There are now at least three brands of nonalcoholic cocktail bitters on the market. It was formerly commonly believed that Fee Brothers bitters were nonalcoholic, but that is not true: they have a glycerin base, but the flavor extracts used in each have alcohol. Their bitters range in overall alcohol... Read more →
This is a story I wrote that first appeared on AlcoholProfessor.com, reprinted here with permission. Can Brucato Amaro Capture California's Diverse Terroir in a Bottle? Brucato Amaro Bottling by Camper English The production facility for Brucato Amaro is not found deep in California’s redwood forest, nor in its orchards or... Read more →
I just realized that this is my tenth year at making The Big Drink list for 7x7 Magazine. It's a list of iconic cocktails in San Francisco. Check out the 2012 version here. As usual it's a list of super classics like the Irish Coffee at The Buena Vista and... Read more →
I recently read the book Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History by Sidney W. Mintz [amazon][bookshop]. This book compares sugar production and consumption patterns specifically looking at the place of sugar in England as it grew from a luxury item to an everyday necessity. The book... Read more →
Below is a collection of new spirits launches from my Instagram page. Click on over to insta for more info. Read more →
There's not an entry about me in the new Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails - surely an oversight - but there is one by me. I was asked to write the entry for "Ice, Science of its Use." I did it in two and a half pages that took... Read more →
For the Alcademics Book Club, we're reading Sweetness and Power, about sugar. Every time I read about the history of sugar, particularly the heyday of slavery-powered production in the 1700s in the Caribbean, I'm always like, "What happened to Portugal-controlled Brazilian sugar?" The Portuguese were early leaders in sugarcane production... Read more →
I have just started contributing a couple stories a month to Bevvy.co. My first one just went live and it's here. It's about oleo saccharum. Read more →