Review: Germain-Robin Craft-Method Brandy and Coast Road Reserve Brandy
These Germain-Robin brandies — crafted in California — showed up unannounced, in minimally-marked sample vials, with no additional information about their manufacture or sale. [UPDATE: Notes have been found, and info below has been updated. These are new products.] They are reviewed here without further knowledge — I’m unclear whether the first brandy is the…
Review: Bakon Bacon-Flavored Vodka
There are two schools of thought on Bakon — an honest-to-God bacon-flavored vodka — and never the twain shall meet. One school says this is awesome, at a way to get that highly-prized bacon flavor into an alcoholic spirit. The other school says it is disgusting. I won’t be able to sway you either way,…
Roundup: Affordable Dessert Wines, 2010 Releases
With party season getting underway, it’s time to look at dessert wines, no? (OK, so party season is nowhere near arriving, but these wines have been sitting here all year and I finally had the time to properly review them.) This hodgepodge of wines basically have nothing in common except higher alcohol (usually), sweetness (some…
Review: Ursus Vodka, Straight and Flavored
Everyone needs a gimmick, but the vodka industry, where product is legion, needs it more than anyone. Ursus Vodka, which hails from the Netherlands and is distilled “from grain,” is a budget brand with a trick: Like Coors Light’s newer bottles, the bears on the label turn from white to blue when it’s chilled. (It…
Review: Tequila Avion, Complete Lineup (2010)
This new brand hails from New York, where a former Seagram exec decided to strike out on his own in the brave new world of tequila. As the story goes, founder Ken Austin scoured Jalisco for the best spirit that hadn’t made it to the U.S., and found it on the highest agave plantation in…
Visiting Del Dotto Winery and Caves
Do you want to taste some seriously “lights out*” wines? Look no further than Del Dotto, a postmodern institution along Napa’s main wine trail, and the proprietor of a tour I’ve been hearing about for years as a “must experience” event. This weekend I finally summoned up the courage and paid the whopping $50 to…
Review: El Jimador “New Mix” Tequila Cocktails
“New Mix” is not a slogan stuck on the can of El Jimador’s ready-to-drink tequila cocktails. It’s the actual name of the product: New Mix. Hugely popular in Mexico, New Mix now comes in five flavors. We’ve had the first three flavors sitting in the fridge literally for months, and finally we are getting around…
Review: Bohemia Clasica Beer
Yes, Virginia, there is more beer in Mexico than Corona. Don’t be fooled by the dark, squat bottle. Bohemia is a fairly simple pilsner, a light gold beer that offers a nice, easy-drinking balance of sweet and bitter. There’s a distinct note of gingerbread on the nose, which is quite pleasing, and the body comes…
