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by HARVEY FINKEL, MD A QUESTION OCCURRED to me recently during a discussion of a related subject with colleagues of the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research.  How do we know that the healthfulness of alcohol is enhanced by drinking during meals, often almost assumed as a given?  What is... Read More

by Lew Bryson ONE OF THE FIRST COFFEE BEERS I ever had was Berkshire Brewing’s COFFEEHOUSE PORTER, made with organic coffee from Dean’s Beans, in Orange, Massachusetts. The idea of a porter with coffee in it was irresistible, and the beer delivered on every bit of that. Coffeehouse is still... Read More

PINK LADY’S ENDANGERED COCKTAIL OF THE MONTH SAINT CROIX RUM FIX by Pink Lady AS THE DAYS GROW LONGER and warmer our thoughts turn to porch drinks – the type of cocktails you want to sip on a veranda as you watch the sun go down. Or, if you live... Read More

by Sandy Block, MW 1 Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine,... Read More

By Harvey Finkel AS YOU READ this account, the harvest is winding down in the principal vineyards of Mendoza Province. Here, we’ll dip into the wines of Rutini, a leading Argentine producer. Not without reason have Argentine wines surged in recent years to the forefront of our attention. Companies like... Read More

By Harvey Finkel THE FRENCH, ever vigilant to declare draconic decrees to preserve the purity of their language, may be about to out-outrage all recorded outrages. As reported in the philology column of The Economist of February 27, French spelling is to be simplified in time for the coming fall... Read More

by Pink Lady BERNARD DE VOTO once wrote: “The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.” He was writing about the martini, of course, but if you’ve never twirled sweet vermouth and gin in your mixing glass we recommend you give it a go. Add a dash of... Read More

by Andy Crouch MOTHER NATURE blessed Massachusetts and the Northeast with a relatively mild winter following one that few would forget. We avoided SUV sized drifts, endless yards of hard packed white snow and seemingly never-ending weeks of brutal cold. Having endured even a relatively favorable winter, minds and hearts... Read More

by HARVEY FINKEL SHORT OF VISITING the vineyards – for instruction and pleasure – nothing beats sharing food and wines with their talented creator, especially in company of like-minded diners.  The Massachusetts chapter of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, the Burgundian educational and chowder society, staged such an evening... Read More