The first sip shuttled me back to childhood, when I would come home from school and my mom would pour mugi-cha (cold, unsweetened barley tea) out of her retro Tupperware pitcher into matching Tupperware cups. The second sip revealed shochu’s earthy aroma colliding with the sweetness of the oolong tea — this was an iced tea for adults. And the third sip made me a die-hard oolong-hi fan.

I soon discovered that canned oolong-hi’s were available in every combini (convenient stores) and izakayas across Japan were mixing shochu with all types of teas including oolong, green and even earl grey. I knew I loved this mixed drink called “oolong-hi” but I became more and more curious about its main ingredient: shochu. How come I had never heard of it before? Wasn’t sake the drink of Japan? Why were so many people abandoning their tokkuris (sake flasks) for the sound of ice crackling to the pouring of shochu?

Two years after my trip to Kyoto, I moved from California to Tokyo and I clearly landed in a country that was in the midst of a drinking trend. All of my Japanese friends were drinking shochu and when I would walk home from work every night, I would see peoples’ recycling crates filled to the brim with shochu bottles and beer cans. The diet-conscious nation was thrilled by shochu’s low-calorie content. And shochu’s agreeable nature could also place it beside virtually any dish — steak, smoked cheese, grilled chicken, etc.— dishes which typically do not pair well with sake.

Japan was experiencing a shochu craze during the 2000s. Nearly 10 years after the shochu boom in Japan, shochu is hardly known in the U.S. and is still most often mistaken for Korea’s distilled beverage, soju. So what is shochu?

Simply put, shochu is a distilled beverage native to Japan. Scotland has its Scotch, Russia has its vodka, Mexico has its tequila, and Japan has Shochu.

Shochu has always been consumed regularly in southern Japan. Since shochu’s birth in the 1500s, the default drink choice for men and women in Kyushu and Okinawa has been shochu over sake. It wasn’t until the 2000s (roughly 500 years later) when the rest of Japan caught onto shochu. Today, it is the most popular drink in terms of sales, leaving sake and beer in the dust since 2003.

Shochu is one of the few distilled drinks that is made from a wide variety of raw ingredients. The most common ingredients are barley (mugi), sweet potato (imo), short grain rice (kome) and long grain rice (awamori). The list goes on to include Kagoshima brown sugar (kokuto), carrot, buckwheat, sesame, chesnut and others. First-time drinkers are often surprised by the earthy aroma of shochu that is sometimes described as wild or rooty. The typical alcohol percentage of shochu is 20-25% which puts it well below your usual gin or other hard alcohol.

All shochu can be grouped into two categories: honkaku and kourui. Honkaku shochus in Japan are enjoyed in a fashion similar to a premium whisky. Honkaku shochus are single distilled and are considered to be premium shochus.  Just like a good whisky or mezcal, the most common way to drink honkaku shochu is neat or with a water element. The Japanese drink their honkaku shochu with ice, cold water or hot water. On a humid, hot summer day, salarymen unwind to shochu over blocks of ice. During the cold winter months, it is common to see the young and old curling up to a mug of imo shochu diluted with hot water. Oolong tea is also used as a mixer during the warmer seasons to create an oolong-hi (shochu iced tea).

Kourui shochus are multiply distilled and due to the less characteristic nature of kourui, they work well with sugary mixers. The well-like use of kourui extends to the ubiquitous canned chu-hi available in convenience stores and all-you-can-drink karaoke boxes across Japan. Chu-hi cocktails consist of one part shochu, two parts soda water and a splash of juice. Chu-his are reminiscent of a vodka press or greyhound.

Think of kourui shochu as the shochu you would find in the well, whereas honkaku would be considered “top shelf”.

Side bar? I don’t know how you want to incorporate this information. There is a lot of information here that distinguishes the different variations from each other so I think that a lot of it is important. If you want to integrate it into the head of the piece, please feel free. Shiso is not a variation of a shochu. I mentioned a cocktail using shiso in it. Hope that’s what you were asking about (added info about that in the Awamori section). Shochu can be infused with shiso but I have never tried that before.

Mugi (Barley)

Perhaps because we are used to other drinks that are made from barley, mugi (barley) shochu is in most cases the easiest entry way for people who want to explore the world of shochu. Mugi shochu echos the mild sweetness of whisky and is considered to have a less earthy aroma than imo (sweet potato). Mugi shochu is clear in color, except for the aged varieties which are a light brown. Mugi shochu can be described as having a chocolatey, round aroma and can be enjoyed on the rocks or neat.

Imo (Sweet Potato)

Imo shochu spearheaded the shochu boom of the early 2000s in Japan. It smells like baked sweet potato which distinguishes itself from other variations of shochu. Imo shochu lovers enhance the aroma by adding hot water to fully enjoy the characteristics of the drink. Imo shochu is clear in color in most cases and is often described as sweet, but full of character. Imo shochu is a fitting recommendation for alcohol enthusiasts, adventurous eaters and seasoned shochu drinkers.

Kome (Short Grain Rice)

The obvious parallel to mention here is that kome shochu shares the same main ingredient as sake (nihonshu), so it is no coincidence that it exhibits the same sweet and light aroma of sake. But the comparison ends here as the process of distilling greatly deviates kome shochu from the taste of sake. Kome is lighter and crisper than barley and imo shochus making it easy to pair with virtually any type of food–raw or cooked.

Awamori

Made from long grain rice, awamori is a shochu variation exclusively produced in Okinawa, due to a koji mold spore native to the Okinawa islands. With an average ABV of 30%, awamori is considered to be much stronger than other variations of shochus which hover around 20-25%. Awamori is categorized into two groups; shinshu (new) and koshu (aged). Shinshu awamori is clear in color and has a more pronounced boldness than koshu. Koshu awamori is aged for at least three years and is smoother than shinshu awamori. People in northern parts of Japan, including Tokyo, consider awamori to be a festive drink and enjoy awamori in times of celebration or when they eat Okinawan cuisine. Due to its high alcohol content, grassy brightness and birthplace in a warm climate, blanco tequila-lovers may find an interest in shinshu awamori.

A curious cocktail I’ve had with awamori looks like a mojito, but is actually awamori on the rocks with a dab of freshly grated wasabi and minced shiso leaves. The shiso, like mint in a mojito, provides a refreshing kick to the grassy awamori and the wasabi lends an element of sweetness.

To truly understand how shochu has become a staple in Japan’s drinking culture, one only needs to peer inside an izakaya and see a wall of bottles with tags hanging off of them. These tags have names of regular customers and wait patiently for their owners every day. This practice is called “bottle keep”ing in Japan.

My husband and I always “bottle keep” Kurokirishima (imo) at our favorite izakaya in Shimokitazawa. Like a mirage in the middle of the desert, the image of our very own bottle kept me going during those stressful days at work, providing a sense of home admidst the busy streets of Tokyo.

 by Yoko Kumano with Washi Washino

We’ve been to a handful of the little restaurants that dot Highway 1 – most with mediocre drinks and a menu that taints the gorgeous views. Nick’s Cove was anything but your standard fare. The night started off of course with a few seasonal drinks – the Bourbon Rosemary Apple Cider (rosemary in drinks is my new seasonal go-to ingredient), Negronis (they’ve got a nice classic cocktail collection), and cocktails to match the ambience (Smokey Sunset - Knob Creek bourbon, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, orange juice, and cayenne). Keep an eye out for winemaker and (soon to come) beer dinners.  While taking our places around the table and sipping on our cocktails, we were reminded that the restaurant sits on the heels of local farms that bring a new meaning to “locally sourced.” Beyond the oysters that are harvested literally in their backyard, a wide array of their ingredients (from Cowgirl Creamery cheese to Fallon Hills Ranch Beef) are sourced from within earshot of the restaurant.

The meal, architected by Austin Perkins (formerly from Cyrus restaurant in Healdsburg) unfolded like a matryoshka doll – one surprise after another. We whet our palette with a massive seared oyster on a wild rice patty – drizzled with green curry and paired with a glass of J Vineyards bubbly dancing on our tongues.

It was followed by several shared plates (which I didn’t really want to share with anyone)… one of the freshest Frito Misto ($14) I’ve had in years, melt-in-your-mouth Roasted Veal Marrow Bones ($13), and Pumpkin Maple-Cinnamon Arancini ($12). The apps were paired with a Palace 1915 Sauvignon Blanc from nearby Napa Valley. For the main course, I ordered the rich Brioche Stuffed Quail special, with goat cheese, port reduction, quail egg and mushroom ragout – our mains were accompanied by a delicious Merry Edwards Pinot Noir. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Since there was group of us, we got to taste through a large portion of the menu; I was impressed with the varied dishes, and even more impressed that all were executed with flying colors. Moving on to an array of pastry chef Gillian Helquist’s famous home inspired desserts, we topped off with an eggnog cake, pomegranate granita, and a persimmon cake.

The cottages are both elegantly rustic and romantic and come with full amenities to have a magical getaway…

Nick’s Cove has 5 cottages that sit on the water and 7 others across the road with water views- a tempting and easy retreat after indulging at the restaurant. No need to hop back on the winding Highway 1. Rather, grab your robe (that is waiting for you in the room) and turn up the heat.  The cottages are both elegantly rustic and romantic and come with full amenities to have a magical getaway, including an incredible bathroom with a huge shower and heated floors, king size bed, kitchenette (with a fully stocked bar), comfy couches and a fireplace ready to ignite. Our cottage, Ruthie’s (they all have specific identities and features), had two sides facing the water – which presented a completely surreal dawn while waking up in our most comfortable bed. We pre-ordered our breakfast of a Dungeness Crab Omelette with Marscapone and Spinach ($18) and Lemon Ricotta Pancakes ($12), fresh juice and a french press of fresh coffee – all of which were brought to our door by 9am.  By 10am we stepped back out into the fresh air and were on our way back to work, feeling like we were gone for weeks.

]]> http://drinkmemag.com/2011/12/nicks_cove/feed/ 0 http://drinkmemag.com/2011/11/absinthe-and-the-ttb/ http://drinkmemag.com/2011/11/absinthe-and-the-ttb/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:42:49 +0000 Victoria http://drinkmemag.com/?p=5169

St. George's monkey, made TTB-safe

When does a monkey stop being a monkey, and become an invitation to riot in the streets? When it’s pictured on the label of a bottle of absinthe, using a femur to beat a skull like a drum. Or so said the federal government in 2007, when it rejected the label design for St. George Spirits’ Absinthe Verte. And as St. George Master Distiller Lance Winters wryly observes, “the government’s job is to prevent riots in the streets.”

Having produced the first authentic absinthe for sale in this country since 1912, Lance and his crew expected close scrutiny of their formula by the government, and apprehension by less adventurous consumers. They did not expect what they got: a fight over the absinthe’s label.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), the division of the U.S. Treasury Department charged with regulating the production, sale and marketing of beer, wine, and distilled spirits, rejected thirty separate labels before finally issuing St. George a Certificate of Label Approval, or COLA. An exasperated Lance took the suggestion of a TTB employee, who proposed that St. George simply replace the skull with a different musical instrument for the monkey to play. Lance chose a cowbell, “just to get a pop culture reference in there.”

Clown Shoes' saucy, yet approved, label

St. George’s ordeal may have been unusually intense, but the need to wrangle with the TTB over label approval is nothing new. Because while brewers, winemakers, and distillers are mainly concerned with marketing their products, the TTB must apply a hodgepodge of regulations that run the gamut from hopelessly vague to hyper-specific, and from antiquated to… well, mostly just antiquated. St. George’s experience points to an ongoing controversy over the proper function of the TTB. Lance believes that label approval should be left to the free market: “I should be able to put scenes of bestiality on the label if I want to, and people can vote with their wallets. I’m not into that, of course, but I should be able to.” When it comes to beer, the TTB appears to agree with him. Recent beer labels that have passed muster with the Bureau include Tyranena “Hop Whore,” Middle Ages “Double Wench” (featuring a busty beer maid in apparent ecstasy), and several controversial products of Clown Shoes Brewing (“Tramp Stamp,” “Brown Angel,” and “Lubrication”). This apparent lower standard for beer manufacturers must add to the consternation of well-meaning spirits distillers like St. George.

Furthermore, since 1995, the TTB has had the power to revoke previously-issued COLAs. By all accounts, this change was motivated by public hand-wringing over Black Death Vodka, a brand that managed to get a COLA and defend it in court, despite the fact that its name and label art seem to suggest that the product in the bottle may be poison. Lance reports that the Bureau recently used this authority to revoke its approval of St. George’s Agua Libre rum label. For reasons that remain opaque, the TTB objected to calling the rum (which St. George makes from sugar cane squeezed at their distillery) “fresh-squeezed.” Fortunately, the TTB is also empowered to act for good. Many of the Bureau’s mandatory labeling requirements, and its “type” and “category” classifications, help ensure that you know just what you’re getting when you crack open a bottle.

Though your fraternity party experiences might suggest otherwise, it is illegal to add carbonation and yellow coloring to water and call it “beer.” The TTB mandates that any malt beverage containing between 0.5% and 2.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) be labeled “low alcohol” or “reduced alcohol” beer. It would be even worse if that bottle of “non-alcoholic beer” you just handed your designated driver kicked like a mule. Beverages labeled “non-alcoholic” must contain less than 0.5% ABV, and “alcohol free” means legitimately 0.0% ABV. The TTB designates nine classes of malt beverage: ale, beer, cereal beverage, lager/lager beer, malt beverage specialty, malt liquor, near beer, porter, and stout; thirty-three “types” exist within these classes, from Amber Ale to Wurtzburger. Each category, whether a class or a type, is pretty loosely defined. The TTB generally defers to “generally attributed characteristics” and the “trade understanding” of a style.  So whether you decide to call that “Hop Behemoth” you just brewed an IPA, an American IPA, or an American Black IPA, the Bureau is unlikely to take issue with your decision. For that kind of hair-splitting, you’ll need to consult the Brewers Association, which issues style guides for things like brewing competitions.

As with beer, a statement of alcohol content is common on wine labels, but not mandatory. . . which is not to say that you can hide your wine’s ABV from the TTB. Beyond a certain proof, wine is more properly described as fortified wine or even a brandy, and therefore regulated differently by state and federal governments.

In wine, terroir is everything. A wine aficionado wants to know which grapes went into the bottle she’s drinking, and where those grapes were grown. The TTB calls the answers to these questions “varietal designations” and “appellations of origin,” respectively. Neither piece of information is mandatory, but both are valuable for the winemaker courting discerning customers. To include a varietal designation (e.g. “chardonnay”), the TTB mandates that at least 75% of the grapes used to make the wine are of that variety. To include appellation of origin, 75% of the grapes must have been grown within the confines of that appellation. An appellation of origin may be a country, a state, a county, or a geographic region known as a viticultural area. Federal regulations designate about 200 viticultural areas in the United States alone, ranging from well-known hotbeds of wine production like California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys to more obscure locales like North Carolina’s Haw River Valley, or Washington’s Lake Chelan.

Building associations between a viticultural area and quality products is big business — just ask the French, whose dedication to terroir goes well beyond coining the term. In France, gourmet beverages and foodstuffs from Champagne to cheese to chickens are linked to the area that produces them by the highly regulated, highly coveted “Appellation d’Origine Controllée.”

With liquor, you don’t have to use the word “proof,” but a statement of ABV is required. The TTB categorizes spirits by class and type, using rigid and seemingly ancient designations. Contrary to the marketing pleas of most major brands, vodka is still defined as “neutral spirits … so distilled, or so treated after distillation, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.” Gin and vodka brands must show the commodity (e.g., wheat, potatoes) from which the neutral spirits were distilled.

Distilled spirits are the area in which the TTB’s failure to adapt to change really detracts from the goal of informing consumers. Despite major differences in flavor and character between the two sugarcane spirits, the TTB still designates cachaça as rum. Leblon Cachaça aims to change this with their cheeky “legalize cachaça” campaign, but for now you have to mention “rum” somewhere on the bottle if your spirit is distilled from any form of sugar cane. Even more maddening, four years after issuing the first absinthe COLA, the TTB still lacks any class or type for absinthe. Hence St. George’s label, in addition to “Absinthe Verte,” reads: “brandy with herbs.”

When it comes to distilled spirits, the TTB doesn’t much believe in terroir. While many (including this writer) believe that a whiskey should be distilled in Kentucky to merit the name “bourbon,” the TTB will allow any producer to call their whiskey bourbon, as long as it was produced at 160 proof or less, from a fermented mash of at least fifty-one percent corn, and stored in charred new oak containers.

I am the proud owner of a bottle of Sikkim Old Gold, a brown spirit in a dagger-shaped bottle, which a pair of honeymooning friends brought back from Nepal. This was an amazingly generous gift. It was also a horrible taste experience, and a fine illustration of the value of the TTB’s spirit categories. Although labeled “single malt whisky,” it tastes primarily like a rough-hewn grape brandy, mixed with industrial-grade neutral spirit. Sikkim’s own advertising copy will only go so far as to assure you their “whisky” is fit for human consumption. In other words, it may be wretched, but you will not die.

If Sikkim decided to bring the Old Gold to America, TTB labeling requirements would prevent them from labeling this swill “single malt whisky.” Take it from me and my traumatized palate: we consumers are all a little better off because of that. If only the COLA reviewers would lay off the monkey business, distillers might agree.

Nothing in this article is intended to be construed as legal advice. The TTB did not return several calls asking for comment about the label approval process.

By Ken Walczak

Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) is about as far as you can go in the South Pacific without bumping into a sea dragon on an olde map. This string of more than 80 islands, with 113 distinct languages, is the site of Mt. Yasur on Tanna island, what tourist brochures claim as “the world’s most accessible active volcano” . Vanuatu is an amazing place of unspoiled, volcanic and coral tropical isles with a vibrant native culture that, while being fully-aware of the modern world, many times chooses to live traditional lives.

It was here I climbed a volcano and tried its namesake drink “Yasur Fireup” at the paradise that is the White Grass Ocean Resort. And, at The Moorings, in Vanuatu’s main town of Port Vila, I encountered an intriguing blend of West meets SoPac in the “Kava Kolada.”

But, to get to Vanuatu from the US, I first traveled to nearby Fiji, a neighbor further north on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” that highly-active edge of clashing tectonic plates. Fiji is an idyllic blend of sun, sea and sand; a honeymoon hideaway with sailing, surfing, fishing, biking, hiking and all the other outdoor activities that newlyweds probably aren’t going to do. Likuliku Lagoon has all these attractions AND adds a spa, fine dining and authentic indigenuity. Here you sit on a torchlit beach and participate in a full kava ceremony.

The potent kava brew (a plant-based anesthetic) is the local adult beverage of choice but has a taste I couldn’t acquire, so I opted for a cocktail called “Ring of Fire,” which, just like exercise, you know is working when you ‘feel the burn.’ I downed a couple, and practically flew on my own to Vanuatu.

Here’s your chance to keep the topic tropic: mix up one of these cocktails, sit back and sip your way to the magical islands of the South Pacific. As the ni-Vanuatu (natives) say in their creole bislama language, “I blong ia” (“I am home.”)

Author’s note: Fresh juices make for the most flavor and the Chile Vodka used in the “Ring of Fire” was a homemade infusion.

Kava Kolada by Hilary Pritchard

• 60 ml Orange Juice blended with 2 tbs of powdered Kava root
• 60 ml Pineapple Juice
• 30 ml Coconut Crème
• 30 ml White Rum
• 30 ml Coconut Rum
• 15 ml Vodka

Place all ingredients into a shaker, add a scoop of ice, shake it up baby, pour and serve.

Yasur Fireup by Ruth Naiou

• 15 ml Midori Melon Liqueur
• 30 ml White Rum
• 90 ml Pineapple Juice

Shake with ice and pour into martini glasses rimmed with a combination of powdered chile and crystallized sugar.

Ring of Fire by Aurelie Bras

• 1 tsp. Lemon Squash
• 15 ml Crème de fraise
• 10 ml Frangelico
• 10 ml Midori
• 10 ml Chili Vodka
• 10 ml White Sambuca

In a 55 ml shot glass, successively layer the Lemon Squash, Crème de Fraise, Frangelico, Midori, Chile Vodka and White Sambuca. Light up and enjoy. Mlle Bras says, “The red stands for fire. The green represents the luxuriant vegetation of the islands. The Chili Vodka and White Sambuca sets on fire
easily and adds spicy heat.”

article and photos by Paul Ross

Dr. Valentin Magnan conducted a study on the mysterious spirit in the 19th century and found it to cause seizures and hallucinations. It was later proven that high levels of thujone (a byproduct of wormwood), a chemical present in early absinthe recipes, caused the seizures. The alleged hallucinations were just his way of trying to make the imbibers seem unstable, to prove that alcohol was “degenerating” the French. It was said by one temperance movement critic that “Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.”

Modern studies failed to link thujone with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain, which would biochemically liken it to marijuana. One thing is for sure, though, and it’s that absinthe is its own genre: it has always appealed greatly to creative types, and it definitely packs a unique punch. With all that hype, it’s no wonder so many have longed to get their hands on the stuff and fuel its enigmatic reputation.

Absinthe is typically an eau de vie, or white grape spirit, infused with the infamous wormwood, green anise, Florence fennel, and various other herbs. The trademark green color of absinthe verte is caused by active chlorophyll from the herbs used, similar to tannins in wine. Some absinthes are clear until mixed with water, which turns them a milky white, but the verte turns a bright, cloudy chartreuse green. This process is called louching, and is absolutely magical to watch. The difference between the two styles of absinthe is more or less personal preference, but the green is perhaps a more authentic experience – it is called the green fairy after all.

Wormwood has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient Egypt, but the modern day green anise-flavored spirit reared its ethereal head sometime in the 1800s. Although the Swiss are the first known producers, the French made it the enigmatic juggernaut that it was to become. French troops were given absinthe as a malaria treatment in the mid 1800s, and they developed quite a taste for it. By the 1860s it was so popular that 5:00pm was known as l’heure verte, or the green hour.

By 1910 the French were drinking about 36 million liters a year, and their love for it certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. Cult status was born. Not surprisingly, considering it’s French history and culture, the epicenter of American consumption was New Orleans. The Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street was opened in 1847 as the Absinthe Room, and was popular with many famous people, including Wilde and Crowley, Mark Twain, and even Franklin D. Roosevelt. Café Slavia in Prague has long been known as another historically famous place to imbibe absinthe, especially in the European artistic community. When absinthe was banned, it only served to heighten intrigue, desire, and demand. It was the choice of drink for many, and for many years, until its detractors gained favor and the ban spread.

Absinthe was banned here in the U.S. in 1915 because of its tarnished (albeit unfounded) reputation as a highly addictive psychoactive drug. Unfortunately, the hallucinogenic myth has lingered. Many European countries followed suit, and until the nineties absinthe went the way of moonshine during prohibition, with only Spain and Portugal continuing production unimpeded.

The official lifting of the absinthe ban in the U.S. was in 1993, but few took notice. In 2000 La Fee was the first absinthe produced in France since their own ban in 1914, and is now one of more than fifty being produced there. Kubler is a modern distillation from the Swiss region of Val-de-Travers, where the first known absinthe was born. In 2007, Lucid was the first modern wormwood infused absinthe to be imported into America since the ban was lifted and St. George Spirits of Alameda, California was the first to produce it in America (their Absinthe Verte is not to be missed).

Americans are still getting used to the idea of absinthe, outside of its use as a rinse for Sazeracs. Most don’t know about the lifting of the ban, and those who are aware are skeptical of the authenticity of the spirit. The problem with this is that true absinthe, which is widely available here in the States, doesn’t achieve the results everyone has heard so much about. You won’t see little green fairies floating around the room, and because of that many drinkers are left disappointed.

Speaking of preparation: Absinthe has a very specific and time honored preparation that not only calms the wild nature of the spirit, but also makes drinking it more of an experience than any other straight liquor. First, put the desired amount of absinthe in a glass. Then, rest a slotted absinthe spoon over the glass. Any slotted spoon will do, but the specific ones made just for absinthe are works of art. Rest a sugar cube atop the spoon, and drizzle cold water (from an absinthe fountain if you REALLY want to do it right) onto the sugar cube. This dissolves the sugar and dilutes the absinthe at the same time, and as this is happening the juice in the glass will slowly turn from crystal clear to a cloudy, otherworldly opaque color. It’s an experience like no other. It sucks you in, making you a part of the process, the chemistry, and the allure. It also makes it much easier to drink. Maybe too easy, so be careful. We don’t need anymore one-eared raving maniacs roaming around, getting this beautiful beast banned again.

image by Paul Ross

There are the laws of man and those “of God.” The latter is dependent upon where you stand, literally. In the state of Utah, for instance, legal restrictions and permissions have ping-ponged back-and-forth since before it was a state. Early Mormon pioneers took alcohol along as part of their personal provisions during their treks westward and they used wine as sacrament in meetings and at temple dedication ceremonies. Yet as recently as 2009, LDS-influenced restrictions dictated that you had to be a member of a “private club” in order to get a drink at a bar. Fortunately for those wanting to do so, “joining” cost about $5 and, in some cases, was included free upon registering at a hotel.

But Utah is not the only one of the United States to be impacted by religion. In fact, much of America is caught in a duality between “blue laws,” which limit the purchase of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, and income derived from sales taxes and state-owned dispensaries. In a moralistic equivalent, it’s like gambling: illegal, unless it’s the state lottery.

In other states, the influence of religion is less, or at least less noticeable. For instance, Wisconsin allows minors to consume with parental supervision (again, presumably for religious purposes). Many communities in southwestern states ban alcohol in and near Native American reservations. And almost all states draw imaginary anti-liquor barriers around churches. As for the other part of our collective and imposed Judeo-Christian legal heritage. . .

“Jews are permitted to drink,” flatly states Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, who is both a joyful wine connoisseur and one of the consulting authorities on the Orthodox website Ask Moses. He goes even further by citing the Talmud (Judaism’s main reference about law, ethics, custom and history), which recommends that on the holiday of Purim, celebrants should drink enough to not know the difference between good and evil. This practice may have developed as a consequence of history since “One of the only occupations Jews were permitted to hold in the Pale of Settlement (a sort of regional superghetto in Imperial Russia) was wine and spirit selling.” However the pattern started, even today, at a farbrengen (joyous gathering) it’s a Russian custom to toast and drink to be more relaxed. But there is debate about the practice.

On the other hand, Christians are on all sides of the issue, as some prohibit, some condone, and some leave it up to the individual practitioner. One can find a dozen biblical endorsements: at the Last Supper, Jesus said of the wine, “do this in remembrance of me” (Matthew, Mark, Luke and Corinthians); Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine (John 2:1-11); Paul recommended wine to Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23); Nehemiah commanded the faithful to celebrate holy days with sweet wine (Neh. 8:10); and the citation from Ecclesiastes (9:7) is practically a toast, “drink your wine with a merry heart, for God approves what you do.” But for other denominations (examples include Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists, many Baptists and the Iglesia ni Cristo), alcohol is strictly forbidden.

It’s been academically postulated that this difference is geographic and stems from the drinking cultures of the Mediterranean versus those of Northern Europe. With the latter, a pattern of “feast or famine” lead to binge behavior. Correspondingly, Protestants tended to be predominantly in the north and reacted to the alcohol consumption problems around them, while the more relaxed and culturally tolerant Mediterranean was impacted by Catholicism and Rome. Various monastic orders here made beer, wine and liqueurs.

Alcohol-making was one of the first activities imported to the Americas by Europeans. The Brits brought booze to the Asian sub-continent, but modern India is mostly dry. Hindus are anti-drink as are Buddhists, Baha’i and even Rastafarians. Perhaps the most vehement religious prohibitionists are Muslim. Some believers regard alcohol as Haraam (forbidden, illegal, and also sacred). Islam is in line with other religions which ban alcohol, interpreting an altered state of mind as interference with the divine connection, and therefore a tool used by evil to tempt, corrupt, and trap the careless faithful. Nonetheless, there are still a number of Muslim nations producing not only fine wine but liqueurs, aperitifs and other spirits.

Like I said, it all depends on where you stand. And, maybe, your definition of spiritual.

Sidenote: Surprisingly, the word alcohol comes from the Arabic word al-kuhul. The original English transmogrification referred to “the pure spirit of anything” but, as we now know the definition, it first appeared in 1753 as “alcohol of wine” and did not take on its chemical classification until much later. The Brits, though enthusiastic about the substance and its related compounds, were late on the scene. Muslim chemists first distilled alcohol back in the eighth century.

By Paul Ross

Now known as the Hammurabic Code, the 282 laws (originally inscribed in Old Akkadian) deal with almost every facet of life and commerce in the Babylon of Hammurabi’s reign, and the Code probably represents the first time a nation’s legal writs were codified in written language.

Ol’ Hamm was a really — really — harsh species of monarch. The “judicial” concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is from the Hammurabic Code, and not from the Bible as is often thought. There is also the troubling fact that far too much of the Code deals with the various rules set down by his Highness to govern the purchase and treatment of women. Not surprisingly, the good king’s hard line ideology was no less blood-soaked when it came to the production and sale of hooch.

The Code contains dozens of edicts concerning the growing, harvesting, and sale of grain. Thus it pertains to beer, since grain had been domesticated and farmed for only two reasons:beer and bread. But the laws which deal specifically with those happy suds are numbers 108 through 111.

Law 108 reads as follows: “if a tavern-keeper (female) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.” There are a couple of important things to clarify here. First, it is of interest that the regulation goes out of its way to specify that the hypothetical tavern-keeper is female.

In ancient Babylon, almost all tavern-keepers (not to mention brewers, generally) were women.

Men hunted and made war; women grew food and made beer. And second, “shall be… thrown into the water” does not mean that the offending tavern-keeper was merely tossed in the nearest river and left to sputter. It meant that the guilty party was thrown into the nearest river and held there until she stopped sputtering. Additions to Babylonian law made after Hammurabi’s death did away with the drowning of offending barkeeps and replaced it with mutilation of the woman’s breasts. Sheesh…

Like most despotic rulers, Hammurabi was seriously paranoid that his subjects were plotting against his authority. One of the central meeting places for average citizens in Babylon was the beer hall. These were, or were thought to be, hotbeds of sedition, which inevitably led to the creation of Law 109: “if conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.” The method of execution favored here was to drown the wrongdoer in a barrel of her own beer. Given the amount of political sniping that goes on in our bars today, we can be thankful (I think) that Law 109 has gone the way of the dodo bird.

And then there were the nuns. Called “sisters of god,” they were holy women dedicated to one of the numerous gods that populated Babylonian mythology. The nuns were expected to behave according to a quite rigid set of moral protocols, and the punishments for failing to do so were, to say the least, horrifying. As an example we need look no further than Law 110: “if a sister of a god open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.” Given that the Law specifically prohibits the sisters from not only drinking in a beer house, but going into business as a beer entrepreneur, we can only imagine that these actions were routinely undertaken by Babylon’s holy ladies. And the menfolk must have really hated them for breaking with the norm. Burning a woman alive for having a drink? Wow.

The final Law governing alcohol is 111, and it reads thusly: “if an inn-keeper furnish sixty ka [a unit of measure similar to a bushel] of drink to the city, she shall receive fifty ka of corn at the harvest.” It is a rather dull little edict; Babylonian capitalism in action. But at least no one gets drowned or burned.

One final rather fascinating aspect of the Hammurabic Code is that it makes no mention of drunkenness. Not so much as a staggering participle. In ancient Babylon, it seems, there was no penalty for getting squiffy. But then, if you lived under a guy like Hammurabi, getting good and truly loaded probably made life look a little rosier.

Convictions rose 500%, federal spending on prisons rose over 1000%, and that immense spike in criminal activity eventually led to its demise. Some of the most famous criminals of all time would have been little more than distributors and saloon owners if not for the law. Distillers became criminals overnight. Corn growers, barrel makers, and bottlers all were put out of work, and if not for moonshining their families would have starved.

Not only was enforcement practically impossible (there would have had to have been more cops and federal agents than drinkers), but it got to the point that those agents of the law didn’t bother at all. A federal prohibition agent was paid $1800 per year, but there was so much money in moonshining that they could be paid $500 per day by the men running the backwoods stills. There were plenty of agents who had summer homes and drove Cadillacs. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

When the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre went down, legislators and citizens alike came face to face with the monster they had created. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison act, which allowed the manufacture and sale of 3.4% beer and light wines. When he signed the act into law, he said “This would be a good time for a beer.” The law took effect on April 7, 1933 and the next day Anheuser-Busch dispatched a team of Clydesdale horses to the White House, bearing a case of Budweiser.

Those who continued to push the juice during those years weren’t all criminals. In the twenties, alcohol was still considered an effective means of medicating illnesses such as high blood pressure, heart disease, pneumonia, and typhoid, as well as a digestion and energy stimulant. Due to this assumption, physicians formed an alliance to fight the government’s ever-tightening stranglehold on their ability to treat their patients the way they saw fit, which included prescribing spirits to patients of all ages. Obviously this practice has fallen out of favor, but it was an easy way to get an otherwise unobtainable drink. Not unlike the medicinal marijuana movement that is growing in America today, medicinal alcohol was undoubtedly abused by many who were afraid to buck the law outright.

There was also a way around the law for wineries. Since the driving force behind the ban of intoxicating spirits was religious in nature, religions that used wine as part of their worship were allowed to continue to do so. Because of this holy loophole, some wineries continued to operate legally throughout prohibition, though wine production dropped 94% by 1925. That didn’t seem to slow down the vineyards, as most continued to produce grapes which were then sold to individuals to make homemade wine (no one would admit it). Some producers made what were called grape bricks: compressed blocks of grapes sold “to make juice and preserves.” These were packaged with a warning (suggestion?) that if mixed with water and allowed to sit in a cupboard for a few weeks they would turn to wine, and therefore should (shouldn’t?) be consumed right away.

The most exciting things to come out of prohibition were speakeasies and blind pigs. The term speakeasy is said to have come from the patrons’ need to “speak easy” when ordering from the bartender so as not to draw attention. Most large cities continued to imbibe in the shadows, and a mere five years into the ban there were an estimated 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. One of the more famous places, McSorley’s Old Ale House opened in 1854 as “The Old House at Home,” continued to operate during prohibition, and survives to this day. It is said that one knock on the wall meant light ale, two knocks meant dark ale, and a painting was slid to the side to reveal a pass-through to a crawl space where the beer was brought in from an unknown part of the building. Although they didn’t allow women inside until 1970 and only then by court order, they have managed to stay in continuous business for almost 150 years. The floors are buckled, the place smells like the 1800s, and the speakeasy feel of the prohibition era still hangs in the air.

The most famous speakeasy of the time was 21 Club. They devised an almost foolproof design to escape the prohibition agents, by way of alarms, secret liquor-dumping levers, trap doors, and secret basement rooms. There also were false walls in closets and store rooms which acted as escape routes for patrons. In the thirteen years of prohibition not a single drop of liquor was ever found in the 21 Club. This wasn’t out of the norm by any means. In New York, seemingly little had changed other than having to give a password or wear a certain color scarf to gain admittance to a drinking establishment.

Speakeasies tended to be more upscale, and would sometimes require a suit and tie for men and an evening dress for women. Blind Pigs were a completely different animal altogether. They tended to be more divey, low class places where the proprietor would charge a cover to see a prize pig, or some other sideshow type spectacle, and offer a free alcoholic beverage with admission to circumvent the law somewhat. It was also said that such places were the cause of terrible whiskeys. Many moonshiners of the time would add poisonous ingredients to their hooch to give it more punch and add volume to boost profits. As a result, there were hundreds of deaths from people imbibing chemicals such as embalming fluid. Near prohibition’s end, 98% of confiscated liquor was found to have poisonous elements.

Rum-running was also a huge aspect of the war against prohibition. Former fishermen would dock their boats in international waters and meet up with boats from Canada and the Caribbean to stock up on liquor and bring it into the states. There was one meeting point called Rum Row so famous it became a floating wholesale liquor market and the site of bloody battles between the rumrunners and the coast guard. Both sides were having boats made by the same shipyard, with each paying more and more to have the fastest boat. As usual, the criminals had far more money than the government and always had the fastest boats, so the coast guard resorted to outfitting their boats with machine guns.

Those rum boats weren’t the only fast ones. Moonshine runners built faster cars to outrun the law. These couriers became extremely skilled mechanics, and eventually it got to the point that there was so much bragging and haggling over who was the best runner that races were set up to settle the score once and for all. The National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing was born. That’s right. NASCAR. The most attended spectator sport in America today was created by moonshine-running outlaws.

The Noble Experiment turned out to be a nightmare for government officials, police, and prisons, and drinkers of the time would contend that it was hardest on them. It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like to live in such a tumultuous time, but it’s easy to see how ill-fated it was in hindsight from a governmental standpoint, and the amazing people and times that were born of this law are some of the most colorful, provocative, famous, and infamous in our history. Here’s to keeping those memories fresh, and the cocktails fresher.

Nearing the end of the Middle Ages, the technology for distilling wine and beer into stronger spirits was carried around the world by explorers, and mixological innovation grew exponentially to combat the fierce assault of raw spirits on the palates of peoples unaccustomed to the burn. Despite commonly-held assumptions, cocktail lovers owe far more to those foul-mouthed sailors than to any mustachioed, vest-clad dandy saloon keeper. It began with their discovering the effects of barrel-aging while transporting booze on ships, where time in oak would calm the fiery spirits and impart vanillin, oils and other flavorings.

The mariners’ importance extended through the early-1600s with what some argue to be the greatest drinking innovation since the advent of distillation: the creation of punch. The salty seamen of the East India Trading Company prepared punches by combining their strong brandy with citrus (to combat the effects of scurvy), sugar and spices being transporting in the ship’s hold, and water that may not have been safely potable without the sterilizing effects of alcohol. It was a highly efficient and delicious system for fighting back the cold, while keeping one’s teeth from falling out [insert dysentery joke here, something about the poop deck].

British colonialism offered more punchy wisdom, like the rhyming recipe for Barbadian Rum Punch “One of Sour, Two of Sweet, Three of Strong, Four of Weak,” in this case meaning one part lime juice, two parts sugar, three parts rum, and four parts water. Garnished with fresh-ground nutmeg, that recipe holds up well even today, if the water is frozen and you add a dash or two of bitters. In fact, it was the bitters that differentiated the cocktail from all previous punches, and which distinguished it as a uniquely American invention. Created by steeping medicinal herbs in alcohol to extract and preserve their healing properties, bitters were first sold for their purported curative value, but the patient’s resulting robustness probably had naught to do with anything vegetal in the mix.

Prior to the 19th century, drinks had not evolved very far beyond the original punch recipes, but once the Revolutionary War was resolved (we won!), great things started happening on the American cocktail scene. The first cocktails were hangover cures, blending those healthsome bitters with a little hair of the dog and a spoonful of sugar, but eventually cocktails made the transition from morning medicine to evening indulgence. One of the most renowned instances of this development occurred in New Orleans around 1850, when Aaron Bird, seeing the long lines for an elixir being made made by his local pharmacist, Antoine Peychaud, opened the Sazerac Bar and began using Peychaud’s Bitters in his signature cocktail.

1862 saw the publication of the first cocktail manual, The BonVivant’s Companion by “Professor” Jerry Thomas, which provided recipes for hundreds of drinks and detailed a number of innovations in the American cocktail craft, like stirring and straining, using gomme syrup, and fancy garnishes on many drinks, even specifying “berries in season” to “dress the top” of many of his punch recipes.

Americans continued in unfettered creativity with spirituous beverages up until the darkest years in American history (1920-1933). Prohibition forced most every skilled bartender who had not taken up another profession to expatriate to Europe and ply his trade. Even with the repeal of the Volstead Act, most never returned.   The prevailing tastes devolved over more than a decade of contraband hooch as new cocktails were designed to hide the flavors of bathtub gin, and whiskey was rare because it required years of dangerous barrel aging.

The post-prohibition palate still wanted the strong, simple drinks to which it was accustomed, but after World War II, veterans who had been stationed in the South Pacific brought back a love of Polynesian drinks and launched a craze that consumed American pop culture through the end of the 1950s. In the 1960s, vodka went from zero-to-sixty faster than an Aston Martin, thanks largely to the James Bond films; everything was served on the rocks in the seventies; and sweet, simple shots dominated the eighties. At some point in the nineties we began to renounce the sins of our fathers, and as the new millennium dawned, a generation of drinkers rediscovered classic cocktails.

Many contemporary cocktailians pay homage to Dale DeGroff, who was among the first to develop what he calls the “gourmet approach to recreating the great classic cocktails.”

Around the same time, the seeds of California Cuisine blossomed into the New American culinary approach, with a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients, and experimentation that stemmed from a reverence for classical French technique, pioneered by chefs like Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck.

This trend has been mirrored in the contemporary craft cocktail craze, rejecting sour mix for fresh-squeezed citrus, and jars of maraschinos have been tossed out in favor of fresh cherries marinated in brandy behind the bar.  As often as possible, ingredients are made in-house and some purists won’t even serve a Cosmo because they refuse to carry bottled juice. Bar-tops are dominated by bowls of fresh fruits and herbs, hand-labeled apothecary bottles, and towering pillar juicers; cocktail menus change weekly or daily to make the most of what is available at the farmers market. Higher regard is being paid to all ingredients, and great debates rage over the optimal techniques and ingredients for individual drinks.

This trend can be traced most directly to bars in coastal American cities like New York and San Francisco but there are also distinct influences from Europe, where the development of cocktails was never interrupted by Prohibition. It is of little surprise that most every new concoction is a twist on a classic and its roots can likely be followed back to the Savoy Cocktail Book, printed in London in 1930, written by Harry Craddock, an American expat bartender.

The more specific developments, however, are harder to track. Contemporary trends no longer follow the distinctly linear paths they once did, and the driving forces in the beverage industry have become decentralized and multi-directional. With the rise of a DIY ethic in the arts and the ease of online information sharing, the necessary knowledge has been disseminated for modern mixologists to home-brew sodas and tinctures, infuse their own liqueurs, pickle garnishes, and even barrel-age a batch of Negronis, and no such gimmick has gone unexplored.

Just as culinary progress has spawned the recent molecular gastronomy movement, there have been parallels in the cocktail world. Molecular mixology brings science behind the bar to transmogrify traditional ingredients into jarring sensory experiences, such as drinks topped with Campari foam shot, crystalized Chartreuse scattered as a garnish, grenadine suspended as a gellified sphere, or whole drinks being frozen with liquid nitrogen.

The story of the well-crafted cocktail embodies everything we honor about the American spirit, and its resurgence unsurprisingly hearkens back to simpler times. The historical influences of the movement are evident now, with a number of new bars designed in the fashion of saloons and speakeasies, with both punch and Tiki trending again, and as many top bartenders openly model their recipes (not to mention their facial hair) on the nineteenth century styles of the early mixologists.

[DRINK ME REGRETS ANY ERRORS IN THE PRINTING OF THIS ARTICLE IN OUR PRINT VERSION. THEY WERE MISPRINTS BY US AND DO NOT REFLECT THE AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL WORK.]