By Ed Hamilton (Ministry of Rum)

Article from Issue Six

In 1947, Victor Bergeron wrote that rum was the most undervalued and under-appreciated spirit behind his bar. In the years that followed Vic opened the eponymous Trader Vic bars and restaurants and gained international recognition as one of the fathers of the Tiki bar. More than sixty years later, rum is still gaining respect, albeit slowly..
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By Brian Yaeger

Article from Issue Six

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
-Shakespeare

Before there were braumeisters or brewmasters, people made beer quite by accident. As legend has it (legend being “anthropology”), some ancient Sumerian left his bread out in the rain and, not being a wasteful fellow, ate or drank from the resulting pudding and immediately was a hit at the Sumerian frat parties.  The bread’s grains, combined with water, somehow mysteriously turned into a beverage that packed a wallop. Before long, anthropologically speaking, Sumerians had their first beer goddess, Ninkasi. They didn’t know it at the time, but it was thanks to the magic of fermentation.
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By Rod Byers

Article from Issue 6

“I am drinking stars!” are perhaps the most famous words in the history of wine that were never actually spoken. They were not spoken by the monk Dom Pérignon, who is generally credited, in a blinding light bulb moment, with the invention of champagne. From 1668 to 1715, Dom Pérignon was in charge of winemaking at the Abbey of Hautvillers in the Champagne district of France, but he was hardly the first to recognize the wine’s unusual properties.

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By Kara Newman

Article from Issue 6

We nearly died for our bacon.

At least, that’s the story I’m sticking to. At the 2008 Tales of the Cocktail, the annual booze bacchanal held in New Orleans, mixologist Don Lee, demonstrated how to make bacon-infused bourbon at a seminar on “How To Make Your Own Cocktail Ingredients.”

It wasn’t part of the scheduled proceedings, and he’d only brought a small jug to sample. Seated in the back of the room, a nasty rumor began to circulate….there might not be enough bacon bourbon to go around! The crowd started to murmur, some threatened to stampede, others began to sidle toward the front of the room, snatching cups off of trays headed to luckier others. Bacon bourbon!  Get outta the way!
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By Daniel Yaffe

Article from Issue Six

Somewhere between the thirty-foot shopping cart and the flaming dendrite, a unicorn made me a pickle-tini.  Although the annual arts festival of Burningman is often a fertile training ground for artistic expression, sexual exploration and [sometimes drug induced] visual stimulation, it also happens to be a test tube for all forms of drinking.
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by Kathleen Neves

Article from Issue Six

The Bloody Mary could be called the “meatloaf” of classic cocktails. The more ingredients added to a Bloody Mary, the better it seems to taste. A typical Bloody Mary consists of vodka, tomato juice, fresh lemon juice, black pepper, salt, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. And it’s always served on the rocks. But these ingredients are only a starting point.
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