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Win Tickets to Whiskies of the World in San Francisco by Commenting on This Post

Whiskies of the World is coming up again Saturday, March 26th in San Francisco. Keep reading for a discount code to get cheaper tickets, and a chance to win a pair of free ones.

I go to this event every year and it's a great chance to try-before-you-buy some of the rarer and more expensive bottlings. Plus it's on a boat so swaying back and forth is considered perfectly normal.

12th Annual Whiskies of the World Expo & Artisanal Spirits Fest

The Whiskies of the World Expo gathers the world’s most fascinating distilled spirits along with their makers and ambassadors to give its guests an opportunity to sample, learn and experience a night of delicious spirited fun. By popular demand, the 12th Expo will be back to San Francisco Belle Yacht (docked) with its three ballroom-size tasting decks, and an open roof Whisky & Cigar Pairing deck.

Come on March, 26th to enjoy a full buffet dinner; meeting and learning from the world's spirits producers; creators and experts; a live Pipe and Drum Concert; mixology demonstrations, Celtic craft  and whisky gear booths, artisanal food pairings with exclusive whiskies;  live music and more. Learn, celebrate, experience!

Discount on Tickets to Whiskies of the World

Get WoW tickets using an exclusive discount code for Alcademics fans. Enter discount code: ALCADEMICS8P on the checkout page for an 8% discount on tickets and Dram Club membership. Buy tickets here.

A Chance to Win a Pair of Tickets to Whiskies of the World

Want to try your luck at winning a pair of tickets? All you need to do is leave a comment below, telling me what's a whisky/whiskey you've loved lately. You won't be judged on your choice- I just want to hear what people have been trying and loving lately- then maybe I can find it at WoW. 

Fine print: The tickets are for admission only, and obviously you need to be of legal drinking age to get in. Contest ends midnight March 7th. One (1) entry/comment per person. (However if you want to reply to someone else's comment please feel free- just make sure you hit the "reply" button after their comment. Those responses won't count toward the contest but won't disqualify you.) Use a real email address (it's not visible to the public) or I won't be able to tell you that you won. I'll pick the winner using a random number generator. 

Alcademics Giveaway: Whiskies of the World in San Francisco

The 11th annual Whiskies of the World event in San Francisco is March 27th, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko.

I will be giving away three pair of VIP admission tickets to folks on the Alcademics A-Plus email list. Sign up now for your chance to win!

If you don't win the giveaway, tickets are available for $110 general admission (6PM), or for an extra ten bucks, VIP tickets will get you in at 5:15PM and with access to some special whiskies poured only during this time. (Totally worth the upgrade.) All tickets include a buffet dinner, bands, and a lot of whisky to sample.

You can check out the list of whiskies being poured at the event here. And while you're at the event, you may wish to check out one of the educational seminars. Those are listed here. There are also a few pre-parties taking place around town, listed here.

Update:

Congratulations to Loren P., Dan D., and Christopher D. who won the tickets to Whiskies of the World in San Francisco March 27th from the Alcademics A-Plus giveaway. 

Alcademics Giveaway: JagerShop Stuff

The latest Alcademics giveaway is two items from Jagermeister's store JagerShop.com.

Whether you're last minute holiday shopping or you just like branded swag as much as I do, you should really check out the JagerShop. They have logo-laden clothing like track jackets and board shorts, sports gear including a snowboard, and bar stuff like ice buckets and bottle cozies.

Better yet, I'm giving away two of the best items from the store: a cooler that holds six bottles of Jager and dispenses shots, and a ski-shaped shot glass holder. If only you could win them both you'd be all set for both winter and summer.

To win one, sign up for the Alcademics A-Plus email list (all prizes, no spam, roughly once a month) and follow the directions when I send out an email tomorrow, Dec 15th. 

SF Event: Indy Spirits Expo

To win a pair of tickets to this event, keep reading.

On Thursday, November 19th from 6-9 PM (5-9 for VIP hour) Mighty (119 Utah Street, SF) hosts the Indy Spirits Expo. This is a tasting event featuring smaller brands of liquor, including:

• Vieux Carre Absinthe
• Port Charlotte Islay Single Malt
• Tuthilltown Distillery
• North Shore Distillery
• Rhum J.M.
• Renegade Rums

The full list of brands is here.

This will be a good excuse to try some new products, and there is plenty of time to try nearly all of them. Unlike the whisky and rum events hosted in SF, this one features all kinds of liquor. Tickets are $50 for regular admission and $75 for the additional VIP hour.

Want to win a pair of tickets? Become a fan of Alcademics on Facebook (follow the hard-to-read link below) and comment on the Facebook entry where I link to the Indy Spirits Expo (not this one). I'll pick a random commenter to win a pair of VIP tickets to the event this Thursday. Good luck, and I'll see you there.

Alcademics on Facebook

Mr. Boston Holiday Cocktails Book Review

This spin-off of the famous Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide shows just how far from the standard format the series has come. The Mr. Boston Holiday Cocktails book is edited by wine/spirits writer Anthony Giglio and Jim Meehan of New York's awesome bar PDT, and contains recipes from the who's who of cocktails today: Eric Alperin, Jeff Berry, Jacques Bezuidenhout, and Jamie Boudreau are just the first four mixologists listed alphabetically out of 46 contributors.

Unfortunately their individual recipes are not credited in the book but that's about my only complaint.

The drinks are divided into Seasonal Sippers (using seasonal ingredients), Perfect Punches (tons of them), Hot & Steamy, Rich & Creamy, and Highly Spirited. Despite this being a holiday recipe book, these are the types of drinks I enjoy all year.

Many of the flavors in the book are deep, rich, and heavy. There are recipes with Islay whisky, maple syrup, aquavit, and mezcal; tons with Benedictine, port, and sherry; and I'm pretty sure this book contains the highest concentration of tequila recipes of any holiday book ever written. Heck, it contains more tequila recipes than 99% of all cocktail books on the market. 

Tempting drinks in the book include the Bitter End #2, containing Campari, Yellow Chartreuse, blood orange juice, and champagne; the Abbots & Friars with Benedictine, sloe gin, and Abby ale; the Duckboot with aquavit, mezcal, hot chocolate, and hot sauce; and the Corenwyn Alexander with corenwyn genever, creme de cacao, and milk.

I already published the recipe for the Pumpkin Steamer from the book here.

Most of the recipes in the book, like this one, aren't incredibly difficult to produce and do not include too many infusions that take months to make before you even get to the drink. However there are many ingredients that the home mixologist won't have in stock (see above) so you shouldn't expect to pick up this book and make all the drinks on the same night without a serious detour to the liquor warehouse. 

Overall this is an incredible collection of recipes with very cool and sometimes obscure (yet obtainable) ingredients. I say ignore the whole "holiday" part of the book title and buy the book whenever you get the chance. 

And if you get a chance, sign up for Alcademics A-Plus, an email list only for giveaways. This weekend (November 6, 2009) I'll be giving away five copies of this great cocktail book.

Spice & Ice by Kara Newman Book Review

Out now from Chronicle Books is Spice & Ice by Kara Newman. Newman is a columnist for Chili Pepper magazine, and as that and the title would indicate, the book is full of recipes for cocktails with various hot spices.

The book's first section holds a lot of information on spices generally, using spices in cocktails, and many tips and techniques for getting spicy flavors into infusions, bitters, garnishes, and liqueurs. For a book of its (small) size this is a pretty large section, making it one that could be quite useful to people who want to experiment with creating their own drinks in addition to following the recipes in the rest of the book.

The recipes are arranged by season with ingredients fresh to the season or appropriate to be consumed during the season. Some of the drinks are simple spicy additions to known cocktails, such as a Mint Julep with added jalapeno pepper and a jalapeno infused Vodka Martini. Others are more complex and intriguing.

I was particularly interested in the 24 Carrot Cocktail, created by Ryan Magarian and made with horseradish-infused vodka, carrot juice, and mint; the Spicy Pisco Punch invented by Tim Stookey of San Francisco; the Zapple with habanero-infused applejack, whiskey, amaretto, and lemon juice; the Scotch Bonnet by Eben Klemm with habanero-infused scotch and pineapple juice; and the Tandoori Sunrise, made with tamarind, tandoori spices, tequila, ginger liqueur, and orange juice.

I don't see too many obscure ingredients in the recipes, making most of them easily doable by anyone in the country. The book has a good balance of easy-to-adapt drinks that you know with interesting-sounding ones that you don't. I have a particular sweet spot for drinks that are spicy/cool- gimlet with a hot rim or a hot drink with a sugar rim, so many of these cocktails are right up my alley. 

Here is a recipe from the book:

Blackberry-Poblano Margarita

The luscious purple color of this drink is a stunner!  Taste a berry first to check for sweetness; if it’s not super-sweet, add a tablespoon of sugar when muddling the berries.

1 Tablespoon fresh blackberries
1 Tablespoon diced poblano peppers (or 1 1/2, if very mild)
1 ounce silver tequila
3/4 ounce Cointreau

In a cocktail shaker, muddle blackberries and poblano peppers. Shake together with tequila, Cointreau, and ice, and strain into a martini glass. 

Want to win one of five copies of Spice & Ice by Kara Newman? Sign up for the Alcademics A-Plus email list and you'll have pretty good chance of doing so. The contest will run the weekend of November 6th, 2009.

Also, Kara Newman will be in San Francisco for a book launch at Cantina on November 9th, from 5:30 - 7:30. Pop on by for a cocktail.

Book Week on Alcademics

All this week I'll be posting book reviews here on Alcademics, and at the end of the week I'll do a giveaway on the Alcademics A-Plus email list for one of five copies of either Kara Newman's Spice & Ice, Mr. Boston's Holiday Cocktails, or Whiskey and Philosophy.

I pretty much read every cocktail, spirit, and drink book I can get my hands on.  My just-drinks bookshelf is long overfull and I find myself trying to cram more stuff onto it all the time. I've now taken to decorating with cocktail books, putting them beneath plant pots, stacking them under furniture, and lining the corners of the apartment with more stacks of them. Chances are in the next San Francisco earthquake they'll find me trapped beneath the books-about-ice section of my imbibrary. 

Lately it seems the cocktail books hitting the market are more and more specific: holiday cocktails, spicy cocktails, champagne cocktails (I think there are three books on that released in the last year), plus books on specific spirits- two on gin in the past few months, and one or more each on every other spirit category. Then we've got all the reprints of pre-Prohibition books thanks to people like Cocktail Kingdom. I am finding some of the newer books on the spirits industry pretty fascinating, as well as some of the more esoteric drinking subject books I'll be reviewing later this week.

Still, more books come out every week and the to-read space on the bookshelf indicates a backlog of about 20 or so more texts I need to review. A book reader's work is never done, and that's a-okay with me.

Win a Pair of Tickets To WhiskyFest SF

I'm giving away a pair of tickets to Malt Advocate's WhiskyFest, taking place in San Francisco on October 16th. This is a $220 value!

To be eligible to win, simply sign up for Alcademics A-Plus, my email list only used for giveaways like this one.

Good luck!