Recently in General Category

For Part III of my look into crystal clear ice, I ventured to a company less than an hour from where I live that specializes in making clear ice. It should be no surprise that a company located in Canada is doing amazing things with ice, but the fact that they ship the ice to the four corners of the globe is impressive. Their key to success is the sheer quantity of crystal clear ice they produce on any given day and their ability to sculpt it into fascinating structures.

No! No! No! In normal amounts (up to 5 cups of coffee) the caffeine content does not cause dehydration and there is a lot of scientific research to back that claim up. However, if you perform an Internet search for the terms “caffeine dehydrate hangover” the top results come back saying that it does. Now I will say again “No it doesn’t!”. This is a major flaw in search engines algorithms because the older the page and the more people that link to it, the more authority it has, but it doesn’t mean it’s right. These search results only help to propagate out dated research and old-wives tales. So what’s the real story and what can be done?

Irony seems to have an unnatural affinity for the bartending side of my career. I find cocktails and drinks fascinating, I seem to have an ability to create new cocktails that are well received and I have the gift of the gab, a perfect trait for a bartender. The confounding problem is that for years I have attempted to bring good cocktails to this city, but each time I run headlong into a wall of resistance. On Friday I was convinced that I had broken down that wall, only to discover on Saturday that I was to be foiled once again.

The giving season has returned and with it comes the onslaught of the annual wish lists and press releases that try to convince everyone that a particular item is a must have do-dad. Most of the time they miss the mark, sometimes there is a gem. But for me, I did deeper and try to find things that people will actually like, well okay, things I like, want and would use. I've taken my cue this year from Simple Plan's "My Christmas List" and I want everything!

Plans for the spring and summer are heating up so get ready to make some travel plans. First, I’ll be bringing the Sensory Perception and Mixology session to Germany in May. This is an updated presentation with some new material which includes anti-bitters (AMP). Additionally, in July I’ll be presenting to brand new presentations at Tales of the Cocktail. The first is Drinks from the 1600’s and then I’ll be doing Sugar: The Science of Sweet. If you like drink history, you’ll find the 1600’s a unique period and if you enjoyed the Sensory Perception presentation, the Science of Sweet is the continuation. Take the link for more info.

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?

Public Relations (PR) is something that almost every company on the planet invests in. Some companies do it in house and other hire a firm that specializes in getting “the word” out. Like anything, there are great PR agencies and there are some bad ones. The bad ones aren’t necessarily trying to be annoying, but their style of creativity can be abrasive. When you match this up with the blogger type publisher, you can get create some friction.

While I was reading an article, by Stephen Beaumont, he linked to the "Omnivores 100", which is a list of 100 foods the author of Very Good Taste thinks you should try at least once in your lifetime. Well, I thought it was such a good idea that I made one for "Imbibers". This list isn't all encompassing, nor is it a "good stuff only" list. There are a few things that may make you pause. In most cases the list is not brand specific, but for certain things it is, because of the world wide popularity. Feel free to participate, or not, but it is a good exercise to see what you are missing in life.

This particular cocktail ingredient has had a significant amount of discussion in the old blogosphere. Many of the cocktail luminaries, if there is such a thing, have researched the origins of this flavour syrup from the Barbados. None more than Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh. In a now defunct Martini Republic post, the good Doctor made a couple of statements about Falernum that I have been able to clarify, and improve upon his research. These documents also have a recipe for Falernum that dates back to 1896. There is also a reference to drinking it with Wormwood bitters. Curious?

The world of blogging is interesting, to say the least. To be successful, you must be passionate about your topic and secondly you must write without reservations or expectations. That means you do it because you like to, not because you get paid. For most bloggers, in the cocktail realm, that is the standard. Sure there are perks, like free booze mail, which causes a Pavlovian response everytime the UPS truck drives past the house. Or better yet, there are a few advertisers that pay to place a banner on our sites and I’d just like to make mention of it.

The cocktail is going through another "golden age", but it seems to be happening in only a handful of locales. This is understandable, since renewed ideas take time to grow and spread. But, in the city I live, London, Ontario (Canada) the idea of a good, or interesting, cocktail is about as alien as life from another planet. I am literally stuck in a cocktail backwater where ordering anything that is not a Cosmopolitan or Vodka Martini is effectively impossible. If I want to have a good cocktail I can drive two hours to Toronto or possibly 90 minutes to Detroit. Having said that, Detroit probably won't be a cocktail mecca anytime soon. 

I've asked this question a lot over the past two months and you may have been too, so here is the answer. Well, it is a bunch of things that have created a giant time vortex that's sucked all of my minutes from me, for the last couple of months. Some of it fun, some of it work and some of it just headache inducing, nauseating, not so fun and it doesn't pay, type stuff. Too bad you can't just go to the store and pick up one of those card for extra life minutes instead of cellphone minutes. So on with the list of excuses!

Well, some of you may have noticed that my posting frequency has plummeted, but for good reasons, I assure you. I spent all of that time upgrading and redesigning this site, actually now called artofdrink.com, I dropped the "The". I probably would have been done quicker if I just did a basic make-over, but no, I had to upgrade the whole internal system, which was an absolute nightmare. Other than that I'm very happy with the new design, which should provide a whole lot more flexibility in the future. For all the new features and benefits please read on, but if you are reading this via an RSS feed, you should check out the main page, at least once, to get a look at the redesign.

by Caroline O'Neil

Okay, so where's Darcy and where in the heck have I been? I did a few guest posts a little while ago. Alright so it was a long time ago. Most of you have probably already forgotten about Darcy's boss. I assure you that I am not responsible for Darcy's absence. He started off the new year with BIG plans and he has diligently been working on delivering them.

Another year has passed and as always it is a good time to look forward. Even though, like most people, I have big ideas for the coming year, they don't always pan out. But, if you set the bar too low, you'll never accomplish anything. Set the bar way too high, and by the end of the year you may not succeed in reaching that lofty height, but you'll probably end up going higher than you thought. So as per my usual, I have big plans, but don't hold me to them.

As usual,it is the time of year where I like to reflect back on the last twelve months and list some of the highlights and lowlights for the Art of Drink. Overall it was a great year with the idea of a good cocktail having broken through in a significant way. There is still a long way to go before cocktails replace beer and wine, but 2007 was a very progressive year. It was also a good year for the Art of Drink. Currently this is the 315th article published, and the site has 1766 comments. This year the site had 484,761 unique visitors with 2,106,623 pages delivered. Not bad for something that started off as a way to collect my thoughts on all things bar related. Testing123

Every once in a while I get a comment that rubs me the wrong way. I usually ignore them and press the "junk comment" button, sending the offending comment down the proverbial data toilet. But this comment is epic. When dumb people speak, or type, the truth can be found in between the lines. Hell, some of it is spelled out very clearly. This one is supposedly from someone who thinks they are the best thing to happen to bartending since Jerry Thomas. Everything he says in his comment is everything I hate about bartending. Don't get me wrong, I love bartending, but it is people like this that make being a "professional" bartender difficult.

Well, it isn’t often that I take a break from writing about cocktails and such, but with the nice autumn weather there seemed to be a lot of yard work, and home improvements, to do. Also, it has been a rare week where TV has pulled me from my beloved Internet connection. I guess we all need an occasional break from the things we normally do. But that doesn’t mean I stopped experimenting with cocktails and such. Actually, I discovered a great new purpose for Angostura bitters, continued to work on my batch of Pimento Dram and started work on a liquor related side project.

This is one of those general update post to let you know what I have in the queue and what I’ve been working on. The month of August has been exceptionally quiet in the blogosphere, well for me at least. It must be the hangover from Tales of the Cocktail. The quiet time has allowed me to work on a few projects that have been sitting on the backburner.