The indispensable tool for the Massachusetts adult beverage trade.

HOME

RumBa

Trends come and go. A new infusion will likely replace the last hot infusion. Tequila drinkers are rapidly upgrading to anejos. The Mojito craze wilts annually with the season and the Negroni is the new Dark ‘n Stormy, say some trend trackers. Maybe Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Frost put...
Read More

Can A-B Rally The Troops?

ANDY CROUCH To start, why don’t you tell us a little about how the Here’s To Beer campaign got started. TOM SHIPLEY That would go back to the end of the summer in 2OO5. All of 2OO5 and at the end of 2OO4, there were lots of negative stories in...
Read More

A License to Bounce

Anyone holding a license to serve alcohol in Massachusetts may soon face tougher and more costly regulatory requirements. A home rule petition now pending in the state legislature would require all licensees to run criminal background checks on all employees involved with admitting patrons. This includes door staff and anyone...
Read More

Profile: Kim Stare Wallace

KIM STARE WALLACE Vice-President & Director of Marketing • Dry Creek Vineyards, Sonoma, CA Thirty five years seems a long time to own a California vineyard. Kim Stare was just 8 when her family packed everything into a station wagon and headed from Wellesley, Massachusetts to Davis, California. Dad was...
Read More

Serious About Cellaring

So you’ve finally decided to get serious about collecting wine. The idea of having a cellar is certainly an enticing one – especially to your significant other who wants the cases of wine stacked all over the place put away somewhere. Like any real estate agent will tell you: location,...
Read More

Profile: Bob McGinn

BOB McGINN • 58 • New York and New England Sales Manager • Ferrari-Carano Winery, Napa Loyalty, familiarity, experienced, known quantity . . . 2O years with one team like Carl Yastrzemski. Solid citizen, loyal soldier. McGinn has been professionally linked, one on one, with the prestigious Ferrari-Carano label, being...
Read More

Voignier

It has sprinted from total obscurity to underground popularity to mass wine community hysteria to virtually zero visibility anywhere, a complete round trip that’s taken less than a decade. Overzealous producers intent on rushing to market ahead of the curve with wine’s ‘Next Hot Thing’ killed it before many Americans...
Read More

What Is Everyone Drinking This Year

AMERICAN MICROBREWS In evolutionary terms, the time wasn’t long ago when the American beer industry was ruled by titans. American craft beer was perhaps considered quaint by some, a novelty by others. But now craft is king. “American craftsmanship is certainly the wave of popularity right now,” says Alan O’Campbell,...
Read More

The Oriel Line

For winemakers, sourcing grapes from outside a vineyard estate is nothing new. Yellow Tail does it. So do Louis Jadot and Verget. But creating a line of limited-production wines from all over the world, crafted by a diverse group of renowned wine-makers, bottled at the source and then distributed under...
Read More