After a long night of drinking beer, the last thing you want to think about is having a sudsy brew in your food, but the flavor of an ale or lager can add a pleasant, lightly-hopped bitterness to a soup broth, especially ramen-style noodle soup. A popular street food across Japan, ramen is a hearty soup that’s as ubiquitous as the hamburger. It’s eaten with gusto on a cold day and just as welcome after a night out with a few drinks. The key to a good ramen is the broth, developing and layering the flavors to reach a savory balance. The use of beer keeps the broth from feeling too heavy or overpowering all of ramen’s ingredients. You can add almost anything to it, but a satisfying combination is thin slices of the pork loin that was braised in the broth itself and wedges of boiled egg, topped with [...]
Drinks of the Gods
Nowhere has the relationship between human culture and alcoholic beverages been more important or more intricate than in the arena of religion. Not to put too fine a point on it, but everywhere humans have enjoyed a drink, so have the gods they worship. Which is not to say we drink the same stuff. Not at all. In most cases the liquor enjoyed by the gods, while similar to mortal beverages, was strictly of a divine character and oftentimes off limits to mere mortals. Whole books could be written on these concoctions (instances of godly drinks occur in myths from all across the globe), but we are going to focus on a single example, the Mead of Poetry from old Norse folklore. Mead, or honey wine, is the simplest, and perhaps the first, of all alcoholic beverages. All you need is honey, water and time, and—presto!—you’ve got a jug of [...]
When in the Nighttime IS the Right Time?
There are moonlight wine tastings in British supermarkets and a calendar advising when conditions are right for drinking certain varietals. Some folk swear by these practices … and others swear at them. So, should you start asking a bottle of wine, “What’s your sign?” The question really is this: how much truth, if any, is there to the belief that astrological signs affect what adult beverages you drink and, more specifically, how the ingredients are grown and made? Planting according to the phases of the moon is a practice as old as agriculture itself, but employing the same celestial portends as guidelines for tasting the fruit of the vine is much more recent. It’s generally based on biodynamics, a holistic agronomy system created by philosopher Rudolph Steiner in the late 1920’s. Adherents believe that not only the vines are impacted by phases of the moon but, even more surprising, that [...]
The Angel’s Share
Ralph Erenzo, the head distiller at Tuthilltown Spirits in New York’s Hudson Valley, is cheating heaven out of its fair share of booze. Instead of using the standard fifty-three gallon charred oak barrels to age his whiskey, he stores his bourbon and rye in smaller barrels that hold between three and twenty gallons. The result? His whiskey ages in less than six months due to increased contact between whiskey and wood, and he loses less alcohol from each batch to a mysterious phenomenon known as the “angel’s share.” For centuries, distillers have been haunted by and fascinated with this bit of paranormal activity: a small quantity of whisky, brandy, or wine always escapes from the wood barrels as it ages, vanishing into thin air. As legend has it, this boozy vapor rises to heaven, where the angels claim it as their toll for watching over the spirits and making sure [...]
Celebrity Brands
What do Tool, a Full House character, Donald Trump, a Real Housewife, Danny DeVito, and porn stars have in common? Aside from fame, fortune, and maybe a little too much spray tanning, they all own alcohol brands. They’re not just spokespersons – they’re the owners, the decision makers, and sometimes even the drink makers. Take Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, for example: with Caduceus Cellars he’s making interesting wine while also trying to prove that Arizona can grow great grapes. Hair band wine more your style? Motorhead, AC/DC, and KISS all have come out with their own wine labels, the latter also slapping their black and white mugs on Destroyer, their German pilsner. Candace Cameron (DJ Tanner) and her hockey star hubby own Bure Family Wines, a boutique Napa Valley winery. Lil’ Jon also has set up shop in Napa with his Little Jonathon label, and Yao Ming has set his [...]
Your Winter Booze-O-Scope
ARIES Led by Moses, the people of Israel journeyed on bad shoes from Rameses to Succoth. Chefs and mailmen, rabbis and nurses, they ate from the great invisible wreath with glee and they made it there in 17 days, a day under the Long Walk of the Navajo. Aries, it’s not that often we have a crew at the ready to love us and wash our clothes and rescue us from floods. This year, you will. Thyme grew wild in ancient Israel, and Roman soldiers bathed in it for courage and strength. If you’re going to be leading a crew this year, you’ll need both in large doses. Madame Vincent would like you to shake up a Thyme Martini by putting a clean bunch of thyme in a bottle of dry vermouth for 24 hours before pouring your cocktail. TAURUS “We are all in the gutter, but some of us [...]
Yes We Can It
Have you noticed that more and more beers are coming in fewer bottles and—gasp—coming in the same packages as mass-market beer (albeit two four-packs of craft can equal a suitcase of the industrial stuff)? It’s because breweries have finally cottoned to the fact that cans are superior to bottles. Here’s why. Brown glass reduces the amount of UV light that passes through the bottle; cans block it out completely. Bottle crowns, over time, allow some oxygen to seep in. A sealed can never does. Hold that bottle and what do you notice? It’s cooler? Perhaps. But it’s also heavier! It takes more fuel to get it to the store, so cans save money, not to mention they stack better so more in a pallet and further reduce transportation expenses. Glass costs more than aluminum, so again cans save you money. Aluminum is 100 percent recyclable (unlike glass), and on the [...]
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