Last weekend, some of us over here at the Drink Me team were lucky enough to join for the world renown Flavor! Napa Valley event up north. We headed up on cold evening for an event aptly named The Appellation Trail: Tasting Napa Valley. After checking in at the Culinary Institute of America, we joined hundreds of tastemakers, winemakers and chefs for a gallant evening of the best wines that Napa Valley has to offer along with incredible tastes from Napa’s top restaurants and live music to fill in the gaps.   Perhaps one of our favorite aspects of the event, aside from the award winning wines, was the ability for us to taste our way though the Napa Valley Appellations. There were over a hundred wineries present, each spaced out by their individual sub-appellations in the valley – which let us taste through the terroir and differences that become [...]

We’re giving away a pair of tickets to CUESA’s Summer Celebration! It’s going to be a grand old time with the best seasonal foods from the city’s top restaurants including Betelnut, Cotogna, ICHI Sushi, Range and several others. Artisan cocktails will be available from Bourbon and Branch, Rye, and Comstock Saloon. Beer will be available from Magnolia and others. It’s Drink Me’s favorite CUSESA event and we hope you can join. **TO ENTER TO WIN: simply comment on the Facebook post HERE with your favorite seasonal food! We’ll choose a winner by the week’s end. ** If you don’t win, you can still get tickets and more info on their website: http://www.cuesa.org/events/2012/cuesas-summer-celebration Thanks and Good Luck! We’ll see you there. *If you’re out of town doing something super exciting and miss this event, save the date for the next Farmer’s Market Event: August 29th.

Sometimes you just need to escape. A couple of weeks ago, we packed a small suitcase and headed up to Nick’s Cove on Tomales Bay.  I know you’ve driven by it a dozen times, but next time you’re pining for oysters and driving down Highway 1, you’ve got to make time to swing by.  Even if you’re just taking a pit stop for a warming Bourbon Rosemary Apple Cider ($11), or a dozen of their famous BBQ oysters, you’ll forget that you’re only an hour and a half from San Francisco.  The space is a homey, heavily wooded, elegant lodge with dozens of taxidermied moose and deer heads posted on the walls. It’s everything you want from a warm winter lodge without the hokey-ness.  In fact, the restaurant has a rich history – it’s been in the same spot perched on Tamales Bay for over 80 years – and, legend [...]

If I told you that my column this week is about gelato, you’d probably say, “I thought this was Drink Me, not Eat Me.”  But what if I told you that someone was taking fragrant, luscious St. George Single Malt Whiskey and infusing it into a packaged, natural gelato bar that you can enjoy at home while sipping on the fine alcoholic beverage of your choice this summer, then what would your response be?  That’s what I thought.

I always get excited meeting the person behind a spirit. They not only know more about that spirit than anyone in the world, they have such a passion for creating it – miles beyond just building a business. For Lorena, Rum Zacapa is her life and her love. In fact she told us the brief of how she ended up in Guatemala at the distillery (she’s Nicaraguan and fell in love first with a Guatemalan and then with Zacapa).  She’s a vibrant and energetic storyteller and she welcomed us into 25 Lusk to teach us a bit more about the spirit and enjoy it paired in delicious cocktails (thank you Danny Valdez) with an incredible meal (thank you 25 Lusk).

The Chardonnay grape is a popular varietal in California, both in the vineyards and in people’s glasses. Probably one of the main reasons for its popularity is its ability to play so well with different foods. Chardonnays can have a range of light flavors consisting of citrus notes to subtleties of apple or pear. It’s balanced with a kick of acidity and the mellow rounding-out of its flavor by being aged in oak barrels. This combination makes Chardonnay an ideal feature ingredient for making risotto. A traditional Italian dish, risotto is creamy rice infused with the flavor of its cooking liquid, usually a combination of wine and broth. The high starch content of the Arborio rice is what provides the thickened, rich sauce that gives risotto its signature consistency. The trick behind risotto is to keep mixing the rice to develop this creaminess, so while it’s a dish that requires [...]