Alcademics.com

New Booze: Selection St. Sauvant Cognac from Merlet

This Cognac will be introduced to the U.S. in the fall of 2014 with a retail selling price of approximately $99.95. Read more →

Camper English Awarded International Cognac Writer of the Year 2014

Last week I had the honor of being awarded the International Cognac Writer of the Year for 2104. The annual award is granted by the Bureau national interprofessionnel du Cognac, the BNIC. Read more →

The Cognac D'USSE 2014 Culture Cocktails Competition

Last week at the bar 67 Orange in Harlem, New York, I helped judge Cognac D'USSE's annual Culture Cocktails competition. The contest pulled six competitors from local Harlem bars and they, friends and neighbors packed into this tiny cocktail bar for the competition. And I do mean packed - the bar's capacity is about 35 people and there were over 60 in the room at one point. Luckily, I had a good view from my barstool along with my co-judges, blogger Paola Mathe from FindingPaola.com and model Diandra Forrest. I was definitely helping balance out all that beauty. The number... Read more →

24 Spirits Designed by San Francisco Bartenders

San Francisco bartenders are responsible for the creation of at least 24 different spirits, some available at retail and some reserved just for the bars. In the April 2014 edition of 7x7 Magazine, I have a story about them, with accompanying recipes online. Read more →

Why Add Sugar to Rum When it's Made from Sugar in the First Place?

As mentioned in yesterday's post, rum is distilled from any sugar cane derivative like fermented fresh cane juice or molasses. But some producers add sugar to their finished rum after distillation. Adding sugar to any spirit can soften it and hide some flaws, but if you look at the (allegedly) sweetened rums in this post on RefinedVices.com, you'll notice two general patterns among the rum bottlings that allegedly have sugar added: They come from big companies that shouldn't need to add sugar to cover a bad distillate. They know how to distill. They're aged rums, rather than white rums. Well... Read more →

Live from Buenos Aires: David Wondrich on Drink History in the Americas

Hello from Tales of the Cocktail on Tour in Buenos Aires! I am attending three seminars today held at the lovely Intercontinental Hotel. (Then the rest of the time I'll just be in bars.) The first seminar was a talk by David Wondrich called Drinking the Americas from Punch to Prohibition Below are notes I took in the seminar, mostly unedited, but let me know if these raise any questions and I'll try to answer them. When Columbus arrived some South American and North American peoples had localized fermented beverages but not really any trade or exchange in them. When... Read more →

Cognac Meant for Mixing

In my latest story for Details.com I wrote about the new cognacs designed with mixology in mind. I ended up rewriting the story to be less nerdy than the first version, but the first version has more dates and price specifics. I pasted that stuff below, but you'll want to visit Details for the intro. But a few brands are coming around. One of the first to do so was Courvoisier, which launched Exclusif in 2007, and was billed as “the only cognac designed specifically to be mixed.” But bartenders balked at its $50 retail price. It was discontinued, and... Read more →

Rum, Cognac, Curacao, Honey, Lemon

On FineCooking.com, I posted a recipe from Amber West of Central 214 in Dallas. It contains Ron Abuelo 12 rum, Pierre Ferrand Ambre cognac, Grand Marnier, honey syrup, and lemon juice. Get the recipe here. Read more →