Negroni

• 1 oz London Dry Gin
• 1 oz Martini & Rossi Sweet Vermouth
• 1 oz Campari

Stir the ingredients in a mixing glass. Strain into a coupe or a glass of your choosing. Garnish with an orange peel.

Drink Me presents our first party of the year, an all Absinthe Soiree on Wednesday, February 29th at Rosewood Bar. Come taste the many styles of Absinthe, have your Tarot cards read on this “extra” special day, and enjoy the sumptuous sounds of live music.

VIP’s will get early access to the party at 6pm, and have an exclusive Absinthe class and tasting.

WHEN: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 from 7-10pm, VIP hour at 6pm

WHERE: Rosewood Bar, 732 Broadway, San Francisco, CA

TICKETS:  http://drinkmeabsinthe.eventbrite.com/

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 are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde

Taurus, with your chin tilted up and your eyes bright, lit by the stars and moon, you sure are a sight. The beautiful dreamer with the punched-up face. This year, when flirting with the celestial temptresses, make sure your toes are firmly planted in the terra firma.

Madame Vincent suggests you don’t imbibe with the likes of Oscar Wilde. In one of the best-known accounts of absinthe drinking, Oscar Wilde described ‘having tulips on his legs’ after leaving a bar. Tulip legs would not aid you in your effort to remain grounded this year. Instead, a nice earthy concoction: San Francisco restaurant Nopa’s Stout Diplomat. It’s easy: 2 parts dark rum, 1 part sherry, 12 parts stout.

GEMINI
Even though you really tried to muck it up, you won! Rolled out from under the boulder seconds before the band kicked up. And now the question is, who should you thank in your acceptance speech? The other question is (there’s always more than one question) who’s going to Kanye your Taylor Swift? Madame Vincent thought long and hard about what would make a good celebration drink for you Gemini. Something served in the White House? Served at the Kardashian wedding? Served at the Knights of Columbus Bingo Bonanza? Madame Vincent decided it’s time to buy a good (read: more than $50) bottle of champagne. Get to know the bubbly.

CANCER
Cancer, your exoskeleton is in the shop and your skin is working extra hard to keep you from coming apart at the seams. Madame Vincent thinks you should get in line for your Man Card. 2012 will be chock full of all sorts of excitement: some good, a smidge more than some is going to be terrible, and most will be absolutely hilarious. Bee Pollen is said to provide strength, energy and stamina. You could use a mega dose this year, Crabby. The good news is that it’s quite lovely sprinkled on a cocktail. Mix up a St. Michael with Hendrick’s Gin, St. Germain, yellow Chartreuse, honey, and a dash of bee pollen.

LEO
Hibernating bears bypass the winter when their food supply disappears. Madame Vincent suggests you do the same. Life gets a bit serious. Supplies will run low. Roadblocks abound. And you’ll be out of step with the pack. Let the weather pass. During the weeks before hibernation, bears chow down. They can gain as much as 30 pounds per week. Shovel it in and drink up. Start with a simple 12 oz. can of American Domestic (Madame Vincent prefers Miller High Life, The Champagne of Beers) and polish it off with a flip, a class of cocktail that includes a whole egg. Any spirit can be made into a flip, but Madame Vincent likes her Four Roses bourbon.

VIRGO
It’s not a good idea to object to your best friend’s wedding just because you’ve mentally undressed the groom. And you can’t firebomb the office because you didn’t get a holiday bonus. An old roommate used to throw his shoes into the bushes to scare away the thrushes but they always returned in song. Madame Vincent has age-old advice for you Virgo: pick your battles. Many of our toughest, most stoic cultural heroes favor a scotch poured neat. Saddle up to the bar and channel Mr. Bogart.

LIBRA
Two sparkly emoticons, passionately carved from purple quartz, lay on the console in front of you: a smiley and a frowney. One is welcoming and warm. The other is superficial and evasive. The world is begging you to throw one under the bus this year and Madame Vincent bets you know which side will pay the fare. Warm up to the world around you with a Michelada. Madame Vincent likes hers with chipotle peppers and adobo sauce. Salud!

SCORPIO
Develop your baseball memory this year. Beware of break-up pie and don’t turn down anyone pouring a stiff drink. Back when Madame Vincent’s taste buds tended toward frozen french bread pizzas and Meister Brau, there was a popular shot called a Mind Eraser. They go down easy and before you know it, you don’t even remember what made you start drinking. Don’t forget a straw. No use crying over spilled milk. Just be thankful it missed your laptop.

SAGITTARIUS
Hey Tarzan, sit still, you’re freaking everyone out. If you don’t heel, somebody’s going to come along and slap a collar on you. Got any ideas who may be standing by with the dog cops? No matter. Comb your hair. Put on some pants. And wipe that smirk off your face. How about something civilized, even dainty, for you: a Fur Collar, a mix of vodka, apricot liquor, and orange juice, originally poured for the Vanderbilts at the Colony Club in New York City.

CAPRICORN
Rumor has it Confucius was a jerk. He was known to preen around like a proud peacock and frequently got into fistfights over trivialities. Let disillusionment become inspiration this year, Capricorn. Be surprised and then be spurred into action. Do you know what makes Madame Vincent jump into action? A shot of reposado tequila followed up with a lime wedge, one side dipped in sugar, and the other side dipped in espresso.

AQUARIUS
The cosmos set forth an inscrutable object, a banana-colored Slip n’ Slide for you to navigate while the Ghosts-of-Bullshit-Past stand by in their swim trunks with wiffle-ball bats. Madame Vincent offers you an emerald-studded pair of horse blinders to make it through to Spring. What’s the alcohol equivalent of horse blinders? Hell, any will do. How about a Horse’s Neck: brandy, ginger ale and a dash 0f bitters.

PISCES
The nice thing about being Batman in 2012 is that the costume is much more comfortable now, with breathable fabrics and less chafing. Pisces, you are no longer a sidekick this year, you’re Conan. No more fat Andy sitting dumb in the dumb chair for you. You’re Lucy. You’re Bo. Hop into the nearest phone booth, you’re about to go from unassuming to thrilling. When Madame Vincent tries to conjure up a cocktail worthy of the word thrilling, one immediately comes to mind: a Desert Rose, served at New York’s PDT. Made with gin infused with rose petals, this drink is magic.

By Madame Vincent, the world’s first food astrologer http://foodfortunes.com/

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 whole reduces a brewery’s carbon footprint by some 35 percent, so cans save the planet.

Having a bottle broken over your head at a concert or stepping on shards at the park or beach while barefoot would suck. Hence, cans are allowable in way more private and public venues than bottles. Wouldn’t you rather drink a can of Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA at a summer music festival than not drink a bottle of Pliny the Elder?

Finally, the old complaint about cans imparting a metallic taste to the beer went out the window with today’s linings that keep the beer from ever contacting any metal. Sure, your lips would touch it, but you’re not really supposed to drink craft beer from the vessel anyway. Pour it into some proper glassware. And lest you think great beer doesn’t come in cans, just pour yourself a tasty number from Oskar Blues, Uncommon Brewers, Caldera, New Belgium (increasingly), Rodenbach (in Belgium if not yet in the US!), Surly, or any of the other dozens—soon to be hundreds—of craft breweries that have already lightened their load.

By Brian Yaeger

Essentially, it’s a philosophical clash between the traditional way of doing things and a modern approach. Consumers equate a good glass of wine with the fanfare of foil cutters and corkscrews. For hundreds of years, winemakers have been using cork to seal their precious nectar of the gods, and it has worked 90% of the time, so why the hell should they change anything now? Call it evolution, call it carpe diem, call it whatever you want but the fact of the matter is that as human beings it is only natural for us to want what is newer, better, more exciting … and wine is no exception. Screw cap closures are steadily gaining ground on the traditional cork usage. According to Wine Business Monthly, “the number of wineries using at least some screw caps has risen from a mere 5 percent in 2004 to 34 percent in 2011.”

Of course, there are pros and cons to both types of closure systems, and at the forefront of that debate seems to be the issue of aging wine, especially with red wines over $25.00. According to a trial testing conducted in the 1970’s by Dr. Bryce Rankine (a leading Australian wine academic) concluded that, “the range of wines examined retained their quality with a stelvin closure [screw cap closure] significantly better than with a cork.”

On top of these findings, screw cap closure systems have been proven to be more reliable in a cellaring scenario. Screw cap bottles can be held at any humidity, bottle orientation (say goodbye to keeping bottles on their side to prevent corks from drying out) and are far more resistant to temperature variations. Wines using the screw cap closure do not have to worry about cork taint or oxidation, as well.

In 2002, Argyle Winery became the first winery in the Pacific Northwest to implement the screw cap closure system on their wines. Today all of Argyle’s table wines are sealed under the Stelvin closure and continue to be trendsetters in the industry. It was the shattering of myths that made Argyle ‘cross the line’ from cork to Stelvin closures. Myths such as wine needing oxygen to age and cork being the best seal for wines meant to cellar were proven as false statements. Even notable writers such as Harvey Steiman from Wine Spectator said that, “Few corks are perfect, which is what leads to bottle variation, while screw caps almost always make a perfect seal…Under screw caps, wines age as they would under a perfect cork in ideal cellar conditions.” (Wine Spectator, November 15, 2003).

Hogue Cellars, a large winery in Washington’s Columbia Valley, just recently concluded a thirty month study on the effect of screw caps on their wines and – in a move that did not surprise winemakers or academics, but stunned marketers – found that their wines perform much better under screw caps. They are moving their entire production of wine to be bottled under special Saranex-lined screw cap enclosures.

Clearly the screw cap system has been proven to be successful at containing and aging red and white wines, so now it is just a matter of time before the old mindset of cork superiority falls by the wayside.

By Dustin Oien of TheBlackDoor.com

Pasion

• 1.5 oz    Campo de Encanto Pisco
• .5 oz    Leopold Bros Tart Cherry Liqueur
• .25    Averna Amaro
• .75    Fresh Lemon Juice
• .5    Tempus Fugit Spirits Creme de Cacao
• .25    Vanilla bean infused agave syrup
• 3-4 drops spicy chili tincture

Starlight Room's Winter Flip, via The Perfect Spot

“While for me romance lends itself itself to champagne and cocktails, the brand new Ice Cream Bar & Soda Fountain comes to mind. Though non-alcoholic, the menu was put together by Russell Davis from Rickhouse … and the 1930′s-style soda fountain drinks are ideal for sharing, preferably with two straws, one glass. Sharing a Wild Cherry Phosphate or Ode to Mr. O’Neil strikes me as the latest romantic drink interlude in SF.

On the cocktail front, I am picturing sitting in a velvet booth at the thankfully revamped and sexy Starlight Room sipping one of Joel’s new carbonated, pre-bottled Negronis or a Winter Flip while gazing out over San Francisco.”

“Bubbly is regular drink in my house, so Champagne doesn’t always cut it for special occasions.  Really good hot chocolate with  ORO Torontel pisco or Compass Box Spice Tree makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.  Plus you don’t have to worry about getting a cheesy, heart shaped box of chocolates.”

Heart-shaped marshmallows, however, are encouraged.

Ford Mixology Lab’s D.H.R. (Directing Hot Redhead) Rachel Ford might mix some of the meanest cocktails around, but this lady definitely knows her wine in a big way.  She’s hoping for a glass of the Italian dessert wine Brachetto. She says, “It’s a beautiful shade of pink and has the sexy and sweet aroma of rose petals.  It’s a bouquet in a glass, and what girl doesn’t love flowers?” See, you even get to kill two birds with one stone here. Wine and flowers, done.

Constance Chamberlain, online voice of Austrian Wines, is a bubble lady as well.  She wants Champagne, and it better be pink.  Just look for Blanc de Noirs (basically, white wine from red grapes).

Zanni Miranda, Drink Me’s Community & Events Manager, wants the bubbles – but of a different sort. She’s a sour beer fanatic, and is hoping for a glorious, bubbling glass of St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition.

The key to miss Andie’s heart this Valentine’s Day is, of course, through one of those spirits she loves to pour.  Take a glass of sparkling wine (we’d suggest prosecco or cava for this) and top it off with Aqua Perfecta Framboise Liqueur. It’s festive, it’s pretty, and it’s an easy drink to make.  Added bonus: Andie says it goes perfectly with a smoke and a pancake.  No joking – the Aqua Perfecta Framboise is the most decadent thing you can pour on top of your pancakes and bacon the next morning.