As cocktail trends get oakier and smokier mixologists are always looking for new tricks to enhance the taste and the theater of their work. Gone are the oohs and lick lipping ahhs of Tom Cruise flipping bottles. On a recent trip to Milan I had a bartender smoke infuse my Old Fashioned right in front of me. The guys at Oak Bottle are bringing some of that mixology magic to your dinner party or, just your daily post work unwinder sips. The idea was born from the technic of using smaller barrels to “age” wine faster. Taking that a step farther, Oak Bottle aims to age whatever you’d like to put in it. Consider it super small batch.
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Sunday Beer Co
Today is the perfect day to talk Sunday Beer. Not just because it’s the first day of the week but because here in NYC the mercury will not stay above 30 degrees. Sunday isn’t just another straight forward lager craft beer brand. To us it represents a little of that Sunday summer sun we so badly wish we had a ray of right now. We know this for many reasons but our favorite is that the first option on their website nav is not beer, it’s vibes. The story of where they brew and why they put it in cans is as good as my intro to this delectable beverage. Getting your hand son this easy drinking beauty is still a little tough. Available around Brooklyn, we fancy one with our Big Matt at Emmy Squared. A few spots in Manhattan are carrying this day of rest in a can, our go to chicken hit, Fields Good Chicken soon to be added to the list. As they expand distribution we’re guessing this spring every corner bodega will soon have a palette. For now you’ll have to slurp one up at one of these spots.
All Together Beer
Open sourced beer to lower production costs at all corners might sound like Silicon Valley and Golden Colorado had a baby but actually it was the Connecticut Better Half Brewery guys deciding to help their industry, and community, stay on their feet during COVID-19. All Together Beer is the aptly named collaborative brew experiment now being produced by over 700 breweries in 51+ countries. As they mention in their pointed but heartfelt explanation of this project, their business relies on social gathering. The idea was to align a recipe, label design, printers and other resources to cut the production costs and increase the margin. In turn putting more profit into the small breweries utilizing the open source tools. Donate the excess or use it to stay afloat is the only ask from the Other Half team. Based on the recipe, the brew sounds to be a pretty straight forward IPA which will promote consistency across brewing around the world and as the weather gets warmer a cold, refreshing reprieve from the doldrums of our quarantine. Early batches have sold out but with more crafters jumping in weekly more is just a hops away.
Gingeroo Ready-to-Drink Cocktail
My first brush with this was in a small, craft spirits shop near my house. My father has a penchant for ginger and rum so I thought gifting him a bottle would be thoughtful. The following weekend a text storm from my mother was requesting a case. Some for them. Some for the friends they had over for dinner. Apparently, after decoding iMessage, the four of them were really enjoying the Ready-to-Drink part of Gingeroo. My father later expressed to me, in a way only he can, that every adjective on the bottle was completely true to the product. He emphatically recited those adjectives using his self declared third rule of learning, repetition. Last week we got a little closer to the root of the Gingeroo when we were perusing the New Orleans Whole Foods. The Celebration Distillation, located on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, is the oldest premium rum distillery in the United States and the nice peeps at Gingeroo welcome pop-ins. With descriptors like refreshing, spicy and delicious, if the folks that make this nectar are as true to the words on their bottle, it’s worth a stop and a sip.
Mellow Yellow Citrus Soda
We don’t really condone soda. It might be one of the worst offensive product types created by us humans. That said, there is a time and a place. For us that was when we were 14 year old BMX rats who spent most of our free time riding fast and jumping off curved stationary objects. aka – We burnt more glycogen than a space shuttle launch. Since those pre-teen days, we’ve cut the soda imbibing down to the random Mexican coke paired with an animal style In and Out burger. But, the nostalgic ring of a Mellow Yellow jingle can still get conjured up pretty fast, especially when you see a move like this. Over the years Mellow Yellow, Coca Cola’s answer to the popularity of Mountain Dew, has gone through it’s iterations of can designs. Initially targeting the post 70’s hippies and then into 80’s surfers. Finally it settled in with a few iterations for the skate and X-games crews of the 90’s and early oughts. The juice hasn’t changed BUT this post was never about that. The new brand graphics are a huge departure from their history. The move puts them squarely into the energy drink line up (although no new energy added). We love the graphics. We love the “MY” double entendre. We can’t say we love the inner contents but sometimes our excitement isn’t just based on taste.