Christmas is almost upon us and that means family, shopping, drinking, resting, eating, drinking, sleeping and shoveling the drive way. As you might have noticed, all of these things have reduced my posting frequency. I have a bunch of stuff in the "pipeline" and hopefully during the Christmas holiday I'll get some stuff posted. No promises though, I might just decide to catch up on a years worth of missing sleep. At the very least, to keep you entertained, I'll try to post some drink newspaper clips from the 1800's. Here's one about "creating a demand" which seems rather relevant in today's competitive spirit market.

Ahhh, another Mixology Monday. I was a delinquent last time, so Paul "Dad" Clarke gave me detention and told me I better straighten up and not miss the December edition, otherwise there would be hell to pay. From all accounts, Paul is a nasty task master, so I'm not going challenge his authority. The theme for this edition is "Spice", since Craig (Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments) is a huge fan of the Spice Girls. So in honour of them, and Craig, I give to you an original cocktail creation called Sailors Fire.

The recent upswing in popularity of spirits has had good and bad effects. The good part is that there are many more options for the consumer, with the healthy competition producing gads of new products. The bad part is that to fill the demand many companies have cut back on quality, and put it into marketing. At what point does the marketing overshadow the tradition of a product? To some it might leave a hollow feeling to know that the vodka you drink is made in an industrial facility that also makes ethanol for cars. Or that scotch that you drink is mostly contract manufactured and "assembled" and labeled by the company. But, some companies hold on to tradition, one of them being Balvenie.