It’s that time of year when a select group of spirit judges convene on San Francisco and go about sorting through the hundreds of alcohol products to determine their rank in the spirit continuum. The ranking system is designed never to offend anyone, especially the companies paying $400 to submit their product, and especially the ones who’s products are so revolting that they cannot be revealed to the public. Does the San Francisco Spirit Competition reflect anything more than the opinions of a few people and is it really a competition?

Here is another old cocktail (fancy drink), circa 1873, that is named after Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia. The drink comes from an article published in the New Orleans Daily Picayune (1873 and was created by Mr. E.F. Barry, a bartender at the Everett House hotel in uptown New York. You may remember Mr. Barry as the one of the compounders of the Moral Suassion. He created the drink for the Grand Duke, when he toured the United States and Canada in 1871.

Bullets and grenades was what I was thinking when I whipped up this cocktail. As samples arrive on my desk, they sometimes gather into little groups. The Bulleit Bourbon and Zwack bitters were hanging out, which looked like they were plotting a coup or something. For those in the dark, Zwack is a Hungarian company that makes a range of bitters and sells them in bottles that resemble an M67 handgrenade. The Bulleit, should speak for itself. So what do you get when you combine bullets and bombs?

The crew at Drinksville posted two good episodes on Casa Herradura Tequila. Graham takes a tour down to Mexico and checks out the agave plantations and the Herradura distillery. The video is in two parts (Part One / Part Two). If you want some more insight into tequila, check it out.

Of course I forgot pictures in my last post, so here are a few.

For those who don’t follow my rather domestic life on Facebook, I just wanted to announce that Caroline and I have had child #2 on Wednesday (March 11th), a beautiful little girl whose name is Ciara (3.55kg (7lbs 13oz) 51cm (20in)). The name is of Irish origin and means “black” which is very close to the meaning of Darcy, which is “dark”. You’d think we were naming horses. Anyway, everyone is happy, healthy and slightly sleep deprived, but even that hasn’t been to bad so far. As per normal, my posts maybe sporadic, but I’ve been working on some stuff that’s mostly ready to post, so things shouldn’t slow down to much here.

How do you get a cocktail virgin to cast away their chastity belt and jump into the realm of great cocktails? That's the question this edition of Mixology Monday is trying to answer. There isn't one single answer, but I'm of the opinion that you sometimes need to throw people into the breach. A well made cocktail can be appreciated by those that have little, or no, experience with cocktails. If you go really easy on them, they may just stop at the basic level and never move forward. Take the opportunity, when they are open to suggestion, and give them something challenging. The trick is to make sure the cocktail is good enough to pleased, but not so over-the-top that it offends.

A good drink can often be considered "moral suasion". A good one keeps you in your seat, but not by force, and a really good one can persuade you to happily open your wallet and order a second. When I came across this cocktail, in the 1873 Daily Picayune (New Orleans), it piqued my curiosity, partially because this was the very early years of the cocktail art, and it actually looked like a legitimate flavour combination. But like all vintage cocktails, some things are not so easy, like finding real Peach Brandy.