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The Hospices de Beaune Auction

Burgundy is a small wine producing region, making O.5% of the world production of wine, 3% of the wine in France, and 6% of the AOC wine in France. But there are 1O,OOO wine producers in Burgundy and over two hundred and fifty merchants in Burgundy trading in wine. Until...
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Irish Beer

“We had a limited range of beers in Ireland,” Seamus told me. “We went from a lot of local breweries in the 18OOs to . . . well, to Guinness. They began to die off in the late 18OOs, and the process continued. The canals and the railways had an...
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Defending Robert Parker

In my humble opinion, the constant noise about the “Parkerization” of the wine world is wearing just a little thin. In fact, it is getting on my nerves. Just in case, by some fluke, my dear reader, you are unfamiliar with the term, please allow this explanation. If a wine...
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RUM

Last year saw total volume sales move above the 23 million 9-liter case-sale plateau in the American market for the first time ever. Looking down a category’s performance listing of the some 5O measurable volume brands, starting at the top with the #1 almighty 9-million-case category-colossus, Bacardi, you can find...
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Irish Spirits

I was recently out on the road visiting bars in, of all places, central New Jersey, for a drinking book I’m working on. I drive on these trips, but I drink a lot of water, and I usually only drink about a third of the lower alcohol session beers I...
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J.J. Foley’s turns 99

On a frigid night just before the new year, a group of men in button down shirts and ties sat around a long table in the recently opened dining room of J.J. Foley’s Café on East Berkeley Street in Boston’s South End. The men were from all lines of work...
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Cordials

It was another banner year for the cordials category propelled by the perpetual momentum of cocktail mania and the creative ways that mixologists make merry behind the bar. And once again, Massachusetts grabbed the top spot for retail spending for cordials and liqueurs to the tune of 333 million dollars...
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Clif Travers’ [SWEET] Stuff

Clif Travers is in the airy kitchen of his Dorchester home. Wielding a ridged muddler, he shows no mercy toward a lime wedge in a glass. An assortment of liquor bottles sits on the nearby table. A quartet of elegant, sleek square bottles stand out from the collection like stilettos...
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Profile: George Schwartz

GEORGE SCHWARTZ • 51 • Northeast Regional Sales Manager • VIAS Wines, New York City George Schwartz, a seasoned wine salesman and veteran of the Boston and New England marketplace, who looks at the wine world with a quizzical grin through Raybans perched on his DeNiro-like aquiline nose, is a...
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