Photo: Heather Sperling | June 2008
But a good friend e-mailed me this morning asking that I send her the recipe for one of her favorite cocktails, The Penicillin, and in doing so she brought this great scotch cocktail back to my mind. The Penicillin was created by infamous Milk & Honey bartender Sam Ross, and it’s sure to cure what ails ya. Read More
I know, I know. Once again, I’ve fallen way behind on my writing. But there have been some exciting events over the past few weeks, and I want to give you a quick update. I promise to try to get some new drinks up very soon, too.
Let’s start, though, with a quick recap of the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. Described as “part festival, part fête, part conference, part cocktail party,” the Manhattan Cocktail Classic included five days of seminars, parties, tastings, and other assorted revelry with some of my favorite people in all of New York City. Read More
As the holidays hurl towards us at breakneck speed, deciding what to get for that special someone (or your parents, your siblings, your boss, your co-worker, your doorman, your super, your postman, and so on, and so on) becomes a challenge. I’m here to help, though mainly just by way of taking advantage of other people’s hard work.
First – let me talk briefly about scotch. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how scotch became the quintessential non-threatening, no meaning implied gift, but there it is. For some reason, Johnnie Walker Blue has taken hold as the guaranteed-to-impress brand. I actually do like Johnnie Blue, but let’s be honest – it’s a bit pricey, no? (At $150 per bottle, I’d say yes.) The folks at Chivas sent me a sample of Chivas Regal 18 to taste, as well as a sample of Johnnie Walker Blue for the sake of comparison. From my vantage point, they’re actually tough to compare, as they have very different flavor profiles. I find Chivas to be generally sweeter (in a caramel sort of way), with a nice smoky finish. With Johnnie Blue, the smokiness is more up front, and the sweetness that follows tastes more like bittersweet chocolate to me. Read More
I love a good tweetup. As you probably know, I’m a Twitter addict, and I’ve met so many great people on the Twitter machine. Every once in a while though, it’s nice to crawl out of one’s cave and actually hang out with people in person!
Last night, we were lucky to have two amazing tweetups back-to-back. The first was the evolution of what has become our awesome monthly event (which began with our brown liquor tweetup in Brooklyn, followed by our clear liquor tweetup at Double Crown last month). 
This month’s tweetup focused on Rum – Tiki-style cocktails in particular. @Sweetblogomine was kind enough to get things organized at Elettaria in the West Village, which has a Mahalo Monday tiki special. My favorite of the evening was the Black Pearl – a twist on the Old Fashioned which includes Old Forester bourbon, Curzan black strap rum, demerara sugar and bitters. Outstanding. Read More
I had the good fortune to attend a tasting last night of Macallan scotch. This wasn’t any ordinary tasting though – this was a Twitter Tasting! My cocktail-blogging colleagues and I took a break from our AA meetings to all get together in one place, taste amazing scotch, and broadcast our feedback via Twitter in real time. Our tweets were projected onto the wall so we could keep up with each others feedback, and the best part is, the entire conversation is preserved under the Twitter hash tag #Macallan. So even if you missed us last night, you can relive the entire event (including my feedback on the Macallan, and some great conversation with @halw, @livethelushlife, @nybarfly, @ekeyNYC, and many others) on Twitter. It’s a beautiful thing.
Once you’ve caught up, send me a tweet and let me know what you think.
Cheers!