What I'm Reading Lately- and Can Reccomend

There have a been a few really excellent cocktail books out there lately amidst all the dross: First one is "How's Your Drink ?" by Eric Felten, a second highly recommended book is David Wondrich's "Imbibe !" and the third and last Is Simon Difford's Cocktail Guide #7 While there are vast differences in the style and content of all three books they share a few common traits; They are all immensely well written,readable, entertaining,and useful in a practical sense If you buy any or all of these books for yourself or as gifts it is money well spent and whoever gets them will enjoy, and perhaps more importantly use them - maybe even to mix a cocktail or two for whoever got them the book(s).
My extended commentary and reviews of them can be found on: http://www.spiritsreview.com/reviews-books.htm
and a interview of Eric Felten can by found by clicking this link:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid452319854/bctid1320109652

A new way to access Restaurant and Bar reviews

We're now reviewing restaurants and bars in Rochester, NY - we're using Google's new "Yelp" interface - check it out!

Recent reviews by Christopher C.

What's this?

Posting to Technorati

In an effort to expand readership we are going to register with Technorati.
Technorati Profile
Along with, of course, posting more stories

Michael Jackson - The Beer Guy - Not the Clown

Michael Jackson was an Icon in both the beer and whisk(e)y having written extensively on both, with a passion and humor unmatched by anyone. He will be sorely missed by all of us. We hope there is beer (and whiskey) in heaven and Michael is taking notes for the rest of us.
His breadth of expertise, humor and class made his writing and speaking irreplaceable. The beer and whiskey worlds have lost their most articulate spokesperson. The love, passion and dedication to his subject and trade were unmatchable, he was the master.
He was considered one of the(if not the) experts on Single Malt Whiskey(read Scotch)and Whisk(e)y in general. He was the author of "The Single Malt Companion" (5 editions) which was the guide to single malts,the Malt Whisky Companion, and his latest book Whisky The Definitive World Guide Scotland and its Whiskies, along with writing extensively for Malt Advocate and Whisky Magazine and was widely known as a whisk(e)y judge/critic etc., the world over and was considered an expert in all forms of whisk(ey) about which he wrote extensively. He also wrote Michael Jackson's Bar and Cocktail Companion (If you do a search on Amazon you can probably get a count of how many books he actually did) He was also referred to as the "Whisky Chaser" along with the "Beer Hunter"
I think he was equally as big in the spirit world as the beer one - and also (to our loss) there are a damn sight fewer spirits writers/experts than beer people. Only Jim Murray might be considered in the same class as him for the whiskies(Jim is a nice guy with a lot of expertise but there is no one who can replace Michael in both worlds/fields). Michael was the Cyrano de Bergerac of Beer and Whisk(e)y,his prose about something approached high art in writing and his enthusiasm was contagious. It inspired myself and scores of others to explore and write about beer and whisk(e)y enticing us into the world of malt beverages and ink with nary a backward glance. Our only solace is that we know Michael will have the beer and whisk(e)y sorted out by the time we join him.

Tales of The Cocktail in New Orleans Day 1 July 18th The Conference

This is the 5th Tales of the Cocktail to be held in New Orleans Louisiana and the first one I attended.It ran from Wednesday July 18 through Sunday July 22nd.Absolutely jam packed with excellent workshops,seminars, and sessions on every facet of the Cocktail the organizers and presenters could think of-history,theory and practice of almost every type of cocktail and spirit.
The presenters - and the crowd that came for the event - were almost as dazzling.You could not throw a rock in the hotel without hitting a world famous bartender, author, or restaurateur.The presentations were first rate, the food delicious, and the parties well... lets just say there were equal to the attendees.

Tales of The Cocktail in New Orleans Day 1 July 18th

I had gotten this great deal to go to Tales of the Cocktail through Travelocity-6 Nights and Airfare from Rochester , New York for $610 including a shuttle to and from the airport.The hotel was a 2 star supposedly according to their website like a small French hotel.They forgot to add the adjectives Marseilles Waterfront- down by the old U Boat Pens.
It took 3 tries before they found me a room that had working air conditioning,broken phone door whose lock took at least 8 tries to open each time,cracked sink and a air conditioning unit that barely worked at all.The elevator worked some of the time, the fire alarm was broken, the cockroaches were big and the other guests scary.

Hurricane at Laffites Blacksmith Shop

Hurricane at Laffites Blacksmith Shop
Originally uploaded by Spirits Review

Part of the walking tour of New Orleans involves a bit of drinking

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. If you want to see specific topics click on sets at the top of the page.We have a lot of interesting photos from our travels - distilleries,brewpubs etc.,

Tales from Tales

The photographer who took these pictures said something about blackmail and I said "You are assuming I have a sense of shame"

This is a story about how I tried to show that you can't outdo anyone from Tales,we are professionals, and we have a reputation to live up (down) to.
We went on the walking tour of New Orleans Bars Sunday afternoon (after the Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl) and were in the oldest Gay Bar in the United States - Cafe Lafite in Exile it goes down hill from here....read on if you must...
Before we went in the the place the guide warned us "Guys, be ready they love to play games with the tourists and try to freak them out - it keeps them amused, so be ready."
I replied "If anyone hits on me I take it as a compliment" so this Drag Queen is Vamping in the doorway taunting us to come in (See Drag Queen in Doorway)
we come in and she comes up to me and (see Kissing Drag Queen)... They didn't get the actual contact but trust me Cheryl will tell you....I may have given her mental scars for life...Then they gave me this drink (see P7220320.JPG photo) and this is what I did with it (see During photo) again they missed the wink to the crowd, but the crowd saw it and loved it after that I asked the Bartender



The photographer who took these pictures said something about blackmail and I said "You are assuming I have a sense of shame"

This is a story about how I tried to show that you can't outdo anyone from Tales,we are professionals, and we have a reputation to live up (down) to.
We went on the walking tour of New Orleans Bars Sunday afternoon (after the Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl) and were in the oldest Gay Bar in the United States - Cafe Lafite in Exile it goes down hill from here....read on if you must...
Before we went in the the place the guide warned us "Guys, be ready they love to play games with the tourists and try to freak them out - it keeps them amused, so be ready."
I replied "If anyone hits on me I take it as a compliment" so this Drag Queen is Vamping in the doorway taunting us to come in (See Drag Queen in Doorway)
we come in and she comes up to me and (see Kissing Drag Queen)... They didn't get the actual contact but trust me Cheryl will tell you....I may have given her mental scars for life...Then they gave me this drink (see P7220320.JPG photo) and this is what I did with it (see During photo) again they missed the wink to the crowd, but the crowd saw it and loved it after that I asked the bartender (about the size of Martin from Forbidden Tiki ) for a blowjob (which he handed me) for some reason I started getting these free drinks... anyway I then I proceeded to carry this drink around with me for the rest of the tour (see after) including stopping to chat with Laurence Fishburn (who to his credit only raised one eyebrow slightly at the sight of me - Hurricane (from Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop of course) in one hand and that in the other .
Anyway I think I helped establish that anyone from Tales can hold their own at Cafe Lafitte in Exile and more importantly can probably get at least one round free.

Ernest Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl in NOLA Saturday July 21st

Well it all started innocently enough as we always say.....
We were at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans last week both as a Journalist and for the Ministry of Rum Rum Competition When we heard Absolut was going to hold a Ernest Hemingway's birthday party at the Old Absinthe House from 7-9 PM on Saturday - some of us felt that was - well, just wrong - 7-9 PM ?, 2 hours? We started at 9 AM,(after about 4 hours sleep-maybe) drank through the conference workshops (where plenty of drinks were served) and started what we now call "The Ernest Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl" through the French Quarter after the workshops and the last two standing from the entire Tales conference left the Alibi Bar at 8 AM on Sunday to get ready for workshops at 10 AM.
It was a motley group of Public Relations people,Maitre D's ,Bartenders,Investment Brokers, Journalists,Importers, and other assorted motley individuals who gathered in memory of Pappa and to celebrate his birthday in a barcrawl dedicated to his memory and was to have the distinction of being the last people standing from the entire contingent of all the crew from Tales of the Cocktail on the Saturday night of the conference.
It started up Bourbon Street stopping at numerous bars,Pat O'Brien's for Hurricanes, further on for Hand Grenades.Somehow we ended up on Decatur St,at Pravda where the Absinthe flowed and young nubile Goth girls slithered into each others laps and spanked each other (these were customers, not professionals so they were quite enthusiastic).The party staggered on to the Apple Barrel at the end of Bourbon and Decatur St., with only one casualty who was escorted back by another person to see them safely back.
It continued back through the streets finally coming to rest at the Alibi Bar a Service after hours bar that is the haunt of bar and restaurant workers after shifts.The last saw the backs of the others around 6:30 AM and decided it was not yet full enough daylight to call an end to the quest.They finally left the bar a little after 8 AM knowing that at least some had honored Papa in a way he would have been proud of.

Wine Section Expanding

Again in response to popular demand, we will be starting or should say expanding, our wine review section.while our focus is on distilled spirits for the most part, we do enjoy and will review wine and beer on the site.
The reason we have not done much with wine or beer on this site, is there are so many other ones out there that cover wine and beer extensively.so in order to specialize. We pretty much stuck with distilled spirits. However, we have now decided to take them on, at least in a limited way, with our main focus still being on distilled spirits.

Absinthe Section Now On Spirits Review

Due to popular demand we have launched a new section in our reviews on Absinthe
We not only do reviews of absinthe itself, but also the many fountains, spoons,and other assorted barware related to Absinthe.
Much of our research was done out of the country to the legal restrictions on absinthe in the United States at the time. Due to the rapidly changing legal landscape we will still provide links for people to order absinthe overseas if they wish to do so until Absinthe is more available in the U.S.

Spirits Review is Adopting Flickr for Adventures

In an attempt to get more of our trips and adventures online more quickly, we've decided to start using Flickr to post all of our photos as soon as we get them off the camera along with a least some narrative to let people know what we're up to. Over the next few weeks we will be posting roughly 2500 photos chronicling a number of trips to distilleries and a few gatherings and later I will be posting them more formally on the website under our adventures section.We haven't figured out exactly where to put the link for Flickr, but be assured it will be easy to find.

Cachaca

Cachaca (Ka-shaa-suh) is a colorless unaged spirit from South America made from sugar cane juice. There are of course some exceptions-some are aged and have color,some are made from molasses.The bulk of them come from Brazil (which has over 5000 brands plus probably an equal if not greater number of bootleg,homemade brands/producers).
It could be considered a type of rum as the ingredients are the same but most rum producers are happy that the Cachaca producers keep making the distinction.
Cachaca has been becoming more popular of late (read commercially viable beyond a very narrow ethnic/specialty market)by dint of aggressive marketing in Europe and North America. This is in no small part because it is one of the last frontiers of exploitable drinks.
Vodka has been done to death,gin is complicated to make,Rum is crowded (and good luck against Bacardi White and its marketing muscle),whiskey takes too long to make and there are limited distilleries,whereas Cachaca has a huge number of distilleries who produce it if for virtually nothing,are close to their markets (in terms of shipping-compared to China or Korea - other possible future producers of the next "New" spirits) and are willing to but your label on their product for very little.
Problem is, most of the stuff tastes like (and is used for) fuel. All it is is plain old ethanol (read drinking or drinkable alcohol) and most of the producers use a criteria of quantity and cheapness over quality.It was and is a drink of the poor in South America much as Moonshine or Samagon is in other countries-cheap, fiery alcohol sold for pennies per drink. (liter of Cachaca in a slum is about 25 cents).
There are of course exceptions to this rule,much like the fact that there are very good or excellent bootleg whiskey or vodka producers,there are distillers of Cachaca that take pride in their products- and produce them legally.
Most cachaca (legal) is produced in column stills- a high volume/low cost way of producing massive quantities of alcohol (same way ethanol plants for fuel do- with much the same results).
Higher end artisanal Cachaca is made in Alembic type pot stills in batches and carefully distilled in smalll batches with an eye towards quality.
Almost all of this Cachaca is drunk as Mojitos- a mix of Cacahca,mint and sugar with or without some lime juice thrown in.Basically a Mint Julep using a unaged white spirits instead of a whiskey.Most of the cheap and/or illegal stuff is drunk striaght out of the plastic bottle or jug it came in - usually a recycled drinks or sometimes a pesticide bottle.

Status Report

Well the computer crashed in late December and it took about 3 weeks to establish it was lost forever and another 2 weeks to decide what to do and rebuild.
We have scrapped the idea of running XP in a virtual environment (within Ubuntu Linux) as the VM ware kept crashing and losing our files. We now have rebuilt the computer and are trying to catch up ASAP on our reviews. Things are going much faster on the rebuilt system and we should be caught up soon.
Thanks for everyones patience as we regroup!
Cheers,
Chris

Test of Remote Blogging Tool HBlogger from Palm

TEST of Hblogger

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