Blog

The Technology Behind Nonalcoholic Vermouth

I spoke with Martini and Rossi’s Master Blender, Giuseppe “Beppe” Musso, and Senior Master Herbalist Ivano Tonutti to learn how they made their new nonalcoholic vermouths.

It was fascinating!

The story is now live at AlcoholProfessor.com.

January 6, 2023
Wall Street Journal Review of Doctors and Distillers

Previously the Wall Street Journal had posted an excerpt from my book Doctors and Distillers, so I wasn't expecting this review from wine writer Eric Asimov to come in.

Read it here!

January 3, 2023
Review of Doctors and Distillers in The American Spectator

A very nice review by Kevin R Kosar in The American Spectator!

Walk into the average American grocery store and you will see the spices in one aisle, herbal cures in another, and beer and wine somewhere else. Over-the-counter medicines have their own section, and drugs are locked up behind the pharmacist’s counter. And distilled spirits, well, you likely will not find them on the shelves — they typically are exiled to dedicated liquor stores. Separate products for separate purposes, all packaged, marketed, and sold separately.

This state of affairs developed only in the past century, as one learns from Camper English’s diverting Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails (Penguin, 2022). Hitherto, these foodstuffs were united in the form of boozy health tonics and curatives, which the sick or simply thirsty acquired from apothecaries, monks, barbers, or other medicine men.

…

Camper English’s Doctors and Distillers is a delightful way to journey back in time and see the many and often crazy ways that drink and medicine merged. Having finished reading this expansive book, nonetheless my yearning for those remarkable days of yesteryear remain. So off to a bar I shall go, where I can relive them by paying a mixologist to serve me an elixir of Fernet-Branca and cola, or perhaps a slug of herb-loaded Jägermeister.

read it here!

December 17, 2022
Patterned Ice is the New Logo Ice

In my first story for Vinepair.com, I wrote about patterned ice – the history and the trend.

I'm pretty proud of this one! Read it here.

December 13, 2022
The Big Nonalcoholic Spirits Rating, Round Two
In 2021 I hosted a group of bartenders to taste a big batch of nonalcoholic spirits. Read that write-up here.

Since then, many new brands have come onto the market or been newly imported into the USA. I lined up 17 expressions and tasted them. Fifteen are pictured below, plus I tried the new nonalcoholic vermouth/aperitivos from Martini & Rossi.

I am not going to take the time to write out my tasting notes, sorry, but I'll share my favorites.

Note that the previous tasting was blind, mostly in Daiquiri format. For this tasting I tasted them neat and not blind. To be truly fair I would do a cocktail taste test with each, because sometimes the flavors in n/a spirits that are overwhelmingly perfumy on their own (a huge negative to me) aren't so intense when mixed.

Nonalcoholic Spirits that are Pretty Good from this Group, Kept the Bottles and Will Drink:
- Everleaf Marine
- Free Spirits Gin [buy]
- Spiritless Kentucky 74 Cinnamon Whiskey
- Free Spirits Bourbon [buy]
- Ghia [buy]
Nonalcoholic Spirits I Think are Good Enough to Maybe Drink Without Mixers, just neat or on the rocks (The Best of this Tasting):
- Everleaf Forest
- Cut Above Mezcal
- Free Spirits Tequila [buy]
- Dromme Calm
- Martini & Rossi Vibrante
- Martini & Rossi Floreale
The rest I didn't think were worthy. But this list has a lot more winners than the last tasting!

Notes:
- The Free Spirits Gin is the only n/a gin I've tried that I think is drinkable at all, but even this one does not taste like gin. None of them do. I recently found out the reason for this and will share on another post!
- The Martini aperitifs have a base of dealcoholized wine, and this makes for a big difference. I have a story going up on AlcoholProfessor in a few weeks in which I review the details on those products. It's cool stuff.
- Dromme Calm is… not calming but it tastes good. It has tons of capsaicin in it I think, so it's super spicy.
- Several of the ones with fruit or vegetable juices in them tasted spoiled or cooked.
- As mentioned above, the ones that were perfumy – often soapy- were ones I also rated low. Perhaps they'd perform better in specific drinks.
November 20, 2022
An Easy “Trick” for Removing Clear Ice Cubes from Trays

A lot of times I make clear ice in a Ghost Ice or Clearly Frozen tray and after a day and a half or so, it's plenty of frozen enough. If I let it go for two days or longer it is harder to remove the ice cubes – or rather, harder to separate the tray on top from the reservoir/cooler on the bottom.

Often I will realize as I'm heading out the door to work that I should empty the trays so that they don't freeze much longer, but don't want to take the time to pull them or wait for them to warm up a little.

My "trick" for this is to simply move the trays into the refrigerator and leave them there all day.

Ice stays frozen surprisingly long in the refrigerator. Blocks of ice are still solid, and in the case of cubes, putting them in the fridge all day actually helps the trays pop off the cooler, and helps them slide right out of the trays.

Here's a video demo of that.

October 8, 2022
Cocktails at the new Causwells in San Francisco

The Marina district bistro Causwells has reopened with Elmer Mejicanos (Tony's, Red Window) onboard as the Managing Partner and Beverage Director.

He put together a really ambitious cocktail list for the small restaurant with tons of outdoor seating.

With a group of friends, I was able to try a lot of the cocktails. Favorites outside of the below were: the Grasshopper, Cleverest Clover Club, Monkey Business, White Caus-mopolitan, Gin 50-50, and La Pina.

But my most favorites of all were:

Open Sesame
milagro tequila, bianco vermouth, cold pressed poblano, lime, agave, toasted sesame

credit: Stephanie Amberg

Cantélope Cruz
cantaloupe, reyka vodka, lillet blanc, honey, ricotta, lemon, fresh ground black pepper

credit: Stephanie Amberg

Fig News
mommenpop, kumquat, green walnut, fig leaf cordial, sparkling wine

I thought the Deconstructed Pimm's Cup (pimms, hendricks gin, chareau, cold pressed cucumber & strawberry, lemon, ginger beer) was also lovely, and is a great looking drink.

credit: Stephanie Amberg

And the Ube-tter bee-lieve it (2 year cinnamon & pineapple vinegar, clarified ube golden milk, lemon, bubbles, ube foam) is a stunner!

credit: Stephanie Amberg

Bonus photos: Grasshopper and 50-50 Martini.

September 28, 2022
Aqua Vitae Opinions from a 1540 Book on Metallurgy
I read about a reference to distillation in the Pirotechnia, so I decided to look up the book.

According to Wikipedia, "De la Pirotechnia is considered to be one of the first printed books on metallurgy to have been published in Europe. It was written in Italian and first published in Venice in 1540. The author was Vannoccio Biringuccio, a citizen of Siena, Italy, who died before it was published."

I typed in the one page on which it seems to be mentioned:

To conclude at last these methods of distilling and extracting waters are varied according to the wishes that come to the minds of the workers. But in my opinion the true way is to adapt the fires well, with which you can do whatever pleases you when you wish, without the necessity of so much coöperating equipment. For this reason it would perhaps be necessary that I tell you here of the shapes and kinds of the furnaces, but I have decided to tell you of them farther on and here, in order not to break the discourse on distillation, I will tell you in detail the methods that are used for making aqua vitae.

Many call this water of life in order to exalt it it, but they also say that for him who does not know how to make it, it should be called water of death. This is that substance and that agent which the alchemists bring to such subtlety that they call it the Quintessence and they credit it with so many virtues and powers [128] that the heavens could scarcely perform more. It is indeed true that he who considers it well will see great and laudable effects. In addition to some experiences, I remember having seen a treatise on this in which an experimenter had noted more than two hundred experimental effects. But if it is true, as the alchemists say, that this power alone makes metals grow and revives half-dead bodies, all the other things that they say of it must also be believed. It is certainly evident that it is one of the things that are very preservative against putrefaction and is beneficial to many cold and moist sicknesses. The quality of this is subtle, fiery, and penetrating and these subtle, fiery, and penetrating and these subtle investigators believe that it extracts the virtues from everything that is put into it and converts them into its own subtle and penetrating nature. In short, they say so many things about it that it would be too long a subject if I should now wish to related it to you.

This confirms a few things and I think adds some depth to some of the material from Doctors and Distillers.
- It was still hard to make well, despite first references to distilling wine dating to pre-1200. There is a quote found in A History of the World in 6 Glasses: "One chronicler recorded the death in 1405 of Richard MacRaghnaill, the son of an Irish chieftain, who died “after drinking water of life to excess; and it was water of death to Richard.”
- Maybe the "water of death" stuff is about methanol?
- This text refers to "the quintessence" rather than individual quintessences, but then later "extracts the virtues from everything that is put into it and converts them into its own subtle and penetrating nature" To me this reads as shifting thought as to whether the water of life is all-powerful or just powerful.
- The author clearly thinks the superlatives ascribed to aqua vitae are overblown.
September 26, 2022
Fall and Winter 2022 Drink Book Preview

So many drink books are coming out before the end of 2022 I decided to make a list of them.

Links are to Amazon and they earn me an affiliate fee.

The Little Book of Aperitifs: 50 Classic Cocktails and Delightful Drinks

Cheer: A Liquid Gold Holiday Drinking Guide

The Cocktail Edit: Everything You Need to Know About How to Make All the Drinks that Matter

The Bartender's Manifesto: How to Think, Drink, and Create Cocktails Like a Pro

Cocktails, A Still Life: 60 Spirited Paintings & Recipes

The Wine Bible, 3rd Edition

Free Spirit Cocktails: 40 Nonalcoholic Drink Recipes

New Mocktails Bible: All Occasion Guide to an Alcohol-Free, Zero-Proof, No-Regrets, Sober-Curious Lifestyle (Fox Chapel Publishing) 250 Tasty Drink Recipes Made with Fresh Ingredients

Cocktail Time!: The Ultimate Guide to Grown-Up Fun

Seattle Cocktails: An Elegant Collection of Over 100 Recipes Inspired by the Emerald City

Behind the Bar: Gin: 50 Gin Cocktails from Bars Around the World

Cocktail Botanica: 60+ Drinks Inspired by Nature

Brand Mysticism: Cultivate Creativity and Intoxicate Your Audience

Dicktales or Thankyous and Sluggings

Cheers!: Cocktails & Toasts to Celebrate Every Day of the Year

The Five-Bottle Bar: A Simple Guide to Stylish Cocktails

A Bartender's Guide to the World: Cocktails and Stories from 75 Places

Imbibing for Introverts: A Guide to Social Drinking for the Anti-Social

American Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Original Spirit

Pour Me Another: 250 Ways to Find Your Favorite Drink

Midcentury Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America's Atomic Age

World Cocktail Adventures: 40 Destination-Inspired Drinks

Twist: Your Guide to Creating Inspired Craft Cocktails

Raising the Bar: A Bottle-by-Bottle Guide to Mixing Masterful Cocktails at Home

Steve the Bartender's Cocktail Guide: Tools – Techniques – Recipes

Beer A Tasting Course: A Flavor-Focused Approach to the World of Beer

The Anchor Brewing Story: America's First Craft Brewery & San Francisco's Original Anchor Steam Beer

Classic Cocktails Done Well: Tried-and-True Recipes for the Home Bartender

60-Second Cocktails: Amazing Drinks to Make at Home in a Minute

How to Drink Like a Rock Star: Recipes for the Cocktails and Libations that Inspired 100 Music Legends

Modern Classic Cocktails: 60+ Stories and Recipes from the New Golden Age in Drinks

Bar Menu: 100+ Drinking Food Recipes for Cocktail Hours at Home

The Cocktail Cabinet: The art, science and pleasure of mixing the perfect drink

A Sense of Place: A journey around Scotland's whisky

Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em from the Award-Winning Bar

Trap Kitchen: The Art of Street Cocktails

Just a Spritz: 57 Simple Sparkling Sips with Low to No Alcohol

Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice, Water, Earth

September 13, 2022
A Nice Review on DrinkHacker of Doctors and Distillers

DrinkHacker posted a nice review of Doctors and Distillers.

English does an excellent job diving deep into the symbiotic history between medicine and alcohol, but he skillfully avoids the dry, academic presentation of information with a light touch and informal accessibility usually absent in alcohol history books.

Reviewer Rob Theakston gives it an "A" or a 9.5 out of 10. Read it here.

September 8, 2022