Alcademics.com

Introducing the Absinthe Tranquility Fountain

Thujone Delivery Vehicle

Wow- This is a great animated website, promoting a product in cool bottles with limited edition goth-style art.

It's too bad about what's in those bottles. They have the European legal maximum amount of thujone, the chemical in grand wormwood that is the supposed hallucinogenic (but isn't really unless you poison yourself with it). In the EU the limit is 35 parts per million as opposed to 10 in the USA.

The thujone is placed in 25% alcohol (most vodka is 40%, most absinthe is around 65%) then made less bitter according to the text on the website. So you get the minimum amount of flavor and the minimum amount of alcohol with the maximum amount of thujone. 

Oh well, at least for once the website is pretty.

Glossy Booze: Early March Edition

Glossy Booze is an occasional round-up of cocktails and spirits stories in magazines.

Imbibe Magazine (March/April) has features on smoked cocktails, "coffee happenings across the globe," moonshine, beer and food pairing, drinking in Philadelphia, and Riesling.

7X7 (February) has a story on pizza-pairing with wine.

Bon Appetit (March) is full o' booze this month, with a recipe for Toby Maloney's cocktail Maloney's Irish Cream, the difference between mixologist and bartender, songs for a cocktail party, recommended absinthes, a feature on vodka, and a recipe for the Orange Aperol Sun.

GQ (March) has a quick mention of Averna and Riedel stemless wineglasses. In the February issue there's a brief mention of winter white wines, Red Bull's soda, and a recommended $11 bottle of wine.

Esquire has a story on box wine.

Details' Rob Willey writes about investing in wine.

Playboy (March) has a mention of Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, a dive bar in New Orleans.

Sunset Magazine (March) has a story on five sake standouts and pairings with it, a weekend in Dry Creek Valley, and bargain wines to bring to parties.

Alcademics on Epicurious on Absinthe

Hey Look! It's my first story for Epicurious.com! Wahoo!

The Top Five Absinthe Cocktails

Now that absinthe is legal in America, what are you going to do with it?

I share some information about absinthe and suggest the five best cocktails in which to use it.

Reading material: post-European edition

You may not have noticed thanks to the incredible blog technology that allows me to write posts in advance, but I was out of the country all last week. Here are some things that have stuck in my brain as I catch up on my reading:

Eric Felten (I pretty much link to his column every week) writes about the Sherry Cobbler, and how it popularized both the cocktail shaker and the straw. 

Then he wrote about Georgian (not the US one) brandy.

W. Blake Gray says that "Nigori is the White Zinfandel of sake," but found one he actually likes.

Partying like it's 1905, towns in New Zealand move to ban absinthe. 

They're dropping like flies in SF! Thomas Waugh left The Alembic for the shores of NYC, and Jacqueline Patterson is no longer managing the bar at Orson but is still in town. Unconfirmed rumor is that Carlos Yturria is no longer at Grand Pu Bah and is now bar manager at Bacar.

Heaven Hill is releasing a Tabasco-branded tequila. Now that's a spicy margarita!

Items: National edition

Eric Felten disses the gun and takes on boutique tonic and Italian sodas. Also,  a history of drinking and the Olympics. 

Darcy at The Art of Drink finds an early historical reference to falernum- and a recipe.

A New York bar opens that serves only absinthe and beer. 

Oh Gosh manages to find four Old Tom gins to compare. One is from a brand called "Secret Treasures." Sounds dirty.

Fermentarium has 8 drunk driving lessons we can learn from beer nuts.

Itemizing

John Hansell has the lowdown on a new rye whiskey coming to market in October.

Siobhan Crosby of Imbibe Magazine is growing hops in her back yard.

Bill Dowd has the info on the "Urban Bourbon Trail" in Louisville, Kentucky.  I'm heading there next month for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival so maybe I'll see some of these spots.

Hendrick's Gin is giving away a theramin.

David Wondrich's Five Best Absinthes story from Esquire is online.