Category: Sips & Shots

  • Meet the Reds: Beaujolais

    With our trip through the Alphahol complete, at least this round, I thought it’d be nice to take a break from cocktails and, instead, discuss a gentler subject: wine. Since I’m more a fan of reds than white, this month I’ll pick a red a week and chat a little about it. Hopefully you’ll share…

  • XYZ and so forth

    Okay, barflies! I’m going to wrap up this little trip through the Alphahol in one fell swoop of a post for a couple of reasons. a) we’re at the “difficult” letters, and b) I wanna talk about the Zombie before Halloween instead of 2 weeks after. So indulge me: 3 cocktails in rapid fire! XYZ…

  • A Tale of Two Sours

    Whisk(e)y Sours, that is–we’re up to ‘w’ in our travel through the Alphahol and that means delving into the oak barrels and coming up with what exactly? I may have mentioned before that I’m not a big whisk(e)y fan. Until very recently I couldn’t stand the stuff and wouldn’t drink anything made with it thanks…

  • Vermouth

    So, this past week I actually completed the coursework and tests for my BAC: BarSmarts Advanced Certification and, having assured my mother than no, I am not planning to become a bartender (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I gotta admit: I learned some stuff! Granted, I enrolled in the course for precisely that…

  • Umbrella Drinks

    So much for the cold snap! While it may be snowing in parts of the US, in Florida it was triple digits and the only way to make that sort of heat bearable is with something cold and slushy. Enter the frozen beverages most often served with a cute little umbrella perched on top. I…

  • The Toddy

    I’ve had my head buried in alcohol history and lore, lately, and in the most recent reading, the Toddy came up. With the beginnings of a nip in the air (okay, so it’s our annual Fall cool snap that will disappear soon, but let a girl dream) the Toddy sounded like an excellent subject to…

  • Sangria

    A fruited wine beverage, Sangria has as many variations as it has makers. The downside, generally speaking, is that to make good Sangria you need time. Namely, time for the fruit to mix and meld with the other ingredients. But what if you want Sangria now, and you’ve got all the parts but you’d rather…

  • Why is the Rum Always Gone?

    Because there are so many yummy ways to drink it! When flipping through the index of an extensive beverage reference it became quite apparent that I have many fond memories associated with rum, in one form or another: When I was just a child, about 4 or 5 I’d say, my Aunt Marie was a…

  • No Malaria Here!

    This post was brought to you by the letter Q, not exactly an easy one to match in the Alphahol so I went with a tried and true favorite: Tonic Water, which is flavored with (among other things) quinine. Apparently, the Gin & Tonic habit began as a way for the British of the East…

  • Pomegranate Snark

    A while back–maybe a year or so, that’s pretty long in Internet-years–I was part of a conversation among friends which resulted in the following question: If you had a drink named after you, what would it be called? Now, this was back when I was a bar novice. I stuck to rum & Cokes, Kahlua…