Couldn’t resist posting this pic of “The Ancient Bartender.” It’s a picture of me at the ruins of a tavern in Pompeii. The big holes in the counter are where they used to keep amphorae of wine cool for customers. Mix the local falernium with honey and you have the original classical cocktail known as [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Tales of the Cocktail: A Reflection
July 25th, 2008 
admin The blogosphere is still a-buzz with tales of Tales of the Cocktail and I must admit I can’t take my mind off it. Since I’m having trouble consolidating and organizing these random thoughts and memories, I thought I’d just throw them all out there. Rick of Kaiser Penguin has already done something very similar with [...]
The Renaissance of Grappa
July 24th, 2008 admin I was guilted into attending the Grappa seminar led by Francesco Lafranconi of Southern Wine and Spirits. My experience with Grappa,k like so many others was with what I referred to as “lighter fluid gone rancid”. We used to import some grappas from Ceretto and other producers and as much as I tried to appreciate [...]
Posted in Uncategorized 
Tags: Francesco Lafranconi, Grappa, Marolo, Poli, Southern Wine and Spirits 
No Comments »Beer Cocktails
July 24th, 2008 admin Great presentation by Stephen Beaumont on beer cocktails. Certainly a category we’ve heard a lot of talk about but Steve did a great job of presenting the category in an understandable way: they fall into three different types: 1) beer blends (e.g. black and tan which by the way is an American, not Irish invention), [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: Beer Cocktails, Heineken, Stephen Beamont, Tales of the Cocktail, World of Beer 1 Comment »TOTC Seminars and Samples
July 24th, 2008 admin I finally made it to a seminar…Latino Libations presented by Tony Abou-Ganim. Always an entertaining presentation, Tony was helped by some fortuitous finds in the audience that almost upstaged the master. Aided by the able talents of Diego Loret de Mola of BarSol Pisco. Tony gave an informative history lesson and current take on Cachaça [...]