Drink

It’s summertime, and we’ve been covering a lot of California-brewed beer lately here at Drinkhacker. If you’ve wondered where you can score some of these more obscure brews, well, here’s your chance! At the upcoming California Beer Festival, Marin County. We’ll let the CBF tell you the rest of the story: With more than 70 different craft brews on tap and local participation from breweries such as Hopmonk Tavern and Lagunitas Brewery, ale lovers won’t want to miss this foaming event on Saturday, June 29 from 12:30 to 5 p.m. at Stafford Lake in Novato. Breweries will be coming from across the state so beer lovers can sample their ales. Some of them include: Speakeasy Ales & Lagers, Sierra Nevada, Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Anchor Brewing, Hoppy Brewing Company, as well as Hangar 24 Craft Brewery and Ninkasi Brewing Company with huge followings in the craft beer market. This is the second year the event has been scheduled in the Bay Area. Its festivals in Ventura, Santa Cruz and Claremont/San Dimas sell out every year. “We are excited to be bringing some of the best brews in the country to the North Bay,” said founder Vincenzo Giammanco. “The picturesque lakeside setting nestled between Marin and Sonoma counties is a perfect location for a day of beer sampling, enjoying music, and barbecue. We are looking forward to the same success here as at our other popular festivals through out the state.” Admission is $40, which includes one craft beer heaven ticket, a souvenir cup and beer sampling. Beer tasting begins at 1 and ends at 4:30 p.m. The event is for adults 21 and over, but children under 12 can accompany their parents for free. The festival is looking for barbecue teams to participate in its first cook-off. Teams of four, including friends, family, co-workers, are invited to compete for more than $1,000 in prizes. Teams will be judged in four different categories: chicken, beef brisket, pork and beer based on appearance, taste, texture and overall. Guests get to sample the different styles of barbecue (while supplies last). Proceeds from the California Beer Festival benefit the Gen Giammanco Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides financial support to student athletes in their pursuit of scholastic and athletic support. A shuttle service will be provided for $3. Tickets and additional info are available at californiabeerfestival.com. See you there!

Robert Mondavi in 1966  My friend Robert Mondavi would have turned 100-years-old today. To commemorate his 100th birthday, and acknowledge how much he influenced the lives of so many of us living in Napa Valley, Margrit Mondavi, and Bob’s eponymous winery, hosted a birthday party of sorts this afternoon. Margrit Mondavi and Genevieve Janssens, Director of Winemaking. Some 200 guests assembled on the lawn at the foot of Bob’s favorite vineyard, To Kalon, and toasted to his memory with a glass of perfectly chilled Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc. Bob would have loved it. Margrit spoke and said that her 28 years married to Robert were among the most cherished of her life. Genevieve Janssens, Director of Winemaking at Mondavi, spoke and said that going forward, all Mondavi Reserve Cabernet bottlings would, for the first time, be made exclusively with fruit from the To Kalon vineyard, which Bob identified as being the most important, best producing, vineyard in the valley. “Mr. Mondavi always urged us to keep improving our wines,” said Genevieve. “From now on, we will only use fruit from To Kalon in our reserve Cabernet... which is one more way to keep improving our wines,” she added. To make better wine, to make wine as good as, or better than, the wines coming out of the Old World, that was Bob’s passion. And boy, did he make a difference and prove his point. I remember nights in the winery’s Vintage Room, well beyond 1 am, spent with Bob and one of his visiting Great Chefs of France, like Jean Troisgros, or Paul Bocuse, sipping and comparing Mondavi Cabernets, or Mondavi Pinot Noirs, with French selections from Bordeaux, or Burgundy, respectively. The chefs always agreed that Bob was on to something... that his wines complemented their dishes equally as well as any wines they brought over from France, and quite a few chefs agreed, off the record in our late night tasting sessions, that they liked Bob’s Napa Valley wines more. Happy Birthday, Bob, wherever you are. I raised a glass to your memory this afternoon, and I shall do so again tonight. It’s an ideal occasion to pull an old Mondavi Cabernet out of the cellar and thank you, one more time, for having introduced me to Napa Valley.

Today is International Picnic Day! Get your wicker baskets and checkered blankets out and get excited for a nice picnic! Punches are always a great drink choice for outdoor activities because you can make a batch beforehand, pour it in a thermos and leave the ingredients at home. Punches can also serve as a nice way to cool down and satisfy your sweet tooth with just one sip. White Peach Punch 2 cups ABSOLUT Citron® Vodka 2 cups Hiram Walker® White Peach Schnapps 1¼ cups Cranberry Juice 1¼ cups Pineapple Juice 2½ cups Fresh Sour Mix 2½ cups Lemon-Lime Soda 1 Scoop Rainbow Sherbet Combine ingredients in Punch Bowl ¾ full of ice. Scoop sherbet into balls and float on top or float entire quart of sherbet. Makes multiple servings. Enjoy and happy picnicking! -KJ

I shall be joining Ben Kaminsky for a lecture on the 2nd of July at the Joe Pro location and, if you are able, I hope you will join us.  It starts at 6.30pm, and will end around 8.30pm (or whenever the Q&A stops – I suspect it may end up being a pretty involved session).  Some info on Ben’s part: Ben will be presenting some of his research on coffee and espresso brewing, grinding, and roasting, that are sure to answer some long standing questions (e.g. Is espresso brewing inherently flawed? What actually constitutes an espresso roast?). He will also be outlining how to produce a “coffee shot”, the new way for brewing filter coffee that he thinks will likely replace the industry’s best and fastest brewers to date. Ben recommends you understand the basic elements of extraction, including practical use of an extract mojo if you want to get the most out of the class, though beginners are also welcomed. I will be talking about how some of this fits into the wider picture, where I see speciality going and the challenges ahead.  I’ll discuss wages, careers, profitability and how that all fits in with actually having a passion for coffee. I will also get to talk about the stuff that I’m generally not allowed to do at things like the SCAA. Tickets are $75.  They are available here. Side note:  I’d recommend grabbing a ticket in advance, rather than aiming to get one on the door… Related posts: Brewing outside of Gold Cup This isn’t really supposed to be a contentious or confrontational post. It is just something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Lots of people now have sufficient equipment to... Back to the mysteries of the bean I was involved in a training session under the broad title of advanced barista. It was just one person so we were able to tailor it to exactly wha the... SCAE Brewmaster Certification In the world of Speciality Coffee filter coffee isn’t very sexy. One criticism leveled at the SCAE is that it seems obsessed with espresso and yet espresso only makes up...

It’s easy to see tea as a simple commodity; a utilitarian item you keep on hand for occasional enjoyment and/or health benefits. It’s so easy to forget what went into giving you the perfect cup of tea that you may … Continue reading →

A recipe from Pearl & Ash, a restaurant on the Bowery.

For the latest Recipe Lab, try this highly practical Batali family recipe.

Or try a dry, earthy cider, either from Normandy or northern Spain.

Just on my way home from Bordeaux, and a quick one-night stay for Vinexpo, the huge bi-annual wine trade fair. These Castel girls were unloading a palette of gift bags every few hours, which – inexplicably – punters seemed keen to snaffle. But what was in them worth snaffling? The scale of Vinexpo, with it’s multitiered stands and kilometre long exhibition hall, is quite daunting. It’s not really a place for journalists to come to taste wine; it’s more about doing business. I was here to present a masterclass on Loire Sauvignon. I can’t comment on my own performance, but the wines that were on show – 14 of them – were really good, and showed just how high-quality and diverse Loire Sauvignon is these days. I also spent some time tasting wines – mainly Portuguese and Austrian. An impressive Blaufrankisch from Weninger. Just beautiful: rich yet quite elegant. A new producer to me: Malat from the Kremstal. Amazing freshness and precision in the wines. The wines of J Reinisch, from the Thermenregion, were a nice surprise. Loved this Northern Rhone-style St Laurent. Striking stuff. Tried through a large range of sweet wines from Tschida. This was the best: just beautiful complexity and balance. Remarkable. Great German Riesling: such pure wines from Schloss Johannisberg in the Rheingau. A really great wine from Joao Portugal Ramos. Ripe but very fresh, with great definition. This is seriously good. Also from JPR, this Foz d’Arouce Vinas Velhas 2009 is a remarkable Baga. A paradox of a wine: ripe, sweet fruit, but also amazing structure and precision. I’d never tried the wines of Pocas before, so I put that right today. This, their Simbolo 2010, is really striking. It’s quite savoury, with a bit of sternness, but there’s good fruit here too. It’s a proper wine, I reckon, and could age well. And, finally, last night I dined at Brasserie Bordelaise with Ben Smith, previously of Enotria, now of Concha y Toro UK, along with a couple of Ben’s colleagues. We had a great time, and ended up in a pub drinking weissbier, served by an Aussie bartender who is related in some way to Amelia Jukes.

As part of Dominican University’s invitation-only inaugural Wine Marketing Conference, I was invited to speak on the topic, “Observations of a Wine Marketing Practitioner.” Since all of the other attendees were marketing professors from around the world, I thought it’d be opportune to conduct a tasting of local wines while speaking about wine marketing.  The [...]