A Taste of: Domaine Mosse La Lettre à Élise, NV

Sep 12th, 2010 by

La Lettre à Élise (100% Chenin Blanc), Domaine Mosse, NV, Loire Valley
(13.5 % abv)

Me on my way to a Loire Valley tasting

I’m a ridiculously huge fan of the whites from the Loire Valley.  Just as Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the sound of his bell, simply saying the words “white” and “Loire” in the same sentence around me will cause feverish sweats of desire and intense mouth-watering.  It is not a pretty sight.  Quite embarrassing, in fact, and I am now forced to carry a slobber towel at all times.

Agnès and René Mosse have followed an interesting path.  Originally owning a wine bar/retail shop in Tours, many great winemakers came through their door.  Over time, they were bitten by the bug themselves and left that world to study viticulture and winemaking with some of the best in the business.

After two years at the agricultural lycée in Amboise, they set off through the French countryside and worked the prized fields and wineries of the Côte-de-Beaune.  Armed with this knowledge, it was time to stake their own claim.  They returned to their home base in the Loire Valley and bought a small estate in St-Lambert-du-Lattay, in the Coteaux-du-Layon area of Anjou.

From the moment they first stuck their shovel in the soil, they’ve used organic viticultural techniques and treated the vines and earth with biodynamic preparations.  The “natural” winemaking continues in the winery and they make as few manipulations of the wine as possible and only reach for the sulfur when absolutely necessary.

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Mai Tai

Sep 7th, 2010 by

All the birds sing words and the flowers croon.  In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.

That’s how the song went.  And really that’s all I remember of the words, but the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland still sticks with me vividly.  Images of singing robotic birds, steamy jungles and Polynesian gods made into animated rock sculptures is transfixing.  I remember the whole feeling of the place as so otherworldly and, yep, a bit terrifying.

But I’m not alone.  Americans have been strangely fixated on Tiki culture for quite some time.  And over the years, resurgences have come and gone.  Lo and behold, 2010 is proving to be the start of another tidal wave of fascination as a number of serious cocktail joints have opened in NYC paying homage to the realm of the tiki drinks (check out Painkiller and the soon-to-open The Hurricane Club).

As we move into the final couple of weeks of summer, it only seems appropriate for you to whip out the flowered shirt, pull out the tiki mug, pop the cassette tape of Elvis’ Blue Hawaii in the VCR and invite your friends over for a Luau.  In honor of the thousands of shrunken heads tucked away in closets, I give you the Mai Tai.

Two men are responsible for the creation of this incredible drink…well, one is in reality, but the war is heated as to exactly who it was.  Without going into a thesis on Tiki culture and how it swept through the US after World War II, it helps to know this:  In 1934, Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt opened the first-ever Polynesian-themed restaurant/bar in Hollywood named Don the Beachcomber.  Later that same year, Victor Bergeron opened Trader Vic’s in San Francisco.

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Operation: Green Chili Saison

Sep 4th, 2010 by

A Bounty of Burning Goodness

“Don’t do it, man.  It’s not worth it”.

The advice was succinct and deadening to my soul.  Enough to take the wind out of anyone’s sails.  But we decided to push on.

Last month, the idea hit my wife and I to trick out our Saison homebrew recipe and do something a little different, something a little off the beaten path.  I mean, that’s where the interesting parts of life lie, right?  Green chilies popped into our minds.

The play between the lemon zest, the spicy notes of the yeast, the refreshing drinkability of the wheat would go perfect with some heat.  It seemed inspired.  But we’d never brewed with chilies before…

I turned to the Beer Advocate homebrewing forum for advice.  My question was simple: “Hi, looking to brew a Green Chili Saison, anyone recommend when to put the chilies into the equation?  The boil stage?  In the secondary fermenter?”  What I got was an instant response of disgust and a heaping spoon full of vitriol.

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Mint Julep

Aug 31st, 2010 by

Forgo the hearty breakfast and start your day with a cocktail before plowing the fields.

Who needs an injection of coffee when Bourbon and mint are on hand?  For some hardy southerners in the late 18th century, the Mint Julep was part of their morning ritual akin to shaving and pulling on the trousers.

John Davis, a British author, wrote about his journeys in a book called, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America which was published in 1803.  In it, is the first known documentation of the “Mint Julep,” which Mr Davis describes as “a dram of spirituous liquor that has mint steeped in it, taken by Virginians of a morning.”

Ahh, the early 19th century was such a gas…

Today, we associate the Mint Julep with something entirely different.  What is it?  Yep, you guessed it:  the Kentucky Derby.  First said to be served there in 1938, today it is estimated that more than 80,000 Mint Juleps are served at Churchill Downs in a two-day period.  That’s a lot of minty greenery clogging the trash cans…

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Barolo on the Mind

Aug 27th, 2010 by

  

Better than a stroll through Sag Harbor

 

Screw summering in the Hamptons.  I want to fly my personal jet to Piedmont.  

Instead of craning my neck to get a glimpse of the latest bimbo from the Real Housewives of New Jersey gallavanting by on horseback, I want to get lost in the vineyards, dine on Braised Rabbit and sip endless bottles of Barolo. 

Undisputedly one of the finest wines that Italy has to offer, the red wines of Barolo (yes, the wine and the region share a name) are the Rolls Royces of the wine world.  Sleek, powerful, complex and with a tannic structure built like a jet engine, these wines will blow your doors off. 

I’ve been reading Romancing the Vine:  Life, Love and Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo over the last couple of weeks and have built a massive hunger to go there.  But since I can’t at the moment, I’ve put together some pics and facts to whet your whistle.  Continue Reading »

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Boilermaker

Aug 24th, 2010 by

Simplicity = Destruction

I had a roommate who loved car bombs.  Let’s call him “Patty”.

It started as something he would do at bars, but quickly became a habit he brought home.  Nearly every night of the week for months, Patty was shooting them off in our apartment.

He’d pour some Bailey’s in a shot glass, top with Jameson’s, drop it into a 1/2 pint of Guiness, slug it back and release a rebel yell.  I thought the whole thing was pretty strange, and yes, a little sad.  Didn’t he see that he was his own victim?

Well, Patty is not alone in his liquor/beer concocting, and the Irish Car Bomb is only one variation of perhaps the most famous beer cocktail in history.  Today’s classic cocktail is far from the swanky speakeasies of it’s other brethren.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Boilermaker.

Exactly where and when this drink was first concocted, no one knows, but my guess is it predates all the other classic cocktails. Why? Well, quite simply, it doesn’t take a genius or a bar chef to put two and two together.  Beer = drunk.  Liquor shot = drunker.  Beer + liquor shot = drunkest.

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West Coast Gold

Aug 19th, 2010 by

The Score (pic by Joe Flaherty)

This morning I awoke in Seattle to a foggy morning filled with expectations.  Mount Rainier was on our minds as my brother and I prepared for our camping excursion to get lost in her charms.

After a requisite trip to the REI castle here, we hit up Bottleworks, the local craft beer store where we unleashed the geek demons.  Led through the store by a trusty employee who embraced us like young lambs looking to get lost in West Coast craft beer, we spent nearly an hour scouring the fridges.

What we walked out with could, frankly, keep a platoon of soldiers content for many a night under the stars.  Check this list out and prepare to drool, craft beer lovers.  (That or you can meet us at the base of Mt Rainier; we’ll be the ones sitting by the fire and singing Irish drinking songs…)

The Great West Coast Beer Stash

  • Firestone Walker, Union Jack IPA, CA (7.5%) – 650 ml
  • Ninkasi, Maiden the Shade, OR (6.8%) – 650 ml
  • Roslyn, Roslyn Beer (Munich Dunkel), WA (?) – 650 ml
  • Green Flash, Imperial IPA, CA (9.4%) – 650 ml
  • Hopworks, IPA, OR (6.6%) – 650 ml
  • Russian River, Damnation Golden Ale, CA (7.75%) – 375 ml
  • Brasserie Dupont, Foret Organic Saison, Belgium (7.5%) – 750 ml
  • Hale’s Ales, Kolsch, WA (4.5%) – 12 oz
  • Dick’s, Dick’s Danger Ale, WA (5.2%) – 12 oz
  • Dick’s, Silk Lady Belgian Style Golden Ale, WA (4.4 %) – 12 oz
  • Oskar Blues, Gubna Imperial IPA, CO (10%) – 12 oz
  • Avery, White Rascal White Ale, CO (5.6%) – 12 oz
  • Victory, Prima Pils, PA (5.3%) – 650 ml
  • Dogfish Head, Aprihop IPA, DE (7%) – 12 oz
  • Dogfish Head, Punkin Ale, DE (7%) – 12 oz
  • Mad River, Jamaica Red Ale, CA (6.5%) – 12 oz
  • Sierra Nevada, Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale, CA (5.5%) – 12 oz
  • New Belgium, Hoptober Golden Ale, CO (6%) – 12 oz
  • Hanssens Artisanaal, Oude Gueuze, Belgium (6%) – 375 ml

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Daisy

Aug 17th, 2010 by

“Daisy had a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms…of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender….It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy – it increased her value in his eyes.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I’ve read The Great Gatsby many times over the years.  It remains one of my favorite books.  The style of the writing, the time period, the heartbreaking blindness of Jay Gatsby and his foolish quest to win Daisy.

The more I’ve read it, the more I care less and less about Daisy.  For she is not so much a character as what Gatsby thinks she is.  She is a blank palate upon which he places his dreams.  He sees himself in her eyes.  And if he can impress her, he can love himself.  It’s tragic, but we’ve all been there.  This week’s classic cocktail is for you, Jay.

The Daisy is not so much a cocktail as a ‘family’ of cocktails.  It is a basic formula that the bartender can paint upon, can tweak into a new image, can look back upon and see himself in.

First created sometime in the 1800’s, the Daisy was a spin-off of the Sour (spirit, citrus, sweetener), originally using orange cordial as the sweetener.  But that didn’t last long, and the Daisy was swept up by another’s imagination, and by the 1900’s, Grenadine became the sweetening agent of choice.

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BrewYork #5: Enough Beer to Drown a Clydesdale

Aug 15th, 2010 by

BrewYork #4. Back Row (from l to r): Andy Zenyuch, John Kleinchester, Matt Steinberg, Greg Gallagher, Andrew Maiorana. Front Row: Lee Williams, David Flaherty, Paul Kavulak (Nebraska Brewing Co), Craig Sklar, Adam Sivits (on floor)

“Epic”: very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); “an epic voyage”; “of heroic proportions”

This past Friday night, we embarked on an epic voyage.  Like brave conquistadors in search of the riches of the world, our ragtag faction of BrewYorker’s (a group of NY-based homebrewers, probrewers, beer bloggers and all-around geeks of the grain) summoned the beer gods with a diverse offering of liquid bounty.

The fast-becoming-legendary monthly gathering is quite simple in design: each person brings two selections of rare or sought-after specialty beers.  Whether you traded them with beer geeks across the country, pulled them from the top shelf of the beer store or stole them from Uncle Jimmy’s Craft Beer Bunker (“don’t fuck with my brew stash for fear of dismemberment” it says on the door), it’s the time to dig deep.

The reward?  An educational, boozy journey through the darkest, most creative corners of the craft beer world.  It’s a beautifully diverse group of people knitted together with passion, and this month’s bottle list reflects it.

See below for the final list on our Friday night stage.  My personal favorites are in bold and with links to take you to websites for more info. Continue Reading »

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Posted in Beer, NYC Events, Reviews | 12 Comments »

Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The El Presidente

Aug 10th, 2010 by

1920-1933.  Prohibition sucked the nightlife out of the scene like one does an oyster from a shell.

But the party raged on…albeit behind secret doors and fueled by often dangerous concoctions of bathtub gins and white lightning.  And so, many American simply crossed the border to Havana, Cuba where the party heated up in broad daylight.

In fact, they came to Cuba in droves by plane and boat, all headed for the sunny climes where the booze flowed freely and one could enjoy a cold cocktail without looking over their shoulder for the boys in blue.

And what to do if your profession was as a bartender when the dry spell hit?  Well, you could always go South, sir.  To Cuba!  A mere 90 miles from Florida, many barkeeps packed their bag and headed to the Pearl of the Antilles.

It is there, according to Dave Wondrich, that an American bartender named Eddie Woelke who was working at the Jockey Club in Havana created this week’s classic cocktail: the El Presidente.

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Make Mine a Mosel

Aug 9th, 2010 by

Home to the longest, uninterrupted stretch of quality vineyards in Europe, the Mosel River is home to Rieslings on such a level of spectacularness that I often place a bib on myself to prevent the drool from soiling my shirt.

The Mosel flows for 150 miles through Germany and, along most of it’s length, is home to sheer cliffs and sweepingly grandiose steep vineyards that house ancient vines which cling for dear life and fight for every last ray of sunshine.

But don’t let my ceaseless drivel do the convincing, because I’ll shut up and let the pictures below speak for themselves.

This is God’s Country, my friends, and the land at the end of the rainbow for any wine lover.

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I’m the New New York Cork Report Reporter

Aug 6th, 2010 by

Dearest readers, I am stoked to share some exciting news with you.  In addition to my vinous, brewish and libatious duties here at Grapes & Grains, I am pleased to announce that I will be expanding my reach further into the realm of the blogosphere…

I have been invited to join the staff of the New York Cork Report as their “NYC Correspondent”.  I will be covering local breweries, urban wineries and NY-state spirits.  

Also, my usual forays into underground gambling rings, heroin trafficking, cock fighting and muscle-car drag racing will, of course, continue.  Hey, a guy’s got to follow his passions, right?  Right?!  Who’s with me?  All hail the V8 engine, suckas!

If you’re not yet familiar with Lenn Thompson and the crew over at New York Cork Report, you need to get them on your radar screen.  For the last two years, they’ve taken home the gold at the American Blog Awards for “Best Single-Subject Wine Blog” because of their solid dedication.  

Their writing and reviews are tight, their editorial content is opinionated and challenging, but most of all, they are passionate about showcasing the unique people and products that the great Empire State has to offer.  I’m stoked and honored to be part of the team.  

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Ramos Gin Fizz

Aug 3rd, 2010 by

Ramos Gin Fizz at Tujague's (Photo by David Grunfeld / The Times-Picayune)

The sight must have been incredible.

A whir of flashing metal cocktail shakers streaked the bar from end to end as the crowd crushed in around you.

There they stood.  Thirty-five “shaker boys” all earnestly focusing as their arms screamed from the pain of ceaseless shaking.

It is said that to properly make a Ramos Gin Fizz, you must shake vigourously for two to twelve minutes.  And I mean shake like your life depended on it.  But, oh the results…because how sweet the outcome.

A now famous name in the cocktail world, Henry Charles Ramos had run a string of cocktail joints in Baton Rouge and Birmingham, plying and developing his trade with a studied eye and a keen sense of style.  Upon hitting the streets of New Orleans in the late 1870’s, he was ready for the big time in the Crescent City.

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All Hail, the Tales of the Cocktail Award Winners

Aug 2nd, 2010 by

July 21-25, 2010

The streets of the French Quarter were given a full shake and an Absinthe rinse for the 5-day fiesta that was the 8th Annual Tales of the Cocktail.

Bartenders, barbacks, barmaids, bar wenches and bar geeks invaded New Orleans once again this year for what has become the premier yearly gathering for spirit hounds.

Just to give you a sense of what hosting thousands of fans celebrating at the sacred altar of the cocktail entails, they tallied a brief summary from 2009:

13,884 mint leaves · 14,000 lemons · 11,250 limes · 192 pounds of sugar · 1,824 Driscoll’s Blackberries and Driscoll’s Blueberries · 74 Gallons Lime Juice · 82 Gallons Lemon Juice · 45 Gallons Grapefruit Juice · 21 Gallons Pineapple Juice · 25 Gallons Tomato Juice · 75 Gallons Simple Syrup · 950 Luxardo cherries · 450 cucumber wheels · 10 Gallons Rich Simple Syrup · 5 Gallons Honey Syrup · 3100 Driscoll’s Raspberries · 1400 Tropicana Orange twists · 1200 Lemon Twists · 1250 Lime Wheels · 940 Lemon Wheels · 400 Lemon Wedges · 430 Lime Wedges · 350 Stalks of Celery

Yeah, this list pretty much speaks for itself…it’s an onslaught of hedonistic fun, a celebration of the bartender as true artisan and a chance to honor those who are forerunners in the field.

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Classic Cocktail Tuesdays: The Caipirinha

Jul 27th, 2010 by

“Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water.  Dark and dusty, painted on the sky.  Misty taste of moonshine, teardrops in my eye.

Country roads, take me home.  To the place where I belong.” -John Denver

Every country has it’s hillbillies.  Its backwaters where the yokels live by their own rules.  For Brazil, these people are called “Caipirinha“, but where and how this name became synonymous with the national cocktail of Brazil is anyone’s guess.

But the national cocktail it is, and from the coast of Sao Paulo to the banks of the Amazon, the Caipirnha rages in popularity with the elite and the yokels alike.

Based on the classic “sour cocktail” formula (base spirit, lemon or lime juice and a sweetening agent), the soul of the Caipirinha comes from Cachaça, a liquor made from fermented sugarcane.  By far the most popular distilled alcohol in Brazil, in 2007, a whopping 1.5 billion liters (390 million gallons) were consumed.

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