun.

The climate, or rather climates, is well suited to grapes. It’s a remarkable (and little known) fact that the harvest in Sicily last for up to three months, beginning in Trapani region on the west coast and ending on Etna in the north-east. As a result, Sicily has been described as Italy’s New World, a place where almost every grape feels at home. The place can do passable counterfeits of almost every wine style.

“There’s nothing like standing on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily to make you feel mortal”

The problem with growing a bit of everything, from Pinot Grigio to Viognier, Merlot to Syrah, is that it has obscured the quality of Sicily’s indigenous grapes, which can be truly wonderful. There are a number of these, but I’d recommend you look out for five of them: Nero d’Avola, Nerello Mascalese and Frappato among the reds and Grillo and Caricante among the whites.

They are very different in character. Nero d’Avola makes structured, deeply coloured reds and is grown all over the island. Nerello Mascalese is paler, but with a tannic kick, like Nebbiolo, the grape of Barolo, and is pretty much confined to Mount Etna, as is Caricante, a source of minerally, stony whites. Frappato is more like Gamay, the grape of Beaujolais, and is mostly produced in Vittoria, where it is used with Nero d’Avola in the blend for Sicily’s top red wine, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, while Grillo (used to make fortified Marsala in the west of Sicily) also turns its hand to salty, dry whites.

Sicily has a lot of DOCs (Italian appellations), but most of them aren’t worth remembering. Aside from Etna, Marsala, Pantelleria and Cerasuolo di Vittoria (the island’s only Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita), they are little known, even in Sicily. Better to look out for wines labeled as IGT Sicilia (which allows producers greater freedom) or for the new catch-all DOC Sicilia, which will be introduced for the 2012 vintage.

What really matters here – as in Burgundy – is not the appellation, but the producer. The ones that I’d recommend, in alphabetical order, are Abbazia Sant’Anastasia, Benanti, Ceuso, COS, Corvo (Duca di Salaparuta), Cottanera, Cusumano, De Bartoli, Donnafugata, Feudo Montoni, Firriato, Florio, Frank Cornelissen, Gulfi, Il Cantante, Morgante, Occhipinti, Palari, Passopisciaro, Planeta, Sangue d’Oro, Regaleali, Tenuta di Fessina and Valle dell’Acate.

“The most exciting thing about Sicily’s wine revolution is that it has barely begun. In the space of 30 years, the island has joined the list of the best wine regions in the south of Italy, but there is so much more to come”

The best way to taste Sicilian wines – and this applies to most wine regions, but especially one as varied as this – is to visit the place. If you’re driving around, which is preferable to taking the train, allow plenty of time as Sicily has a lot of poor, bumpy roads. The major wine areas are situated all over the island, from Etna and Syracuse in the east to Trapani and Marsala in the west and Agrigento and Ragusa in the south, so it will take you a week to visit all of them.

The journey is worth the effort. Sicily is a place of remarkable natural beauty: forests, beaches, parks, golden wheat fields and, of course, Mount Etna. Avoid the cities of Palermo and Trapani and the place feels almost empty. The biggest island in the Mediterranean is home to 5m Sicilians, but that leaves a lot of space for visitors. And for fans of antiquity and architecture, Sicily has some of the best-preserved churches, castles and Greek and Roman ruins in Europe.

Sicily’s food is another draw. Over the centuries, it has been influenced by a remarkable range of cultures, including Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, German and Spanish. That heady cuvee is reflected in the quality, abundance and variety of Sicily’s cuisine. It includes such Mediterranean staples as wheat, olive oil, tomatoes, figs and fish, but has a flavour and a range of ingredients that are all its own. Don’t’ miss out, in particular, on the desserts.

The most exciting thing about Sicily’s wine revolution is that it has barely begun. In the space of 30 years, the island has joined the list of the best wine regions in the south of Italy, but there is so much more to come. Like Mount Etna, it’s a work in progress, shifting by the year and still remarkably young.

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Was this growing demand for Scotch predictable? For an insider’s view, we asked Diageo Head of Whisky Outreach, Dr. Nicholas Morgan. “In over twenty years in the industry,” he says, “I had never imagined that I would see the Scotch whisky business in such a confident state.”

That confidence is not just in blended Scotch although, led by brands such as Johnnie Walker, Chivas Regal and Buchanan’s, blends remain the dominant driver of demand worldwide. Malt whisky too is going from strength to strength in its own right. A bewildering array of new releases, an increasing number of which do not carry an age statement, testifies to the strength in depth of whisky here and now.

Yet Scotch whisky has never been just about the here and now. It has always required distillery owners to gaze into a crystal ball as they try to predict demand five, ten or even twelve years on, and make plans accordingly. It has always, too, been a market for those with the prudence to prepare for a rainy day, of which it has seen its share.

So much for those rainy days. Apparently sure of a sunny outlook, the largest player in spirits, Diageo, has just announced a £1 billion investment in its Scotch malt whisky portfolio over the next eight to ten years. This is the largest single investment ever made in Scotch. Quite a bet, when you consider that it’ll likely be three years before any new distillery announced today produces, and another five before its spirit is considered fit for release.

That £1 billion headline figure embraces a new distillery most likely to be situated on Speyside that will produce another 10 million litres annually. It also includes investments across Diageo’s existing portfolio of 28 distilleries that will yield a further 20 million litres each year. Add to that the pre-planning of a further new 10 million litre distillery and the financing of the maturation of all this enhanced stock, and you have a statement of the kind of confidence only seen before in whisky’s boom years – the 1890s and the 1960s.

Boom, of course, often leads to bust. All this, some may think, should lead us to heed the lessons of the last Diamond Jubilee. Queen Victoria’s celebrations in June 1897 saw her Empire at its zenith. Whisky sales were buoyant and that year alone saw new malt whisky distilleries founded or opened at Dalwhinnie, Coleburn, Speyburn, Tomatin, Hillside/Glenesk, Glen Moray, Glentauchers, Imperial and Tamdhu.

Pride came before a fall – un-coordinated investment in new production during the 1890s caused a predictable glut in stocks at the turn of the new century, and when one merchant guilty of particular extravagance and excess collapsed, the effects were felt throughout the interlinked industry. It’s not always bad: the similar downturn in the developed world’s demand for whisky during the ‘70s and ‘80s has unwittingly fuelled a series of vanishing and increasingly valued special releases over the last 20 years. Sukhinder Singh has built his web business The Whisky Exchange into a leader in such premium spirit sales. He says, ‘Malt whisky is the most respected spirit in the world; once discovered there is no turning back. I have seen strong sales growth in malts since I started in the business 26 years ago.”

Are we heading for hubris again? Let’s fast forward a hundred and fifteen years from Queen Victoria’s triumphal parade to another June day, in 2012. What justifies this latest post-Diamond Jubilee investment in whisky when its predecessors proved so dangerous? In a single phrase, ‘new markets’. Early global whisky sales were built across the British Empire but whisky drinking did not then become ingrained in local cultures. Scotch was a drink for the British, and in time for Europeans and Americans too.

Today, the world has a different taste. The emergence of a middle class consumer in a number of countries creates the conditions for change. Diageo’s huge investment, says Morgan, “is driven by the relentless growth of economies in Latin America and Asia in particular, and is a huge boost for Scotch whisky and a huge boost for Scotland.”

Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil are now the engines of sustained growth for Scotch. Value sales growth of almost 50% per annum in Brazil tells its own story. Meanwhile, traditional markets in Europe and the USA provide the stable, solid foundations on which to build. It’s the wider distribution of affluence in these emerging markets that has both fuelled demand for symbols of status and pleasure and provided the wealth to enjoy them.

As observers attest, there is also great potential elsewhere. Shanghai is buoyant, but in China as a whole, there is as yet no great whisky culture. India is the largest whisky market in the world, but locally produced whisky dominates due to prohibitive duties on imported spirits. There is, though, a deep appreciation of Scotch whisky dating back to the days of the Empire. Once the gates of trade are opened, India will be huge.

Investing in Scotch whisky is still a game for those of steady nerve and deep pockets, just as it was in the 1890s. But there’s a big difference. Then, firms were universally smaller and were often unable to find the capital to ride out storms, or to invest in future expansion. Today’s global giants have no such barriers. The future belongs to those with the resources to face it confidently. To those who have, it shall be given.

A finger of rhum, a squeeze of lime, just a dash of cane syrup and “glace si vous plait”, a cube or two of ice to open it up. Swizzle briefly with a bois lele and drink. Traditionalists eschew the ice, but I’m all for modern pleasures. One Ti punch became two, which became three and a disparate group of exhausted journalists quickly became friends and drinking companions. A week of visiting and exploring the distilleries on this French island in the Caribbean left me with a deep appreciation for the A.O.C. rhums of Martinique, and an affection for Ti Punch bordering on addiction. And the bois lele? While these natural swizzle sticks can be found all over the island, their natural habitat seems to be in bars and restaurants. During my visit, despite the fact that I was assured by locals constantly that the bois lele plant does indeed grow on the island, not one native could take me to a tree, nor could I find one person who had actually ever seen a bois lele themselves. Perhaps I am just unlucky (I asked dozens of people) or perhaps I’ve uncovered Martinique’s version of the unicorn. Whatever the case, the real treasure of Martinique is the rhum agricole.

True connoisseurs of the finer libations in life understand that within whatever drink category they may be passionate about, some areas or styles simply stand above the rest. For brandy drinkers, the French regions of Cognac and Armagnac are revered. Among the whisky set, no one can beat the Scots for breadth, depth and complexity in a spirit. With the rum crowd, opinions on good rum can vary widely, but the common denominator that will excite any rum drinker are the words rhum agricole. Made in the French, and formerly French portions of the Caribbean (Martinque, Guadaloupe, and Haiti come to mind), Rhum agricole differs from rum industriel in that rhum agricole is made with freshly pressed sugar cane juice, while rum industriel is made from molasses, a byproduct of the sugar making process. Only the island of Martinique, however, has the prestigious A.O.C. designation (Appellation d’Origine Controlee). Rhum agricole differs in flavor from other rum as it retains more of the actual flavor of the sugar cane itself, with dry, grassy, and herbal notes, and aged rhums can compare favorably with the finest cognacs in the world.

An A.O.C. is a “controlled designation of origin”, meaning simply that the French government is recognizing a particular area of France’s agricultural products, be it wine, cheeses, spirits or even lentils as something unique and high quality. Martinique, being one of France’s 101 departments (equivalent to a U.S. State), is the only overseas area in France to be awarded an A.O.C. designation for any product, and Martinique rhum agricole has the only appellation for rum in the world. In 1996, Martinique’s rhums were granted the “AOC Martinique”, which guarantees that Martiniquan rhums that meet strict quality and production standards can bear the name “Rhum Agricole de Martinique”. A.O.C. standards control everything from the production grounds to the sugarcane fields (rhum can only be produced during a short season, when the cane is at its ripest) to the cane variety (twelve different types of sugar cane are allowed, each with a unique flavor profile) to juice extraction (which must occur within the first 24 hours after harvest), fermentation, distillation (a single distillation in a copper creole column still) and storage and aging. Exploring the world of AOC Martinique rhum agricole doesn’t need to be as hard as a 17 hour trip.

Most of these rhums are available in in major markets, and a little digging and the help of a passionate bartender can help you explore this world-class spirit. Buy a few limes, a bottle of cane syrup and a few ice cubes and pour some Ti punches on a lazy summer day or break out your best snifters and enjoy the complexity and depth of Martinique’s rhum vieux agricole. And if you do visit the island, keep an eye out for the bois lele tree. It’s apparently out there somewhere, unknown to most residents of the island. Perhaps on my next trip back to Martinique, I’ll lead a bois lele expedition after a few Ti punches. Of course, too many Ti punches and I’ll find myself firmly glued to my chair, whiling away yet another warm Caribbean day entranced with the caress of rhum agricole.

Martinique’s rhum agricoles at a glance:

• Rhum Agricole AOC Martinque Blanc (White Agricultural Rhum) is aged for three months before bottling to allow the distillate’s flavors to round out. Before bottling, it is cut with spring water to bring the rhum to the desired strength (40-62% abv). Recommendations: Neisson blanc and Rhum Clement blanc, offering dry rhums with citrus and grassy tones.
• Rhum Agricole AOC Martinique Eleve Sous Bois (Amber Agricultural Rhum) is aged for at least twelve months in oak barrels. Due to heat, evaporation can be significant (more than 15% annually in some locations) so these rhums can develop depth and complexity in a shorter amount of time than spirits aged in colder climates. Recommendations: La Favorite Eleve Sous Bois, Rhum, JM Eleve Sous Bois and Niesson Eleve Sous Bois.
• Rhum Vieux Agricole AOC Martinique (Aged Agricultural Rhum) must spend at least three years in an oak barrel for a VO designation, 4 years for VSOP, 6 for XO and a minimum of 6 for a vintage dated rhum. Recommendations: Rhum JM vintage 2001, La Favorite Vieux and Habitation Saint Etienne Tres Vieux are stunning examples of how rich, complex and captivating these spirits can be.

Make Your Own

The Ti-Punch

1 ½ or so Rhum Agricole (its really to taste)

1/8 oz (1 bar spoon) Sirop de Canne or Demerara Sugar

A spherical lime disk (cut from the side of a lime to have about 1/2 peel & 1/2 pulp)
The Method: Take a lime and gently roll it on the table to soften the lime and bring the oils to the surface. Cut the lime in 4 spherical lime disks and discard the core. In a rocks or old-fashioned glass, squeeze the lime disk and pour a heaping bar spoon of Sirop de Canne over the squeezed lime. Add Rhum Agricole and use a bois lele or a bar spoon to stir and gently muddle the lime to blend the aromatic oils from the peel until the Sirop de Canne is well integrated. One ice cube, while not traditional, opens this drink up dramatically

Photography by Lance Mayhew

What is the difference between “Scotch”, “whiskey”, and “whisky”?

“Whiskey” is a generic term for a distilled spirit made from grain. These grains are usually corn, wheat, rye, or barley. Depending on which grain is used, and in what country the whiskey is distilled and aged, it has different names and spellings. Scotch whisky can be made from any type of cereal. Scotch single malts are made from malted barley, Scotch grain whiskies are made from either wheat or corn, to which some malted barley (less than 10%) is added. Scotch whiskies must be distilled and aged in Scotland, and the spelling (protected by law) is without the ‘e’, as it is in other countries such as Japan and Canada. Interestingly, Maker’s Mark American whisky is spelled without the ‘e’ in deference to the owners’ Scottish heritage!

Why is it called single malt?

“Single” means the liquid in the bottle is the product of a single distillery. Every drop came from just one distillery – the one listed on the label. Single malt is one of the two main classifications of Scotch. If a Scotch whisky is not a single malt, it could be a ‘blended Scotch’, meaning a blend of single malts and one grain whisky or a ‘blended malt’, meaning a mix of single malts. In addition to these two main classifications, there are also single and blended grain Scotch whiskies.

What is malt?

Malt or ‘malting’ is the name given to the specific process that is used to trigger the conversion of starch into fermentable sugars. To do this, the barley must be ‘tricked’ into thinking that it is time to start growing so that it produces the enzymes necessary for conversion. Traditional malting methods dictated that barley be harvested, soaked in water for a few days, then drained and spread over a large floor to germinate. The germination process is stopped by the introduction of heat and the now ‘green’ malt is dried in a kiln. At this stage, the malt can be ‘peated’ by burning a peat fire underneath the perforated floor of the kiln. Not all malts are peated. In the early part of the 20^th century, the malting process would be done ‘in-house’ by distilleries; today, the bulk of distilleries use malt produced in large commercial ‘drum’ maltings.

What is peat, and how does it make some Scotch smoky?

Peat is an organic material, comprised of decomposed and compressed mosses, leaves, roots, and branches, found in marshy bogs. The peat is dug from the bogs and dried. Smokiness is determined by how much peat “reek” (smoke) is infused into the barley as it dries. Whether lightly smoked, heavily smoked, or not smoked at all, the barley is ground into grist, then goes on to other steps in the process of making the whisky.

Mashing

Once the malted grains are ready, they are ground down into rough flour known as ‘grist’ and blown into a vessel known as a mash tun. The grist is mixed with hot water – the vital element used to trigger the now-ready enzymes to convert the starches present into fermentable sugars. Distilleries tend to use water from their own sources – the names of which often add to their lore, with some of the most well-known being Glenlivet’s Josie’s Well, Glenfiddich’s Robbie Dhu, and Glenmorangie’s Tarlogie Springs. The mashing process is completed by drawing off the sugary liquid that comes from flushing hot water through the grist, known as wort. Distillers can manipulate their wort at this stage if they want to produce a spirit with a particularly malt-driven flavor.

Fermentation

Yeast is added to the wort and fermentation begins as the sugars are consumed by the yeast and converted into alcohol, in the space of 48 hours, giving a liquid of 7-10% abv called ‘wash’. Fermentation is key influencer on flavor and is related to the clarity of the wort and the duration of the ferment.

Distillation

Most Scotch malt whisky is double distilled. Distillation takes place in copper stills that can vary widely in shape, size and volume and play a vital role in determining the character of a spirit. In very simple terms, the longer the alcoholic vapour is in contact with walls of copper, the lighter the spirit will be. During the second distillation, the stillman will make his ‘cut’, separating the heads (the volatile part of the spirit that rises first) and the tails (the heavy, oily part that rises last), retaining the heart of the spirit. Each distillery will make the cut according to its own house style.

Where does Scotch get its color?

As the final part of the production process, the distilled spirit that will become Scotch whisky goes into the cask. At this point, it is completely clear. Colors from pale yellows, through rich ambers to deep golds develop over years, due to the interaction between the wood of the cask and the liquid. Traditionally, two types of wooden casks are used to age Scotch. American white oak (Quercus alba) casks, previously used to age American whiskies, make up the majority of the “barrel recipe”. Casks previously used to age sherry, made from European oak (Quercus robur), are the second component of the barrel recipe. Some single malts are aged only in American oak, and some only in European oak, but most single malts are comprised of liquid aged in both woods. Technically, a spirit can only be called Scotch whisky once it has spent three years maturing in cask.

Let the angels rejoice!

Maturation occurs over many years in a variety of warehouse configurations. The most traditional is called a dunnage warehouse, with earth floors, thick stone walls, and casks stacked no more than three high. During maturation, while the casks breathe in the local atmosphere, whisky vapors are lost by evaporation. This earthly loss is called “the angels’ share”.

Strange but true

There is actually more water in single malt whisky than there is alcohol. By law single malts must be bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV (alcohol by volume), leaving about 60% as water.

Why do so many Scotches have the word “glen” in their names?

A glen is a valley, usually associated with a river. Many distilleries were originally built in glens to take advantage of the water supply. Some well-known distilleries are located in the glen of the rivers Livet, Fiddich, and Deveron. Not all glens are associated with rivers. Glenmorangie, for instance, has two Gaelic roots: “glen of tranquility” and “glen of the big meadows”, and Glen Garioch’s Gaelic translation refers to “glen of the rough ground”, and is a rich barley growing region.

Rosé gets a bad rap. In some cases, deservedly so. There have been some true atrocities committed in the world of wine by producers of sub-standard rosé. Rosé is (in most cases) easy to make. In very basic terms, it is produced by leaving the juice of crushed red grapes in contact with their skins for just enough time so as to adopt the colour of the liquid. So what you get is a young, fresh wine that has taken on a small aromatic proportion of the grapes used to make it. In the best cases, this results in wines with wonderful notes of berry fruit (strawberry, raspberry, cassis) with just a hint of spice and acidity. In the worst cases, you get highly acidic, tasteless, flabby pink wines that can only be tolerated with a large amount of ice cubes added. Throw brands such as Mateus into the mix and it’s hardly surprising that most people relegate rosé wines to the ‘holiday drinking’ cupboard of their repertoire.

This is a shame as there are some fantastic rosé wines available and there’s no reason they can’t be enjoyed all year round. Some fuller-bodied rosés could be enjoyed well into autumn and the light, bone-dry styles could be served instead of white as an apéritif or with cold starters. France alone produces a variety of styles to suit everyone’s taste so we’ve made a list of some of our favourites (in no particular order) and we look at what makes them so special:

Bandol, Chateau Sainte Anne:  Bandol is famous for its wonderful inky red wines but the rosés are lovely too. This wine has a pink/coral colour and lots of fruit on the nose (strawberry, raspberry) combined with a bit of rose and a hint of anise. There’s more fruit on the palate with a touch of spice and excellent fruit/acidity balance. With vines so close to the sea, it’s possibly no surprise that this wine is perfect with sardines and red mullet. Would also be good with fresh anchovies.

Touraine, Le Rocher Des Violettes: This is a Loire valley rosé that is slightly richer in colour than others we are used to seeing in markets outside of France. Xavier Weisskopf is making some tremendous wines in Montlouis and his rosé doesn’t fall short of the mark. Berry fruit aromas, a crisp mineral palate and a lovely dry finish make this wine far too easy to drink. Another good match with stronger or oilier fish dishes, or with seafood if you’re cooking with chilli.

Côtes du Luberon, Bastide du Claux: Sylvain Morey is a great example of a winemaker being able to get the most out of his terroir. He manages to make a vin de pays chardonnay in the Lubéron that tastes almost like a Chassagne-Montrachet. Not surprising to hear then that this is Sylvain’s hometown – but given the difference in climate, soil type and exposure to the sun between the two regions, you have to be pretty gifted to make a wine with such incredible freshness and elegance. His rosé is just that – a lovely salmon colour with notes of rose, fennel on the nose and pomegranate and strawberry on the palate. All rounded off with a long, fresh finish. Perfect before dinner, very cold.

Vdp des Collines Rhodaniennes, ‘Syrah’, Christophe Bonnefond: If you’re a fan of Condrieu and Côte Rôtie wines, you might already be familiar with Christophe Bonnefond. He makes fantastic wines that are approachable at a young age and with great ageing potential as far as the reds are concerned. Christophe always produces great expression of terroir and has mastered the gentle use of oak. His rosé is a bit of a fruit bomb; the colour is fuschia and the nose is a hit of strawberries and cream. The creaminess comes from some time spent in barrel but the wood is very subtle on the palate. The combination of fruit and acidity makes this wine a great match for a variety of dishes: salad, chicken, oily fish – heck, you could even drink it with strawberries.

Tavel, Château d’Aquéria: Tavel is a rosé that has always been very popular in France but still remains relatively unknown outside of it. Very dark in colour (almost purple) and very fruity on the palate, it can take some getting used to. So what’s the deal? This rosé is so great that the French don’t want anyone else to know about it? Or is it unsellable to palates more attuned to the lighter, paler styles of Côtes de Provence? Well, it’s probably a bit of both, and Tavel has fallen out of fashion recently but Aquéria are making real quality wines. Full of fruit on the nose and palate, you can feel the heat of the sun and soil when you drink them. These wines can be matched with barbecue meats, Thai curries, tomato-based fish dishes and spicy harissa olives.

Subsequently, shaved ice has been added, creating the frozen Daiquiri and fruit may also be used, although purists will refuse anything other than the original recipe. The Daiquiri has had many celebrity followers; it was most famously adopted by Ernest Hemingway, who could reputedly put away more than a dozen frozen Daiquiris in one sitting. We would strongly recommend against this as standing is often not an option after more than three of four. We suggest quantity over quality and with this recipe specially prepared by Sanyi Bacsi, you’ll almost be able to make out those tall ships on the horizon as you sip on this most classic of Caribbean cocktails.

Classic Daiquiri

• 2 oz. dark Havana Club 7 years rum
• 1 whole fresh lime sliced
• 2 cubes of brown sugar
• Ice cubes

Tools: shaker, strainer

Glass: cocktail

Method: Shake ingredients and strain into a chilled glass.

Photography by Oliver Doran | www.photosolutions.me

The perfect martini is an elusive beast – search for it in some of the most self-regarding bars in town and you will be gravely disappointed by potions destabilised by the heavy-handed use of vermouth or swimming in melted ice. The making of a martini is a relatively simple affair, but the rules must be adhered to strictly or else dismay will engulf your brow like a coastal fret. The keynote is balance: the elements must be in proportion, otherwise the essence is lost. A wise man once opined that the first martini of the day should be akin to a cannonball whistling through the rigging. He was right.

First take a bottle of dry vermouth – my preference has always been for bone-dry Noilly Prat – and add a small measure to some ice cubes in a glass jar or cocktail shaker. Stir well with a long-handled spoon so that all the ice is coated and then strain off the vermouth and discard. Or retain if terminally mean. Strainers come in all varieties, but anything is acceptable that gets rid of the vermouth, except a used sock. To the vermouth-coated ice add vodka or gin in sufficient quantity to fill the number of glasses that will be consumed. Again, the choice of spirit is yours: I use Absolut for a vodka martini and would use Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray for a gin martini, if I liked gin, which I don’t. Stir the spirit well with the ice. Go ahead and shake it if you’re that kind of person, but not too hard. Incidentally, James Bond was wrong on this point as he was on many others. Finally, strain into a martini glass.

That might be the end of the story, but people have a habit of meddling with simple perfection. Some folk like an olive, others prefer a silverskin onion. I once heard a young lady request a cherry, but a veil must be drawn over that episode, lest distemper ensues. If pushed, I will accept a twist of lemon or, preferably, lime. This is a thin sliver of skin pared from the fruit and twisted to release its zesty oil. Whatever you do, don’t take the pith. After a brief period of silent adoration, the drink is now ready to be consumed in small sips, the stem of the glass held between thumb and forefinger to minimise the transference of unwanted warmth.

The only remaining question is what to do when the martini is finished. Conventional cocktail bar wisdom has it that one is never enough, while two is too many. Put in technical terms, this is balderdash. It all depends on what the rest of
the day has in store: if that be a meal in the company of maiden aunts, then stick to one; if it be an adventure in a hurly-burly of hunting uncles, a couple would not go amiss; if there’s twinkle in the air that does not involve aged relatives, then, what ho!

Illustration by Andrew Lyons

It’s summer, which in the UK usually doesn’t mean much, however a recent spate of brilliant sunshine has brought out the semi-clad masses in throngs inhabiting beer gardens, patios and green spaces everywhere. And what is the perfect beverage to accompany such summer time drinking? Cider. What else …

I’m not talking about the sickly sweet Lucozade-esque Magners or the type of cider consumed directly out of two litre bottles in public parks nationwide by underage teenagers and/or vagrants. Nor am I referring to the proudly brewed scrumpy ubiquitous to the West Country where one swig leaves you furry tongued and your face looser than a basset hound’s. No, what I mean to salivate over is the cider that comes in oversized elegant tall-necked glass bottles like Aspall, the self-proclaimed ‘best cider in the world’ and one that the Chevallier family has been brewing since 1725 in their Suffolk pile Aspall Hall, which is I guess why they feel they can call it ‘cyder’ and not ‘cider’. ‘Mere semantics!’ you might cry, but not so when Stella Artois have waded into the market this year (wife beaters everywhere rejoice) with their advertising campaign ‘C’est cidre, not cider’ confusing the matter even more. Cider, cyder, cidre? Meh! Tomato tomato.

And just to really taunt me as I sit watching the pink-shouldered people quaff their iced fermented apple drinks on a sunny day there is now a whole new scale to the cider spectrum. It would appear apples are not the only fruit; blush (involving a mixture of berries), elderflower (which even sounds good for you), pear (sounds nicer than it actually is) and strawberry and lime (probably a combo too far) – to name but a few. And like beer, it appears no country has the monopoly with Belgian, Swedish, Irish and British orchards all providing the wares for production of the most popular brands.

For purists who aren’t so concerned about squeezing in their five a day where possible I can recommend the Stowford Press, (having commandeered my husband’s glass in desperation) available on draft or in bottles in any decent drinking establishment or supermarket. Think the taste of English summer in a glass – the waft of freshly cut grass clippings, strawberry picking dressed in gingham, village fetes and asparagus and less the other stuff aforementioned, (you know, an exposure of flesh, inappropriate footwear and muffin tops everywhere). Sorry, I think I just ruined it.

The Annie Leibovitz series is limited to 1000 bottles, of which there are four different expressions. Each expression comes from a single cask that has in turn, been matured in either European or American oak, seasoned with sherry, in differing sizes varying from puncheon to hogshead. The bottle and print are presented in a bespoke box, stamped with the name of Annie Leibovitz and brand Macallan.

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man,” intones a voice theatrically, “by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” The quote is from Samuel Johnson and it kicks off The Story of English Inns, the first of 20 collected shorts released this month by the British Film Institute.

Alas, anyone who’s ever been to a British pub will tell you that they know this adage conveys only half the truth. For every charming hostelry with crackling log fire and horse brasses, there are ten places where the carpet is sticky, the toilets haven’t been cleaned since George Best’s heyday and at closing time the landlord thinks nothing of letting the hound of the Baskervilles off the leash.

If there were such a thing as the propaganda wing of the hospitality industry, these are the sort of films it would produce. Produced between the early 40s and early 80s, they’re patriotic in a woolly way and, typically, look at Britain from the English end of the telescope, the southern end to be specific. Class is everywhere, in a warm, paternalistic way. The working man is an honest son of toil in a flat cap, downing a pint of wallop, enjoying a game of dominoes and bantering away in an impenetrable accent. In the lounge bar a couple of hundred miles further south, cravat-wearing extras from the Battle of Britain drink halves of warm bitter, one hand holding the handle of the dimpled glass jug, the other thrust casually into the pocket of a pair of slacks. Meanwhile, behind the bar, “mine host” polishes the glasses, smiling benignly.

Women? There aren’t many. And the few we glimpse seem to be there with their husbands. These are the decades before Breezers and brollies, when lager was still always referred to as “continental” and you could smoke yourself senseless on cigarettes endorsed, in advertisements, by doctors.

In at least two of the shorts we get a quick history of the pub’s development – first as a roadside refuge run by monasteries for pilgrims, hence the large number of religious names (Three Kings, Cross Keys). Then as a billet for the retinue as monarchs made their royal tours of the country (hence all the Queen’s Heads, King’s Arms etc). Then as an overnight sanctuary and stabling depot for travellers and the mail coach (Travellers Rest, Coach & Horses). And so on.

Timeless yet always in flux, then, the pub’s one constant is that the stranger is always welcome and that the drink is ever humble and honest. Or so the propaganda department would have us believe.

What’s particularly interesting about this collection, apart from the portrait it paints of the populace living in harmony, fraternal bonhomie radiating from every face, is the inkling it gives of the future, the world we live in now.

In The Old Pheasant, from 1958, the landlord notes how the arrival of television has made big inroads into his takings. So he’s done the sensible thing and made his pub more attractive with film nights, during which he screens old classics. Since that time quiz nights, curry nights, karaoke and, most recently, tribute bands have extended the idea. TV’s response has been the humungous cinema-sized screen, now in almost every living room in the country. Consequently the British pub is now struggling to survive.

Another big change in recent decades has been the arrival of the gastropub, and that too is reflected here, in a short called The Friendly Inn, also from 1958, which briefly takes us to the Lugger Hotel in Portloe, Cornwall, where a pretty girl and her beau are seen tucking into local lobster and a glass of white wine out on a verandah while the sun does pretty things with the waves. The Lugger is still there, incidentally, and still selling local lobster.

Being a chronological assortment, women do eventually start to turn up, as does an embryonic version of the drinks universe we now inhabit. In All in Good Time, a 1964 film in colour starring a young Richard Briers, a newlywed in a charming old-school pub in Banbury tries to get a pineapple juice for his good lady wife. Pineapple? Juice? Briers grins toothily and says it again. S-L-O-W-L-Y.

This onslaught of endless good humour is broken only occasionally – by a pair of technical short films by the brewers Bass and Guinness – and most remarkably by the collection’s standout, A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield,

a 40-minute German documentary that trains an outsider’s gimlet eye on the working and leisure life of a city that still, in those days, made steel for the world.

Like most releases by the British Film Institute, this is a handsome set, the films have been cleaned up and are accompanied by a solidly researched 50- page booklet providing a summary of each film and plenty of background on the more notable.

Whether it is an accurate record of the British Pub in years gone by is highly debatable. But it is an excellent primer on the Pub at mythic level, a place where sound beer, fair play and common sense coalesce to form the beating heart of the British character, and mention is never made of the smell emanating from the gents.

Roll Out the Barrel: The British Pub on Film (a Region 0 DVD) can be ordered from filmstore.bfi.org.uk

The Ron BACARDI de Maestros de Ron, Vintage, MMXII is a blend of select rums that have been matured for 20 years in oak, finished in 60-year old cognac casks and presented in hand-blown crystal decanters. Production has been strictly limited to 400 decanters and is priced at $2000. This rare expression of BACARDI rum is the work of no less than eight master blenders (Maestros de Ron), and commemorates the craftsmanship and heritage of family-owned Bacardi Limited.

Visually arresting, the shape of the decanter captures the essence of Bacardi as it embodies the coconut palm planted at the entrance of the distillery. Etched into the crystal are the coordinates 20 01 48.69N 075 49 56.86W that mark the birthplace of BACARDI rum in Santiago de Cuba. For serious rum heads, the BACARDI MMXII Vintage would make a glittering addition to any collection, although with notes of tropical fruits, vanilla and sweet Caribbean honey, this special rum might be too hard to resist…

www.bacardilimited.com
www.bacardi.com

15 years. At first through duty free channels, then Zacapa approached me. My first meeting with the Duty Free guys in France; when I told them the selling price of Zacapa was the same price as an XO from Hennessy – they thought I was mad. Now CDG airport is one of our biggest business units.

Tell us about the Zacapa story in this part of the world

I’ve been coming to Dubai for over 10 years now. Every time I come – the mindsets have changed, people have changed and there are new bars & restaurants. When I came 10 years ago, my focus was more on the Duty Free channel. Back then, it wasn’t easy to talk about premium rum in this part of the world, but luckily we’ve had some strong supporters. Now it’s been 4 years since we’ve entered the on-trade and we’ve seen a strong uptake. But it has been challenging –in markets in Asia/Middle East there is a bit of psychological barrier with rums – we had to break this barrier. We had to tell the story of rum. We’ve had to convince people who enjoy malts that they would also enjoy Zacapa. Zacapa shares a lot of the same properties as other premium aged spirits. We recruit more from the malt and whisky drinkers than rum drinkers.

What makes Zacapa special?

I think there are two key factors that make this rum so different. The first is its terroir, its provenance from Guatemala. The second is the fact that behind this rum there is a woman – and this is reflected in the softness of character, complexity and the spirit captured in our rum.

What’s exciting in the world of Zacapa right now?

In many countries we are trying to develop an access to our brand not only through cocktails but also through food association in restaurants. In some restaurants, chefs are pairing our rum with dishes such as Foie Gras and in Spain and in Italy we are doing work with Michelin star chefs. This builds on the exceptional element of Zacapa; the very nature of our product makes it stand apart, but now, in some countries, we can take that to the next level by developing a gastronomic experience.

In Italy, Massimo Botura (Torino) – made a dessert based on his interpretation of Zacapa. For him, this was sensuality. He made a dish with nuts, red fruit, ice-cream, bits of chocolate, all layered on top of a layer of foie gras. Then he made people throw away their spoons and eat the whole thing with their hands. They had to wash their hands with Zacapa. This exercise was about getting people to change their mindset. We like to innovate, but we’re still very niche and so it’s always a pleasure when we get this kind of influence from other people to use Zacapa in innovative ways.

Mario Navarro

What’s your go-to cocktail?

I like fresh cocktails – with lime, lemon or mint – I have a fresh palate. I really like drinking lime juice, ice cubes, ginger beer, Zacapa, mint leaves – inspired by a dark and stormy – it’s really fresh, great in summer. Or I like to drink Zacapa 23 straight from the freezer.

Who has been an inspiration for you?

Lorena Vásquez Ampié (Master Blender for Ron Zacapa), from both professional and personal points of view this woman has inspired me – she’s very human and this still inspires me a lot and I think I’m still with Zacapa because of her but Lorena is one of my biggest – master blender, head of ageing facility, she’s so well-known, she’s a star, she’s very humble, natural and that’s very important.

What’s the last thing you tasted that you really noticed?

A Talisker 18 that I came across in Germany. I really fell in love with this product and it’s not easy to find. Balanced, complex, smooth, rich. Surprised me.

3 things you couldn’t be without:

My family (small and big) I’m Latino so this is essential.
Good food.
Love. Love is a big engine for many things so you need to be surrounded by it.

1 word to define Zacapa:

Culture – it’s a way of thinking, a way of living, it’s a more than just a brand, it’s a way of looking at spirits and their own culture.

After contributing their distinctive characteristics to the aging spirit – primarily sweet, smoky, spicy, vanilla, and caramelized aromas and flavors – oak barrels are ready for the next stage of their lives. RAY PEARSON examines the reincarnation of these barrels that can sometimes take exotic turns, both in use and geography.

Whiskey Barrel Stave Furniture – Hand-Crafted in America

Reconfiguring staves into tables and chairs is not new. What is unique, however, about the connoisseur-quality pieces being crafted in San Diego by Barrelly Made It (BMI), a division of Planet Rooth Design Haus, is their U.S. Design Patent (#USD615313S), and the attention to detail in construction and style.

BMI is the manifestation of Creative Director Gustaf Anders Rooth, Jr., a native of Sweden. As a designer and Master Craftsman, Rooth creates pieces using reclaimed whiskey barrels from American distilleries and wine barrels from California wineries. Each component of the barrel is recycled and reused, including the staves, heads (ends) and steel bands.

Commitment to quality in design and execution is the hallmark of BMI. “We are about integrity, style and grace”, says Rooth. “The furniture’s integrity stems from my training in Sweden, and also through the materials. The noble oak was hewn from trees many decades old and served an integral role in the maturation of fine wine and spirits. The furniture’s style is that it just looks good. In fact, many of our chair sales are to collectors who purchase without ever sitting in them first! I like to think that grace, or elegance, is the result of our integrity and style.”

BMI is housed in an upscale area of San Diego, California, surrounded by galleries, cafés, medical offices and stately homes. The City’s zoning department loves the small company because of its boutique production, with no noise nor pollutants (the furniture’s protective sealant is water based and non-toxic). In addition to Rooth, the company employs a second Master Craftsman, an executive assistant specializing in IT, a Craftsman, and CEO. When the company was new, the furniture was called “Bohemian Chic”, but with a hand-stamped medallion of authenticity affixed to each piece, and the granting of the Design Patent, that moniker evolved into “Functional Art”, and “clients” became “collectors”, residing in more than a dozen states and several countries.

The concept of integrity comes up a lot when listening to Rooth. He is fond of saying “I want our work to appeal not to the masses, but to the connoisseur of the finer things in life.” He put this relationship-over-retail and quality-over-quantity mindset into action in 2011 when he turned down a potentially lucrative deal with a luxury retailer for an initial order of nearly 100 chairs across the organization’s network, and direct order fulfilment from stores. “I realized how important it is for me to know where my business comes from and to have that control. What would have happened when the deal dried up? What about the people I would have had to hire to help me?” That’s integrity.

Planet Rooth Design Haus

http://www.barrellymadeit.com

Flooring Made From Recycled Whisky Barrels – Hand-Crafted in Scotland

It’s a dastardly fate. After serving the Scotch whisky industry for decades, transforming clear, new spirit from the stills into liquid gold for consumers, thousands of expended barrels per year are destined for the land fill. Although the wood has been exhausted of its ability to properly influence the aging whisky, it remains beautiful oak, from one-half to three quarters of an inch thick. Most of the wood is American white oak (Quercus alba), having previously aged U.S. whiskey before its service in Scotland, and some is European oak (Quercus robur), having previously aged sherry, in Spain.

Enter Richard McKay of McKay Flooring, Ltd., Glasgow. The company is one of the UK’s leading hardwood floor specialists, with over 40 years of craftsmanship and experience behind it. This expertise led to an engineered process to make flat boards out of the gracefully curved oak staves. Distinctive markings and brandings of the Bourbon, sherry and whisk(e)y manufacturers who have used the barrels over the course of their lives are intact, and add to the bespoke nature of a recycled stave floor.

Recently, McKay Flooring used whisky barrel flooring as wall covering as part of the extensive renovation of the Laird’s Room in Glasgow’s exclusive Corinthian Club.  Comments McKay: “The range of these barrels is really quite extraordinary. Some are sherry barrels from the Spanish town of Jerez, others are Bourbon barrels from all over the US.”

Another innovation of the company is to use cobbles, actually scrap material left after cutting staves to the proper length, are also finding a new calling as wall décor. McKay’s Whisky Barrel Flooring has been accepted into the prestigious Material ConneXion library of innovative materials. Material ConneXion is made up of an international team of experts that bridge the gap between science and design to create practical manufacturing solutions.

McKay Flooring Limited

Follow Ray Pearson at
www.whiskytastings.com

St. George Spirits has done it again! The team at St. George Spirits, led by Lance Winters, seem to have unrelenting forward momentum and consistently surprise with the quality and character of their products. So when they announced they were making gin, I was deeply excited, but when I found out that they were launching three simultaneously . . . I’ll admit that I was skeptical. The first taste of these wonderful pot-distilled gins drove those doubts away. Each gin is a unique formulation filling a specific flavor profile exquisitely. What they all have in common is their ingredients: they are all selected to display special characteristics from locally-foraged botanicals such as Douglas fir, wild fennel, coastal sage, wild coastal California juniper berries, coyote mint and California bay laurel. That, and they are all delicious. Every gin demonstrates remarkable dimension whilst displaying the terroir and the attitude of the Bay Area by utilizing indigenous flora and select sourced botanicals to each create an elegant, well-structured spirit. Oh, and the labels, artwork and bottles are all cool too.

Terroir- Mt. Tam Gin

A tribute to the aromatic beauty of Northern California landscape. The botanical formula intricately weaves woodsy, earthy aromas into a lovely demonstration of pine, citrus, eucalyptus, sage, spruce, fennel, evergreen, cardamom and laurel, testifying to this tribute and inviting you to drink it in. The flavors wildly follow the aromas and follow through to a crisp clean finish.

Botanivore Gin

The whopping 19 botanicals distilled into this gin consort into a tapestry of daedal citrus, herbal, floral aromas that include juniper, caraway, ginger, bay laurel, fennel, dill, coriander and a myriad of supporting scents to entice and amaze. A menagerie of flavors merge these aromas as an organization of purpose, building a crisp-clean revelation of taste in a bright, complex palate.

Dry Rye Gin

Dry Rye base spirit with twice as much juniper as the other gins—this is like genever on bad-ass. Big scents of rye new-make with huge juniper, spice, fleshy citrus, caraway, pepper and woody, earth subtleties are terrifyingly intriguing. At first the flavors are disarming—I wasn’t quite sure if I liked it, but as I chewed on it, this gin shined a glorious malty goodness that now I officially love.

All 3 Winners! Try all 3.

www.stgeorgespirits.com

I have been working for various tequila brands over the past five years, with always the same request: to try to pass on my passion for tequila to fellow bartenders and consumers. While this may seem a bit of an easy task and a cushy number, especially in the U.S. or the U.K. where the category is well established and where consumers have a higher level of awareness, it can sometimes be a big challenge in smaller markets. One of these markets is France, which came as a big surprise. How can a country filled with such connoisseurs of fine food and wine fail to understand the finesse and quality of tequilas to such an extent? With a meagre 185,000 cases (9 litre) consumed a year, the vast majority of which is bulk-bottled tequila, one would expect a different set of numbers from the ever-so-sophisticated French. Is it because fine tequilas could become a challenger to the national spirit, Cognac or, as mentioned by a fellow French bartender, because the flavor profile simply isn’t within the French repertoire?

His comments triggered a whole lot of thinking and discussion, most of it taking place at my favorite bar in the world, the Forvm in Paris (the Mecca of the French cocktail world). The reasoning was as follows: I have been exposed to tequila from a very young age; the oily complexity and hearty flavors are an instant cause of satisfaction for me. Most of my social circle has been working in the world of spirits, and therefore is also able to understand, but not always appreciate, the multi-faceted aspect of fine tequilas. However, for the uninitiated, the flavor profile is a bit of a challenge.

This leads me to my favorite argument within the world of tequila: mixto versus 100% agave. I know the blogosphere will go up in arms against me for what I am about to write, but I think that the “elitism” that goes around the 100% agave tequila is a tad extreme. I agree, 100% agave tequilas are (for the most part) rich in flavors and mineral characters, are fabulously creamy, sweet and well rounded and have a luscious, long finish. But, these are not to everyone’s taste. The agave is rich and sweet but it also leads to some very earthy and spicy undertones that are not to everyone’s liking; these deeper notes can be a real turn off to your average consumers, especially when combined with its lighter and sweeter aroma.

Enter the least pretentious of all tequilas: the so-called ‘mixto’. Often regarded as the bastard child of real tequila, we tend to forget that the vast majority of all tequila consumed globally is just that: “mixto” (the fermentable sugars are a mix of blue agave, sugar cane and/or grains). This type of tequila has a much lighter, less earthy and more ‘basic’ flavor profile, and thus has a broader appeal outside of Mexico and the U.S. Unfortunately, they suffer tremendously from a lack of marketing ethics that surround the tequila category in general, where these products are portrayed as a cheap shot, and/or a rite of passage, and/or a party catalyst (which many are), yet their quality is never put into question. There are some true atrocities in the world of mixto tequila, but there are also some soft, well-balanced and well-crafted examples that have helped spread the word of tequila far and beyond the borders of Mexico. Because of this wider appeal and more commercial flavor profile, these tequilas have been able to add considerable financial sustainability to the entire category. I cannot help but draw a comparison to the meteoric rise in popularity of blended whiskies in the early 1900’s; don’t we say, after all, that the success of brands such as Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal has allowed the entire single malt industry to survive until today?  Would it be far-fetched to draw a similar comparison to tequila?

An Englishman, an Australian, a Russian and a South African walk into a bar…

Not the start of a joke but a recent work trip to South Africa.  I was part of a group of new recruits to the international team for DGB wines.  Arriving in this most hospitable of countries, I soon learnt that life here is a 50/50 split of hard work and hard partying.  Both myself and my new team and I were well up for the challenge!

Now I am sure we all know that South Africans have a very worrying problem – they believe that chickens are salad.  The Saffers love their meat.  The bulk of their time is taken up with ‘making fire’ and ‘braai-ing’.  To understand the concept of braais, think about setting fire to an area the size of Leeds (not a bad option for a red-blooded Mancunian) and then placing every kind of meat under the sun on top of it.  Anything on four legs is far from safe from this wonderful activity.

A braai is not a quick process.  One of our hosts, Chris, explained that braais are categorised by beer – the beginners start with a six beer braai (one has enough time to consume six beers before it is ready) and this develops, over time, to a fourteen or sixteen beer braai … what we Mancs call ‘an all-dayer’.

A braai is not a fancy, Cordon Bleu affair; it relies on the basics – meat, meat, meat and meat.  This is a fantastic gastronomic gathering that demands the heartiest of appetites.  The time spent gorging reminded me of my time in Provence – breakfast lasts ‘til lunch, lunch creeps towards dinner and the night is still young. As well as their love for a lazy graze, both France and South Africa share a passion for wine.

Wine was introduced to South Africa by the founder of Cape Town, Jan Van Riebeck in 1659. It was the French Huguenot settlers, however, that really put the country’s wine on the map.  Franschhoek – literally meaning ‘French Corner’ became arguably the wine capital of South Africa.  Situated in the Paarl region, it lies only a stone’s throw away from Stellenbosch, which itself has played a significant role in the development of the South African wine trade as it houses the famous Stellenbosch University with its excellent viticultural and winemaking programs.

Though there were many highlights on this trip, the most interesting was the discovery of a recent trend of ‘café wine’. Pinotage, the offspring of Pinot Noir and Cinsault, has often been criticised for its rather industrial, almost rubber-like attributes and has found it difficult to shine in the markets of the UK, USA and Europe. The high PH within the grape has been identified as the source for these unpalatable characteristics.  As a result, the winemakers have been experimenting. At Bellingham Wines, Niel Groenewald has added a dash of Petit Verdot (with a considerably lower PH) to counter the high PH.  Another experimental approach has involved placing charred oak staves into the tanks; this actually gives the wine a ‘coffee-esque’ characteristic. These coffee characteristics have proved immensely popular in the local market.  Other winemakers have cottoned onto this and have started using the same method – in particular with Merlot, which was always a hard grape with which to produce good wine in the Cape.

Whether this new ‘coffee’ style will travel well abroad and gain traction in more traditional markets is a point for discussion.  I found it fascinating but I do believe that coffee is best consumed once the wine is finished.  Whatever the outcome, it is great to see that after such a long period of political unrest, the winemakers of South Africa are embracing new ideas and taking innovation to the next level.  All they need to do now is discover salad and add it to the braai menu…

Images courtesy  of Ashley Matthews and DGB wines

www.dgb.co.za

www.ashleymatthewsphotography.com

Kat Wiggins speculates on wine speculation

For anyone with even a passing interest in fine wine, it will have been almost impossible to be unaware of the recent shift towards speculative purchasing of top-end wines for investment. It is a move that has changed the face of the wine trade, changed the way in which certain wines are marketed and certainly the values for which those wines are sold.

Wine investment is nothing new, but it certainly means something very different these days, to what it meant only ten years ago. While now it is the realm of speculators with substantial financial gain in their sights, in the past it was more the territory of wine lovers who were essentially looking to fund their drinking. Common practice was to purchase two cases of a fine wine, with the aim of selling one to fund the other. This, combined with an attitude of “at least I can drink it”, meant that wine remained a hobby rather than an asset.

Looking back, compared with today’s fine wine market, they seem like very innocent times. These days certain wines (Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux, Haut-Brion, Domaine de la Romanee Conti and a handful of other properties) have become the territory of only the super-rich and the speculators. But what has caused this seismic shift in the market? In simple terms, three factors can arguably be said to be responsible for the changes that we have seen over the last five years: 1982, 2008 and the Far East.

Robert Parker is a hugely influential wine critic and writer, but this was not always the case.  He began writing about wine in the 1970s, but was relatively unknown outside the US until the wines from the 1982 Bordeaux vintage began to mature and be assessed. He had been one of few wine writers to claim that the 1982 vintage was great and – as the wines were opened and tasted – his view was affirmed. The reputation he gained from this sparked huge interest in everything he wrote and what he had to say about vintages and wines, particularly concerning Bordeaux. From this point his influence on the buying habits of fine wine enthusiasts has increased to extraordinary levels.

As one of the most respected critics in the USA, his reviews were hugely important to Chateaux, whose opportunity to sell in America would largely hinge on his opinion. Importantly, those Chateaux that received a good “Parker-score” would be able to sell their wines for more upon release – hence the frequent decision to wait until after his scores to release prices.

The 2008 vintage is a strange vintage to have been part of changing the fine wine market. It was not an extraordinary vintage by any means. While undoubtedly good, it was a vintage in a classic vein, not a style generally appreciated by Robert Parker. Therefore, after the difficulties selling the 2007 vintage (which was not well-reviewed and was seen as being very expensive), the first-growth Chateaux took the decision to release their prices before Robert Parker’s scores were released and also took the decision to release at a highly competitive level. Following the campaign’s completion, he did release his scores and they were far higher than expected. Market prices began to climb almost immediately.

Neither of these two factors would have had the extraordinary effect they had, without the entry into the fine-wine market of Far-Eastern buyers. Initially, this was due to the simple factor of finite quantities of wine being split between ever-more purchasers. Buyers in China were picking up back-vintages of first-growths (making up for lost time) and also getting involved in the en-primeur market. The range of wines in which they were interested was relatively narrow and made this particular range (first-growths, super-seconds, Grand Cru St-Emilion and other “Parkerised” wines) of particular interest to those wishing to make money from wine investment.

The market is an ever-changing field, dictated to by the whims of critics and the wants of those entering the market for the first time. As Europe experiences recession, emerging markets will be key to the pattern that wine investment takes in the future. Brazil, India and Russia are just beginning to make themselves heard as voices in the fine wine world and their impact has yet to be seen. China has perhaps begun to swing away from big name Bordeaux and perhaps is looking more now at top end Burgundy; how will this affect the price and availability of properties that become sought after? Success in fine wine investment is as much about judging the economy, judging the mood and judging the fashion as it is about judging the wine and those who manage to call the next decade’s success stories successfully could well find themselves sitting very prettily indeed.

They’re sweet, they’re fizzy, they’re a giggle in a bottle. Isn’t it funny how much disapproval a fun drink can stir up?  By Steve Morrissey

I remember well the day my brother Mark brought his new girlfriend Bev to meet the family. It was summer, must have been 17 years ago or so, and we were fiddling around with barbecued food and chorfing tubes of Pringles, swatting wasps and shouting at the kids on the swing to be careful. But mostly we were drinking, drinking as if we’d just heard that Prohibition was on the way back.

Lovely-to-meet-you-Bev-grab-a-seat-here’s-a-plate-what-would-you-like-to-drink? Someone said. “Have you got any sweet wine?” said Bev innocently. And it was as if the magnetic flux of the earth had been reversed and all the wind and water of the planet were being sucked into the sky. Sweet wine. Two innocent words but a tsunami of significance. Sweet wine? What sort of girl do we have here? Unsophisticated, under-educated, possibly mentally ill, with a tendency towards childish tantrums? None of us said that, but it’s what we were thinking. Meanwhile we were pouring imperial gallons of dry, aged, complex French wines into our terribly sophisticated gullets. My brother in law, the only one who seemed to understand what the word “hospitality” meant, eventually dashed off to the garage, where he thought he’d seen a bottle of Blue Nun a few years before.

Here’s a quote from the Urban Dictionary (urbandictionary.com) about Lambrini – a drink marketed at young women – “Lambrini is cheapo wine that is around 7% and its only £2.00 Mainly drunk by chavs because they cant afford any decent sort of bevarage [sic].” Now here’s a guy (surely?) who can’t punctuate, spell or even get his basic facts right (Lambrini is in fact a pear cider, a perry) who feels entitled to hold forth on the subject of Lambrini, a perfectly harmless drink, and to cast aspersions on the young women who drink it while they have a bit of a laugh on a Friday night.

And that’s the basic issue with “the drinks that taste forgot”, whether it’s sweet wine or sticky liquors in small bottles. Girls drink them. The other factor that gets the taste police going is that they’re rather sweet. The third and most serious on the charge sheet is that they’re associated, always always always, with fun.

Which kind of throws a rather odd light on the rest of the drinks universe, don’t you think?

Think of whisky and you think of all those acres of blah about maturity, refinement, exclusivity. Think vodka and its screeds on charcoal and glaciers and bottles made of laboratory quality glass. Brandy is noble this and ancient-wine-cellar that. The world of booze often sells itself as so relentlessly serious, civilised and tasteful that you wonder if, perhaps, it isn’t protesting just a bit too much.

And then you’ve got something like Babycham, born in 1953 and targeted at women from the outset. Sweet, bubbly, foil top, kind of pretending to be champagne. It was marketed as “genuine champagne perry” until lawyers acting on behalf of champagne producers had their way.

Or take a harmless cocktail like a snowball – bit of advocaat, bit of lime juice, whole load of lemonade. You’d have to drink a thousand to actually get drunk. Rum and blackcurrant. Rum and peppermint. Canei. You don’t win points for sophistication drinking any of these. Or for a discerning palate. Or for your commitment to organic produce or locally sourced ingredients. There’s absolutely nothing worthy, clever or serious about these drinks. The food equivalent is pink chocolate in the shape of Nikki Minaj. And if there isn’t such stuff, then there should be.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? There’s absolutely no bullsh*t with fun drinks. No ancient and venerable, no pretence that it’s about big noses and long finishes, no obsessive interest in peat bogs. They’re just alcoholic drinks, made for people who believe that drinking is fun and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Do we ever hear stories of people who ended up in rehab because they overdid the Pink Lady? Obviously someone is going to comment below (feel free) that their mum did, and I will feel covered in shame. But my point still holds. Lambrini, Wicked Lady and Blue Nun aren’t undermining thousands of years of human development –   and nor are they pretending, in the way that “serious” drinks do, that they’re adding to it either. Come to that, after a week’s hard grind keeping the technological and cultural marvel of human civilisation going, don’t we all deserve a reward and a bit of fun? You know, a glass, a drink, some ice and a slice. And hold the clipboard.

TONIQUE’s Top 5 Heroes of Fun

Lambrini

Lambrusco? No, Lambrini, the pear cider that actually is bottled in Liverpool (say it with a Scouse accent and, yes, it does seem right) has the marketing slogan “Lambrini girls just wanna have fun”. Which just about says it all.

Cherry B

A sweet cherry wine, though that naughty “B” does suggest brandy, Cherry B mixed with sweet cider forms the venerable cocktail bought in ancient times (ie the 1970s) by teenage lads for girls they were hoping to get lucky with. It’s name? Legopener. No idea why.

Pony

Famously “the little drink with a big kick”, Pony performed the trick of putting something completely unsellable – sweet cream sherry – into a small bottle, plonking a bit of magic tin foil round the top and, hey presto, success. For a while, anyway.

Rum and Pep

Your granny might have had a rum and peppermint while your grandad had a bottle of Mackeson’s on a Friday night in the snug of the local boozer. Yes, dark rum and peppermint cordial, an amazing concoction that looks, smells and tastes like cough mixture.

Advocaat

Custard, basically, with a shot of brandy in it, advocaat is the sort of drink that used to sit on sideboards from one Christmas to the next, when it would be pronounced undrinkable. The advocaat, that is, not the sideboard.

Illustrations by Andy Hansen

‘I need a gin and tonic baby

Gin and tonic water feelin’ better

Give me a gin n’ tonic

Gin n’ tonic

I need it now’

The Reverend Horton Heat, ‘Gin and Tonic Blues’

This month I have mostly been thinking about gin and tonic, together in a glass with ice and lemon, possibly cucumber, or at a stretch lime. I’m no cocktail connoisseur, I merely know what I like to drink – and what I don’t – and lately, in this non-drinking spell, gin and tonic has been largely on my mind.

Unlike whisky, when one feels the need for a G&T, it matters not the brand, Gordon’s, Tanqueray, Bombay Sapphire, Hendrick’s or bog standard Beefeater. I’ll take any of them with ice and a slice and some slimline tonic; the latter, which I’m quite insistent on ever since I was told that one of the Two Fat Ladies – an English celebrity cooking duo, sadly now only one remaining – was quite so large because of her intake of gin and tonic, the tonic being the main offender; and yes she is the one who’s still alive. Whether this snippet is actually true I have failed to discover, however, the preference for slimline remains.

Often, as I find myself doing when I fancy a drink, I reminisce about the ‘best ever’, and for gin and tonic it’s one of three. Chronologically it starts eight years ago when I was introduced to my first ever Hendricks gin and tonic with a generous stick of cucumber at Rick’s bar in Frederick Street in Edinburgh. An unforgettable experience, there has been a bottle in my cupboard ever since. Second would have to be dangling my legs over the back of a Landrover somewhere in the South African Sabi Sands, glass in hand – no ice, no lemon, just plain old G&T – but boy can I remember it as if it was yesterday, my first ever proper sundowner back in 2006. If you were reading this to a soundtrack, Toto’s ‘Africa’ would be playing now.

Lastly, and more recently, would be a hastily made Bombay Sapphire and tonic with lemon and some musty cool box ice consumed on a camping trip to Telegraph Island in Oman’s Musandam. As we sat in our deck chairs overlooking the water, dolphins performing acrobatics before us, it somehow seemed that life couldn’t get much better despite the arrogant dolphins (I’m not a fan).

When savouring a moment and a taste I really don’t think there’s a better drink. Wine is too generic, champagne too frou-frou, beer too unmemorable and other spirits somehow lack the gravitas especially if mixed with something sweet and fizzy. But gin and tonic is simply pure class in a glass. In the words of The Reverend Horton Heat who probably sang it best, ‘I need a gin and tonic baby.’ Sorry Snoop, ‘Gin and Juice’ just don’t cut it.

Ilustrations by Andy Hansen

Have you ever managed to sit through an episode of Mad Men without wanting to cradle a glass of something strong? If the answer to this is no, then not to worry, it’s human nature. Scientific tests have proven that watching characters consume alcoholic drinks either in a TV series or a film has an immediate effect on our desire to head to the fridge or the butler’s tray.

The study led by Rutger Engels, professor in developmental psychopathology at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, placed 20 male students in surroundings designed to emulate watching television at home. A fridge was placed in the same room containing both alcoholic and soft drinks. One half of the group was shown the movie American Pie, featuring 23 ‘drinking’ scenes and the other half of the group was shown the drier movie of 40 Days and 40 Nights featuring only three scenes with alcohol. On average those who watched American Pie drank twice the amount of alcohol than those who watched 40 Days and 40 Nights.

Perhaps this is not all that surprising. To start with, the subjects under test were students, keen enthusiasts of anything ‘free’ and secondly, the ‘alcoholic’ film they were shown, American Pie, appeals exactly to male testosterone-fuelled drinking sessions. Is it any wonder that the guys who watched it drank twice as much? Nonetheless, the experiment was the first of its kind to show a direct effect between the exposure of alcohol on television to viewers’ immediate drinking behaviour.

Commenting on the study, Professor Engels noted, “Our study clearly shows that alcohol portrayals in films and advertisements not only affects people’s attitudes and norms on drinking in society, but it might work as a cue that affects craving and subsequent drinking in people who are drinkers. This might imply that, for example, while watching an ad for a particular brand of beer, you are not only more prone to buy that brand next time you are in the supermarket, but also that you might go immediately to the fridge to take a beer.”

In the current crop of popular series there can’t be a better advert for drinking than Mad Men. The suave but steely Don Draper is rarely seen without a glass of Canadian Club. If you learn anything about the ad business in the 50s and 60s by watching Mad Men, it’s that drinking was endemic. Even Peggy, the good Catholic girl struggling with her feminist impulses regularly drinks through her creative spells, her tipple of choice being Jameson – naturally – and it seems little in the Irish whisky’s label has changed in the last half century. What I couldn’t help but notice during series three and four is that Lane, the archetypal ‘proper’ Englishman, is the only character to actually pour his drink from a crystal decanter as opposed to a bottle. We can only presume what it might contain and the same goes for Roger Stirling, Draper’s rather infantile partner whose drink of choice could be either vodka or gin. One thing we know for sure, it’s definitely not water as Mad Men is all about glamourizing the spirit. It’s a far cry from watching Mo sink a gin and tonic in the Queen Vic on EastEnders, the local boozer being the epicentre of any English soap opera.

So as you’re watching the dark horse that is Don Draper knock back the bourbon do you want to follow suit? According to Professor Engels, one does and it is a fact that can be corroborated by one of Tonique’s co-founders, who shall remain nameless, but who, with the help of a companion, managed to get through a 4.5litre bottle of The Macallan over a period of two weeks whilst watching series two of the ad drama. And no, that was not a typo, I’ll write it in full just to be sure: a four and a half litre bottle of The Macallan. I am sure it was all in the name of science.

Whilst it’s very much about the grain in Mad Men, one series that undoubtedly celebrates the grape is Brothers and Sisters, in which the Walker family alone must be responsible for consuming at least a quarter of the spoils of California’s pinot noir crop. If Mad Men is criticised for glorifying alcohol, then surely Brothers and Sisters must have this criticism levelled against it too by those who are concerned about such trivialities. I have yet to watch an episode without the pop of a cork on screen and admit that it’s rare I watch it without a glass of something white and cold in my hand.

I’m not sure how much truck I hold with the argument that alcohol on TV encourages binge drinking or alcoholism. For the great majority alcohol is a social pastime. Just as we don’t criticise television for spawning other trends, (one that springs to mind is Carrie Bradshaw’s stylising of the visible bra strap), why single out its portrayal of alcohol? Having said that, Bradshaw did as much for fashion as she did in propelling the comeback of the Cosmopolitan. The flip side of all this however, are the television programmes and films which make you never ever want to have another drink again. Take Hank Moody, David Duchovny’s down, out and debauched character in Californication who’s on a one way track to Loserville thanks to his drinking habit (amongst others). Or from another perspective, Downton Abbey, where the Granthams appear to have a cellar bigger than the Rothschilds yet drink very little of the five separate wines served at dinner, if any. A decadence of another sort.

Damages is another drama that I can’t make my mind up about. Do the career driven, tougher-than-a-Rottweiler- characters of Patty Hewes and Ellen Parsons who sit sipping hard liquor make you want to join them? No. They make you want to drink hot chocolate, cuddle a teddy bear and perhaps open a Montessori nursery. Which leads me to my conclusion: it’s not so much about the alcohol, but the person who’s drinking it.

Each of the 400 decanters has a circle of raised ‘cabochons’ designed to reflect the riveted hatch entry feature on the spirit stills at the distillery. Brushed metal up the sides of the shoulders and the stopper represent the shape of the hatch handle on the stills. The proverbial cherry on the icing is the copper cap atop each stopper that has been itself fashioned from an old Macallan copper still. Decanters were released at $20,000 and sold out before the end of 2011. If you’re desperate to get your hands on one, you can register an enquiry with The Whisky Exchange or try some of the auction houses. For the rest of us, we’ve uploaded a video showing how the decanter was created.

From Cava to Cerveza, TONIQUE takes a voyage gourmand around the streets of Barcelona

Arrive

Little known to the throngs who now descend upon the Catalan capital, it was once said that Barcelona was a city with its back to the sea, looking in on itself rather than towards the previously dilapidated waterfront. However, after much effort, the city can now truly be said to look over its shoulder.

1992 represented a huge turnaround in fortunes for what was formerly regarded as a bustling, but largely industrial Mediterranean port. Barcelona was tired and lacking the zest that the regeneration of the Olympics was about to bring with it. The Games provided the perfect excuse for Barcelona to re-brand itself and with a few well placed spectacular images, including an iconic shot of a rooftop pool’s spectacular vista, everything changed.

Now a major European destination, the Catalan capital still possesses all the charm of the old town but with a bright new façade driven primarily by the beaches that once played home to the Olympic village. While athletics was far from our mind, it was here on the beach front at Port Olimpic that we set up base camp for a ramble around the diverse city of Barcelona.

Stay

Take a good look at your accommodation as you fly southwards along the coastline into Barcelona Airport. Hotel Arts sprung up with the Olympic development and has since played host to virtually every dignitary and celebrity to visit the city. As the tallest tower on the coastline you can’t fail to miss it, and for those with a window seat and a very keen eye, you may even spot the rooftop terraces of the immaculate Six Senses Spa.

Frank Gehry designed the huge, glimmering, lattice like fish that adorns the beach front side of the property and it not only provides shade over terraces and gardens in the most spectacular fashion, but also represents the regeneration of the maritime port and the intermittent light that permeates through the canopy in the leafy streets of the old district of La Rambla. The poolside bar and restaurant adds a resort feel to the property and if you’re loathe abandoning the sun for a relaxing massage, you’re welcome to bring the spa out to a secluded spot on the garden terrace. The personalised Six Senses Signature massage is a truly individual journey where you’re destined to discover the power of touch, while options focused on ‘renewal’ and ‘vitality’ promise to be just as rewarding.

For the ultimate in privacy and indulgence, choose one of the duplex apartments that adorn the top floors of the hotel. The furniture within was exclusively created for Hotel Arts by Catalan designer Jaume Tressera and its simple elegance is in perfect harmony with both the expansive views and the bright and airy feel within. Options extend to three bedrooms so those who simply can’t travel without their stylist, make up artist or bodyguard are well catered for. Should you wish to make use of the kitchen for anything other than an Earl Grey, why not call on your personal butler who will arrange a chef to cook for you and your guests? In fact, while he’s at it, have him arrange for your complimentary Mini Cabrio to be brought from the garage so you can take to the streets for an exploratory spin.

Superior double rooms offer all the comforts you’d expect plus a host of gadgets that remind you that you are residing in the city’s most exclusive residence. Try and ‘out-suave’ George Clooney as you prepare your morning Nespresso while tuned into subtle Latin beats on the Bang and Olufsen stereo. If breakfast is more comfortable in your robe than in the restaurant, book into an executive suite that includes access to the club level on the 32^nd floor. Here you can sip your morning champers in the company of similarly adorned guests while soaking up the views and musing over the day ahead.

Do

Start your day with a stroll along La Barceloneta promenade towards Port Vell, a true Yachters heaven. An aimless wander through the streets of the city is guaranteed to be rewarding, but if you do have a sense of purpose, virtually everything in Barcelona is walkable.

The city offers any number of artistic treasures and to discover them in one trip wouldn’t do each justice. Rather take your time and soak up the full marvel of what’s available – whether it’s Miró, Picasso or Dali, Catalonia has always had a creative streak. However, the most prominent examples of local flair belong to the Modernista architects of the late 19^thCentury. The eye catching façades of l’Eixample will keep you looking skywards and nowhere more so than at the Modernista centre of the city, Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Família.

If you’re in search of a more complete view of the world, an ‘Under Construction’ sign may be the last thing you’d want to see – but Gaudi’s temple is no ordinary building site. La Sagrada Família was conceived by a conservative society that wished to build a monument as atonement for the city’s sins of modernity. Having first been dreamt up over 100 years ago, it remains a very spectacular work in progress today. The sheer scale of the project hasn’t seen Gaudi’s attention to detail compromised and the captivating completed façades of the temple are a joy to behold. Take a tour and discover the incredible stories behind some of the thousands of individual sculptures and put your imagination to the test as you envision the completed article from the stunning artworks throughout the gallery below. To gauge how large and meticulous Gaudi’s project is, it’s worth noting that even with the current steady pace of progress, the temple isn’t due for completion until around 2030.

Travel

As a wine lover it would be would be churlish not to delve into the heart of Penedès, a mere 45 minute drive from the city’s centre. Here you will find some of the biggest and greatest names in the world of viticulture. Drop by the Torres winery and discover there’s a lot more history to this family run operation than a typical bottle of their globally famous brands may allude to. Although founded 140 years ago by Jamie and Miguel Torres, their winery is now one of Spain’s most modern and with vineyard holdings in many of the most celebrated regions, Torres is Europe’s most recognised wine brand.

The plots straddling the winery are home to the most prized vines, those of Mas la Plana. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes cultivated from this very vineyard in 1970 went on to make the wine that beat some of France’s most celebrated names including the likes of Chateau Latour and Haut Brion to win the prestigious 1979 wine Olympiad in Paris. Further blind tastings have frequently scored this wine above all the Grand Crus of Bordeaux and the Torres single vineyard Chardonnay, Milmanda, has scored equally impressively alongside more illustrious Burgundy counterparts. Of course, to taste just how good Catalonia’s classic varietals can be, Grans Muralles is a must. The ancient blend of Monastrell, Granacha Tinta, Garró, Samsó and Cariñena makes for a profoundly deep, exotic and complex wine.

Then take a short drive to Jean Leon and you’ll discover a smaller operation but one where the emphasis on quality is just as great. The views alone ensure this is a worthwhile journey and to experience the entire wine-making process in one place is memorable and enlightening. The winery was built by aspiring Spanish actor Jean Leon (real name Ceferino Carrión) as he sought the ultimate wines to serve in his Californian restaurant. It was with James Dean as his partner in 1956 that they created Beverley Hill’s famous ‘La Scala’, and the wines of Jean Leon are still prominently listed there today. This was the first winery in Spain to cultivate classic French varietals and in selecting cuttings from Lafite, La Lagune and Corton Charlemange, the wine in your glass is sure to be equal in stature to the surrounding vista.

Eat

If your idea of a holiday itinerary revolves around where to eat next, Barcelona is your Nirvana. If you can resist gorging on the expansive Hotel Arts breakfast buffet, you will be rewarded with a fitting lunchtime appetite that will be satisfied with a deluge of options. Do as the Catalans do and make lunch the main meal of the day (or at least the first main meal of the day).

Head for the hills away from the beach front and you’ll dine with the locals on a host of fresh Catalan delicacies. Tapas are the order of the day, and in amongst the Modernista architecture of l’Eixample you’ll find some of the best options. Tapaç 24 is a bustling cellar restaurant that comes alive after midday and stays open until late. Owner and head chef Carles Abellán trained under the expert eye of Ferran Adrià at the impossibly brilliant El Bulli; here he applies similar care and attention but in a fast moving atmosphere where there’s no compromise on flavour. Saddle up on one of the bar stools facing the hectic kitchen and watch an array of fresh ingredients combine in front of you.

The frenetic Mercat de la Boqueria is home to an abundance of fresh produce but is also a worthy lunch stop if you find yourself peckish near the leafy La Rambla promenade. Tucked in the back corner of this market is a small tapas bar preparing delicious nibbles sourced from the surrounding vendors.

Michelin stars cluster in the Catalan capital offering visitors a plethora of fine dining options. Every possible taste is catered for whether modern, classic, minimalist or even French. Paco Pérez recently received his second Michelin Star, this time for Hotel Arts’ La Enoteca. As the name suggests, an extensive wine list containing over 450 references will help you savour the imaginative contemporary Mediterranean cuisine. Unless you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of both Spanish and other European wineries, the sommelier offers an invaluable service.

Depart

It’s difficult not to fall in love with all that Barcelona has to offer on an immaculate, early summer’s day. The unique combination of Mediterranean climate, a deeply ingrained passion for the highest quality food and wine and an abundance of eye catching architecture and artworks make this a city that demands revisiting. Of all the Olympic hosts of recent times no city has used the opportunity to revitalise quite to the extent of the Catalans. Whether for old city charm or new city vibe, Barça is a must.

www.torres.es

www.jeanleon.com/en/la-bodega

www.hotelartsbarcelona.com

Photography by Oliver Doran | www.photosolutions.me

“To understand where we are going, we need to know where we came from.” – anonymous

I’m sure it has escaped no one’s notice recently that cocktail lists have changed. In the 90s and early 00s, vodka was King and we clamoured for drinks such as Cosmopolitans and flavoured Martinis. We hung out in minimalist, starkly-lit venues and those god-awful flavoured vodka-shot bars. Nobody drank gin unless they were over 50 and asking for a whisky cocktail was unthinkable; fast-forward to 2012 and things look very different. Vodka is still popular but it no longer dominates the palates of discerning drinkers. We’ve seen the revival of classic cocktails that grandpa probably drank when he was our age and it looks like he and his pals may have been onto a thing or two. Both consumer and professional knowledge is on the rise – two or three years ago, asking for a Manhattan might have won you a raised eyebrow or a small nod of appreciation from a bartender. Now, you’ll be expected to know exactly which brand of Bourbon or American whiskey you want and you’ll (hopefully) be asked whether you’d like it dry, perfect, or sweet. More than just a passing consumer fad for vintage drinks, it seems that the move towards the ‘classic’ is due to the increasing skill, time and dedication that bartenders are investing in their profession. A profession that can almost entirely be attributed to the work and skill of one man.

Like any industry, bartending has its key influencers and Jerry Thomas is an undisputed figure in this industry. To understand Thomas’ approach, we must realise that some of his work was more a product of necessity rather than creativity; he simply did not have as many ingredients to work with or as much choice as we do today. Thomas understood flavour and how to work with it but the fact is that cocktails in the 1800s were much simpler – often just a blend of spirits, sugar, water and bitters. Accoutrements such as cordials and syrups were all made from scratch, simply because they were not commercially distributed.

In Thomas’ time, water was often used for the dilution of spirits that had been transported in cask and thus at cask strength, hence the appearance of water in so many of his cocktail recipes. The translation of this influence is the trend we are witnessing today as spirits are increasingly being bottled at cask strength in order to give bartenders the ability to affect dilution and to play with taste. Bitters were also very important in the early 1800s; it used to be that every bartender would make his own bitters and some were already starting to blend their own liqueurs. As a category, bitters, due their being made from high-strength alcohol and plants, were regarded as medicinal at this time. The fact that many bartenders the world over have been raiding kitchens to produce their own bitters and syrups is both a response to Thomas’ creations but also stems from a desire to impart a personal touch to the drinks they serve.

It’s important to understand that whilst he may not have invented many of the cocktails of his era that we enjoy today, Jerry Thomas was the first person to put pen to paper – thus chronicling the birth of cocktail culture. To operate as a bartender before Jerry Thomas was more like being a member of a secret society than a recognised profession. Jerry Thomas changed things, he made a name for himself and his peers and by 1863, only one year after his handbook was published, he was already a well-known celebrity bartender. He then travelled across America, gaining experience and gradually accessing some of the best spirits and liqueurs in the world.

“The barkeeper and his assistants possess the agility of acrobats and the prestidigitive [sic] skills of magicians. They are all bottle conjurers. They toss the drinks about; they throw brimful glasses over their heads… I should like to be a barkeeper; if I were clever enough”

By the time he arrived in New Orleans the strength of the bartending fraternity was such that he was able to walk into any bar and build up his knowledge and contacts, thus adding to his reputation.  Thomas’ heydays were between the 1850s-1870s. To avoid being drafted to fight in America’s civil war he left America for Europe. Upon his return, he worked in a number of taverns and saloons but he was unable to regain the stellar reputation he had held before his departure. The fact that he could not regain his notoriety must have broken his heart – Jerry Thomas died of a heart attack at the age of 55. As it transpired, Thomas was somewhat misguided in his belief that his reputation had slipped; upon his death he was honoured in newspapers across the whole of America, demonstrating that his skills lay not only in mixing drinks, but also as a self-publicist.

To understand the legacy of Jerry Thomas in today’s context, one must consider him a grandfather of the industry. He was certainly not the most skilled bartender, nor the most creative, but he laid down the foundations for those to follow after him. The fact that Thomas took the time to chronicle so many of the cocktails he made (whether or not he created them) makes his handbook and his methodologies such strong points of reference. We can take influence and inspiration from his recipes and apply our own ideas and interpretations and whilst we may no longer have the stomach for Rum Flips (heated brown ale and raw eggs, anyone?), we’re certainly enjoying the modern-day versions of Mint Juleps, Brandy Crustas and various Punch concoctions.

Beyond the construction of cocktails, Thomas’ relevance to the modern-day barman is indisputable. Thomas was not only a pioneer of exacting methods, and the beauty that is a simple, well-made cocktail, he also understood the value of presence. A journalist during this time wrote of Thomas and his peers: “The barkeeper and his assistants possess the agility of acrobats and the prestidigitive [sic] skills of magicians. They are all bottle conjurers. They toss the drinks about; they throw brimful glasses over their heads… I should like to be a barkeeper; if I were clever enough”. Thomas understood that whilst a good bartender can entertain clients and mix great drinks, the truly great bartender is one whose presence extends well beyond his bar.

Jerry Thomas – 1830-1885

Broadcaster, media presenter, OBE and living legend Sir David Frost jetted into Dubai to host a dinner for Chivas Regal. We interview the man who made an art out of interviewing…

When offered the opportunity to interview Sir David Frost, one naturally starts by doing some research. A few hours in, and you realise that maybe the only way you’ll begin to grasp the scope of what this man has achieved is to break things down by decade. David Frost needs no introduction and will be known to different generations for the various roles he has portrayed – from satirical player, to hard-nosed interviewer, to comedian and daytime TV game show host. He is arguably most famous for being the man who made Richard Nixon quake in his boots and eventually admit that perhaps, just perhaps, he ‘had let the American people down’.

So where on earth do you begin to ask questions of the man who has asked the most important questions of some of the most important figureheads in recent world history? Well, given that he’s in the Middle East, you start by asking about his involvement with Al Jazeera and take it from there: “It’s an amazing story” he tells me, “I can’t believe that we’re in the 6th year now of Al Jazeera English. When it started it had 50 countries and 20m households, and now it’s gone up to 100-125 countries and the reach is now 250m households. It’s really been an extraordinary success story – it exceeds anything that one could have definitely expected.” I ask whether he had any idea before he signed with Al Jazeera that the project would work out quite so well. He tells me: “I thought it would work. It excited me because it was likely to be the last really big international 24 hours news channel. I’ve always been attracted to new departures and new challenges, but I didn’t think it could work quite so quickly, so well.”

When you’re that much out on a limb as an organisation, you really can’t afford very many mistakes
because there are people waiting to try and suppress you.

I go on to ask his views on social media, given its importance of reporting events as they happened, during the Arab Spring. His response is lukewarm – I get the impression that for someone who has dedicated hours of his time to researching stories, ensuring that all facts are in place and that all angles are covered, the idea of picking up your phone to ‘report’ on an event in 140 characters or less is completely alien. My questions about the relevance, or importance of Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange, draw a more enthusiastic response: “I found him [Assange], watching him on television, rather distant and difficult to empathise with. But in our interview, he was much more giving and much more human than he had appeared in some other interviews and therefore much more sympathetic. I found I knew more about him after the interview and have subsequently been following him and plan to do another interview shortly. I found him very interesting and I found that his humanity was more on show in our interview than I’d seen it before and I think the more he can show that, the more people will understand where he’s coming from. If his God is truth, then that’s a pretty good God to have, I guess. I think Wikileaks has its place in news today – it will depend of course on them keeping up their record for accuracy – when you’re that much out on a limb as an organisation, you really can’t afford very many mistakes because there are people waiting to try and suppress you.”

Success is no problem.

This brings me to my questions on Nixon. Sir David has surely been asked questions on this episode of his career a thousand times, but I’m curious nonetheless, to know how he felt after it was over. Elated? Triumphant? Flat? Did he feel he had reached the top, with nowhere left to go? He tells me: “It was like when I started the programme ‘That Was The Week That Was’. Afterwards, people asked me ‘what is there left to do?’ And the answer is – the more you do, the more springboards you’ve got to go onto other things. The same was true after the Nixon interviews – it gave me the chance to go on and interview more world leaders and more distinguished people and to date I’ve interviewed over 60 presidents…We don’t go out to collect presidents,” he hastens to add “we go out to get important people who have something to say and it does show that we’ve been able to expand and go on to bigger and greater opportunities.” As I do my best to transcribe his words onto my computer I can hear him continue to roll the question around his head, murmuring to himself: “Yes, it’s a good point, which way do you lean? Is it a burden or an opportunity?” His words seem to get jumbled up until he finally turns to me, with humour in his eyes, revealing: “Success is no problem.”

Sir David Frost has spoken often about his strict Methodist upbringing and the fact that his father encouraged him when younger, to make as much of his time as he could. Success demands a heavy investment of this time and I ask Sir David what he does when he’s not working: “Well I never get tense, so in that sense I never have to relax. I enjoy working as much as I enjoy playing. But if I had to name a pursuit I suppose it would be sport. I was offered a professional contract to play football at the age of 18 at a time when there was a maximum wage of £20 a week. So footballers like Sir Stanley Matthews who drew in crowds of over 50,000 people every other week to watch him play at Bloomfield Road in Blackpool, couldn’t take a penny over £20 a week or he’d have been suspended for life. It was really primitive in those days so for me, at the age of 18, the thought of only earning £20 a week and the fact that I wanted to go to Cambridge meant I decided against that career path.” Later that evening a crowd of 250-strong watches Sir David Frost host the Chivas event with considerable aplomb and the man is certainly in his element. How many of those people realise that he very nearly decided to become a professional footballer? I’m sure I speak for more than myself when I say we’re all rather glad he didn’t.

Roving wine reporter and travel gourmand Melissa Gardner gives us the inside scoop on the best places to eat, drink and be merry in Madrid

When you visit Madrid, you will easily find flamenco, lace mantillas, tortillas and tapas.   Many aesthetes go for a wallow in the golden triangle of museums—The Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyseen-Bornemicsza –to have their senses filled and minds boggled by those wondrous and sweeping art collections.  But once sensory overload sets in, nothing soothes better than a sunny Spanish wine. Lucky you, the Madrid wine scene comes to you by the bodega, as well as by the glass.

For the quickest fix, exit the triangle and take a taxi to the La Latina neighborhood, where the entire length of the Cava Baja is jammed with tapas bars, wandering tourists and a sprinkling of locals.  Whether it’s traditional Spanish croquetas & jamon or the modern stacked tapas in the style of the northern Basque, the indispensable accompaniment is wine.   So it’s best to find a taperia with more than three or four wines by the copa.  For the most diverse Spanish wine selection, head to number 30, Casa Lucas, where they regularly feature something like 15 fine red, white, rosado, cava, porto and dulce wines by the glass.   Don’t go thinking that Spanish wine begins and ends with Rioja and Ribera del Duero—that’s like thinking all good French wine comes only from Burgundy and Bordeaux.

Have a sip of red from Alicante, Navarra or Madrid. Most of the grapes are familiar—tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, syrah—but some may be new to you, like mencia or garnacha.  Or choose a juicy mouth-watering white made from verdejo (Spain’s answer to sauvignon blanc) or godello, planted in the Rueda and Ribiera regions. Among Casa Lucas’ many delicious dishes, order the Arroz Cremosa for a knockout foie-boletus- risotto to pair with your exotic copa de vino.  It’s no wonder this place can get crowded.  Now you are ready for some elbow room, consider an afternoon jaunt to the country, specifically the wine country.

Madrid is (supposedly) the only capital in the world with a DO—made up of an astonishing 45 bodegas scattered through three subzones – Arganda, Navalcarnero and San Martin – that beard the state from southeast to south west.  The Madrid DO was established in 1990, and already Bodega Tagonius has received multiple high scores, vintage after vintage, from the wine press. Drive merely 40 minutes from the center of Madrid to the southeast and you will have escaped into the rolling, undeveloped Arganda.  Continue past the Barajas airport, then up and up to an elevation of nearly 800 meters, where you will come upon the Gosálbez-Orti bodega, a jewel of hand-crafted, masterful wines in the village of Pozuelo del Rey. The quality belies the mom & pop vibe, and these are wines you will rarely see outside of Spain.  So, after tasting with the owners, Estrella and Carlos, be sure to snap up some bottles to take with you.  You will be pleased by the age-worthy wines blended from tempranillo, syrah and cabernet–and if you’re lucky, they may still have some 100% garnacha available.  Simply send them an email 24 hours ahead to tell them when you‘ll arrive and they will happily show you wine “from the inside”.

www.casalucas.es
www.tagonius.com
www.qubel.com
www.vinosdemadrid.es

We were pretty impressed with the limited edition bottle that Jameson’s released as part of  this year’s St Patrick’s Day Celebrations. Limited edition bottlings can sometimes be a bit dull or can fail to capture the essence of the brand but it’s safe to say that neither of these outcomes applies in this case.

Acclaimed Irish designer Paul Daly came up with the striking reinterpretation of the bottle and was apparently inspired by the Book of Kells – a lavishly decorated account of the four gospels. The book is said to have inspired much of modern Celtic art which is apparent in the use of symbolism in Daly’s work on this project. The designer does, however, leave his own indelible modern-day stamp on the design, giving the bottle a fresh and edgy look and making this a bit of a collector’s item for Jameson fans. Hurry whilst stocks last!

Alcohol brands have long exploited the power of suggestion through visual representation to connect with their consumers. Campari however, whilst bold in taste, has always been careful to keep its passion classy. TONIQUE explores the importance of art and aesthetics in the world of Campari.

Say the words Campari and many things might spring to mind; red, bright, bitter, daring and above all, unique. Having created his special aromatic and decidedly bitter spirit in 1850, Gaspare Campari knew that he had to come up with a way of ensuring that his product was not only something that people wanted to try, but something they would want to drink again and again. He knew that he wanted his customers to have an emotional connection with his brand rather than just an association based on taste alone and this association started with a kiss. Or at least, one of Campari’s earliest advertising campaigns did. From the start, Campari has always chosen to make a statement through the form of artistic expression; something that we can see from their associations with artists during the 20^th century, right through to their most recent print and television collaborations with actors such as Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba and Benicio del Toro.

Visual representation has been the cornerstone of brand Campari since the late 1800s. The brand’s early forms of artwork are firmly rooted in the Belle Époque era; a period that celebrated extravagance and indulgence. Although the movement stemmed in Paris, many artists in Europe were influenced by this same indulgence in the visual arts. Advertising posters from this time often depict a way of life that barely seems plausible; promoting products that would only enhance, pleasure and gratify your every desire. A prominent figure during this time was Leonetto Cappiello. Cappiello found himself in Paris during the late 19^th century and was soon seduced by the intoxicating mood of the city. His skills as a painter and his understanding of image association in order to promote a product meant that he became one of the leading posterists of his time.

He was particularly sought after by the Italian and French liquor industry for which he produced over a hundred posters during his career. His poster ‘Spiritello’ which he created for Campari in 1921 is considered to be not only one of his signature works, but also one of Campari’s most-remembered posters. The poster depicts a sprite, encased in bright orange peel, mischievously holding a bottle of Campari aloft, as if in celebration.

However Campari quickly moved on; the bitter spirit with a bright and bold character needed a statement; cue Marcello Dudovich’s famous poster depicting the passionate kiss of two lovers in private. Dudovich’s work captured a moment of intimacy – the lovers are breathtakingly close, their world seems silent, filled only by their passion for each other. This poster had a red colour wash and is considered to be the forerunner of the ‘red passion’ campaign that Campari would develop in later years.

In the 1930s, it was creativity in a different format that contributed to the visual history of Campari through the work of Fortunato Depero. Futurist painter, writer, sculptor and graphic designer, Depero’s designs embraced strong use of geometry and dynamic style. He was not only responsible for moving Campari’s artwork away from the chi-chi opulence of the Belle Époque, he also designed the Camparisoda bottle. Container of the world’s first single-serve mixed drink, the Camparisoda bottle is considered so iconic in design that not only is it still in use today, it is a permanent subject of study during the annual Milan Design Week.

Campari’s association with artists continued to evolve during the 20^th century, mirroring the mood of the social and cultural landscapes. Post-war advertising saw Campari collaborating with avant-garde artist Carlo Fisanotti or Fisa, as he was better known. His striking poster of a Campari bottle peeking out from is paper wrapping was a resounding success. Artist Nino Nanni even had the idea of depicting a bottle of Campari circling the planet earth like a Sputnik satellite. Although there were several successful collaborations throughout the 80s and 90s with artists of distinction such as Milton Glaser, Campari’s passion really began to burn brightly through the artwork of its ‘Red Passion’ calendars.  A retrospective of these calendars shows some running themes: the decision to be daring, the celebration of the female form and Campari’s passion for sensuality. If we look at some of Campari’s most recent calendars, we can only try and collect our jaws from the floor as Salma Hayek clutches a man in one hand and a bottle of Campari in another.

2010 saw Campari celebrate its 150^th anniversary and with it, the establishment of the Galleria Campari in Milan. The Galleria is a space entirely dedicated to those works of art, or to the artistic collaborations that have had the most significant contribution to Campari’s history. Visitors are guided through three different experiences; a huge wall used for image projection, a red carpet sensory experience and a media ‘touch-table’ for browsing through the brand’s history. In addition, there are also temporary exhibits that are used to showcase the work of the various artists who have all been involved with Campari in some way. Last year, Campari launched a limited-edition art label created by Brazilian-born artist, Romero Britto. The label is an adaptation of a famous image by Britto called ‘New Day’, featuring a bright red heart, designed to symbolise “the pulsating heart of the brand and its connection to Campari lovers everywhere.” We say cheers to that.

After years in the doldrums, the humble Blended Scotch wants you to know it’s back back back. And not so humble either.

If there’s one thing you can say about single malt whisky – it’s had great PR. Over the past few years of “the great whisky boom” attention has been focused almost exclusively on malt, leaving blended whisky to get on with the heavy lifting unthanked. But there are signs that things are changing, that blended whisky, the Cinderella of Scotch, is about to go to the ball.

Sales of Scotch rose a huge 22 per cent in 2011 alone and in some parts of the emerging BRIC nations by even more. In terms of business focus, the premium and super-premium malts have stolen the limelight. But 90 per cent of all Scotch sold is blended, so it’s no surprise that whisky producers have been innovating across the board.

Blended whisky does have an image problem. Many people have been put off whisky for life because of an unfortunate teenage experience with something cheap and nasty. Add to that the widespread notion that blended is nothing more than good single malt adulterated with cheap grain whisky. A view most often heard from new converts to single malt keen to set themselves apart from the pack.

The founder of artisanal whisky producer Compass Box, John Glaser, has another explanation for blended’s poor image – “So many of them are boring.” But that doesn’t have to be the case. “When you make them from very high quality component whiskeys,” says Glaser, “aged in very high quality oak casks, by blending carefully, with a significant proportion of the recipe being malt whisky, you can make gorgeous drinks.”

Compass Box is only ten years old and already something of a favourite with the cognoscenti. The start of their second decade sees them on a mission to restore the name of blended whisky. To do this they’re not just launching a blended whisky but an entire blended range, Great King Street. First whisky out of the traps is Artist’s Blend, which has just won the prestigious Blended Whisky of the Year award from US Whisky Advocate magazine – “perfectly placed to bring blends back into vogue,” they reckoned.

If a return to the fray by independent producers such as Compass Box is part of the reason for the resurgence of blended, there is a wider picture. According to International Wine and Spirit Research’s Insights Report 2011, there are three key drivers of the spirits market at the moment. First they identify “traditional spirits with innovative flavours,” then “bargain hunting versus premiumisation” (hey, there’s a recession on) and thirdly the great “brown versus white”  battle, which the brown spirits are winning. All have positive implications for blended Scotch.

Quite why brown is winning is moot. But there is a popular theory to explain it – we tend not to drink what our parents drank. And if our parents rebelled against their whisky- and brandy-drinking parents by diving into vodka, that pendulum is now swinging back to the dark side.

It’s not just Compass Box and craft producers who are picking up on this vibe. There’s a profusion of new premium blends, artisan blends or, as Compass Box call them, “craft blends”.

The redoubtable Johnnie Walker Black Label might have been flying the flag for blends for a long time but it’s recently been joined by a Double Black and a Platinum Label blend. Over at Famous Grouse, they’ve brought out Black Grouse. In India, Teacher’s have recently launched a 25-year-old blended in advance of a global roll-out. Meanwhile, Cutty Sark have just launched the distinctly deluxe blend, Tam O’Shanter, and Chivas have released Linn House Reserve.

At the more engaged fringe of the market, where malt mania usually rules, there’s an Islay-heavy blend called St Isidore, created by whisky bloggers. And at the Masters of Malt website you can even make your own blend. In the world of blended, it seems, it’s all kicking off. All part of an explosion of activity which is as true of Ireland, the USA, Canada, Korea, Japan, even Germany, as it is of Scotland.

“Single malt is for thinkers, blended whisky for drinkers,” is how Ronnie Cox of the Glenrothes pithily puts it. A traditional – and thanks to the likes of Mad Men – reinvigorated idea that a single malt is the sort of thing you crack open perhaps late at night, in good company. But the end of a hard working day demands something more like a long cool Scotch and soda. It’s this versatility of blended (long, short, in cocktails, with soda) that has given it the strength to ride out decades of unfashionability.

A trio of final facts worth remembering: it wasn’t single malt whisky that exploded out of Scotland and conquered the world, it was blended. It is blended that bankrolls the entire whisky industry. It is blended that has made whisky the most popular spirit in the world. If blended is about to lose its Cinderella image then that can’t be a bad thing, surely. Anyone for a highball?

I step out of my house on a clear, sunny afternoon in Rio de Janeiro. It’s mid-January, so summer is in full swing, and I’m on a cachaça tasting assignment – this is my kind of work! My drinking partner, a native of Rio (and also my wife), is a little less enthusiastic – “I don’t think I can drink three cachaças right now – I’ll just taste some of yours, OK?” Not all Brazilians are in love with their national spirit, but in my wife’s case, the reluctance stems from knowing that drinking cachaça in the afternoon can lead to disgrace by evening.

We’re heading to Zé’s Bar – a cosy little drinking den situated on an anonymous side street in the pleasingly dilapidated neighbourhood of Catete. Zé’s is a one-room establishment lined from floor to ceiling with dusty wooden shelves, each straining under the weight of a hundred or so dusty bottles, most of which contain cachaça.

Cachaça [ca-SHA-sa], almost exclusively produced in Brazil, is distilled from fermented sugar cane juice. Rum, on the other hand, is made from molasses (boiled down, concentrated sugar cane juice). Sugar cane has been one of Brazil’s most important crops for more than 400 years and during that time cachaça has gained more than 2,000 nick-names – Pinga, Caninha and Aguardente are the most common, but the more inventive include Lágrima de Virgem (Virgin’s Tears), Apaga Tristeza (Sadness Remover) and Remédio de Pobre (Medicine of the Poor).

Remédio de Pobre is a telling nickname because cachaça has long been viewed by Brazilians as a drink of the poor, for those who can’t afford the more expensive imported spirits such as vodka and whisky. And yet, like so many things in Brazil right now, things are changing.

In the last few decades, the standards of cachaça production have risen significantly. Like tequila and rum, cachaça comes in a young, ‘white’ form (Cachaça Branca) and an aged, golden form (Cachaça Envelhecida). Today, some producers are aging their spirit in oak casks for up to 15 years, leading to an exceptional product that can hold its own against the more prestigious spirits of old world Europe. And with this increase in quality has come a change in attitude amongst Brazilians – specialist cachaça bars have gained in popularity as Brazilians increasingly take pride in their national spirit. Academia da Cachaça, for example, is a modern, air-conditioned establishment that offers more than 100 premium cachaças, some of which will cost you more than $25 per shot – you don’t use these for caipirinhas!

And so to Zé’s Bar. This is no Academia da Cachaça – no air conditioning and no well dressed waiting staff. Just Zé, a grumpy-faced, rumple-clothed 60-something Brazilian guy who will sell you ice-cold beer, a mean shot of cachaça and, if you ask nicely, a hot plate of petiscos (bar snacks). Just don’t expect a smile! Brazilians are obsessive about the temperature of their beer (it must be just this side of freezing), but cachaça is served at room temperature. The fancier establishments may serve your drink in a dainty brandy glass, but more usually, drinkers will sip their neat cachaça from a simple shot glass.

a typical serve of Cachaca...

Zé started us off with Claudionor, a white cachaça from the state of Minas Gerais – the state most famed for high quality cachaça production. Although technically a white cachaça, this did have a light golden glow, a warm, rounded flavour and a subtle tang of aniseed. At 48% this cachaça packs a punch and I have to confess to a little relief that my drinking partner had offered to share.

Next we moved on to Cachaça 51 – the world’s best-selling cachaça. If you live outside Brazil then chances are that this is the cachaça sitting behind your local bar. And whilst it is also Brazil’s best-selling cachaça, don’t expect  a visiting Brazilian to be impressed if you pull this out of your drinks cabinet! Utterly bereft of colour, 51 gives off harsh, almost chemical fumes. This is truly a cachaça that should be used for caipirinhas only.

And having suffered 51, we decided to treat ourselves and move to the other end of the scale. Magnífica Envelhecida is a beautiful golden cachaça from Rio de Janeiro state. Established in 1985, Magnífica is a relative newcomer to the scene and yet it is regularly ranked in the top 10 aged cachaças. Matured in oak barrels, Magnífica deserves a little time and a decent glass so you can fully appreciate its complex tones of honey and vanilla. With far less aniseed than the cachaças of Minas, this has fast become a favourite of mine, and unlike the smaller artisan-produced cachaças, Magnífica do export internationally.

And so, with our tasting session complete, we decided to head home – after three very generous glasses of cachaça, there was a hammock with my name on it. As we packed up our things we thanked Zé for his hospitality and received a nod and grunt in reply – from Zé, this is equivalent to a hearty bear-hug – he must really like us…

Controversial legislation in Mexico could change the way agave is distilled forever. Are these changes necessary growing pains for a developing category or might they inflict a permanent stunt in growth? Ulric Nijs discusses.

I remember, not so long ago (or so it seems) when most alcoholic beverages that came out of Mexico were usually badly thought of, and no one would have given tequila the time of the day. Tequila had its place in the speed rail simply because of its quick burst of boozy energy that consumers required, more as a rite of passage than a pleasure-seeking experience.

Today, I generally start my tequila mentoring with a very simple phrase: Tequila is the ‘aristocrat of the underworld’ (a small take on Douglas Coughlin’s philosophy). Meaning that, yes, it has kept up its ‘bad boy’ image but it is now starting to enjoy all the attention given to any other fine spirit. But have we gone a step too far in the opposite direction? Are we now witnessing an over-flooding of this category, similar to the premium vodka boom of the 90s, where some silly number of so-called premium vodkas were introduced behind the bar, and disappeared as quickly as they came?  Or are we looking at a genuine expansion of the tequila and mescal categories?  I am afraid of the answer.

In Mexico today we have a very different situation to the late 90s, where the blue agave was crippled, diseased and in short supply. However, due to the long incubation period of the plant, we are now feeling the ripple effects of the over-planting program that was put in place in the late 90′s and are left with a considerable surplus of agave. Now, the sight of abandoned blue agave fields has become a common sight in Jalisco (homeland of Tequila). It serves as a constant reminder that we are about to enter a new era in the history of the spirit.

I think that the best illustration of this era is the introduction of NOM-186 that has seen many aficionados raise their virtual voices in anger, calling the new sets of regulations an outrage, likely to put the livelihood of many traditional farmers at risks. Whilst my initial reaction was similar, I’ve started thinking about the implications and tried to understand the reasoning behind such an action. First and foremost, we must identify what the NOM-186 does; it restricts the production and labelling of products outside of the five geographical areas designated for mescal and tequila (the latter being produced only from agave tequilana Weber i.e. blue agave). Producers outside these areas will no longer be able to use the term ‘agave’, but instead will have to use the wording ‘distilled Agavecea’; a generic term referring to about 10 types of genus, to which the agave belongs. NOM-186 would also control the alcoholic strength of these products and impose further restrictions on the types of agave allowed for the production of mescal. All of these actions would not only single-handedly force smaller farmers out of the industry, but tear through a huge part of Mexican culture; a culture that has been prizing the distillation of agave for the best part of 600 years.

Put like this, NOM-186 sounds forceful. In many ways, it is ruthless and certainly does seem to favour well-established and large producers over smaller artisanal productions, but I also think that this may be a necessary reaction to try and protect a national treasure – it’s certainly not the first time we see actions such as this in the world of wine & spirits. Didn’t Louis XV pass a law in 1731 forbidding the plantation of new vine stock to protect the French wine industry, just as Carlos IV of Spain granted the very first licence to Don Jose Maria Guadalupe de Cuervo to produce mescal wine? I do think that we are now in a situation that demands some sort of action to protect the integrity of the mescal category (used in its broadest possible term) and to ensure that this current over-supply does not lead to false expectations on the part of consumers.

A Jimanador as he harvests agave and removes the leaves to access the heart or 'pina'

At the end of the day, if you continue the comparison with the vodka revolution, it is true that vodka drinkers across the globe were suddenly spoilt for choice and yet it does seem that most of us went back to the tried & tested products and many of these vodkas released during the boom of the category ended up being traded by the container load into smaller markets. I think we should reserve judgement on NOM-186 at the moment and try to look at the long-term implications behind it. Whilst it’s important to preserve the livelihood of the people who work with agave, it is also important to protect the category and if the NOM-186 (or a reasonable adaptation thereof) is a way of doing that, then maybe it really isn’t so bad at all?

Our resident sommelier recommends some white wines for keeping away the last of the winter chills

With frosty temperatures only just thawing for most of the northern hemisphere, many people turn to heavy, thick, juicy red wines to keep away the chills or to toast the many roasts that are consumed during this time. I, on the other hand, have been drinking whisky. I confess I’ve been pretty bored by wines lately and have been thinking that the future journey of all drinks connoisseurs ends in a heavily peated, smoky whisky! To put it in context for those of you fortunate enough to be in a long term relationship – I was having the 7 year itch – my relationship with wine was on a rocky road and I needed something to shake me out of my funk. So, just as I was losing faith and my ‘wine-drive’ was at its lowest rev, I met Alvaro Palacios’s very full, plump, sexy white Rioja – Placet. This sent me on a lustful journey looking for delicious wines to drink and since I am not the most traditional of Sommeliers, I decided to make this journey all about winter whites.

What is a winter wine you ask? Well, a winter wine needs to warm you up; it needs to transport you to a chalet high up in the snow-capped peaks of your favourite ski resort, complete with furry rug, roast cashews and roaring fire with melting marshmallows. The following wines did all of that for me and more; in my personal opinion a winter white wine needs to have oak influence, it must have vanilla, honey and oak spice; to name just a few characteristics I was on the hunt for. Let me start by telling you about the wine that made it all happen, the wine that got the hair on the back of my neck standing on end and gave me butterflies like a little boy giving his last chocolate to the girl next door.

Palacios Remondo, PLACET 2007

A sexy Spanish wine with a difference; for those who don’t know – white Rioja exists and boy does this señorita excite! The wine is made from 100% Viura, it is hand harvested and then fermented in traditional 5000Lt oak casks before being aged for 9 months on its lees. The vineyard is located on the slopes of the Yerga Mountains at 1800ft above sea level at one of the highest points in the eastern Rioja Baja region and in the commune of Alfaro. Placet goes through malo-lactic fermentation, which gives the wine that notable buttery character. Being aged ‘sur lees’ (on its lees) means there is that freshly baked brioche scent, and because of the high position of the vineyard, the wine retains great freshness and acidity, with honey melon and white pears on the palate. Crack open a bottle and snuggle up…sharing is optional!

Domaine Gaston Huet, Vouvray ‘Le haut Lieu Sec’ 2008

I need to confess, this next wine has been my mistress for a while now and whenever I call around, I am never disappointed. That’s right, she’s French. Situated in the Central Loire Valley, within the Touraine district and outside the city of Tours, lies the picturesque village of Vouvray. Vouvray is dedicated to the production of Chenin Blanc, from dry wines through to sweet and sparkling styles. Dating back to around 1928, Domaine Huet’s history is entwined with the town its wine shares its name with; the estate has been a leading supporter of Biodynamic wine-making practises long before it became fashionable to dance naked under the full moon and drink from cows’ horns! The best way I can explain this amazing wine is by painting a picture for you and transporting you to the French countryside on a beautiful clear winter’s day with the warm sun shining on your face. Imagine for a moment the smell of baked cinnamon apples, freshly made lemon curd tartlets and honey covered waffles with creamy vanilla ice cream. Sounds scrumptious, doesn’t it?

Zenato, Lugana Riserva 2004

All wine lovers dream of going to visit the great vineyards of their favourite wines…for me it is an entire country and it has to be the vineyards, hills and valleys of Italy or Italia as I like to call her. No other wine producing nation is as intricate, diverse or as complicated as Italia is. She has over 300 registered and authorised grape varietals with around another 500 planted, and until 1994 housed the worlds most expensive table wine, Sassacaia, now a DOC by appellation. (Another amazing story for another time). This vino bianco is made from the Trebbiano grape varietal and comes from the Lugana DOC (Appellation) in the region of Veneto, home to the romantic capital city of Venice. Its  looks are vibrant and touched by a golden, almost angelic glow with subtle curves, all thanks to the time spent in new small French oak barrels. Its perfume is a delicate composition of vanilla, honeysuckle and blossoms, ripe citrus fruits and toasted walnuts. On the palate the wine flows with ease, the follow through of oak spices and roasted nuts clearly evident, there is even a touch of canned peaches, caramel popcorn and freshly baked and buttered bread. In a word, love!

Images: supplied

We chat to Bob Nolet, owner of Ketel One distillery as he arrives in Dubai to judge the vodka heats of the UAE World Class competition.

How does it feel to be in Dubai? Is this your first time here?

No – I came to Dubai in 2001 for my honeymoon, on my way to the Seychelles. Dubai has grown a lot – especially the bar scene in terms of cocktails. When I came here over 10 years ago, we just visited a few hotel bars which were very traditional and not very interesting in terms of the drinks they were serving. The bartenders here are now as good as the food is – Dubai in 10 years has really moved forward a lot, but I’ve also seen this happen in a lot of cities over the past 10 years, with places like Manhattan and London leading the way.

What’s new and exciting in your world at the moment?

There are lots of things. Since Ketel One signed a partnership with Diageo, we now have access to many more countries, so we can pick and choose where we’d like to be present around the world. From a personal point of view, I’m now travelling to a lot of new countries. We were able to travel as a brand before, but the distribution wasn’t always in place. Diageo has really helped us grow.

What’s your go-to drink/cocktail?

Ketel One on the rocks.

What’s inspiring you at the moment in the drinks world?

Right now, it’s great to witness lots of bespoke cocktail making. As a consumer, it means you can learn something and it’s fun to enjoy the spectacle and performance that often goes unseen behind the bar. For bartenders, it’s great for them to be able to develop their craftsmanship and their relationship to the consumer by bringing drinks directly to the table.

Who is an icon for you in this industry?

My father. My brother and myself learned a lot from him growing up and working alongside him. He gave us some great advice: keep it simple, stay focused, don’t rush, saying ‘no’ is sometimes good; sometimes it’s better for everyone. He taught us a few of the really important things.

How do you try and stay ahead of the game?

We have always focused on the bartender from day one as the ambassador of our brand. The trade has always been our voice through to the consumer. We counted on the fact that word of mouth recommendations would help us in a big way. That has always been our focus and will continue to be so. Our goal is to be the most recommended vodka in the world. We want to do this by having everyone taste our vodka. Our heritage dates back to 1691 and our craftsmanship tells its own story – things like social media only help us to spread our message. We feel that we have an advantage over other brands that don’t necessarily have a real story to tell. The more educated a consumer becomes, the more brands have to have substance to their stories.

Three things you could never forego:

Family life is important – it’s important to have something to come home to when you travel a lot. Ketel One on the rocks every day – I suppose I should train myself to do without this but I’d rather not.; it’s my way of relaxing at the end of the day. Lastly, the distillery is a life force and my second home – I’m there during the week and at the weekend and it’s part of my family  history. I grew up with it.

In your bar/fridge at home you can always find:

The local Dutch genever that we make.  Even though it is made from juniper, it has a bit more flavour than gin– it’s more similar to the taste of whisky as part of the product is aged in wood. In Dutch we call it moutwijn (malt wine). This results in a very grainy flavour.

If you weren’t in your current profession you would be:

In fashion – I actually started to work in that field and it’s a very nice industry to work in – I could see myself working in a brand capacity. At the end of the day, I enjoy making a brand that is appealing to consumers and that’s really the most fun part of what I do – connecting with the end consumer. Trying to read them, finding out what interests them and figuring out how to create a product they would like to buy into.

For more information on Ketel One you can visit them here:

www.ketelone.com

www.twitter.com/KetelOne

www.facebook.com/KetelOne

Every month we choose a selection of products we think will turn from liquid gold into easy-earned cash. Failing that, you can always drink them.

Diamond Jubilee, John Walker & Sons Ltd.

For many perhaps, the name John Walker is associated more closely with blends such as Black Label and distinctive square bottles. Packaging and price point aside, it is incontestable that John Walker & Sons has been expertly blending Scotch whisky for almost 150 years. Recently, we have seen the release of super-blends such as King George V and The John Walker – both impressive examples of expert blending but the Diamond Jubilee is set to be the jewel in the company’s crown. A blend of grain and malt whiskies distilled and matured since 1952, this whisky has been crafted by Master Blender Jim Beveridge and apprentice Matthew Crow. Each edition is released in a specially-designed Baccarat crystal decanter, complete with half-carat diamond. Also included is a set of lead crystal glasses, a bespoke cabinet and an artefact book. Only 60 bottles will be released, and all profits will be donated with a guarantee of at least £1million to the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust – a benevolent investment indeed.

Diamond Jubilee, $159,000 (£100,000 excluding VAT)

Baccarat ‘Lola’ whisky tumblers

We’re not obsessed with Baccarat. Honest. It’s just that we came across these glasses during a recent tasting of Blue Label and they were a delight to drink from. If you’re investing in serious drams, you may as well invest in a serious glass to go with them and this one ticks all the boxes. Designed by Savinel and Rose for the Tapis Rouge Barware Collection these are full lead crystal, hand crafted in France. A steal at $100 a pair.
www.baccarat.com

Chateau Lafite (vintage optional)

Despite recent activity in pricing that has seen first-release Bordeaux wines increase in value by up to 40% and then dip by almost the same amount at the beginning of this year, the fact remains that the demand for certain wines such as Chateau Lafite Rothschild will always be high. At its zenith last year, Lafite was selling for over $15,000 a case and although these prices didn’t hold, Lafite retains a certain mythical-like quality for collectors. Which makes it a good investment for you. Don’t bother looking for tasting notes on Lafite’s website – they prefer not to give you any, claiming that tasting is a ‘personal activity’. So is driving a car, and Mercedes still tell you what it feels like to drive an SLS on its website. So for now we’ll just say that Lafite is ‘designed to set your pulse racing’ and is a ‘combination of looks and design’ – with thanks to Mercedes.
http://www.lafite.com/eng/Bordeaux-Estates/Chateau-Lafite-Rothschild/Chateau-Lafite-Rothschild

BrewDog – Equity for Punks

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own brewery but didn’t fancy the hassle of actually malting the grains or having to manage a bottling facility? Well now you can -  by investing in BrewDog. This progressive outfit has not only been championing craft-brewing techniques but has been securing its growth by selling shares in the company. Shareholders benefit from a lifetime discount in all BrewDog bars and on the BrewDog website. You’ll have a say in how the company is run and will eventually be able to trade or sell your shares online. If you’re already a BrewDog fan then you’re Quids in, as this gives you the chance to get richer (literally) with every BrewDog beer you drink. Prices start at £95 for four.
www.brewdog.com/equityforpunks

Such a reaction tends to be much worse if you were regarded as somewhat of a big drinker or ‘massive lush’ before, at which point you can expect smug retorts such as ‘how’s that working out for you?’ when what they’re really thinking is how their nights out just got far less interesting with you on the San Pellegrino. Alcoholism and religion aside, non-drinking seems to be a concept that people struggle to get their heads around. ‘But why?!’ they say raising their hands to the heavens looking at you in disbelief. That is unless you can give them a medically acceptable reason at which point they soon pipe down and feel slightly stupid/sheepish for trying to pressure you into a round of Jäegermeister shots.

I have not had so much as a sip of alcohol for the last three months, although soon I shall be rationing myself the odd glass of wine and half pint of Guinness (no prizes for guessing why). During these 12 weeks I have found myself looking longingly at girls casually sipping a cocktail and had to restrain myself from sniffing the wine glasses of friends just to remind myself of what I’m missing. And miss it I do, but not in volume, in taste.
The drink that, so to speak, ‘got me’ this week was sake, after I caught up with a friend who had been to Zuma the night before. ‘Was it a heavy one?’ I asked her. ‘No, a glass of prosecco, a margarita and then a cup of sake at the end,’ she replied. Sake! Oh Sake! The thought of a cup of sake, slipping down my throat as cold as granite was enough to make me clasp my hands to my head. In this way, I may not be drinking, but I’m certainly thinking.
What really irks me since my bout of non-drinking is not the non-drinking itself, but the apologetic drinker. It’s all very middle class to prattle on about your mid-week drinking habit and how you need to cut down, but really why bother? Please don’t pooh-pooh it on my account. Have courage in your convictions! If drinking a glass of wine or a tumbler of scotch at the end of a work day makes you feel good or helps you relax, why deny yourself such a pleasure out of some repentant puritanical impulse? This kind of chat, when friends start to converse about how they need to ‘cut down’ becomes incredibly tedious. It’s a bit like telling a child chocolate bars are overrated. What’s the harm in a glass of wine every night? Drink it, enjoy it and then shut up about it. Or else convert to an alternative form of spiritual belief and bingo! Your problem is solved.  And you might find it does wonders for your will power and your boring middle class drinking habit.

Prep Time: 3 minutes

Ingredients:

• 25ml Gin
• 100 ml Champagne
• 25ml Pink Grapefruit
• small pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:

1. Fill your mixing glass with ice and pour in the gin and the pink grapefruit juice
2. After, slowly add the champagne and a small pinch of cinnamon
3. Stir gently with a bar spoon
4. Pour into a champagne flute
5. Garnish squeezing the oil of the grapefruit zest over the flute

Hearty Austrian fare combined with an outstanding selection of wines and spirits. Who could ask for more?

Restaurants like Wallsé are part of the patchwork of variety that makes New York (in my humble opinion) truly one of the world’s great cities. At the end of a 3-day conference in NYC, a group of 6 of us headed out for dinner. We’d heard talk of the Spotted Pig – a gastro pub in the Village with a walk-in policy that came highly recommended. Alas, the venue is small and popular and we faced a 2-hour wait. Temperatures were well below zero and none of us were in the mood for aimless wandering, so imagine our delight when we came across an Austrian restaurant two blocks down. The boys in our party were excited by the thought of Wiener Schnitzel and Apfel Strudel; I was cheered by the possibility of some decent schnaps (if only for its warming effects) and was delighted to see several bottles behind the bar as we pushed through the door. As it turns out, this place is a bit of a New York institution, as I found out from several comments within seconds of posting our choice of eatery online.

The menu included a combination of classic Viennese dishes as well as some contemporary interpretations, all presented in a modern and fresh way. We had the scallops with potato, clam and tomato ragout and the Spätzle with braised rabbit and wild mushrooms. Spätzle is a kind of Austrian egg noodle and this dish was superb – light, perfectly seasoned. We followed with Wiener Schnitzels and venison Goulash that were respectively very tasty.

Wallsé has an impressive wine list, composed almost entirely of Austrian wines. We chose a ‘Fass 4’ Grüner Veltliner from the Ott winery in Wagram; I’m a big fan of Grüner but I confess that I haven’t had exposure to a wide variety of producers. This particular bottle was steely, notes of gooseberry, apples and the merest whiff of honey. Choosing a red was more of a challenge as none of us are particularly knowledgeable in this area but luckily all were curious. We chose a Zweigelt – an Austrian grape variety that apparently was: “developed in 1922, at the Federal Institute for Viticulture and Pomology at Klosterneuburg, Austria, by Fritz Zweigelt.” Federal grape development sounds a bit clinical, but I can assure you this bottle was anything but. It was certainly completely unlike wines I’ve tasted from other parts of Europe – the nose was very earthy, vegetal, with gamey undertones, which had me slightly worried. The gamey element dissipated, however, and gave way to a sort of damp forest floor aroma which was most pleasant. There was great acidity and structure to the wine and it played perfect partner to the meaty Goulash stew.

My enjoyment of our meal reached terminal velocity when we were presented with the desserts/digestifs list. Finally, I was going to have my schnaps. Schnaps (from the low German noun ‘to swallow’) is an Austrian or German eau-de-vie distilled from pressed  fruit (using a similar technique to producing grappa). Unlike American schnapps, there is no sugar added to these spirits. The most common fruits used are apples, apricots and plums but we also had the choice of cherry, Williams pear, rowanberry, ginger and raspberry. We couldn’t possibly decide so we each picked a different flavour. All were delicious.

Wallsé
344 West 11th Street  New York, NY 10014
(212) 352 2300