Esquire has published online a story from the print magazine by David Wondrich on great rums, including Clement Cuvee Homere.
In an online exclusive, they've also published a review of "Five Horrifically Bad Beer Ads That Make You Wish Prohibition Never Ended. Sorta."
The other week I sat down on the patio behind Swirl on Castro with Marko Karakasevic and Jenni soon-to-be Karakasevic of Charbay and tasted through their line of products.
Charbay is a family-run winery and distillery in Napa Valley. And boy do these people like to play with the still- in addition to wine, they make flavored vodka, rum, whiskey, walnut liqueur, grappa, pastis, port, and now some aperitifs. It's hard to keep up with them.
The aperitifs are neither eau de vie nor typical liqueurs, but flavored fortified wines. Currently they produce a pomegranate and a green tea flavor, which they like to think of as cocktails-in-a-glass. Importantly for retailers, these can be served at beer and wine-only venues.
We then tasted through the vodka line. When they make vodka at Charbay, really they're making extractions that are added to plain vodka to flavor it. (Most flavored vodkas are vodka plus flavors purchased from flavor companies.) Not only is this unique, they make their extractions using whole fruit- not just the peel or juice. They throw the entire fruit (okay, not the pomegranate, but the citrus) into a leaf shredder and into the tanks, then distill the mixture to extract the flavor components they're looking for. Marko told me he was able to get the Meyer lemon flavor less bitter than before (emphasizing the pith less and peel more). The grapefruit flavor is as bitter as it should be.
The Tahitian vanilla rum is triple pot distilled and made from concentrated sugar cane juice (not molasses) from Hawaii. All rums are made from sugar cane products. Rhum agricole and cachaca are made from sugar cane juice. Most rums are made from molasses (the leftovers after sugar is extracted from sugar cane juice). Ron Zacapa is made from a form of concentrated sugar cane juice without the sugar taken out. The sugar cane juice used by Charbay is flash dehydrated under a vaccuum to remove the water and concentrate the liquid. I want to research how this is different from what Zacapa uses. Project!
I think they should just call their whiskey "weed-lovers-whiskey", because it really tastes like marijuana. This is the second release of the product that was pot distilled from pilsner beer with three kinds of hops (this is probably where the weed aromas come in) and aged six years in new barrels. The first release was after three years in barrels.
Finally, they're going to release a pomegranate dessert wine (they really like the pomegranate over there) that smells like it's going to be ultra-syrupy, but is just pleasantly sweet. A nice way to end a meal, or a tasting session.
To sample the products in person, check out the early happy hour at Tra Vigna in Napa Valley, during the weekly Charbay tasting. Hopefully Jenni and Marko will be there, because they're really fun people with whom to share a drink. Or ten.
A few weeks ago, Todd Smith and Luis Sivira won trips to Nicaragua as part of Flor de Cana's cocktail contest in San Francisco. Sweet. Here are the recipes for the drinks that won.
Rum is a big, giant, looming category of spirits that's intimidating to newbies and more experienced drinkers alike. That's because the only thing that brings brands of rum together is that somewhere at some point sugar cane was involved. The thing that's distilled, how and where it's aged or not, and what you call it afterward are different depending on the place of origin/destination.
Last night on a discussion on Mixoloseum by Cocktailnerd, Matt of Rumdood was describing some of the different flavor profiles of molasses-based rum, grouping them into Jamaican, Bajan (Barbados), Demeraran (Guyana), and Latin American. At least I think the last category was Latin American- there are so many darn categories for rum I get lost.
Of your non-molasses-based rums, you have the two categories of cachaca and rhum agricole, each made from sugar cane syrup.
But oh, the outliers. There is 10 Cane, produced from fresh sugar cane but on Trinidad so it's not a rhum agricole. And Oronoco, made mostly from Brazilian sugar cane but it's labeled as rum not cachaca. And Zacapa, made in Guatemala from condensed sugar cane juice they're calling sugar cane honey. And then there are sugar-based spirits that are called vodka (if you distill it to high enough proof) or whiskey (if you're in India).
The good news is that I'm starting to understand all this, adding a new piece to the puzzle each week. I attended a Flor de Cana event last night lead by Ed Hamilton from Ministry of Rum. A couple weeks ago I went to a launch for Ron Zacapa. I've been to Martinique and Jamaica and Barbados to learn about rum.
And I still feel like an amateur. But at least I'm starting to get somewhere. Hang around here for another five years or so and you'll see I'll have it all down pat.
