“Civilization begins with distillation.” -William Faulkner Lovers of drink and prose love to toss around this quote. while it is possible that Mr. Faulkner might be overreaching, it remains undeniable that many of the finer things we enjoy today—including scotch, bourbon, vodka, gin, and brandy—are made possible by distillation, and that our lives would be different in hundreds of ways were it not for this most excellent and ancient process. Origins The word distillation comes from the Latin word destillare, meaning ‘drip or trickle,’ but the process is significantly older even than ancient Rome. Archeological evidence suggests that those crafty Mesopotamians (in the Tepe Gawra region, in what is now northern Iraq) were using very basic distilling equipment as far back as 3500 BC, and that the Chinese were distilling alcoholic beverages from rice as early as 1000 BC. Several Greek texts from the 400s BC offer descriptions of a [...]

After a recent trip to Louisville, I have a new-found love for bourbon (though I’m still a Scotch girl). As such, I have been exploring ways to show off all that honey toned goodness with a great spirits decanter. Decanters have been used for everything from wine to vodka, but I love the color of the sunset as seen through a glass vessel filled with golden liquid. Finding the right decanter is all about personal taste. You can go vintage, choosing cut crystal or even antiqued silver. There are versions in white glass with teak stoppers, which look great, but you miss the color of the liquor. My personal favorite decanters have clean lines and heavy bottoms. Decanters vary in size, but they’re usually intended to hold one bottle. While they’re mainly a throwback to the days where the store had a cask of booze and you brought your own [...]

Your very first lessons on what to drink and how to drink it probably came from your parents. The dining table from my childhood still bears the marks of my parents’ very particular way of throwing back tequila shots, and to this day I still respect the importance of keeping a chilled bottle of champagne hidden away for an unexpected special occasion. When I headed to college, there were the usual “what goes in jungle juice?” lessons as well as a long and arduous experiment in which I tried to find palatable supermarket wines priced under $10. Times and palates change, and we need a dependable source for liquorious learning. Where to turn? Magazines, of course. This isn’t a plug for Drink Me magazine, although I sincerely hope you learn something new and worthwhile with every issue. The alcohol industry, often in close partnership with the food industry, has a [...]

What happens when your phone, your beer, and Foursquare have a baby? Well, aside from some strange feats of biology, you get Untappd. It’s a web and mobile application for ‘checking in’ your beers — broadcasting the beers you drink, where you drink them, and whether or not you like them. You can collect badges, see what your friends are drinking (no judging!), and even comment on their choices. The data available at your fingertips is fascinating. Say you’re trying to track down a certain beer: by searching for it in Untappd, you can see ratings, reviews, the top drinkers of the beer, and the top venues where people have enjoyed it. You can even create wishlists of beers that you want to try. Hoping to connect with your favorite brewery? Untappd provides instant feedback in the form of real-time check ins and ratings for breweries, so they’ve taken notice [...]

I was sitting with my spirits buying partner David Othenin- Girard in the Bowmore guesthouse on Islay. We were in Scotland, tasting Scotch casks from independent bottlers, thinking to ourselves, “Why don’t we start our own independent spirits label?” After sleeping on the idea, we came up with the name ‘Faultline,’ seeing as all three K&L stores are located along the San Andreas ridge. We began by wetting our feet with a single barrel Cognac and an old bourbon cask of Littlemill whisky, but soon we turned our attention to gin. I was hanging out with St. George distiller Dave Smith one day during the midst of their multifaceted gin launch. Their Terroir, Botanivore, and Dry Rye gins were about to hit the market, and Dave had been playing around with some other concoctions that hadn’t quite made the cut. One of these batches was like a blank white canvas: [...]