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.