Proof that God Loves Us and Wants Us to be Happy

Humans have a tendency to focus on the faults of gigantic institutions and minimize their contributions.

Take the Roman Empire. What did they ever do for anyone? Well, other than the aqueducts. And sanitation. And roads. Irrigation. Medicine. Education, health, peace, public baths, wine-- never mind.

I mean, there are a lot of people who are willing to give Roman Polanksi a pass for what he did to kids just because he directed Pirates, yet they’re all up in the Catholic Church’s shit, and hey— a monk perfected champagne. (Well, ok. It’s easy to criticize the church now; in Torquemada’s day, maybe not so much.)

Dumb

Dom

Domme

Now, I hate to disappoint all you perverts, but this isn’t a post about any of that. It’s about a liqueur connected to a religious order. (By the way, a liquor becomes a liqueur if you add anything to it after it’s distilled.)

In 1510, right about the time that Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa; Martin Luther was picking a fight with Rome; Michelangelo was sculpting David; Machiavelli was writing The Prince; and Henry VIII was ascending to the throne, a Benedictine monk named Don Bernardo Vincelli created the recipe for Bénédictine, the liquor eponymously named for the order of monks to which he belonged. (The same order, by the way, would spawn our old buddy Dom Perignon more than a hundred years later. Must be something in the water.)

Bénédictine is weird.  

It’s one of those secret blend liquors; evidently only three people know the full recipe, which calls for 27 plants and spices. The three main ingredients are Angelica, Eliza, AND Peggy. (Oh, wait. No, sorry. Those are the Schuyler sisters.)

The main ingredients of Bénédictine are Angelica, Hyssop, and Lemon Balm. The latter two are in the mint family, though the liquor doesn’t hit you over the head with mintiness at all. Coming in at 80 proof, Bénédictine is one of those ingredients you probably don’t have in your home bar unless you’re a huge fan of the Vieux Carré cocktail—but you should. (The VC, btw, is equal parts rye, cognac, Bénédictine, and sweet vermouth, with two dashes of Angostura bitters and two dashes of Peychaud’s.)

Vieux Carré

But this post isn’t about the Vieux Carré, either. Not weird enough.

No, this post has a few themes (if you haven’t noticed.) And the cocktail for this post is: The Purgatory.

Created in 2007 by Ted Kilgore at the Monarch in Maplewood, MO, the Purgatory is a masterpiece because on top of its rye whiskey base it layers not just one monastic secret recipe liqueur, but two. It’s got Bénédictine, of course, but it also adds Green Chartreuse (1737/Carthusian Monks/A whopping 130 secret herbs and other plants.)

Chartreuse—the color is named after the liqueur, by the way—is some pretty amazing stuff. Tastes like anise, fennel, pine, tarragon, cinnamon and, well, probably 125 other things too. If you have a bottle of Green Chartreuse in your home bar (and know how to use it), you’ll get mad props from cocktail geeks.

And with that, it’s time to wrap it up. It’s late on a Sunday night, and blogging after a hiatus takes a lot out of a guy. Time to go watch Billions and sip on a Purgatory.

Cheers!    

The Purgatory

The Purgatory

           2½ oz straight bottled in bond Rye whiskey (I used Rittenhouse)

¾ oz D.O.M. Bénédictine liqueur (The D.O.M. stands for Deo Optimo Maximo, btw)

¾ oz Green Chartreuse

Stir with ice and serve up with no garnish.  

The score: 8.0

How weird is it? 8/10.

With Your Tanks, and Your Bombs, and Your Bombs, and Your Guns...

This is what democracy a grapefruit looks like, when it’s grown by an actual human being who lives within biking distance of your house, rather than by some faceless agriconglomerate.

It’s ugly. It’s not pink. It’s just about as brown as it is yellow. Those of you who have already taken out your contact lenses will be forgiven for wondering why I’ve posted a photo of a particularly beautiful potato or an Asian pear.

But, in fact the reason I’ve posted a picture of this grapefruit is because it’s the backbone of tonight’s cocktail: The Zombie.

The vast number of followers of Weird Wine (despite its temporary hiatus) know that when we do cocktails here, we do them right. This is not the zombie you think you may have had at Señor Frog’s in Cancun when you woke up the next morning with—oh, right. We promised we would never mention that again.

No, this is the original 1934 Zombie, created by Don The Beachcomber—born Earnest Raymond Beaumont Grant, in Limestone County, TX—the same county in which the above-referenced grapefruit was grown.

If you’ve ever had a tiki drink (and if you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you have), you probably owe it to Don the Beachcomber—a guy who was so hard-core about mixology that he even had his name legally changed to Donn Beach not long after founding his eponymous cocktail bar-cum restaurant in Hollywood in the late 1930s.

Why is tonight’s drink the original Zombie? Two reasons:

1)    I decided to challenge my home bar, which has grown quite nicely over the past couple of months; and

2)    I decided I was only going to make one cocktail this evening, and after the kind of day I had today, it had to frickin’ count.

So, how does it taste? Meh. To be honest with you, the Zombie isn’t a particularly great tiki drink. It’s tough to make, and the ultimate product isn’t all that rewarding (depending on how one defines “reward.” The cocktail is aptly named).

Don’t get me wrong; it’s drinkable—a solid 5.5 out of 10—but compared to other cocktails, the balance just isn’t there. There’s some subtlety in the flavor, but its ratio of alcohol to other flavors is imbalanced, and unless you’re trying to drown your sorrows, I’d recommend about two dozen other tiki drinks before this one. I’m only about a third of a way through this one, and my mood is already heading this way:

The last time I felt like this, I tried to make a top shelf Long Island Iced Tea. Spoiler Alert: total failure. Don’t even try.

The good news is that there’s still some fabulous grapefruit juice and lime juice left, so… in honor of AWP, y’all wouldn’t mind if I made a Hemingway Daquiri, would you? Of course you wouldn’t.

               ¾ fresh squeezed lime juice

½ oz Don’s mix (grapefruit juice and cinnamon syrup)

½ oz falernum

1 ½ oz Puerto Rican Rum (I cheated and used Blackwell’s)

1 ½ oz Jamaican Rum (I used Appleton 12)

1 oz Demerara 151 (I used Hamilton, and highly recommend it.)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

6 drops Absinthe

1 tsp grenadine

crushed ice

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend for 4-5 seconds.  Pour over ice, and garnish with fresh mint from your garden. (What, you don’t have a garden?)

The score: 5.5

How weird is it? 7/10.

21 Things I want in a (Wine) Lover

1.     Don’t spill wine.

2.     If you do spill wine, clean it up.

3.     If you break a glass, don’t worry; it’s not the end of the world.

4.     If you feel bad when you break a wine glass, you should buy less expensive wine glasses, drink more wine, or both.

5.     If you’re by yourself, you don’t have to finish the bottle. If you’re not by yourself, someone has to finish the bottle, so it might as well be you.

6.     There is no such thing as good wine and bad wine. There is only wine you like, and wine you do not like. If you are fortunate enough to like wine that is inexpensive and available everywhere, you are, indeed, very fortunate.

7.     A friendly reminder for the uninitiated: while it is technically possible to make wine from fruit other than grapes, you do not want to drink it.

8.     Acceptable colors of wine to drink are: red, white, and pink. Unacceptable colors are: everything else.

9.     On occasions when you’re planning on drinking multiple bottles, start with bubbles, go to white, and finish with red. Or more bubbles. (If there is sweet and/or fortified wine involved in your evening of drinking, you’ll know what to do.)

10.  Drink really exciting bottles first, and slightly exciting bottles next. Boring bottles go last.

11.   It’s ok to cook with wine that you would not drink an entire bottle of. It’s not ok to cook with wine you would not drink a sip of.   

12.  If guests bring you a bottle of wine as a host gift, ask them if they would like a glass of what they brought, or what you’ve got open-- unless you have carefully selected the wines to go with the food you’re serving. Then you get to stick the bottle your guests bought in your wine rack.

13.  No matter how romantic it may seem, wine and chocolate should not be consumed together, with one exception (and it’s not Banyuls): Champagne goes well with everything.

14.  When you are pouring a bottle, the last sip goes into someone else’s glass. (This rule, however, does not require that you pour equal amounts into everyone’s glasses.)

15.  If you are at a restaurant, and you have ordered a bottle of wine that is a) rare; b) old; c) weird; or d) just plain delicious, offer your server and the sommelier (if there is one) a taste.

16.  It never hurts to ask whether you can bring your own wine to a restaurant. However, if you do bring wine to a restaurant that has a wine list, make sure it’s something very different from what’s on their list.

17.  At a party or a large gathering—particularly where most of the crowd doesn’t love wine as much as you—it’s ok to bring your own stash, BUT: be relatively discreet about it, and always, always, be willing to share.

18.  Do not worry what is in someone else’s glass. Worry about what is in your glass.

19.  If you think you don’t like wine made from a particular grape (Merlot, Chardonnay—I’m talkin’ about you) try one from a different part of the world. Hate California Chardonnay? Try a White Burgundy. Not a big Merlot fan? Go Right Bank Bordeaux. Don’t like Argentine Malbec? Try one from the Cahors region of France.

20.  When you drink wines at home, do your best to taste them without knowing the price. There’s nothing better than opening a wine that you forgot how much you paid for, and loving it, only to find out it’s half the price of what you’re used to drinking.

21.  It’s absurd to think that 18, 19, and 20 year olds can’t drink wine responsibly.

What are your top wine rules? Share them in the comments…    

In the meantime, chill with this:

I'm Your Pusherman

It’s about as hard for the average person to find weird wines—REALLY weird wines—as it is for the average farang to get authentically spicy food at a Thai restaurant.

Every good wine retailer has some of them; they just don’t believe you actually want them until you ask the right way. More than once.

The conversation can go one of two ways:

You: So, what have you got that’s really… weird?

Them: Did you know that Zinfandel comes in white AND red?

You: Thanks for the tip. Gotta run.

Or:

You: So, what have you got that’s really…weird?

Them: Depends. What do you mean by weird?

You: Well, here are some wines I like. [Insert wines you like. If you don’t know what you like, just steal stuff I’ve blogged about.] What have you got in the store that I would probably not find on my own?  

Them: Oh. Cool. Well, you should try this, or this, depending on your price range.

You: Great. I’ll take both. Now, um… [Look around, and make sure nobody’s listening. Lean in, and say, conspiratorially:] What’s just flat out bizarre?

Them: Is this your first time here?

Note: There are very few times in life when the correct answer to that question is “Yes.” This is no exception. A yes here will get the same result as a yes to that question at a sketchy massage parlor. No happy ending. (I mean, I’m told. I wouldn’t know personally.)

Assuming you didn’t previously proclaim your love for Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill or some run of the mill Napa Cabernet, the clerk will probably then say something like “Well, we got a six pack of something really off the wall, and I have no idea who’s going to buy it other than the people who work here.”

And then, the clerk will lead you to something like this:

And you’re golden.

If you’ve been waiting for a wine that’s a 10 out of 10 on the weird scale, wait no longer. This is it.

Does it look like a glass full of cloudy urine from a diabetic? Well, yes. You want something that’s perfectly clear, read Robert Parker, not WeirdWine.

This is—wait for it—a biodynamic (remember biodynamics?) orange wine from the Willamette Valley in Oregon, aged in amphorae.

WTF does all that mean? Well, let’s break it down. And while we break it down, let’s give you some groovy music to listen to. ‘Cause I AM your pusherman.

First, the “orange” part.

Let’s all hold hands, sing kumbaya, and understand that (virtually) all grapes, regardless of the color of their skin, are the same color on the inside: clear.

What gives red wine its color is the pigment in its skin.

When you press red grapes, if you leave the skins in contact with the juice, you get red wine. If you don’t, you get white wine.

Some champagnes—the ones called “Blancs de Noirs,” for instance, are white wines made from red grapes. (What, and all this time you thought they were just throwing together meaningless random French words so they could charge you more?)

Orange wines are the opposite.

Most white wines don’t get any skin contact with the juice, because the skins of white wines don’t impart good flavors to the wines. Like your exes, most white grape skins are bitter and unappealing.

But… but.

Sometimes, winemakers will allow white grape skins some contact with the juice. The result is called “orange wine.”

This particular orange wine is called “Experiment No. 8.” It’s basically made by some dude in a garage in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.

And it is good shit.

Perhaps the fact that it LOOKS like miso soup influenced my taste buds, but the savory umami flavors on the palate of this wine make it taste thick, meaty, and completely delicious. It smells like it should be sweet; the floral perfume on the nose that comes from the Grüner Veltliner grapes from which the wine is made, combined with the wine’s viscosity, make you think you’re getting a dessert wine, but as soon as it hits your tongue, you know you’re in for something completely different.

This is a really well-balanced wine. There’s good acid, combined with apricot and lychee flavors on the midpalate. The finish isn’t all that long, but it’s awfully nice. At 11.9% alcohol, it doesn’t hit you over the head. It was the perfect complement to a turkey burger with bacon and cheddar and a pork chop with marinated mushrooms.   

What about the amphora thing?

As it turns out, the guy who owns the winery where this is made, in addition to being a vintner, is also a potter. So, rather than fermenting this wine in stainless steel, or in oak, it’s fermented in open terra cotta jugs (called amphorae), the way wines were fermented in the ancient world. Add that to the fact that they let the skins sit on the juice for two and a half months or so, and you’ve got a recipe for some really weird—and really, really good-- stuff.

Give this, or another orange wine, a shot.   

The wine: A.D. Beckham MMXVII No. 8,  Grüner Veltliner bottled by Minimus Wines

The vintage: 2013

The score: 8.8/10

The price: $35ish

The source: Discovery Wines, NYC

How weird is it: 10/10. It’s made from grapes. That’s about the only thing normal about it.   

The Schlitz of Fortified Wines

It’s like the Schlitz of fortified wines—and I mean that in the best possible way.

If Schlitz was the beer that made Milwaukee famous, Madeira was the wine that quenched the thirst of the American Revolution. But why? Why would wine from a 309 square mile island off the coast of Morocco be all the rage in Colonial America (it’s rumored to be George Washington’s favorite drink)—especially when it was more or less looked down upon in Europe?

Like life itself, it’s all about the journey, not the destination.

(And, like life’s destination, as Benjamin Franklin was quick to point out, there’s always one more factor upon which one can depend with certainty.)

The British Crown, when devising the schedule of taxes on goods arriving in the 13 colonies, had left goods from the island of Madeira off the list entirely, and so the duties on Madeira were lower than those on wines from France, Portugal, Spain, and the rest of the European continent.  

But they were still too high for one of the Founding Fathers.

In 1768, five years before the Boston Tea Party, notorious smuggler John Hancock (what, you thought he ran an insurance company?), imported a shipment of Madeira, and was accused of offloading the bulk of the cargo in the middle of the night to avoid paying the taxes on it. A riot ensued, but in a display of great wisdom, this particular cargo, rather than going into Boston Harbor, went directly into the stomachs of the rioters.

So, ok. It was cheap. But why was Madeira more or less the ONLY wine that was consumed in revolutionary America?

Madeira is fortified—that is, after the wine is fermented, some brandy is added to bring the alcohol level up to around 20% or so. No, not to get you drunker faster, although I know that’s what some of you reprobates are thinking.

Thomas Jefferson, who didn’t think himself a boozehound, is frowning at you. “You are not to conclude I am a drinker,” he wrote. “My measure is a perfectly sober one of three or four glasses at dinner, and not a drop an any other time. But as to those three or four glasses, I am very fond.” Now, that’s my kind of sobriety.

Madeira is fortified because it’s bloody hot off the coast of Morocco, and they weren’t exactly flying this stuff over to the New World on the Concorde. No, there are two things that fortified wines like Madeira can handle that regular wines can’t: heat, and movement. (I’ll pause the blog right now while you go take that case of 1961 Petrus off the top of your clothes dryer.)

But Madeira is not only tolerant when it comes to heat and jostling (in that respect, it’s like the frickin’ Ghandi of wines)—it actually gets better after being heated and bounced around, the way it might in, say, the hold of a ship crossing the Atlantic.

The Europeans couldn’t get it. Why were the colonies consuming so much of this obscure, and, frankly, in their opinion, mediocre wine? In typical Old World fashion, they chalked it up to just plain bad taste on the part of the savages, the same way modern-day Europeans might look at, say, Justin Bieber.

But what they didn’t realize is that the Madeira we were drinking in America was a completely different wine. The hotter it got, and the more it bounced, the better it got. Eventually, though the Europeans always catch on (Justin, just wait: you WILL get that Légion d’honneur), and for the home market, they started sending casks of Madeira on voyages to nowhere in the holds of ships, in order to properly bake and jostle them.   

And you can feel the heat in the wine. This New York Malmsey from the Rare Wine Company’s Historic Series (made from Malvasia, the sweetest of the Madeira grapes), is all about clove and raisin on the nose. As it hits the air, that nuttiness from oxidation starts to kick in. On the palate, acidity balances out unctuous caramel. It’s like the world’s best fruitcake… liquefied and mixed with a little lemon juice. The finish goes on for 10+ Caudalies.

One of the best things about Madeira is how strong it is. It won’t last just through heat and through distance; it’ll last through time as well. Buy a bottle, have a glass tonight, and drink the rest a week, a month, a year from now—and it’ll only get better. Aged Madeiras, like these, are some of the most brilliant wines known to man.

The wine: The Rare Wine Company’s New York Malmsey

The vintage: NV

The score: 9.3/10

The price: $55ish

The source: Austin Wine Merchant

How weird is it? Given that most of your dinner party guest won’t have ever tried it, it’s weird. But in the most delicious way possible. Weird level: 7/10.    

The "E" is Silent.

Last night, on the way to a competitive table tennis match, my seemingly gracious opponent invited me up to his apartment for a cocktail.

Knowing that your narrator is an aficionado of the esoteric, the gentleman—and I use that term loosely-- produced a bottle of spirits the likes of which I had never seen before, nor do I intend to see again.

In retrospect, perhaps his magnanimity was a ploy to exploit my largest known vulnerability: an inability to say no to an opportunity to present to you, dear readers, a weird alcoholic experience. (N.B., his stratagem worked. I would go on to lose, narrowly, but honorably.)  

At first glance, the bottle that my opponent brought forth from an antique globe seemed to hail from a third-world backwater, so faded was the painted label on the glass. The clear vessel displayed its contents as light amber in hue, two shades darker than one might find in, say, a fine monkey-picked Oolong tea from Fujian province.

I wanted nothing to do with it.

In hindsight, I can admit my error; my normally well-developed ability to nose out (and avoid) libations that put one’s palate (and, on occasion, one’s eyesight) at risk was not fully functional.

What I guessed to be demon rum, some cursed sugar cane spirit from a malaria-infested hellhole, was nothing of the sort.

Rather, this particular tipple proved to be of far more exotic origin; to wit, it came from a time long past.

This spirit harkened back to the days of the man in the grey flannel suit; indeed, it was distilled in the same year that the film bearing that name and laying bare its title character’s existential angst made its debut.

The provenance of the bottle was excellent. It had been gifted to my friend’s father-in-law, a man of some means, but afflicted with the great character flaw of temperance. It had been opened, once, decades ago, and had lain in darkness in a cabinet in one of the old man’s homes until quite recently.

Well-stoppered, the ullage was minimal; after bottling, the angels had been denied any further share. Sadly, however, as I attempted to open the container, the cork, which had done yeoman’s work for more than a half-century, gave its last and separated from itself leaving part attached to the bottle-top and most wedged in the neck of the fifth.

As regular readers of this column know, I am oft-prone to digressions. Today is no exception. For those who have wondered why a fifth of spirits is so named, wonder no more: traditionally, the standard sized-bottle of liquor contained a fifth of a gallon of liquid. Of course, the savagery of the metric system eclipsed civilized measure, and a standard bottle is now 750 milliliters—or 7 milliliters short of a TRUE fifth of a gallon. (I, for one, blame the French.)

With cork in peril, and no ah-so puller at hand, I was forced to use a traditional corkscrew to remove the stopper from the neck of the bottle.

Reader, it crumbled!   

Thankfully, we conjured a strainer.

It occurs to me, this far into what has become a rather long-winded narrative, that I still have not said anything about what, in fact, this spirit WAS.

It was the Carleton Tower, a Canadian whisky, Hiram Walker’s top of the line rye blend. No Johnny (Walker Blue)-Come-Lately this! Here, as is my wont, I will provide a note of thanks to our neighbors to the north in recognition both of their valor in the Second World War and their kindness in keeping our nation well-stocked with aged spirits during the temporary insanity inflicted upon us in part by Andrew-Bloody-Volstead, cursed be his name.  

In good time, I filled a rocks glass with ice (freezer-made, from unfiltered water. As I was a guest, it would have been impolite to point out how inadequate it was to chill a spirit thusly. Despite my reputation I manage to maintain SOME social graces.)

I dumped two fingers of whisky into the glass, topped it off with Coca-Cola, mixed the whole mess with my pinky finger, and downed the contents in one swallow.

Now, now. Of course I did NOT.

I poured an ounce into the glass, neat, and savored the nose—a lovely, oaky perfume. On the palate, the flavors of chocolate, caramel, and sea salt came through vibrantly. This was a whiskey to be savored!

Alas, as there was a match to be contested, we had no time to savor it. After another small sip of the liquor by itself, we mixed two traditional Manhattans (2:1 whisky to sweet vermouth-- in this case Martini, as no better vermouth was available—and a dash of Angostura bitters). As I was not the primary mixologist, this lovely whisky was forced to suffer the indignity of being shaken like a Polaroid picture, rather than stirred, and was served on the rocks, rather than up (with no garnish- not the traditional Luxardo Maraschino cherry; not even a lemon twist).

Nevertheless, it was quite thrilling to the senses—and a welcome surprise, as I hasten to note that this particular bottle was distilled at a time much closer to the end of Prohibition than the present.

In all, it was an exceedingly pleasant experience, and one I hope you, dear reader, may some day get to experience.

Sidenote: Some of the uninitiated may be wondering why I have misspelled the word “whiskey” in this post. Rest assured that I have not. Tradition holds that, when referring to spirits produced from mash fermented in Scotland, Canada, and Japan, one uses the spelling “whisky.” When referring to similar spirits produced in the United States and Ireland, one spells it “whiskey.” Should you not possess an eidetic memory, you may remember this simple mnemonic: if the name of the country contains an “E” (e.g., America; Ireland), so does its spirit. If the country name does not contain an “E,” neither does its spirit. Hence, Tennessee whiskey. Scotch whisky. Canadian whisky. It is my fondest hope, in providing this public service, that I will have saved at least someone in the audience from being mortified in Scotland.

The ingredients: Carleton Tower Canadian Whisky; Martini Sweet Vermouth; Angostura bitters.

The score: 8.0

How weird is it? 10/10, for a whisky nearly older than all of the Democratic presidential candidates.  

“Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm done with ye!”

It might not be *quite* as strange as Huckleberry Finn’s cure for warts, but biodynamic agriculture is weird.

Biodynamic agriculture is like organic farming on steroids. (Yes, I fully appreciate the irony of that statement.) It treats a whole farm as a single organism, rejecting the use of outside chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, etc., which is pretty cool. Call me crazy, but I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and… my wine made in vineyards that don’t use glyphosate.

Jean-François Ganevat doesn’t use glyphosate. In fact, the guy is so old school that he doesn’t even use a computer. He does all of his business by phone—or by fax. And there’s a lot of business to take care of when you produce more than 40 different wines, from vineyards that total just 21 acres in area.

All of this means that the grapes for the wine we’re going to talk about today are grown in an area that’s about the size of a large suburban backyard.

That’s a little weird—especially for those used to drinking wines from California or Australia, or wherever that are made at industrial scale, and bottles in the tens of thousands of cases. Where it gets truly bizarre is when you dive into the details of biodynamics, and find out that it’s not just about growing grapes organically. True biodynamics involves timing your planting to both the phases of the moon, and the astrological constellations the moon passes through at different times of the year.

And instead of sprinkling Miracle-Gro, farmers treat their fields by burying cow horns filled with manure or powdered quartz, and using the results months later above the surface. Biodynamic vignerons bury chamomile blossoms stuffed into cow intestines in the vineyards, and dig them up six months later. They bury Yarrow blossoms stuffed into the bladders of Red Deer—and dig them up. They also bury bureaucrats from the French wine bureaucracy in shallow graves in the forest when nobody is looking. (Ok. I was joking about that last part. Probably.)

How does all of this work? Who knows? But it does. Some of the world’s best wines are produced biodynamically. Some of the world’s top wines are made biodynamically, from Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, to Domaine Huet in Vouvray, and Beaucastel in the Rhone.

Maybe it’s all un-scientific mumbo jumbo. Maybe eschewing chemicals requires the winemaker to spend more time in the vineyards than is necessary with conventional agriculture. Maybe… there are forces at work we just don’t understand.

All I know is that Jean-François Ganevat is a wizard.

This particular wine is sparkling—technically a Cremant du Jura. Made from 100% chardonnay, in the traditional Champagne method, this wine will give you a glimpse into what the best sparkling wines in the world are capable of.

When you first taste it, this wine is all about minerality. It’s chalk and granite all the way down. Then the yeast kicks in, and you get an incredible taste of buttered brioche. Once it’s been open for a while, the honeydew and cantaloupe flavors come to the fore. For slightly less than the price of a pretty-good, big production champagne (like the one mentioned in yesterday’s blog post) you can get an experience that’s equal parts intellectual and sybaritic.

What’s more, this is the perfect gateway drug. It gives you a taste into what some of the world’s best sparklers taste like. While it doesn’t have the bright flavor explosion of wines from David Léclapart, or the depth and brute strength of the wines being made by Anselme Selosse, it’s less than half the price of the former, and a quarter of the latter.

This wine is so aromatic, if you put it in a traditional flute, you won't get the full experience. Use a white wine glass. 

If you can find it, buy it. And drink it.  

The wine: Jean-François Ganevat

The vintage: 2010

The score: 9.3/10

The price: $48

The source: Discovery Wines in New York City

How weird is it? On the palate, it’s a 4/10. With the story, it’s a 7/10.     

It's About Wine. I Promise.

On September 10, 2001, I moved from Washington DC to an apartment in New York City that sits 1259 feet from what is currently labeled on maps as the “South Pool.”

At the time, of course, it wasn’t a pool. It was a 1362 foot high skyscraper. It was a bit daunting at the time, living, quite literally, in the shadow of such a massive structure.  

But it wasn’t there for long.

The morning after I moved in, at about five minutes to nine, my phone rang. I could see from the caller ID that it was my mother, who, I thought, really should have known better than to call me so early. I had just started graduate school and my first class wasn’t until 11am, so, exhausted from moving, I was doing my best to sleep in. I turned off the phone, and went back to sleep. For 8 minutes.

At 9:03 I was jolted awake when my entire apartment shook, and the unmistakable bass notes of a gigantic explosion rippled through the walls.

 “Fuckers bombed the trade center again,” was my first thought.

My second was: “I have to get out of here.”

I was still naïve enough then to think that buildings in the real world fell like timber, maintaining their structural integrity all the way down as gravity took its course. A worrier by nature, I had done the math before moving in, and calculated that if, indeed, the South Tower were to topple, it would be the 101st story that would hit my bedroom.

I pulled on the first clothes I could find-- a pair of khakis and a white T-shirt—laced up a pair of sneakers (later, I would be grateful that a pair of comfortable shoes had been easiest to find), grabbed my keys, and made my way to the street as fast as I could. The elevator was still working, but I took the stairs just in case.

When I got to the street, I looked up, and could see both towers burning. I was confused, since I had only heard one explosion. I would later find out that I had slept through the first crash entirely, waking only after the second tower had been hit.

My immediate plan was to make my way to the East River, where there were no tall buildings, in case everything started to come down. But I got turned around and walked the wrong way, heading north instead. As the situation seemed to stabilize, the first thing I did was look for a phone to let my parents know I was ok. Cell service was nonexistent, so I stood in line for a pay phone—there were still some pay phones in NYC then—to make a call. I couldn’t get a line to New Jersey, so I called a friend in Washington, DC, and asked her to try to get through to let them know I wasn’t hurt.

At that moment, all of the people milling around lower Manhattan were surrounded not just by the millions of bits of paper that were streaming through the air and the acrid smoke; we were surrounded by the fog of war. Nobody had yet pieced together exactly what had happened.

It wasn’t until nearly 9:45, when I heard on a street vendor’s radio that the Pentagon had been hit, that I was able to put together what had actually happened. Although my first suspicion had been that the scars in the towers had been intentionally carved, I still held out hope that, perhaps, the chaos had been caused by a pilot in a small plane who had a heart attack.

When the situation became clear, anger and determination replaced confusion in the eyes of New Yorkers.The only point of reference most of us had was disaster movies, and it was easy, as we looked at the towers burning, to imagine that we were looking at a gigantic screen, rather than cold reality.

When the sense of helplessness became overwhelming, I walked over toward Beekman hospital, the closest medical facility. I walked into the lobby and found a security guard, and let him know that, although I wasn’t a doctor, if they needed any help—people to move boxes or direct traffic—that I would do whatever I could.

“Stick around,” he said. “We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

After a few minutes, I became restless, and started to walk toward the towers themselves, to see if there was anything I could do to be useful there.

As I approached the corner of Nassau and Fulton, I heard what sounded like a freight train rumble. Then the screaming started, and the South Tower collapsed. The massive cloud of debris rushed eastward, cresting over the smaller buildings, wooshing down the street.

That’s when I decided to get out of Dodge.

Tens of thousands of people were flooding over the Brooklyn Bridge. But the Brooklyn Bridge seemed too iconic—too likely to be a target. So I skipped it, and walked uptown along the river. When I got to the Manhattan Bridge, it was a roiling sea of humanity. There were so many people on the bridge that it didn’t look safe, so I kept going. I made it to the Williamsburg Bridge and walked across, with thousands of others.

When I got to the other side, I didn’t know what to do. I had only been in Williamsburg one time before that, so I did the same thing I had done previously—I went to Peter Lugar and had a steak. I sat a table with five strangers—I don’t remember any of their names. One had bought a few bottles of wine, and we all ate together and drank together, not knowing when we might get home, or, when we did, who might be there to greet us. I don’t remember what the wine was, or what it tasted like. All I remember is how easy it was to get along with everyone else there. We all had one, big shared problem. Everything else barely existed.

Eventually, when the subway started running again, I made it back to Manhattan. Certain that my apartment had been destroyed, I made my way to a friend’s place in midtown. Her apartment faced south, with a view of both the Empire State Building and the plume of smoke rising from lower Manhattan.

As I walked through the door, my friend thrust a drink into my hand, and said, “Here. You need this.”

I did.

For the rest of the evening, we sat, and talked, and drank champagne—Veuve Clicquot—because We Were Alive.

So tonight, as I did fourteen years ago, I’ll be in New York. And I'll raise a glass of champagne.

I’ll drink because I’m alive.

And I’ll drink to all of the people who lost their lives that day, in gratitude, and in remembrance.

May their memory be for a blessing.     

A Hundred Times Better than God Help the Child

Here’s the thing about Manhattan variants: they’re never as good as Manhattans.

Their names, evocative of hipster-infested pockets of New York City, are annoyingly cute— but they leave me cold. A classic Manhattan is Cary Grant; strong, smooth, and reliable. The wannabes are the Adam Sacklers and Terry Richardsons of the cocktail world; spending time with one might seem like a good idea at an afterhours club in Bed Stuy, but you’re better off ignoring their texts the next day.

But every once in a while, a Manhattan variant will pop up on the radar that seems worth trying. The Song of Solomon is one. (And let’s face it—what else are you going to do with the bottle of 116 proof rye that’s been sitting on your cocktail shelf for a year, slowly evaporating?)

Fair warning: it’s weird. But in the very best way. The Song of Solomon is a one-eyed black Jew who gets on the stage with a cigarette and brings the house down.

A riff on the Bensonhurst, the SoS uses what’s arguably the weirdest of liqueurs: the incomparable Cynar, an Italian Amaro that’s flavored with… artichokes. Any drink with Cynar (by the way, it’s pronounced “chee-NAR,” Italian-style) immediately scores an 8 or above on the weird scale.

On the other hand, the sweetness of the Luxardo balances it out. Maraschino is like bartender’s salt; it just enhances the flavor of everything it comes in contact with. The extra pinch of actual salt in this one, too, which you can’t taste, brings out some of the more subtle vanilla flavors in the rye, and the botanicals in the vermouth and the Cynar.

Try this one stat, says the Candyman. (But be careful—the overproof rye packs a punch.)

Song of Solomon (variation)

1½ oz overproof Rye (I used Willet 116 proof)

½   oz Luxardo Maraschino

½   oz Dry Vermouth (I used Noilly Prat)

½   oz Cynar

a dash of bitters (The original recipe by Dave Kupchinsky at Everleigh in LA calls for celery bitters. I used Peychaud’s and added a pinch of salt.)

Combine all ingredients with ice and stir. Strain into a chilled coupe.

The ingredients: Rye; Maraschino; Dry Vermouth; Cynar; salt; bitters.

The score: 9.5

How weird is it? 9/10.

Burn, Baby, Burn.

It’s not quite a Disco inferno; it’s just a killer Nebbiolo.

Today’s wine is another Italian, from Lombardy—again, right near the Swiss border.

If your primary point of reference to Nebbiolo is Barolo, well, 1) you’re probably a big frickin’ wine snob; and 2) you might think that drinking a 5 year-old Nebbiolo would land you squarely in Dante’s third circle of Hell, with the gluttons (or maybe the fourth circle, with the greedy—or even the sixth circle, with the heretics.)

But Nebbiolo in Valtellina grows up faster than it does in Barolo. No less a luminary than Leonardo Da Vinci was a fan. He described Valtellina in his Codex Atlantico as “Surrounded by tall and terrible mountains,” but noted that they made “really powerful wines.”

Well. We know it wasn’t only wine that Leonardo liked young, so…

How about in modern times?

This stuff just tastes amazing. It’s got that killer brick-orange color that Nebbiolo is known for.

It’s got a nose of stewed fruit. Basically, it smells like an adult Fig Newton. On the palate it’s earthy, and tannic, with enough acidity to balance out the alcohol.  If it cost $50 a bottle, it would be worth it. But it’s half that.

If you can find it—buy it. And drink it now.    

The wine: Nino Negri Inferno Valtellina Superiore

The vintage: 2010

The score: 8.9/10

The price: $25ish

The source: Austin Wine Merchant

How weird is it? Ok. It’s not that weird. This could be a crowd-pleaser. Give it 30 minutes in a decanter, and you’ll be rewarded. Weird level: 4/10.    

… and the big Mississippi, and the Town Honolulu, and the Lake Titicaca…

Here’s where it gets really, really weird.

The very definition of a cocktail for a great deal of American history was a drink consisting of a combination of a spirit, sugar, water, and bitters.

Normally, cocktails are all about balance. And tiki cocktails are no exception. The old rhyme is a good guideline to follow: one part sour, two parts sweet, three of strong, and four of weak. That is: one part citrus, two parts sugar (or syrup), three of liquor, and four of water (or shaken ice.)

But we like it weird here. And to make it weird, we’re going to throw balance out the window and feature a cocktail that’s a take on the classic Mai Tai—but with a very, very, weird twist.

That’s right. A normally supporting ingredient takes its turn in the spotlight in this drink.

It’s called the Stormy Mai Tai, and it’s all about the bitters.

Yep. This drink features a full ounce and a half of… Angostura bitters.

Stormy Mai Tai

1½ oz Angostura bitters

1 oz lime juice

¾ oz orgeat syrup

¾ oz curaçao

½ oz light rum

Combine all ingredients except rum in a shaker and shake. Pour into an old fashioned glass, and top with crushed ice. Float the rum on top, and garnish with a sprig of mint.

This cocktail is sheer, unadulterated brilliance. Created by Giuseppe Gonzalez of Clover Club and Dutch Kills, this drink takes the concept of bitters… to eleven.

I’m guessing that the “stormy” in the cocktail’s name is a nod to one of my all-time favorite cocktails, the national drink of Bermuda, the Dark ‘n Stormy. (Sidenote: it’s got to be made with Gosling’s rum to be a “Dark ‘n Stormy.” Any other rum, you need the full “and” in the middle.”

The Stormy Mai Tai hits right up front with ginger. But not fresh ginger; the ginger in the Angostura tastes like pickled ginger. It’s like your sushi plate was booby trapped. Luckily, the unagi missed you, but the ginger, well… the ginger got you right in the mouth.

But the ginger fades quickly, and lets you experience the incredible complexity of this cocktail. The interplay between the citrus of the lime and the curacao, and the sweet nuttiness of the orgeat makes this a killer drink.  

The ingredients: Angostura Bitters; Pierre Ferrand Dry Orange Curacao; Orgeat; Lime Juice; El Dorado 3 year Rum.

The score: 9.1

How weird is it? It’s an ounce and a half of bitters. It’s weird. Don’t be fooled by the fact that there’s only a half ounce of rum and ¾ ounce of Curacao in this drink. The Angostura packs a punch at 88 proof. 9/10. 

Ease on Down the (Weird) Road

How about a nice glass of… Kerner?

That’s not the producer. That’s the grape.  

We hit you with the easy, approachable Riesling last time, so we might as well take it to the next level with a wine that’s made from a grape that’s the bastard offspring of Riesling and a grape called Trollinger. Now, in and of itself, that’s no big deal. People breed grapes all the time. But Riesling is a white grape, and Trollinger is a red grape. And that, you have to admit, is pretty weird. So. Kerner.

But what does it taste like?

Yeah, ok. It tastes a lot like Riesling. But it’s meatier. This is another one of those white wines for people who usually drink red wines. Put this in a black cup, and I’ll guess that at least 40% of people would guess it’s a red wine. It’s still got a little petrol on the nose, and tastes of mango and pineapple, with some residual sugar, but there’s an umami thing going on, too, that makes it not just fun to drink, but fun to think about, too. (Imagine what that Riesling would taste like with a quarter drop of soy sauce added—and you’ve got Kerner.)

This particular example is from Italy, which makes it even weirder. It’s from the Alto Adige, up near Switzerland. Oh, and it’s made at a monastery—the Abbazia di Novacella, an Augustinian monastery.

Overall, a killer wine, and a huge bargain for the price.  

The wine: Kerner, Abbazia di Novacella

The vintage: 2013

The score: 9.0/10

The price: $20-$25

The source: Whole Foods Mothership

How weird is it? It’s pretty weird. Not the weirdest monastery wine—not by a long shot—but between the taste and the story, we’ll say it’s a 6/10.   

The Unbearable Lightness of Riesling

If I had a dollar for every time a dinner party guest told me he or she didn’t like white wine, I’d probably buy a dozen acres in 78704.

I don’t blame them; most Americans’ primary exposure to white wines tends to come either in the form of buttery California chardonnays that are more appropriate to dip lobster in than to drink alongside it, or through mass-market, industrially produced wines that bear about as much relation to the real thing as a fish stick does to the sashimi at Uchi.

My typical response to these skeptical visitors is to point to a decanter full of red, make some excuse about how “the good stuff” still needs a little time to open up, then suggest that they try a half-glass of one of my favorite whites, just to kill some time until it’s ready to move to more familiar territory.

Most will agree, whether out of a desire to try something new, or sheer Texan politesse. Then the fun starts. They’ll swirl the wine in their glass, and sniff tentatively. Then the quizzical look will come across their face. “What is this? It smells amazing.”  

Nice and frosty.

“Taste,” I’ll suggest.

A small sip. Then a bigger sip. Then, “Wow. This is delicious. What is it?”

Well, Riesling, of course. One of the world’s most popular white wines, and the noble grape most Americans are least likely to have ever explored.  

As often as not, a few bottles later, the decanter of red will sit on the sideboard, untouched, as the conversation continues, my evangelism for the night successful.

What it is about Riesling that makes it appeal to wine drinkers who “don’t like” white wine? What do you need to know in order to buy a good one? And where can you find them?

Well, to start, it’s hard to find any foods that don’t play well with Riesling. From shellfish to shawarma, cheese to chorizo, a well-made Riesling can complement the flavor of just about anything. And speaking of that chorizo, unlike many other wines, it stands up well to spiciness in everything from tacos to Thai.   

Not only that, but it’s one of the few grapes that can turn out well in just about every wine producing region. Pacific northwest? No problem. Australia? There are some spectacular Australian Rieslings. California? Yep. New York? Even New York. And, of course, Austria, France, and even Italy make transcendent examples.

So, where to start? Rieslings can run the gamut from bone-dry to syrupy sweet, but I find the best wines to start with are the ones that have a touch of sweetness to balance out a grape that can also display significant acidity.

Given the diversity of expressions of the grape, how does the average person know what they’re going to get? Well, as always, an informed retailer can be your best friend when buying any wine. In Austin proper, Austin Wine Merchant has a great selection, and knowledgeable salespeople. And East Side Wines does aight, too.  

Don't let the screwtop fool you. This is good stuff. 

So, what’s this week’s wine? Well, by the photo, you can see that it is, indeed a Riesling.

It’s also good two big things going for it: it’s cheap and available. You should be able to find this fantastic Dr. L. Riesling all over the place for right around $10 a bottle. (I got this one at the Whole Foods Mothership.)

It starts off with a whiff of gasoline on the nose, which is one of Riesling’s hallmarks. (Not in a bad way. But then again, I maintain that the three best smells in the world are coffee, petrol, and weed.) Oh. And it’s sweet. Not Kool-Aid-sweet, but mojito-level-sweet. But it’s got enough acidity to balance out the sugar. Tastes of pineapple, banana, and other tropical fruits keep hitting you, through a medium-short finish.

Basically, this is the perfect gateway drug for people who think they don’t like white wine.

Oh, and at 8.5% alcohol, you can drink it all day, which, uh, I may have already done.

Go ahead. Try it. You’ll like it!

The wine: Loosen Bros. Dr. L. Riesling.

The vintage: 2013

The score: 8.5/10

The price: $10

The source: Whole Foods Mothership

How weird is it? It's not that weird, unless you don't usually drink white wine-- or unless your only reference point with sweet wine is White Zinfandel. Call it a 3/10.