Review: Wines of Umbria’s Falesco, 2016 Releases

Umbria, Tuscany’s little cousin, is the home of Falesco, which has been operating in the region since 1979. The company produces wine under a handful of sub-labels, the Vitiano brand representing its entry-level bottlings. We checked out two members of the Vitiano line and one wine higher up the chain. Thoughts follow. 2014 Falesco Vitiano…

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Review: Tequila Herradura Coleccion de la Casa Directo de Alambique Silver Tequila, Reserva 2015

For the previous three years, Herradura has produced a limited edition tequila, each with a different twist. Those twists have all involved reposados with special barrel finishing — Port, Cognac, and Scotch casks, to be specific. This year Herradura is doing something different. Not only is the tequila not finished, it’s not aged at all.…

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Review: Newcastle Foreign Extra India Pale Ale

Newcastle, in another collaboration with Caledonian, keeps hacking away at the IPA-brown ale hybrid. This time it’s a Foreign Extra, which means more hops, more alcohol, and more of pretty much everything. As with the prior experiments, this one comes across with that big nutty, malty character up front, lightly smoky at times with an…

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Recipes for National Hot Toddy Day, 2016

With the majority of the country already in or about to enjoy the depths of yet another bone chilling winter, we felt it necessary to provide a classic recipe for a freezing season on National Hot Toddy Day (today, January 11). We start off with the basic recipe and swerve off into two variations worthy…

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Review: JVR Spirits Krupnik Spiced Honey Liqueur

JVR Spirits is a small Portland operation, and Krupnik — a homegrown hooch made by the founder’s father decades ago — is the company’s only product. It takes balls to make a spiced honey liqueur your only product (for now, anyway), but who are we to judge? We don’t have any products! Krupnik is an…

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Book Review: The Beer Bible

Beer is a huge topic, and indeed it’s one that behooves a creation of a biblical tome. Jeff Alworth’s The Beer Bible aims to be a reference book for all things barley, spending 700 pages to profile over 100 styles of beer, 52 breweries, and hundreds of specific brews. The book is organized primarily by style,…

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Review: Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon

No, it’s not from Indiana! Wyoming Whiskey is a craft spirit made in Kirby, Wyoming, from a mash of locally-produced corn, wheat, and barley. There’s no aging information available, but it’s on the youthful side. To wit: Fresh on the nose, it’s hanging on to its youth through some lighter cereal notes that become more…

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Review: Flora Springs 2014 Sauvignon Blanc and 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon

Two new releases from Napa’s Flora Springs. Thoughts follow. 2014 Flora Springs Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley – Pale and young, and surprisingly sweet for a sauvignon blanc. Notes of overripe melon and pineapple wash away a lightly minerally backbone, leaving just a hint of steel and slate in the wine’s predominantly tropical wake. In need of…

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