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Craft Brewing ’08

Fast on the heels of another highly successful year, the American craft beer industry is gearing up for another profitable one and the challenges that accompany success. As the segment continues its development from a tiny niche to a legitimate force in the beverage alcohol marketplace, craft brewers are increasingly...
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Tequila

While the spring break party image will never entirely vanish and the margarita will probably remain the country’s most popular mixed drink, the last few years have seen tequila’s image mature from one inseparable from the rambunctious frat kid to one more fitting of a dapper bon vivant. You can...
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Spring Cleaning

It’s spring, at last. Time to deep-clean our homes, our lives and our cellars.  It’s the time of the year to look at our inventories and see what hasn’t moved since the Truman Administration. Yes, I’m referring to that case or odd bottle of fermented beverage that someone thought was...
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A Rarest Vintage Reserve

Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve is its rarest and oldest – averaging 21 years – Irish Whiskey. The blue-labeled 75Oml top-of-the-line whiskey comes impressively packaged in a weighty oak case and slip sleeve, and there are just 1OOO bottles for all of North America. Jameson launched the Rarest Vintage Reserve (RVR,...
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Petite Sirah

And it’s not remotely Syrah either, although there is a genetic relation. So right off the bat the name throws most people off the trail as to the kind of wine it makes. But the grape, which used to be considered just cheap “workhorse” blending material, better suited for beefing...
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Profile: Bill Samuels

BILL SAMUELS, Jr. • 67 • President & CEO • Maker’s Mark Distillery • Loretto, Kentucky Tall and rangy Bill Samuels is steeped in family history, local culture, yarns, jim-crack anti-promotion, all driven by a deep love of the taste of his family’s 5O-year tradition of making fine bourbon. Samuels...
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Revisiting South America’s Wines

Though value wines, under $1O a bottle, remain the essential hook for the US consumer, there are wines costing $5O or more, such as Almaviva, Clos Apalta and Lota from Chile and Caro from Argentina, as well at all price points between. What has changed? Why do Americans love these...
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Cal’s Zins

This is the big red that you can open up and drink without having to worry about whether it’s “ready” or not. It provides direct sensual pleasure that is usually not cloaked behind barricades of tannin. And it’s not for everyone. The potent, sometimes dizzying alcohol levels tend to put...
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Packaging, thinking outside the bottle

Three-liter boxes have been used for packaging good quality wines in Europe, Australia and elsewhere for many years, and consumers there rarely attach a stigma of cheap, unpalatable wine to such packages. These contain the equivalent of four 75Oml bottles and are popular with consumers who want wine on their...
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