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So says the mainstream media, the economic analysts, the industry analysts; for a change, even the raw numbers bear them out. Overall US beer sales were down 2.2% in 2OO9, and it’s not getting better in 2O1O; the Beer Institute says sales in the first five months are down 4%,... Read More

The Aviation is a tremendous cocktail that has been gloriously resurrected in recent times by classic cocktail cognoscenti.  The recipe was first published in How to Mix Drinks by Hugo Ensslin, the German-born head bartender at the Wallick House Hotel in Times Square.  His was the last cocktail manual to... Read More

It’s easy for veteran retailers or bar managersto be blindsided by the Next Hot Thing.  To wit: it’d have been impossible to foretell that an elderflower liqueur would take the market by storm, let alone stay on consumers’ radars years after it launched; meantime, brands that spiked in sales when... Read More

Organic spirits and those made using green production practices continue their transition into the mainstream as consumers put a higher value not only on taste but on the increasingly important issue of sustainability and environmental impact. Conversations with local retailers, regional and national brands all speak to raising the bar... Read More

Some people in the food and drink world gain recognition for being proficient at detecting a trend long before it’s identified in the mainstream, and keeping it fresh and relevant with style and artistry. Others establish an identity by creating a niche for themselves where there’s long been a gaping... Read More

GIO’SGOING LIKE EIGHTY ON THE VINEYARD A traditional Italo-American restaurant taps its fifth generation.Wine and food rites go back 3OOO years – even longer – around the Mediterranean. When Italians and Greeks came to the new world, traditions of vine and table remained a binding force, and a source of... Read More

Whether or not there’s been a permanent shift in the American wine consumer’s buying habits is not entirely clear, but without having to peer too deeply at the tea leaves it’s obvious that “trade down” remains the norm during the first half of 2O1O. Just as has been the case... Read More

Whether you’re talking politics, literature, culinary icons, or movies, there’s always a place for gin in the conversation.  After all, Winston Churchill, FDR, Julia Child, and Jack London are among its most famous fans, to name but a few.  With all the hullaballoo around vodka throughout the last decade-plus, gin... Read More

About 25 years ago I was going through something of an epiphany regarding wine’s influences upon health. At the time there were two committed camps in the US. A sizable number insisted that anything containing alcohol was intrinsically evil, prohibitionists denying that any good could ever come from drinking, however... Read More