Osocalis Rare Alambic Brandy

The explosion of craft distillers in this country is truly amazing, and the availability of a brandy as smooth and flavorful as the Osocalis Rare Alambic Brandy makes it easier to accept that the Chinese are buying up all the Cognac.

This brandy was recommended to me at Weygandt's, which makes a real effort to stock craft spirits. The distillery, near Santa Cruz, describes itself as a second-generation of American craft distillers combining Old World techniques with New World fruit. They imported the alambic still from Charentes, but the grapes are local Pinot Noir, Colombard and Semillon. In fact, they explain on their website, American distillers have an advantage over French producers because they can blend different varietals to get the flavor they want, unlike the strictly delimited appellations in France.

In any case, this brandy, one of the 1,800 bottles produced in Lot No. X, is exquisitely smooth, not sweet but graceful enough to make you think so, with hints of spice in the background. It is great in a snifter, after a meal, or anytime, really.

Mockingbird Hill

It's great to have a bar in DC specialized in sherries and cured ham, but Mockingbird Hill also betrays the flaws in a food culture that is far too precious. There's no reason why you should have to spend $40 for a total of 6 ounces of booze and snacks hardly plentiful enough to make your stomach growl.

The sherries were great. Unfortunately, MH doesn't have a website with a menu and I didn't take notes, so this is a bit vague. I started with a glass of fino en rama (meaning from the cask, I was told) that might have been two ounces. It was dry, crisp, with that indefinable "sherry" taste. I then had a flight that included a fino, an oloroso, and a dark, syrupy version described as a dessert wine. The oloroso stole the show for me and I will explore this category further. The serrano ham was good, and the sampler of American hams was excellent. A little plate of three tiny octopuses was fine. The snacks were all shared and the price above only includes my share.

The music, apparently punk rock, was obnoxious, the table uncomfortable, the service about what you'd expect. Barrio gotico it isn't, of course, but one would hope that these efforts to bring slices of European food culture to the U.S. would be to bring some of the comfort and generosity, rather than such carefully measured, overpriced dollops.

A dinner at the nearby Bistro Boheme was much more satisfying, yet even here it was an uncomfortable cross between European comfort and American chic. My braised pork with knoedel and sauerkraut was quite nice, the Pilsner Urquell on draft was great. The server must have been in training but he managed all right.

Burritt Room

Tricked out like a speakeasy, the Burritt Room was a welcome oasis after flying 6-some hours from DC and tramping through the streets of San Francisco in the hot sun. There was jazz, there were cushy seats, there were great signature cocktails -- starting with the Berlinetta, a mix of bourbon, cynar, Carpano antica, and orange bitters that makes for a relaxing and complex drink.

We stayed at Charlie Palmer's Mystic Hotel off Union Square largely because of the Burritt Room. Our second evening there, we sat at the bar and had a chance to talk with Josh Trabulsi, the head bartender and creator of the Berlinetta and other signature drinks. He was embarrassed that Serious Eats said the Berlinetta was a mix of rye and boubon ("Makes me look like an idiot"). He explained that he like Four Roses Yellow Label for the drink because it was a bit rougher and more robust than some other bourbons. We discussed how hard it is to find in stores because of its checkered past -- consumers are not ready to recognize its return to serious bourbon-making -- but he said it was doing a roaring business with California restaurants.

I tried a couple of the other cocktails -- the passably good Poquito Picante (a margarita-style drink with tequila blanco, Aperol, lime, and a house serrano tincture) and a very forgettable cocktail of the month. Trabulsi was clearly passionate about his work and still working very hard mixing drinks. It was interesting to me that he scrupulously measured every ounce and used a sip straw to test each drink, much as had my Claridge's bartender. Also interesting was the ice used in each drink -- a single large cube for the Berlinetta, a glass full of normal cubes for the Poquito Picante -- all helpfully pictured in the menu. I take it that the single large cube is for Sazerac-style drinks that might normally be served without ice, and the big cube minimizes dilution.

Byrrh

This spicey wine-based aperitif is fine by itself, over ice, and a nice alternative to higher-proof drinks before a meal. But this formerly obscure French concoction is also enjoying a resurgence in craft cocktails.

Somehow an original cocktail from a site called Kindred Cocktails looked more convincing to me than some of the standard recipes for a Byrrh cocktail. This one, called Byrrhlesque, and attributed to Ron Rovner in Portland, Maine, calls for 1-1/2 ounces bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve), 3/4-ounce Carpano Antica vermouth, 3/4-ounce Byrrh, 1 barspoon Luxardo maraschino, and 2 dashes orange bitters, mixed in a shaker over ice, and strained into a glass with ice.

The drink was smooth, balanced, complex with notes of spice from all three liquors -- a real treat! It seemed to address some of the issues with classic Byrrh cocktails, which tend to use dry vermouth, with complaints of the whiskey overpowering the subtlety of the Byrrh (though clearly the choice of bourbon or rye will make a difference).

A real keeper!

Aperol ascendant

After drinking Aperol spritzes everywhere during our trip to Italy, I came home to Saveur magazine offering me another Aperol cocktail from Hawaii. This drink comes from Monkeypod Kitchen in Ko Olina, outside Honolulu, and is called the Ho'opono Potion.

It looked to me like a variation on a Margarita but it actually tastes quite different. It starts with muddling three cucumber slices with 1 ounce of lime juice. Add 1-1/2 ounces silver tequila, 3/4 ounce sugar syrup and 1/2 ounce Aperol. Shake with ice, strain into old-fashioned glass filled with ice (they say single large ice cube), and garnish with a cucumber slice.

It is surprisingly tart, as the sugar syrup just balances the lime juice. The Aperol enhances the tequila, but the agave flavor comes through loud and strong. The muddled cucumber may add a vegetable undertone but there's no pronounced cucumber taste. I liked it better than I though I would and found it very refreshing.

Craft beer, cask ales

American craft beer makers have surpassed their English role models and are making the tastiest ale-style brews. I had a chance to compare during my recent trip to London, stopping in pubs in Mayfair and Borough Market to sample the cask ales. When friends took me to the World of Music, Arts, and Dance (WOMAD) festival in the Cotswolds, we ended up in a large tent with two dozen big metal casks lined up on bales of hay with numerous ales containing the words "sun" and "golden" in them.

The cask ales are good. They are fresh and flavorful. But they have a slightly sour taste from the fermentation process and the minimal carbonation makes them seem thin. And while historically it made sense to serve them at room or cellar temperature, there's really no need in the age of refrigeration to serve them at anything but the optimal temperature. American bars may err on the side serving beer too cold, but you mind that less on a hot, summer day than a beer that tastes warm and flat.

I had a delicious local craft beer on our recent visit to Pizzeria Orso -- Face Plant from the Lost Rhino Brewery in Ashburn, Va. It had a fresh grain flavor bursting with effervescent energy, a dark gold color in the frosted glass and was refreshingly chilled. I'd order it any day over the cask ales.

Claridge's

Lukas made the best sazerac I've ever tasted, and I told him so. The bartender at the Fumoir bar at Claridge's Hotel in London, Lukas starts with a scoop of crushed ice and a shot of absinthe in a coupe glass and lets it sit. Meanwhile he mixes the rye with two bitters -- presumably Peychaud's is one of them -- and then adds a shot of cognac for good measure, stirs this in the mixing glass and strains it into the coupe after he's tossed the ice and absinthe. He cuts a large-ish section of peel from an orange and then slices off the pith, takes this supersized twist and wrings it with both hands over the drink.

Lukas is from Poland, but a native New Orleans mixologist would have nothing on him. I started with a martini made from Oxley gin, a London craft gin distilled at -5 Centigrade. It is made with botanicals such as cocoa, meadowsweet, grains of paradise and licorice.

I stumbled into the dark Fumoir bar (strictly nonfumeur these days) because the main bar at Claridge's was full. But I was alone at the 3-seat bar and had a chance to watch Lukas exercise his craft. He was meticulous and efficient, but did not let the happy hour crowd -- thankfully isolated in a lounged separate from the bar -- hurry him. The show and the excellent drinks were well worth the hefty bill.

Sangria as a craft cocktail?

Can Sangria, long reviled as a way for unsophisticated drinkers to mask cheap wine with sugar and fruit, make a comeback as a craft cocktail?

Photo by Tamorlan (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

For our recent fiesta paella, I used the red wine sangria from Claudia Roden's The Food of Spain, and I was very happy with the result. She says she got it from a bar in Seville, so that it is Andalusian.

Virtually any fruit can be used. Apples are the standby, but I used peaches from the farmer's market, plus a couple of nice little apricots we had left over from making the fruit salad. Peel, pit and dice the fruit and put it in a pitcher with 3 to 4 tablespoons of sugar, juice of 4 oranges, a strip of lemon peel, juice of 1 lemon, 1/2 cup brandy or Cognac, and 1/2 cup of rum and let the fruit macerate for an hour or so. When ready to serve, pour in a bottle of chilled Rioja wine and 2 to 3 cups of chilled club soda. Serve into glasses filled with ice.

This was surprisingly tasty and refreshing, and not too sweet. Chilling the wine and soda obviates the need for ice in the pitcher, so the sangria remains undiluted. The orange juice disappears and combines with the fruit and the lemon to give the drink a buoyant, fresh taste and feel. I used a relatively cheap Rioja, but it was not a cheap wine.

My introduction to sangria was in Las Cuevas, the little pubs trailing off the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, so it has always had positive recollections for me. But a few weeks ago, I told a friend I had made some sangrita to go with tequila and he was confused, wondering why a sophisticated drinker like myself would want to make a drink using cheap wine.

But now both The Modern Mixologist and The Craft of Cocktails include recipes for sangria, though the former has one calling for a stunning 12 ounces of Cointreau. I found Roden's recipe simpler and more authentic, and was very pleased with the result.

Italian stout, Spanish vermouth

One of the best treats I ever had was a Guinness tapped in the way only the Irish can do it at a pub in Galway served with oysters on the half shell from that rugged Atlantic coast. Oysters and stout are a match made in heaven, as the heavy, malty beer washes down the briny fresh molluscs. So it makes sense that someone is brewing an oyster stout.

From Birra del Borgo website

The Del Borgo craft brewery in Borgorose, Italy, mixes in 33 lbs of Brittany fines de claires oysters with 500 liters of must during the brewing process to give a briny edge to the dark, foamy stout. As part of its effort to expand its beer list, 2Amys has added this "Pearls to swine" stout to its drinks menu and I sampled it on our visit there this week. The stout itself was a good, solid dark brew. The head in the 12-oz serving could have been a little bigger, but the beer was fresh and there was definitely something fishy about it. I paired it with a mozzarella and sausage pizza, which may not have been the happiest combination, but it worked fine because the hearty beer was a match for the rich sausage flavor.

Surprisingly enough, 2Amys has a full bar but they focus on beer and wine as if they didn't. The effort to increase the beer offering is typical as restaurants even with a restricted license try to keep up with the craft trend in drinks.

Little Serow, which we visited recently, has only beer and wine so they add a dash of trendiness by offering vermouths. I ordered the Perucchi Gran Reserva from Spain, a spicy, clovey concoction which claims to have 40 different ingredients. While Spanish vermouths may be new for us, Perucchi has been making them since 1876, and the tradition shows in the finished, mature taste of this aperitif. It was an excellent accompaniment to the spicy starters at the Thai restaurant, and helped whet the appetite appropriately for what was to come.

It is still a novelty in this country to drink vermouth straight, but it's one of the first things I learned in Europe. My first summer there, in 1970, I met a friend in Geneva who encourage me to order a "rouge et blanc" at the sidewalk cafe right on the lake. This was a mix of red and white vermouths, served on ice with a twist of lemon, and perfectly matched the sunny day, cooled by the breeze off the lake, with the mountain peaks in the distance. So Little Serow and others without a full license are making a virtue out of necessity by offering these herb-infused wines.

200+ Margaritas

Maria's New Mexican Kitchen in Santa Fe offers a fabulous menu of more than 200 Margaritas, using their large collection of 100% agave tequilas with other slight variations on the basic recipe. Some have triple sec, some Cointreau, some Grand Marnier, some a combination. Most have the lime, lemon, and sugar mixer but some have other citrus fruits.

The heart of the list, though, is the wide selection of tequilas -- blanco, reposado, anejo. The Margaritas start at $6.50 with the house special and go up to $42 for the 24-karat Gold Reserve, made with very special hand-crafted Jose Cuervo, special Grand Marnier, etc. The drinks arrive well-shaken, ice cold and served in pear-shaped Margarita glasses.

Someone had a good time making up the names and writing the descriptions. Here are the ones we tried:

The Merry Margarita - Featured in the 2008 Christmas edition of The New Mexico Magazine, it is made with Corazon 100% agave Silver tequila, Cointreau and Blood Orange Juice served in a glass rimmed with green sugar (though in requesting no salt we lost out on the sugar).

The Grand Old Soul -- Alma 100% anejo tequila and Grand Marnier. A great addition to our list!

The Elizabeth-Two -- El Tesoro 100% agave plata tequila, a 1/2-shot of Cointreau and a 1/2-shot of Grand Marnier.

Moon Over Santa Fe -- Dos Lunas 100% agave silver tequila with Cointreau - Romance on the Rocks!

I'm not sure there is a greater selection of Margaritas anywhere, and in any case this has become one of the obligatory stops in our visits to Santa Fe. The food, btw, is supposed to be good, but the green chile meatballs we ordered as an alibi to sit at a table were fairly bland.

More modern mixology

I'm enjoying Tony Abou-Ganim's The Modern Mixologist. I like his emphasis on fresh juices and bitters -- two hallmarks, I gather, of the craft cocktail movement -- and find his drinks to be nicely balanced and refreshing. He prompted me to refurbish my bar tools and I've found the hand squeezer for citrus juices and the new jigger really very helpful. Not only do I enjoy making his drinks, but have more confidence in general in tackling other recipes.

The Luce del Sole remains the only home run and definite keeper. But I have also enjoyed the Bluegrass Cobbler (bourbon, maraschino, sour with pineapple and cherries), the Clermont Smash (bourbon, falernum, mint, sour, peach bitters), and, less so, the Jamaican Sunset (Sailor Jerry, orange juice, pineapple juice, sour, pomegranate -- I used grenadine -- and Myer's). John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum, in particular, was worth seeking out for the sweetness and balance it gave to the Clermont Smash.

With my new-found confidence, I was also able to successfully replicate the two cocktails I liked at Fiola -- the Deshler and the Negroni Classico. I found I liked the latter -- using Gran Classico and Dolin rouge -- even better at home. In both cases, the bitter -- Peychaud's in the Deshler and Gran Classico in the Negroni -- add a nice touch of smokey flavor, almost like incense.

By contrast, I found my recently purchased The Craft of the Cocktail by David DeGoff a bit off-putting. The pretentious cover, with the bartender in fancy dress, sporting a gold ring, had a whiff of snobbiness and stuffiness I don't think is characteristic of craft cocktails. The recipes, as far as I can tell, don't really add anything to my A to Z book. But we'll see.

Fiola drinks

This marvelous restaurant, which is unfussy about its food, does make a little bit too much of its bar and the craft cocktails by mixologist Jeff Faile. The drinks were fine, but not fabulous and when you've got wonderful food and wine why make a big deal about the cocktails?

Mine was actually the best of the three I tasted. It was called the Deshler and contained Templeton rye, Cocchi americano rosa, Cointreau and Peychaud's bitter. It was served neat in a rocks glass like a Sazerac and was a very nice Manhattan-like drink with great balance and flavor.

Andrea's drink -- cryptically and pretentiously called It's Expected, I'm Gone -- was not good at all. It contained Green Hat gin, grapefruit juice, honey syrup and Burlesque bitters. There was an odd taste either from the gin or the bitters and the citrus was too sour.

Another drink, misleadingly called a Negroni classico, was quite nice, but the classico refers not to it being the classic Negroni mix of gin, Campari and vermouth, but to containing a bitter called Gran Classico, which I gathered from an explanation by the manager was one of the original products from Campari in an earlier incarnation. Whatever, it was sweeter than the "classic" Negroni, and clearer than with regular Campari, though a third ingredient was listed as Dolin rouge, but an altogether pleasant drink.

Negroni, it seems, has become so trendy that a full page of the bar menu was devoted to various bastardized forms of Negroni, so that it is the new Martini. However, just as a Martini is just gin and vermouth, so a Negroni is really just the three original ingredients and they should just find other names for the variations.

I think it's great that there is a resurgence in cocktails, and craft cocktails are fine, but let's rein it in a bit on the hype.

Italian wines

As my map clearly shows, I've been assiduous in exploring Italian wines. I don't feel like I've made a breakthrough, yet, in finding the wines or regions I really like. From what I've been able to sample so far, it seems clear that it is the high-priced wines from Piedmont and Tuscany that are the best, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese. Whatever progress is being made in other regions with other varietals, it hasn't yet resulted in affordable good wines that I've been able to find.

In other words, I still feel most comfortable with French wines, which is no surprise after 11 years in France when I drank them almost exclusively. I instinctively know what to expect from each region; the names and labels are familiar to me. I suspect, too, that the lower-price wines are simply better.

But I will soldier on. This initial impression may represent ignorance rather than anything else. I would like to find more wines from Campania, especially Aglionico, because I quite liked the one I tried. I've signed up for an AIWF tasting of Alto Adige wines next week, which is promising, because the Pinot Grigio from Bolzano that I had this week was quite good. More to come!

Aperol and modern mixology

If every cocktail in Tony Abou-Ganim's The Modern Mixologist is as good as the Luce del Sole, the book was a great investment. The drink caught my eye because Aperol Apertivo was one of the ingredients. I had noticed the Aperol bottle at Magruders and the other night at Dino spotted the Aperol Spritz on the menu.

Abou-Ganim says Aperol has flavors of bitter orange, rhubarb and gentian and I gather it has become a trendy drink in Italy. The Luce del Sol calls for 1-1/2 oz Finlandia grapefruit vodka, 3/4 oz Aperol, 1/2 oz honey syrup, 1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and 1 oz fresh-squeezed orange juice. Shake and strain into an ice-filled old-fashioned glass. Garnish is an orange spiral and lemon slices.The result is a wonderfully balanced, refreshing drink sparkling with citrus flavors.

This was a departure for me in many ways. I've always been skeptical of flavored vodkas, and suspicious of craft cocktails. Much of the "movement" seems to me to be a marketing push by the spirit producers. But so what, really. The whole concept of cocktails is to add an element of play, to make happy hour even happier and if that has led to a resurgence of the cocktail, who am I to complain?

I like Finlandia but I didn't find their grapefruit vodka. Circle Liquor, however, had a sale on Absolut vodkas, including their Ruby Red, and it served just as well. I'd never heard of honey syrup, but I used some simple syrup and a dash of honey, though most of that stuck to the side of the shaker.

Abou-Ganim has sections on basic tools and drinks, which was helpful. I went to Sur la Table and filled the gaps that I have. I got a new jigger, the standard one that looks like two joined triangles, to replace the awkward one with a handle that I had. I also got the "channel knife" to cut citrus strips, and a hand squeezer for limes and other citrus fruits. As with anything when you have the right tools, it makes life so much easier.

So Abou-Ganim's recipes are bit complicated and often call for specific ingredients, but I'll keep trying them as long as they are as satisfying as this one.

I did also try (on a different evening!) the Aperol Spritz as described on the Dino menu -- Aperol (I used 1 oz), white wine and soda. Apparently the classic is Aperol, prosecco and soda. I will try that, too, but I'm much likelier to have an open bottle of white wine than of prosecco. It, too, was refreshing and a great summer drink.

Boulevard Brewery

I added beer to the description of this blog because we are in something of a golden age of craft beers. I have finally let go of my attachment to German-style pilsner beers and learned to love the Belgian and English style ales preferred by American brewers.

There was a tasting of some beers from this Kansas City specialty brewer at Magruders a week or so ago and I brought home a big bottle of the Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, a very Belgian but very crisp and fresh beer. It has a great head, no doubt from the size of the bottle and kept well into the second day with one of the vacuum wine stoppers.

I would not like a steady diet of Belgian beers, but these craft beers have so much more flavor and zest than some of the cheap, mass-produced beers. For instance, I've had some bottles of Dos Equis sitting around that I can hardly drink. They taste as bad to me as Budweiser, so I'll probably end up throwing them out.

Barolo

As part of my plan with Wines Til Sold Out to get expensive wines at a discount I ordered a single bottle of the Barolo Preda DOCG Cascina Adelaide 2007. Barolo is the noblest of the Italian wines and I very much enjoyed this one. I found it smooth, complex, perhaps just a bit young yet, and medium-bodied that went well with our wonderful meal at Corduroy (we took advantage of their corkage fee to trim the check).

I'm happy to get to know these expensive Piedmont wines, but I don't anticipate ever being able to drink $90 bottles of wine on a regular basis and I probably would prefer to focus on regions and wines that are more in my price range. But there will always be special occasions when these really fine wines are a great treat.

Wines of Italy

This is mostly just a reference to a post on my food blog, and also a link to my customized Google map. As I explained in that earlier post, I've embarked on the research recommended by Eric Asimov in How to Love Wine to get better acquainted with Italian wines by systematically sampling them.

After I'd already started on this venture, I rediscovered a great book that had been sitting on my shelf, ignored and forgotten. Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy by Joseph Bastianach and David Lynch is not only a comprehensive reference but an entertaining read, with anecdotes about the regions and profiles of winemakers. There are also recipes from each region by Lidia Bastianach and Mario Batali. It's almost too much to take in, but I do try to browse the entry for each region as I try the wine.

I don't intend to "review" each individual wine, but I do hope to blog about different regions and grapes as I get more familiar with them.

Cynar cocktails

I'm using Pinterest to track cocktails and Elizabeth Minchilli started me off with a version of the Negroni using Cynar instead Campari as a bitter. I'd always been curious about Cynar, an artichoke-based aperitif from Italy, and liked this version of the Negroni, which Minchilli calls a Cyn Cin (pronounced chin-chin), quite a bit.

So then Serious Eats had a cocktail slide show featuring specialties of select bars and included two other cocktails with Cynar. One was called a Berlinetta, from the bar of the same name, and is essentially a Manhattan, adding Cynar to the mix. No proportions were given, but the version I tried over the weekend worked: 1-1/2 oz. Old Overholt Rye, 1-1/2 oz. Four Roses Yellow Label bourbon (couldn't find so used Buffalo Trace), 1/2 oz. Cynar, 1/2 oz. Carpano Antico sweet vermouth, couple dashes Fee Brothers orange bitters (used the Regan's I had on hand).

It's a nice smooth drink and I liked it. I was intrigued by the Carpano vermouth, which is apparently the "in" vermouth to use, and will try it in other cocktails.

The second Cynar drink was called Cloak and Dagger, which is a name used for other cocktails as well. This one called for Calle 23 tequila reposado (couldn't find so got Espolon), Cynar and Rothman & Winters Orchard Apricot liqueur (another new thing for me). I had less luck with my experiments here. I tried it at first with 2 oz. of tequila and 1/2 oz. each of the mixers, but that tasted too much of tequila. When I upped it to 1 oz. each for the mixers, it was too sweet. I may experiment further but I'm tempted to conclude it's just not a great drink.

I've been toying with the idea of a "mixology club" like a book club, with members taking turns hosting and offering cocktails around a theme or ingredient. I could start it off with a flight of these three Cynar cocktails.

Wines Til Sold Out

After a long hiatus, I've gone back to WTSO, but my goal this time is to be more selective and just sample some of the more expensive wines as their discount prices rather than stock up on everyday wines. I'd forgotten how annoying it is to be at the mercy of the FedEx delivery truck because of the signature requirement. Perversely, FedEx Ground does not deliver our neighborhood in the daytime, when I'm almost always here, but rather in the evening, when I'm more often gone.

The trick is not to take the 4 bottles with "free" delivery, but to take only as much as you want of the expensive bottles -- delivery is only $8. So I've gotten 2 bottles of a Burgundy, 2 bottles of an Amarone, and 1 bottle of Barolo. I'll report on these in detail as we drink them.

Old World wines

Eric Asimov makes the point that when all is said and done the Old World simply has a head start on cultivating grapes and making wine. For all the great progress in California and other New World vineyards, France, Italy, Spain, Germany -- now that they've caught up with modern wine-making methods and labeling -- are by and large going to be better.

That's fine with me. It's not to say I won't happily buy and drink wines from California, Oregon, Washington, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, but I will focus more on the Old World wines. So, for instance, we had a very simple white Bordeaux this past week, Chateau Suau. It was a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Muscatelle and had that crisp, dry mineral flavor of a good French white. Not a wine of character but still more interesting than your run-of-the-mill Sauvignon Blanc.

New blog

This is something of an experiment, but I want to break out wine and spirits from my food blog. For wine, I really need something more like a weblog, really just to keep track of wines that I drink. Not every wine, but those that contribute to my ongoing tutorial, a la Eric Asimov in How to Love Wine.

Also, though I don't want to be drinking too much, spirits and cocktails are also something I have an abiding interest in, but may not interest anyone reading the food blog.