The world of the cocktail is thriving. We are in a perhaps unprecedented heyday for everything related to the world of spirits, whether it’s the inventive mixologist, the eclectic spirit revived from the past or created fresh, or the artisanal, inspired drink. Anyone with an interest in creation will find something to entice in the world of the modern cocktail…an alluring balance of serious science and sexy swagger.

With any momentous trend comes the backlash, and certainly as the mixology and creative cocktail culture has spread into “mainstream” America, the world can become a parody of itself. At its best, shaped in the hands of serious studies of past and present like Julie Reiner, Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders and beyond, the evolution of the cocktail is not only enjoyable to the palate but an education in American history and culture itself. It’s also no different than the culinary world…chefs who push the envelope on flavor combinations and find new riffs on old classics are celebrated with appropriate fanfare.

The backlash comes from the scene taking itself too seriously, or being re-worked inappropriately. No one would argue that a perfectly crafted cocktail—especially one of the bespoke type that happens in the best cocktail clubs throughout the country—is something both the mixologist and imbiber should spend some extra time to appreciate and absorb. But that margarita slopped together with premade mix that’s now $20 because it has a clever name and is served with a big ice cube? It’s happening more and more. It’s not special. And to discerning drinkers who are also aware of their wallets, it’s downright insulting. Serious mixologists are not so happy about it either. The growing interest in premium spirits is the upside of this world going big, but greed can kill the culture if it goes too far.

The mystery and exclusivity surrounding many of the better cocktail clubs has also created some suspicion and pushback from customers who question if it’s worth the hassle. Unmarked speakeasy-style watering holes with militant doormen and impenetrable lists complicate the situation. But here’s the question…is the kind of person who’s eager to sample premium spirits with a sense of adventure the same person who’s looking for a happy hour special made with whatever’s behind the bar the same person? Is it wrong for a serious cocktail club to make some decisions about the number of people they let in, and the level of customer? That’s assuming a lot of course…and maybe the hassle is about seeing who really wants to be there.

Is the culture of mixology taking itself too seriously? What’s your take?

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?

The spirit that hovers over the absinthe drinker in the posters of the 19th century is portrayed as either a slavering demon or an ethereal green fairy, but in all cases the absinthe drinker is a broken-down, miserable soul. It’s the outlaw image that is partially responsible for absinthe’s resurgence today.

It may not be a demon, but there’s nothing fairy-light or shy about absinthe either: drink it straight and it’s a rugged ride; put it in a cocktail and it dominates. It’s a trickster. A demon in fairy disguise.

Absinthe is a high-alcohol (45% to 74%) spirit flavored with anise and an assortment of herbs, including grande wormwood. It is not a liqueur; there is no sugar added.

Absinthe was banned in the United States and elsewhere around 1915, more as a reaction against Europe’s bohemian culture, which had embraced it, than any documented addictions beyond standard alcohol-related problems; hallucinations and madness afflicting devoted drinkers is considered to be myth. The ban was lifted a few years ago.

There are a number of truly excellent books on absinthe. For cocktails, I can recommend A Taste for Absinthe by R. Winston Guthrie. But what I’ve found is that the spirit’s anise flavor is so assertive that it overwhelms all other ingredients in a cocktail, unless its proportion is cut to nothing. So if you love that flavor, by all means proceed. I prefer it straight, by which I mean, watered down.

I had an opportunity recently to dine with T.A. Breaux, the master distiller for Lucid Absinthe Superieure, and now the distiller for three new absinthes for Viridian Spirits. With his background in applied analytic sciences, Breaux chemically analyzed genuine vintage absinthes and then reverse-engineered them to create Lucid and the Viridian spirits; they’re the real deal.

Though I’ve tinkered with the sugar cube and the slotted spoon, I most enjoyed the result of Breaux’s even simpler method: to one part absinthe slowly pour three to five parts ice cold (important!) water. The distinctive green cloud appears and off you go.
There’s nothing wrong with the sugar cube, Breaux says, but it’s entirely optional.

By the way, the term for what absinthe does when cold water hits it and the green cloud forms is “louche.” Yes, louche. As in, disreputable.

“Rum is my enemy.” I have a friend who claims that as his motto. And if you were to hear his stories of waking up in strange places, heaving all over a friend’s bed, insulting his host, punching a nun….you, too, would consider rum your enemy.

I think a lot of us have forms of alcohol that we really can’t even think about, let alone drink, so horrendous was an early experience. For me, it’s martinis. For a lot of people it’s Tequila. But I would encourage all of us to face our fears. Most of these experiences occurred in our dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks teens or twenties. You take a dirt-cheap, inferior form of the spirit, drown it in gallons of sugar-rich mixers and liqueurs and then drink it with all the heedlessness and energy of youth—if excruciating pain and embarrassment is all that results, you’re lucky. No jokes; it can be dangerous.

I’ve been introduced to higher forms of rum recently; like anejo Tequilas, they are designed to be sipped, not mixed. At the bedazzling Manhattan Cocktail Classic, held on May 14th at the New York Public Library (thousands of well dressed attendees, hundreds of bartenders and support staff, live music and costumery), two women in Caribbean finery (pic above) offered samples of a Ron Santa Teresa 1796 from Venezuela.

At RumBa in Boston I sipped Pyrat XO Reserve from Anguilla; Cruzan Blackstrap from St. Croix and Diplomatico Reserva from Venezuela. These darker rums exhibit rich molasses flavor (more than I ever thought I would like) enveloped in subtle spicing, nutty-caramel tones and soothing heat, and they go down like fiery silk.

The message isn’t that rum is back; everyone knows that. (Ye gods, even Tiki drinks are red-hot. It’s like spirits spirituality–no trend is dead forever.) And it isn’t that umbrella drinks are bad. All I want to convey is: you can sip your way to a truce with the spirits that haunt you.

 I was intrigued, though it took a while (as does any activity with a learning curve) before I finally decided to take the plunge. “Scotch on the rocks,” I said assertively to the mustached, suspender-donning bartender at a pseudo-speakeasy one evening. Whatever respect he may have had for me quickly vanished when I responded to his next question—“What type of Scotch?”—with a blank stare.

 Despite this less-than-auspicious start, I went on—I’m happy to say—to develop a more schooled appreciation for whisky. There’s the taste from the fiery, smoky single malt Scotches to the sweeter, mellower Bourbons, the abundance of different styles, terroirs even and blending techniques to which any wine geek can relate and—though this may be unique to me—the restorative, reflective, even intellectual feeling you have after a few good sips of the stuff.

 It’s never made me particularly giddy or excited (the way other libations have done in the past) but it often leaves me feeling calm and content—especially on a cold, blustery night—and even a bit reflective. If I were inclined to drink while writing or creating, whisky would be my chosen libation.

Share your own ruminations about whisky with me, and tell me what I should be trying in my whisky exploration.

Many beloved cocktails have earned their place in our hearts with thanks due to the incredible, edible egg. Classic drinks like the Ramos Gin Fizz get their special frothy texture and creamy meringue flavor from egg whites. So I was floored when I read in the New York Times, that the New York City Department of Health had been cracking down on the use of egg whites in drinks at popular cocktail establishments. While raw egg whites may make some precious sippers squeamish, the drinks simply wouldn’t be the same without them.

The issue occurred at Pegu Club, which serves a drink called the “Earl Grey MarTEAni” made with earl grey-infused gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and raw egg white. The ingredients are clearly listed on the menu, with a warning. Nevertheless, the Department of Health issued Pegu a violation requiring a court appearance, because the bartender failed to explicitly inform the customer about the raw egg whites. Pegu immediately stopped serving a drink they’d served for years, though nobody had ever gotten sick. Other bartenders chimed in with the same reports of serving egg-white- laden drinks for years, with nary a sick patron.

I’d prefer to have laws of full disclosure than to have these beloved concoctions banned entirely. But are they necessary?  How would you feel if you consumed raw egg without your knowledge? The stats say that only 1 in every 20,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella and some argue that the alcohol in the drink knocks it out before it could cause harm. And it’s not just drinks that use raw egg whites, plenty of sauces do too. What’s next, a hollandaise hysteria?

The issue at Pegu Club made me think about some of the proposed new laws regarding wine labels.  New labeling laws may require wineries to disclose the products used in fining be they egg whites, bentonite, animal gelatin or anything else. This is already the case in Australia, where all allergens are listed on the label.

On the one hand, transparency is a good thing. People with dietary restrictions appreciate having the knowledge to make an informed buying decision. On the other hand, I sympathize with the winemaker who resists sharing too much. Wine is confusing enough to consumers, do we want to scare them away? Plus, changing the labels is expensive.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I imagine the issue is here to stay. Where do you side? The more info, the better? Or is ignorance bliss?

There’s widespread dispute about how the formal concept of the cocktail was born. The name, according to researchers, possibly came from a Revolutionary War-era American innkeeper named Betsy Flanagan, who joked with her American and French patrons about serving a roast chicken feast with birds stolen from her English chicken farmer neighbor. Legend has it that goading finally did the trick; Flanagan served the chicken, and when diners moved to the bar, she garnished their drinks with tail feathers from the enemy chickens. The resulting “cock tail” drink name spread quickly.

That’s not to say the mixed spirit drink was previously unknown; the Mojitio, today made using white rum, sugar cane juice, lime, mint and carbonated water, was popular among Cuban pirates in the 16th century. More crudely fashioned with mint, lime, rum and sugar, the drink was called “El Draque” after Sir Francis Drake and was created to tone down the bite of the more rustic rum used at the time.

The refreshing gin and tonic was originally created with a more medicinal purpose in mind: concocted by the 18th century army of the British East India Company in India, the drink contained quinine, used to prevent malaria. The bitter bite of the tonic of the time was matched by green notes of gin, making it more palatable.

The French 75, a still-popular cocktail made from Cognac, Champagne, lemon juice and sugar was originally conceived by World War I flying ace Raoul Lufbery. Lufbery wanted his Champagne with a kick and the drink was named after the French 75mm howitzer artillery piece. Whether French soldiers heading to battle had a nip of it to boost courage as is reputed is debatable, but the French 75 gained popularity among civilians quickly after the war and remains a favorite sip to this day internationally.

The Prohibition Era in the 1930s spawned myriad cocktails, some of them good enough to become classics, some of them downright appalling. The Bees Knees, a mixture of gin, honey and lemon, was one to last: easy to throw together and with minimal ingredients, the illegal cocktail featured honey–added to kill the smell of alcohol.

Have a favorite historic cocktail you’d like to share? Tell us about it!

Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray/1890): Dorian Gray tells the tale of a debauched, handsome young man who is somehow able to retain his youth, but whose painted portrait reveals his inner ugliness—in the form of disfigurement and aging—to all. Regarding wine, Wilde himself was a well-known glutton for luxury and loved Perrier-Jouet Champagne; Gray seemed to prefer the same type of sip, as is referenced in the novel: “My dear Basil, how do I know?” murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass and looking dreadfully bored.

Mary Shelley (Frankenstein/1818): Just 19 when the book was published, Shelley wrote the novel based on a “dream vision” she had and on evenings of horror storytelling shared with the poets Percy Shelley and Lord Byron in Europe. Shelley herself, though a conservative drinker, enjoyed French wine and the sweet dessert wines popular during the era. Her husband frequently imbibed red wine mixed with laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol), which was commonly prescribed by doctors of the day for ailments or “relaxing.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla;1872) This novella written by Irish ghost/horror writer Le Fanu is set in rural Styria (Austria) and follows the story of a young woman who falls prey to the wiles of a female vampire named Carmilla. Wine is referenced in the story as a health fortifier—a common use in the past dating back to ancient times:
“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some wine,” I said.
“Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the door.

Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven/1845; The Black Cat/1843). Brilliant but tortured, Poe favored wine and spirits to the degree that alcohol would, among other ailments, contribute to his unfortunate and untimely demise. The author was known to take Port and Madeira, as well as whisky and mint juleps. He also drank ale—which sometimes constituted his sole food intake during his binges.

Tell us about your own favorite authors of the macabre . . . and the wine and spirits they fancied.

Do different forms of alcoholic beverages give different forms of intoxicating effects? Can it be valid for people to generalize that “beer makes me stupid” and “wine makes me witty” and “Scotch makes me want to punch something” and “rum makes me want to love someone…a lot”?

Most articles that begin with questions will supply answers by the end, but this isn’t one of those. All I’ve got is a belief (you can hardly call it a theory): yes, the nature of the effects can be slightly different, but it varies with the individual and the way that individual metabolizes the various compounds that form the alcohol delivery system. My evidence? Bupkis. In fact, I’ve asked a number of physicians and friends in the scientific community about this and their answer has been: alcohol is alcohol; any perceived differences are purely emotional, psychological, situational.

It’s possible that brain chemistry will eventually yield some kind of answer. A writer who has deep knowledge of wine and food as well as a keen interest in science confirmed what I suspected: neuroscientists are starting to identify how different compounds (like resveratrol, which is a component of wine) affect the proteins in the brain when accompanying ethanol. I’d be interested if any of you know of any such research. For now, all I have are my own experiences and the convictions of my friends and acquaintances; as one has repeatedly told me: “the martini is my enemy.”

Do you believe science or emotion determines your own reaction to different alcoholic beverages? We are emphatically not interested in stories of wild abandon; this is not a celebration of drinking to excess. But fill in the blanks for me: ________ makes me ________. Or: I always get ___________when I drink even a little___________.

It was a somewhat stereotypical Fourth of July for me this year. Tons of good friends and some family came over for the weekend to bake at the beach, barbecue some burgers and dogs, enjoy some adult beverages and light off some mildly entertaining fireworks in the yard (the small fountain type stuff is legal in CT where I live, though we did have a couple more exciting items thanks to my crazy friend Shane). All in all it was good old, moderately clean American fun.

Of course I offered a large range of beverages, from soda and beer to wine and whisky, and it’s always interesting to me to see who goes for what. On these kinds of relaxed holidays (like Labor Day and New Years; unlike Christmas, Passover and Thanksgiving), the beverage of choice is not so much what will pair best with the food you’re going to eat but more what goes along with your general mood and the atmosphere of your surroundings; almost anything will pair decently enough with a burger or hot dog. It’s all a matter of personal preference and frame of mind, and I enjoy observing how people are feeling based upon their choice of libation.

Personally, it was a beer day for me. Since we went to the beach in the morning and then I came back home to all the duties of a hostess, it was important to me to pick something that I could drink steadily throughout the day without ending up passed out on the carpet by 7pm. I switched it up a lot so I wouldn’t get bored; I had some Spaten Oktoberfest, some homebrew Pale Ale, a few Belgian randoms floating around my fridge, and ended with a couple of homebrew Mexican Chocolate Stouts. It worked out beautifully for me, and I made it all day and all night (and all early morning, too). 

Most of the other girls opted for wine, and shockingly (despite my stocking up on Albariño and Chardonnay) they all wanted red. They asked for juicy and not too tough or tannic, so I thought I’d take them around the world with some Grenache and Syrah. I started them off with a Château des Karantes 2006 Coteaux du Languedoc – La Clape (50% Grenache, 40% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre) which they all enjoyed thoroughly. I then moved them along to a Glaetzer 2007 Wallace Shiraz-Grenache from Barossa Valley, which two of them liked very much while the other found it a bit too big and “alcohol-y.”  Lastly I opened a Casa Lapostolle 2005 Cuvée Alexandre Las Kuras Vineyard Syrah from Cachapoal, Chile. They didn’t make it all the way through that one, but by that time they all agreed that it was tasty and easy to drink.

The boys, on the other hand, showed a different approach to things. Most of them were drinking beer, but the shots of Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel’s were flowing. A couple of beer-pong games were played, and there was a lot of congregating around the grill while chicken wings and burgers were cooking. Their approach was far more fast and furious than the girls’ and my own; they were clearly set on having a good time and feeling completely relaxed. Which, to be honest, if I weren’t hosting the shindig would probably have done right along with them.

All in all, it was a fun, entertaining, and chill Fourth of July this year. I’d love to hear how you celebrated our independence day; what good food and drinks did you share with friends or family this past weekend? Any new beer or wine suggestions to try for the summer days ahead?