Monthly Archives: April 2010

The Idiocy of Green Wine

This is the official ‘hate me’ post: Why organic/biodynamic/green wine is beyond dumb.
Understand I have a great deal of sympathy with organic wineries. In general I find organically produced wines are much less likely to provoke allergies, and are often unique and tasty. However I’m impervious to environmental guilt. The entire [...]

Gin & It

This was a popular European cocktail at the dawn of the jet-set era.
Like most cocktails, it was gin based. (Smirnoff had yet to hit their stride, substituting for all white liquors.)
Vermouth (wine and wormwood and other spices and sugar) and gin was the first martini. But there are huge varieties in vermouth. [...]

Chinato, the Ur-Campari

If you ever drink vermouth, either on the rocks or in a cocktail, you’ve probably come across Campari. Unlike all the other vermouths, it is extremely bitter. You either like it or you don’t. The classic cocktail with it, is Gin and Campari, or a Negroni, gin, sweet red vermouth [...]

The Perfect Cocktail

If you really want to make a cocktail (’martini’ in the current parlance) that stands out, you’ve got to get away from gimmicky liquor (goldschlager anyone?) and alco-milkshakes. These appeal to the adolescent drinker with their undeveloped craving for sweets and fat. Hey when your bodyfat is under 15% this makes perfect [...]

Uber Aubergine!

And what a ripasso! I don’t know if Masi is getting better; perhaps 2006 was an exceptional vintage; or maybe it was just the right meal and the right wine…

Greek Gifts

I was feeling all zorba-esque this week, so I bought three Greek wines to try.
If you’re thinking retsina, you probably have bad memories of a party long long ago involving inappropriate behaviour.
No one who actually likes wine, likes retsina. Near as I can tell, the popularity of retsina stems from [...]