Del Maguey Vida. Mezcal is tequila’s less well-known, but cooler, more hipster sibling (well technically, mezcal is the term for any agave-based spirit, *including* tequila, but let’s just focus on the more common interpretation of mezcal as a type of smoky agave spirit). Mezcal is also the Mexican liquor that…
Suntory Hibiki Japanese Harmony. This is a delicious whisky, and one of very few bottles (of anything!) that we’ve really gone through and repurchased (it’s hard to go thru bottles when you have a pretty sizable collection!). It’s sweet with honey notes and a juicy floralness. Japanese whisky is closest…
Flor de Caña 4 Extra Seco. Ah, white rum, the most popular kid in the school of rum after Captain Morgan. Thanks to Bacardi and the incredible job they’ve done at marketing rum to the world, white rum is probably what most people commonly associate with “rum” (at least in…
Noah’s Mill Small Batch Bourbon. Before my whole (recent) rum obsession, bourbon was my go-to. It took me a few years into my alcohol journey to really became acquainted with whiskey (once I finally ventured beyond Jack/Jameson/Crown), but then the classic American bourbon stole my heart. The first time I tried…
Square One Organics Basil Vodka. This is a rye-based vodka infused with 4 different varieties of basil, with some additional herbs to round out the flavor. This was actually one of my very first “craft spirit” purchases years ago. As I’ve mentioned, I have a huge basil obsession, so when…
Disaronno Originale. The oh-so-familiar amaretto liqueur in the distinctive bottle. Amaretto is probably one of the most recognizable mainstream liqueurs, and most likely you’ve heard of it in some form or other, whether that be in cocktails like the amaretto sour or the perfect warm apres-ski drink, in coffee, as…
St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur – this is truly autumn in a bottle. As if my previous posts haven’t given it away, I’m a huge fan of everything they do and produce at St. George Spirits in Alameda, CA. It was the first distillery I ever visited and my first introduction…
Cynar (pronounced chee-nar) – artichoke liqueur, whaaat?! As strange as it sounds, Cynar is a modest 16.5% ABV amaro made with artichoke (aka “cynara scolymus”), along with 12 other herbs/plants. As with all Italian amaro, it’s an intense bittersweet liqueur oozing of herbal flavors that are difficult to describe, great…
Bénédictine. In the same realm as Chartreuse, Bénédictine is another one of those age-old (300+ yrs) herbal liqueurs from Europe (France) made with a blend of secret herbs and spices (27) that only a few (3) people know at one time. It’s sold as a 40% ABV standalone liqueur, as…
Roger Groult Calvados Pays d’Auge. Calvados is a spirit you may not be familiar with, but should be! Calvados is an apple brandy (spirit distilled from apples, sometimes pears) from France that’s regulated by an appellation (which defines where the apples must be grown and the process for creating the spirit). The…
Goslings Black Seal rum. This spirit from Bermuda is the official rum for the Dark N Stormy, a cocktail that’s become super popular with the rising craft cocktail movement. The rum gets its name because during WWII used champagne bottles were refilled with this rum and sealed with a black…
St. Elizabeth Allspice dram was brought to market in 2008 as a traditional pimento dram. (no, not the weird red strips inside olives) Pimento is also known as “allspice” and is commonly used in Jamaican and Caribbean cooking (jerk chicken!). Pimentos are very fragrant tiny dried berries that have flavors…
Drambuie. A whiskey liqueur made from scotch, heather honey, and secret herbs/spices. The flavor of this is definitely scotch forward and very sweet with strong honey and herbal notes. It’s been around for a couple hundred years but really picked up popularity in the Prohibition period to pair with (aka mask)…
Luxardo maraschino liqueur. To start, this tastes nothing like those neon plastic-y cherries generally associated with “maraschino” (more on those later – the history there is also quite interesting). As one of the oldest European liqueurs (1821), Luxardo is a staple for a well-rounded collection both to recreate classic cocktails…
Old Tom Gin. Ever hear of the Tom Collins cocktail? This classic gin drink got its name from the popular style of gin from 18th Century England – the “Old Tom” style. Today, the most common style you’ll find on the market is “London Dry,” which is considered the default/classic…
Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao orange liqueur. You may have heard of Cointreau, Grand Marnier, Triple Sec, Curaçao, and the like, but what’s the difference? The commonality between these is that they’re all considered orange liqueurs, a base spirit sweetened and flavored with oranges, and the distinction between them is actually…
Recipe 1 vanilla bean 2 cups of sugar 1 cup of water Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar until it’s fully dissolved (should be clear). Turn off the heat. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the beans into the syrup. Cut the bean into a couple…
Green Chartreuse. You may have heard of the color chartreuse (this was super popular in the fashion world a couple years back), but did you know the color actually got its name from this liqueur? Chartreuse has its roots back to 1737 (the color reference came in 1884) and is…
Orgeat, pronounced OR-ZHA (soft ‘zh’ sound), is not as fancy as it sounds. It’s a key ingredient in the classic Mai Tai, but really is pretty much just almond milk in syrup form. Now, before you go racing off trying to dump sugar into your carton of almond milk, be…
Frangelico was actually one of the very first liqueurs I ever owned. When I first got interested in cocktails my senior year of college, I threw a couple cocktail parties for my friends, loading up my ‘bar’ with a few very calculated purchases (getting cocktail ingredients was a HUGE investment for…
I picked up this Plantation Stiggin’s Fancy Pineapple Rum recently and it’s seriously one of the best bottles ever. In a market where Bacardi/Malibu offer rums in every flavor under the moon (“wolf berry,” “horned coconut,” “arctic grape”), the category of flavored rums has become intimately linked to these sugary…
Cachaça. The first time I heard of cachaça was from a Brazilian at a bar, and of course in the context of what else but the caipirinha. The second time I heard of cachaça was from another Brazilian, this time in college on campus, again in the context of a caipirinha.…
Remy Martin VSOP Cognac. I bought this in the early days of the homebar while searching for a cognac to fill the collection and admittedly haven’t ventured away (though I really want to get my hands on another bottle given how much I enjoy brandies!). Cognac is basically a grape-based…
Tanqueray London Dry Gin. This is my favorite gin. It’s my go-to gin at home for mixing up a cocktail, AND I can always count on it being available at any dive bar (my default dive bar drink is a gin&tonic…hard to mess that one up right?) I find Tanqueray…