Drink

I really enjoy my job, and find all aspects of it fascinating, as  I slowly get more and more responsibilities.  But due to another bad bout of allergies ( I honestly need to stop sleeping with my windows open at this time of year in Michigan), today I called in sick. To help fight the headache and the allergies, I am turning to Shincha. I am not sure why that connection sticks in my mind,

Trumansburg, New York is an interesting little village on the outskirts of Ithaca (an even more interesting little city). An eclectic blend of farmers and artists and commuters and transients. A distinctive mix of rural living and modern funkiness and home to the annual Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance (an event happening next month that has to be seen to be believed). T-Burg, as it's known, is also where you'll find Gimme! Coffee, 7 Main Street, USA. Along Main Street, and situated at the end of a row of classic Upstate New York commercial buildings, sits Gimme! Coffee. The little cafe that offers the same selection of award-winning coffees as the Soho Gimme! Coffee in Manhattan. Within its walls, congregating daily is a collection of regulars who have referred to Gimme! Coffee Trumansburg as "the center of the universe."One cafe regular, and an artist on literally a massive scale, is Jay Seaman who goes to Gimme almost every day to get his medium coffee with cream. Having grown up in Trumansburg, he has seen the town change, "T-Burg is a friendly town. I've made many wonderful friends here over the years," he remarks, over his to-go cup. "We run into each other at Gimme and it allows me to share my experiences and get some constructive criticism and feedback on my work. It's good to step back and take a break."Jay also mentioned, "If I'm struggling with a certain part of a sculpture, a good cup of Gimme helps. If it's a really tough problem, I might order a double latte."If you've seen Jay's sculptures, which sometimes crawl down the sides of city buildings, you'd see why he faces challenges in his work. With a welding torch in hand, he has designed and created stunning metal sculptures that are larger than life. Striking metal against nature in dramatic ways that is truly awe inspiring. Whether it's the human form, a horse, or a spider -- Jay Seaman's work is undeniably his."Right now I'm working on one of my biggest pieces yet. It's a Longhorn Steer. It's a commission piece and bound for Texas," he continued. "I work best on a large scale and my inspiration comes from all over. Mostly my own energy. I have countless ideas tucked away inside myself that will one day be realized. I get most of my ideas from nature and watching certain creatures move and studying their form. Other pieces simply evolve all by themselves. When I work I let the tools rule the sculpture. You can only make what the tools and material will allow."If you're ever in Trumansburg, stop into Gimme some afternoon and say "hi" to Jay. He'll be the one drinking the double latte and sketching on a napkin, staring intently at the fly in the window.Author's note: Do not expect to see the dinosaur shown in the photo above. She was visiting Trumansburg from her permanent home in Vermont.

If you’ve ever visited a state-run wine shop in Pennsylvania, or had a tasting room employee bust out a huge 3-ring binder when you asked if you could ship wine to your aunt in Michigan, then you’ve likely experienced some of the anti-consumer regulations plaguing the wine, beer, and spirits industries. Even asking your favorite winemaker to sign that special bottle for you is a legal no-no. The days of prohibition are behind us, but in many respects, much of the fallout from that era continues to haunt us. This is because we as consumers have lacked any sort of voice when decisions and regulations pertaining to the sale and distribution of alcohol are concerned – leaving all the decisions and influence to be made by special interests best served by an antiquated alcohol distribution system. While we certainly think that wholesalers and a distribution system have their place and serve a valuable function, there needs to be equitable representation when regulations affecting consumers are concerned. The current anti-consumer regulations don’t just hurt sales for a winery and limit choice for a consumer, they hurt engagement. And wine bloggers know best, engagement is king. That is why the Wine Bloggers Conference, and organizer Zephyr Adventures, is pleased to support the launch of the American Wine Consumer Coalition. The American Wine Consumer Coalition (AWCC) is a new advocacy organization that aims to “ represent the interests of wine lovers and to help this unique group pursue their love of wine”. Spearheading efforts for the AWCC is Tom Wark. Tom has been a long-time advocate for the rights of wine consumers and runs Wark Communications and the well-respected wine blog, Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog. He is also the founder of the Wine Blog Awards, and is founding member of the Wine Bloggers Conference Advisory Board (which he continues to serve on). When we asked Tom Wark about the motivations behind the American Wine Consumer Coalition, he said: The fact is, wine lovers across the country are still subjected to absurdly anti-consumer wine laws and a key reason for this is that consumers’ interests and views are not taken into account by lawmakers or regulators. Why? Because consumers have no advocates that can make their case. That ends with the creation of the American Wine Consumer Coalition. When an industry becomes overly-regulated or controlled by one-sided interest, free-market idealism (where consumer spending serves as the ultimate voice) can no longer be counted on as adequate. Up until now, the consumer has largely been dismissed as a relevant party when decisions are made and laws passed that affect the sale and distribution of alcohol. Horray for Tom Wark and the others at the AWCC for stepping up to the plate! If you’re interested to learn more about the American Wine Consumers Coalition, please visit their site, which launches today. To support the coalition, you can donate or join one of their membership options available for individual consumers, businesses, and associations. Individual consumers who wish to join the AWCC will not only be supporting a great cause, but will enjoy member benefits (namely in the form of discounts) that any eonophile will surely appreciate. In the words of Tom Wark, For the AWCC to be as effective as possible, it needs to gather under tens of thousands of wine lovers willing to band together for their own benefit and the benefit of other wine lovers. We hope to build a multi-thousand member coalition that can’t be ignored. The post Introducing the American Wine Consumer Coalition appeared first on Wine Bloggers Conference.

Tisane Information: Leaf Type:  Rooibos Where to Buy:  Compass Teas Tea Description: This naturally Caffeine Free blend is sure to be a favorite! Amazing hot or iced, it is highly recommended.  Taster’s Review: This Sunset Pineapple Tisane from Compass Teas is not currently available on their website, I hope that it is only a case of being temporarily sold-out.  I hope that this is not a tisane that has been discontinued by Compass Teas because this is one of the better pineapple flavored teas/tisanes that I’ve had! Pineapple is one of my favorite fruits, moreover, it’s one of my favorite juices.  I swear by pineapple juice when I’m feeling under the weather, because I’ve found that it is VERY effective at reducing mucus.  Pineapple has a enzyme that helps break down proteins which is essentially what mucus is.  I really don’t drink a lot of fruit juice except for pineapple … and that’s something that I keep in the pantry at all times for when those “under the weather” times arrive. The flavor of this green rooibos tisane is sweet and pineapple-y, but what I like is that it isn’t a candy-sweet pineapple taste.  It tastes more like a true pineapple flavor.  The combination of the fruity-tasting green rooibos and the pineapple gives the pineapple flavor a softer, smoother taste.  It isn’t sharp or tarty … it’s sweet without tasting overly sweet. This is just so easy to drink.  It tastes amazing iced! The post Sunset Pineapple Tisane from Compass Teas appeared first on SororiTea Sisters.

Pow-Wow Botanical Rye Aging a botanical spirit isn’t anything new – the Dutch have been aging their genever for hundreds of years. In the US, the practice of aging botanical spirits is much less common (a handful of craft distillers have been aging their gins, including Few Spirits Barrel Aged Gin and Ransom Distilling’s Old Tom Gin). One of the reasons we don’t see more of these spirits is that the oak notes from aging a spirit in wood can dramatically clash with some of the classic gin botanicals. The Georgetown Trading Company came at this issue from an entirely different perspective. Instead of distilling a botanical spirit like gin, they took merchant rye whiskey (whiskey produced by a company like MGP in Indiana) and infused it with whole botanicals like saffron and orange peel. The result, Pow-Wow Botanical Rye, is a spirit that literally defines a new category of spirit – botanical or spiced whiskey. Pow-Wow is different from flavored whiskey as the rye whiskey is steeped with whole botanicals rather than flavored with oils, extracts, or flavorings. Pow-Wow is also different from an aged gin, as the botanicals in gin are steeped in a neutral spirit and then distilled before being aged. Pow-Wow Botanical Rye (45% ABV / 90 Proof, $41) – coppery in color, it clearly gets as much of its color from the botanicals as it has from its time in the barrel (with the gold from the saffron mixing with the orange from the orange peels). The nose on Pow-Wow Botanical Rye is orange-forward with the rye whiskey notes of rye and caramel in the middle, and an undertone of spicy notes including oak, clove, anise, and orris root. It’s a nice balance of aromas and the mix of rye, oak, clove, and orange reminds us of an Old Fashioned cocktail. The entry for Pow-Wow Botanical Rye is very clearly rye whiskey with light rye and soft orange. Things ramp up quickly in the midpalate with a blast of spice that includes cinnamon, clove, orris root, saffron, tobacco, and oak. In addition to the spice, there’s some heat at the end of the midpalate indicating that the rye used here is a little on the young side. The contrast between the mellow entry and the explosive midpalate is a little disorienting and a pretty clear indication that Pow-Wow Botanical Rye is not best sipped neat. The spice blast from the midpalate quickly subsides for a soft and light herbal finish that showcases the saffron and clove in the botanical mix. Interestingly, the one botanical you don’t see in the Pow-Wow mix is juniper, the core ingredient in any London Dry gin. We found that Pow-Wow Botanical Rye was at its best when we used it to make cocktails. Pow-Wow makes a fantastic Old Fashioned cocktail, provided you omit or reduce the bitters to maintain the drink’s balance. Pow-Wow also adds an interesting dimensionality to the Manhattan and is nice in a John Collins. Unfortunately, at $41 a bottle, Pow-Wow is a little on the pricey side for making cocktails (it would be much easier to swallow about $6 or $7 less a bottle). Georgetown Trading Company has done a good job of bringing together some interesting flavors that complement the base rye whiskey, but we would have liked to see better flavor integration. We suspect that Pow-Wow could benefit from spending more time in a finishing barrel to mellow, integrate, and even out. We do quite enjoy the mix of orange peel and rye – it’s a fantastic combination that we’re sure will be imitated. We have to give Georgetown Trading Company some serious points for innovating in this space. Botanical whiskey is an intriguing new branch of the whiskey category and we’re sure others will soon follow.

3/4 oz Campari 3/4 oz Cocchi Barolo Chinato 3/4 oz Ransom Old Tom (usually Wireworks Gin) 1/2 oz Coffee Rustico Syrup (1:1) Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist. The better demonstration of how well coffee and Campari required a short wait as Tyler fetched some freshly brewed coffee, added sugar, and made a syrup. For a coffee, he selected Counter Culture's Rustico which is an espresso roast-level bean. He originally crafted this drink with Wireworks Gin with which he also made the Purple Princess, but in its temporary absence at the bar, he opted for Ransom's Old Tom. Tyler did not have a name for the drink yet, so in the meantime, I am dubbing it the Bezzera after the man who in 1901 filed the first patent for an espresso machine. The drink greeted my nose with a grape and orange oil aroma. The grape continued on into the sip where it mingled with the coffee's roast notes; the roast notes then flowed into the swallow where it paired with the gin and Campari herbal elements.

Like fraught fellow dipso Blanche Du Bois, as imagined by Tennessee Williams, I too have "always depended on the kindness of strangers." A free meal here, a Press trip there, the occasional (sole) useable content of a goody bag, and a bottle of a client's dubious rocket fuel, palmed off on me by their hopeful PR. Vile booze that is finally succumbed to in desperation - faute de mieux at 4am - unleashing a one-man Country and Western cat's chorus and much hollering from those poor bastards I've just woken up, fellow slum dwellers in a ramshackle tenement that , anywhere else but in K and C, would be rented out for 10 quid a month - 'roach spray not included. Yes, I really should have stuck with that 'promising job' in the City but. oh now-long-dead sneery old careers master - you who sniffily suggested this pupil woulds be lucky to get a job flogging lucky bags at his local tuck shop - would life, however precarious, have been so much fun? And just how many duvet days can a high-paid/ bored rigid wage slave at Deloitte take without getting fired, by the way? Tonight, in a fairly faithful pastiche of a steamy seen-better-days Big Easy pile, I am relying on the kindness of a lovely Big Apple-born door whore called Elle to score me drinks at a bar besieged by greedy hooch Hoovers. Result! Not only does said stranger/ guardian angel set up me up with a nob-stiffeningly sexy sazerac, the barman recognises me from God-knows-where and decides I'm cool enough to be plied with a de la Louisiane and similar New Orleans swallows. Joy! Meanwhile, Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd - flown in for tonight's heaving launch party - whips the place into a frenzy with his roisterous line in boogie woogie and hellcat rock. The launch is a happy-fuzzy blur but I've been back since and, all in all, I am most taken with NOLA - a bar that comes on like a crazy Shoreditch night back in the days before dick-head ad agencies moved in and - always the kiss of death, this - Italian Vogue latched on (about 3 months before the blonde breadsticks at British Vogue did, I shouldn't wonder). Take the Overground Train Named Desire to the ' Ditch. Yes, even if you're well over the ol' 'hood, I urge you to check out this peeling sepia tone Basin Street film set, not least for its fine range of drinks inspired by that other fact of N'Orleans life - hurricanes: in NOLA's case, stiff breezers fit to blow your toupee off.66 Rivington Street EC2A 3AY http://nola-london.com/

Any day now… Georgia P arrived nine days before her “official” due date. Baby P 2013′s due date is July 15 but the doctor says second-time mothers generally deliver early. So mutatis mutandis, Parzen family expansion could happen any day now. Little Georgia P doesn’t know how our lives are about the change and we’re really enjoying these last few days as a family of three. She’s such a sweet girl and she sure knows how to make her daddy melt with her smile…

Well, it’s Summer — and Wednesday, a bit late for the Wine of the Week, sorry — and we need a wine that’s crisp, bracing, racy, filled with nerve and energy, so I’m thinking sauvignon blanc and the eastern Loire Valley, where the soil rests atop vast reaches of limestone dense with marine and shell fossils deposited some 150 million years. You think this Jurassic Park of mineral plenitude doesn’t lend character to the grapes and the wines made from them? Think again, Grasshopper! The best-known region, perched on the east bank of the Loire River, is Sancerre, easy to pronounce, easy to find, but a wine whose popularity has driven up the price. Let’s look instead inside the great curve that the Loire makes here to a lesser-known appellation called Reuilly (“roo-ee”), one of several Sancerre “satellite” appellations clustered about the city of Bourges on the Cher, a tributary of the Loire. Reuilly was granted AOC status early, in 1937, for white wines made from sauvignon blanc; in 1961, red and rosé wines made from pinot noir and pinot gris were added. Today we look at the Domaine de Reuilly Les Pierres Plates 2012. The domaine goes back to 1935, when Camille Rousseau, the grandfather of present proprietor Denis Jamain, first planted vines. The estate, certified organic in 2011, consists of 17 hectares (about 42 acres), 11 planted to sauvignon blanc, 4 to pinot noir and two to pinot gris. Annual production is about 11,000 cases. As the name implies, Domaine de Reuilly Les Pierres Plates 2012 derives from a specific vineyard whose sauvignon blanc grapes go only into this wine. The color is pale straw-gold; the bouquet is a fragrant but very subtle amalgam of roasted lemon and lemon balm, freshly mowed grass, a touch of hay, spare hints of jasmine, pear and juniper and pungency driven by a profound limestone and flint element. What did I assert as the requirements in the first sentence of this post? A wine that’s crisp, bracing, racy, filled with nerve and energy, and boy does this model fulfill those parameters. This is very dry, crisp and lively, a wine animated by vivid acidity and the scintillating presence of limestone-based minerality; it feels cleansing, lithe and chiseled, yet, for all that, exceedingly pleasant and inviting, with real personality. At 12.5 percent alcohol, you could drink a bunch, sitting out on the porch or patio, with a hunk of goat cheese and slices of crusty bread or a platter of grilled shrimp. Now through 2015 or ’16. Excellent. About $20. Imported by Kermit Lynch, Berkeley, Calif. Tasted at a trade event.

At first glance, it seemed like an innocent dinner among friends or colleagues. The group gathered at the Chez Francoise restaurant in Paris last Wednesday, where they sipped top-notch Bourgougne wine and dined on frog legs and veal. The group ended their meal with Cuban cigars according to French weekly Le Journal de Dimanche. While it might have seemed like a nice celebratory luncheon, many are concerned about the timing of the meal considering the guests that attended. Just one week after Health Minister Marisol Touraine announced a new bill to ban the use of e-cigarettes in public, Soraya Zoueihid, French President of British American Tobacco hosted the €10,000 meal. Curiously, his guests were some important political figures. Luncheon guests included several deputies and a senator: Andre Santini, Patrick Balkany, Francois Sauvadet, Jean-Claude Lenoir, Odile Saugues, and Dominique Bussereau. Gladeric Sabatier was also in attendance and he works within the finance ministry, acting as third in command over the customs administration that determines tobacco prices throughout the country. With a major tobacco company hosting such an elaborate lunch for French politicians and lawmakers, many are left to wonder about the state’s relationship with big tobacco. After all, France has seen a lot of policy changes in the past few years, including major tax hikes on tobacco products and new requirements for plain packaging in some regions. According to Le Journal de Minache, Zoueihid did mix in some business affairs during the lunch. He reportedly discussed tobacco regulations including the upcoming bill to ban e-cigarettes. He called for balance in making future decisions related to tobacco products. Interestingly, British American Tobacco also has a stake in the new bill banning e-cigs as it currently sells e-cigs and is even planning to launch a new line of e-cigarettes in the coming months. The luncheon clearly contradicted France’s previous stance against tobacco lobbyists. In fact, France signed an initiative from the World Health Organization that addresses these kinds of meetings. This initiative says, “The state must guard against politicians being influenced by the interests of the tobacco industry.” However, this extravagant luncheon seemed to be an opportunity for British American Tobacco to influence politicians towards their objectives. Luncheon attendee Odile Saugues defended the gathering, claiming that it was nothing more than an opportunity to dialogue about issues surrounding the tobacco industry. He told local reporters that “BAT maintains its relationships in order to weigh up and share ideas, but that doesn’t change anything. I vote in favor of all price increases (on tobacco products).” The timing of the expensive lunch still leaves many people skeptical. While tobacco prices are continually increasing each year for the French public, an estimated 500,000 residents are using e-cigarettes as a more cost effective solution. Many chose e-cigarettes for use in public places where tobacco was not allowed. However, the upcoming e-cig ban would eliminate that possibility and potentially cause a substantial drop in sales for e-cig companies. Is it possible that the €10,000 luncheon was just another example of tobacco lobbyists trying to get what they want from politicians? British American Tobacco certainly stands at risk for falling sales if the new bill banning e-cigarettes is passed. Do you think this luncheon was out of line?