Archive for the 'How to' Category

I’ve sat by (mostly) quietly this week while listening to people complain about Valentine’s Day. It’s standard fare for the holiday: people either go gaga for it or completely despise the thought of it. When I was younger, it seemed clear that most of the people who didn’t share the joy were simply jealous because they were alone, and vice-versa those who treated it like the most important day on Earth were usually madly in love. Now, as I converse with friends, coworkers and colleagues alike, I find that those lines are, and probably always were, blurred.

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Halloween is one of those strange holidays that people either do really well or not at all. To me, there’s no going halfway here because if you try to cut corners and just come up with a costume in five minutes (i.e. sheet ghost) you inevitably just end up feeling stupid for even bothering while marveling at other people’s elaborate costumes as they look at you and think “what a weak, lazy costume.” Awful.

Nope, for me and my loved ones, Halloween is all about fun and getting into the spirit of things, because while it might be a pain in the you-know-what to get your act together, the payoff in laughing and smiling with kids, family and friends makes it all worthwhile in the end.

First off, I make (as in sew) a fair portion of my costume every year. I don’t really believe in spending more than $50 on a costume, and by making a good part of it on your own you bring down that total expenditure to even less while keeping the integrity of the design in tact. The best way to do this? Set a date with a group of friends who also need to get crafty either for themselves or their kids, break out the sewing machines and a couple bottles of wine. For some reason, I find that a crisp, refreshing white like an Albariño from Rías Baixas or Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa really helps to get those creative juices flowing, and doing it with friends is just all the more fun.

Then, there’s the actual Halloween festivities. Of course if you have kids and must go trick or treating with them, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have a good time too. Dress up! Try something silly and adventurous. You’ll be an awesome parent for being fun and a great spouse for letting loose and maybe putting something on outside your comfort zone of the traditional post-7pm tee and sweats. The kids will get candy, and you can treat yourself to some hot buttered rum or a black martini after the sugar rush subsides and they finally fall asleep.

But the best way to celebrate is undoubtedly to have a Halloween party. You get to laugh (or cackle) with friends and family and take some awesome pictures, as well as make some crazy fun drinks. Here are some of my favorites:

Halloween Harvest Punch – Because you should ALWAYS have a giant bowl of booze.
Combine 1 part melon liqueur, 1 part dark rum, 1 part light rum, 2 parts white cranberry juice, 1 part unfiltered apple juice, 1 part simple syrup and juice of one lemon in punch bowl. Garnish with apple slices, blueberries and melon balls.

Dracula’s Kiss – delicious and deadly
Rim glass in thick red-colored simple syrup (not necessary, but definitely has a cool effect). Coat the bottom of the martini glass with ½ ounce grenadine. Add ice and 1 ounce black cherry vodka. Fill glass with cola and garnish with maraschino cherries.

Ghostbuster – I ain’t scared of no ghosts
Pour 1 ounce peach schnapps and 1 ounce melon liqueur into shaker with ice. Shake and strain into glass. Add 3-5 drops of Irish cream liqueur drop by drop into the center of the glass. Watch the ghost dance.

Walking Dead – For the zombies that need to pull an all-nighter
Half fill highball glass with Newcastle. Add 1 shot of chilled brewed espresso, 1 ½ ounces (a shot) of Jack Daniel’s and fill with red bull. Stir, drink and get ready to stay awake. (Note – The Newcastle DraughtKeg is especially useful for these, with less bottle waste and no flat half bottles lingering around. Also people can just have a regular beer if they don’t really want to stay up all night.)

In addition to cocktails, be sure to check out winemag.com’s article on hosting a Halloween party with tons of recipes and tips.

So, how will you wake the dead this year? Are you ready to take Halloween to another level? What are your favorite spooktacular drinks?

While New Year’s resolutions frequently involve promises of eating less, giving back more or finally kicking that terrible habit, if you’re not ditching booze altogether it might be the best time to take a look at your beverage routines and question whether they are in need of a shake-up of their own. If you think about your purchasing, education and consumption rituals and realize that you have not bought anything different, learned anything new or shared anything spectacular with friends or family, then you might in fact be stuck in a drink rut. Lucky for you, I’m here to help; adopting these 5 simple and fantastic resolutions is certain to spice up your consumption lifestyle, liberating you from monotony and reminding you about all of the possibilities and pleasures you once yearned to find in the world of fine wine and craft beer. Here’s to a happy, healthy and fun new year!

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How we taste Wine Enthusiast is a hot topic with many angles. One healthy debate I’ve had with numerous friends and acquaintances is whether we, tasting blind and essentially in a void (well, stark, controlled tasting room environment anyway), are really doing a service to consumers. Most wine drinkers enjoy wine in a completely different way, namely with food, in varied settings, with wafting restaurant smells surrounding them and outside stimulus galore coloring–and they believe–enhancing, their wine experience.

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When you’re sitting back after a long day, trying to relax and unwind with a nice glass of wine or a cold brew, do you ever stop and wonder how amazing the beverage in your hand is?  I mean, what a wonder that someone eons and eons ago actually thought of a way to combine water with other solid materials (grapes, wheat, barley, etc) to make a sublime libation that tasted so good as well as held various mystical and magical properties (as in make me stop thinking so much and take a deep breath for a change).  I often stop and mentally say thank you to that person, and more importantly the winemaker or brewer of the specific drink I am enjoying at that exact moment.

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I frequently get emails and phone calls from various friends and relatives asking about wine recommendations. What wine pairs best with Chicken Marsala? What’s a good $15 Cabernet? Do you think a $29 Brunello would be any good? All these questions are good and fine, but the thing that I have come to realize about the majority of these recommendations is that 9 times out of 10 my friend or relative is going to purchase a bottle, go home and drink it that night (or at least within a week).

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Tomorrow, I’m heading out to Napa for a week-long education seminar for MW candidates put on by the Institute of Masters of Wine. With less than 300 members, the institute may be among the most exclusive private clubs in the world–membership is restricted to those who pass the group’s notoriously difficult three-and-a-half-day written exam and successfully complete a dissertation. (Having sat the exam unsuccessfully last June, I can sheepishly testify to its challenging nature.)

Folks who join the institute are entitled to use the initials MW (Master of Wine; sometimes derogatorily referred to by nonmembers as master wanker) after their names, to signal membership in this elite club. But because of the stringent requirements and high caliber of current members, the initials MW are an international badge of honor that garners the holder instant respect in the wine business.

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We all know the story of the Pilgrims; a group of about 100 folks who decided to depart from England to search out and colonize a new world about 2,750 miles away from home. Their ship, the Mayflower, landed at Plymouth Rock instead of the original destination of Northern Virginia due to inclement weather, poor navigation and a need for supplies. The real scoop? Supposedly, according to many historians and accounts of the momentous occasion, the real necessity that was lacking was… beer.

“We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer” – one diary recalls. Now, numerous stories from various sources are available, both supporting and debunking the long lived myth, including articles from well-known beer writers Cecil Adams, Stephen Beaumont, and Bob Skilnik to name a few. Now, whether or not the claim is true, it’s fun to imagine that without the shortage of “victuals” the Mayflower perhaps would not have landed in Plymouth Rock and the sequence of events that transpired thereafter would not be history as we now know it. Leading to the question… without beer, would we be celebrating Thanksgiving?

What better way to pay tribute to the poor planning (or perhaps over-indulgence) of the Pilgrims this Thanksgiving than by celebrating the holiday with a few choice beer selections.

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Once upon a time, a working knowledge of moo shoo pork, California roll, and pad thai got you through most Asian restaurant experiences.

Today, if that’s all you’ve got on your mind’s menu…..your little white take-out carton is intellectually empty.

There are now more Asian restaurants than ever in the U.S.–indeed, more kinds of Asian restaurants than ever!–and, as the movement rolls, more of us are patronizing them more frequently.

But the anchor dishes we once depended on are increasingly surrounded by waves of other things. And, for most of us, sticking with General Tso, no matter how you feel about loyalty, seems positively antediluvian.

So the crunch is on: to get maximum enjoyment, we need to know more about Asian cuisine. How to acquire it? Precisely at this delicious moment, along comes a fine way to do so: a new book by super-foodie Steven A. Shaw, the eGullet founder, called Asian Dining Rules (William Morrow, 2008).

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When was the last time you had a truly bad bottle of wine? Not one that you just didn’t like, but one that stank?

“Corked” bottles are the most common today, and bottles that taste “corked” but really went bad for other reasons. It used to be common to open a funky-smelling or stale wine, or a fizzy wine that wasn’t supposed to be sparkling.

Thank god and the world’s winemaking universities that we don’t have to put up with many truly flawed, terrible wines anymore. But it does still happen. In the last few weeks I’ve had a very barnyardy Chambourcin and an otherwise nice Chardonnay that seemed to have a veneer of burnt rubber.

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