Tasting Report: Wines of the Santa Rita Hills 2011
Made famous by its appearance in the film Sideways, the Santa Rita Hills area near Santa Barbara is still riding high, thanks to a continued focus on quality winemaking, particularly in the realm of its storied Pinot Noirs. Recently a dozen or so wineries from the Sta. Rita AVA trekked up to San Francisco to…
Review: Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka
I’ve never met a tea-flavored vodka I didn’t like, because I don’t think it’s possible to make a bad tea-flavored vodka. At popular request I sought out a bottle of Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka, which is distinguished by its all natural ingredients, 10-times distillation, and sweetening that uses clover honey instead of high fructose…
Tasting Report: Tre Bicchieri Italian Wines – Chicago 2011
This year I bypassed the San Francisco Tre Bicchieri event — a celebration of the best in Italian wines, many of which aren’t available for sale in the U.S., hosted by Gambero Rosso — and took a quick trip to Chicago to experience Italian vino amidst the bitter cold and hospitable people of the midwestern…
Review: Macchu Pisco “La Diablata” Pisco
A new entry from Macchu Pisco (one of the bigger distributors of this Peruvian brandy worldwide, but whose standard product we’ve never reviewed), La Diablata is an “acholado” style pisco — a blend of three grapes: Quebranta, Moscatel, and Italia — which puts it in the same wheelhouse as Encanto. La Diablata, as the name…
Review: The Bitter Truth E**X**R Krauter Liqueur
Fun fact: E**X**R has more asterisks in its name than any other product we’ve reviewed. That alone makes it exciting, but the product is also worthwhile on its own merits. Also known as Elixier (overseas) and EXR — there were some issues with the original name, courtesy of your government overseers — E**X**R is a…
Review: Col. E.H. Taylor Old Fashioned Sour Mash Bourbon
Is there anything better than a Bourbon whiskey named after an old dude with initials for a first name? And this one’s a Colonel, people! Funnin’ aside, Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr., was a real guy — he introduced climate-controlled warehouses in Kentucky in the 1800s and patented his own sour mash technique — and…
Review: CooranBong and Bombora Australian Vodka (2011)
No one loves grape vodkas more than the Australians. Today we look at not one but two such bottlings. (They share another kinship, as both are imported by the same company in the U.S.) Both are 80 proof. CooranBong Australian Vodka (Aborigine for “water over rocks,” we’re told) is a Barossa Valley grape vodka, distilled…
Review: Vinturi Travel Wine Aerator
Whoa. Someone just took a standard Vinturi Aerator and ran it over with a truck. This pint-sized version is just like the original… just slimmer. The original Vinturi Wine Aerator is controversial enough: The idea is that you pour wine through this plastic tube, air gets sucked in, and the wine spits and dribbles out…
