Blog

Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Sanchez Romate
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Sanchez Romate.

(Our guide used a barrel as a chalkboard.)

(Our host.)

(The bodega is relatively small and sort of goth.)

(We signed a barrel.)
- Not a touristy bodega- don’t do tours
- Fino has more oxidation than manzanilla because the flor dies in winter and summer in Jerez.
- Delicious amontillado 5 years under flor
- Muscatel was like blueberry pie filling with curry
- Brandy Cardenal Mendoza top selling brandy de Jerez in US
December 28, 2010
Cheers to Rudolph, Not the Reindeer

(Image courtesy of Cherry Heering.)

In my latest blog post at FineCooking.com, I introduce the Blood and Sand. The cocktail was almost certainly created in honor of the 1922 silent movie of the same name, staring Rudolph Valentino.

I've also written a long story about all the different ways bartenders are changing this drink, but that's going in an upcoming issue of Mixology Magazine so unless you read German you're out of luck on that one.

I will say, though, that should you decide to watch the movie on which the drink is based, the 1941 version with Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power is much more entertaining than the original. Unless you want to watch Rudolph on a silent night.

The blog post is here.

December 24, 2010
Tequila Distillery Visit: Herradura
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to theHerradura distillery in the town of Amatitan.

(Here they split the agave in two before baking.)

(The magic of Herradura is that it ferments naturally- no yeast is added.)

(Sleeping tequila.)
- Agave grows for 7-10 years before harvesting
- Jimadors work for 6 hours a day and harvest about 120 plants
- They use clay/brick ovens, each one holding about 48 tons
- Agave cooks for 26 hours then cools for 24
- They use a rollermill to shred the agave after cooking, then a diffuser to get out the last bits of sugar
- The fermentation takes about 4 days
- The first distillation takes 3 hours, the second 6
- They use stainless steel stills
- They don't move the barrels around, refill them where they are. Use same barrels for about 10 years before replacing
- Between Herradura, El Jimador, and Antiguo, all of which are 100% agave products, they say the only difference is the amount of aging and the percent of alcohol. [That's not quite true, here is a chart that spells out the differences.]
- They age in all new American oak barrels.
- The reposado is aged for 11 months
December 23, 2010
Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Osborne
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Osborne.

(The logo for Osborne is the silhouette of a bull. You see it all around.)

(This is barrel with a clear end so you can see how flor (a layer of yeast) lives on top of the sherry. The yeast consumes nutrients in the alcohol, and also protects it from oxidation in fino and manzanilla sherries.)

(Aging sherry.)

(After the Osborne bodega visit, some local food to soak up the sherry.)
- Huge company with biggest selling products port, water, ham, etc.
- Their fino has a five level solera, fairly unique
- Have a “Fino-Amontillado” with a lot of time under flor. It’s their signature product.
- Want more humidity in bodegas where fino is aged
December 20, 2010
Tequila Distillery Visit: Jose Cuervo
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Jose Cuervo distillery in the town of Tequila.

(First we visited an agave field.)

(The jimador harvested the agave plant to get the pina, or pineapple, center.)

(I planted my own agave from the cuttings of a mother plant. I'll need to go back there in 7 or so years and drink that sucker.)

(After harvesting, they load the agave pinas into the ovens. I didn't notice at the time, but it appears they put the whole agaves into the ovens without chopping them into smaller pieces.)

(Copper pot stills.)

(We sampled some Reserva de la Famila out of the barrel.)
- April and May are the planting months for agave
- Agave is harvested year-round, though they usually avoid the rainiest month
- Cuervo irrigates their agave
- They prune the leaves of their agave plants for three reasons: Because they're sharp, to avoid insects laying eggs in them, and to help the heart grow faster
- For Reserva de la Familia, they cut out the cogollo, not for the mixto
- Cuervo owns 4 distilleries
- The distillery had 110,000 visitors last year
- They use only oven, no autoclaves
- The product of the first distillation, called ordinario, is cloudy
- Heads and tails are called vinasas. They are mixed with the agave fibers and made into fertilizer. This happens here and at most distilleries we visited.
- Reserva de la Familia agave is grown in special fields. It is aged in a combination of French and American oak barrels.
(I think it's a raven and not a crow, but hey look, I took a cool picture!)

(We had a horse and lasso show before dinner. )
December 17, 2010
Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Grupo Estevez
In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Grupo Estevez.

(Sherry sleeping peacefully in the bodega.)

(One of the warehouses is named for flamenco dancer Lola Flores.)

(Horse stables and ring behind the bodegas. Jerez is home to flamenco, dancing horses, and sherry.)

(The interior is a fancy place with fine art and marble statues.)
- Tio Mateo, Agostino, Tesoro, La Gita are some of their brands
- They used to have several bodegas, centralized them all to the one we visited 20 years ago
- One bodega named after flamenco dancer Lola Flores
- La Gita manzanilla from Sanlucar is the only manzanilla that has a production date on the bottle- should help us Americans know when its too old to buy
- Inocente Fino is fermented in the barrel not in stainless tanks.
December 16, 2010
Tequila Distillery Visit: Cazadores and Corzo
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Cazadores and Corzo distillery in the town of Arandas.

(Autoclaves cook agave much faster than traditional brick/clay ovens.)

(It's a huge operation here. The liquids travel in pipes through a tunnel beneath a road separating parts of the distillery.)

(Stainless steel stills.)
- In 1922 the recipe for Cazadores reposado was created
- They process 200 tons of agave per day in the distillery
- The autoclaves cook agave for 10 hours at 120 Celsius. Soon they're reducing the cooking time to 8 hours.
- After shredding the agave (after cooking it in autoclaves), they put it in a diffuser; a relatively recent technology that gets the last bits of the sugar out of the agave
- They allow the agave to ferment for about 4 days. The tequila undergoes an alcoholic then a malolactic fermentation
- The first distillation takes about 10 hours, the second takes about 24 hours
- The stills are stainless steel
- They do have a column still that they use "when demand is high"
- Corzo starts from Cazadores reposado. It is then redistilled and re-aged.
- They aged in new white American oak, with some French oak for Corzo
(After the tour, dinner and a dance show in the distillery.)
December 15, 2010
Bits and Pieces from Winter Drinking Guide in 7×7 Magazine
My San Francisco winter drinking guide in 7×7 Magazine is coming online in bits and pieces.

Here are some:
December 14, 2010
Hot Buttered Fun

Hot Buttered Fun would be a good party band name, right?

My latest post on FineCooking.com is up. It's a recipe for the Hot Buttered Anejo, which is a hot buttered tequila that I had one night when the brand Avion was pouring drinks at Elixir.

Check it out here.

December 14, 2010
Four Roses Bourbon Distillery Visit

This week I was in Kentucky for a quick visit to the Four Roses distillery. For some history on this brand, see this post a I wrote a few years ago. In short, Four Roses was only a bourbon in Japan for many years, and has recently come back to the US market. They use two mashbills (grain makeup) and five strains of yeast to make ten recipes of bourbon.

The ten recipes blended together ensure a consistent bourbon from batch to batch. Another way they help do this is by having single-story rickhouses. While other brands have several floors in their rickhouses with quite extreme temperature variations in them, at Four Roses they're only one floor high, six barrels tall, with a much less variation in temperature from top to bottom.

We did two tastings at the distillery. One was tasting all ten recipes of the white dog. They have quite the wide range of flavor, from fruity to spicy. The second was tasting several barrels all with the same recipe from different barrels. This was fascinating as there was a surprisingly large difference: one tasted like oloroso sherry, one like apricot socks, one like creamed corn.

Largely because they've been selling mostly in Japan, they use all non-GMO corn. Distillery Jim Rutledge says they don't really advertise that because he doesn't expect they'll be able to get enough non-GMO corn to continue doing so: everything is being replaced by the modified stuff.

Well I have to run to another event- more on this interesting brand another time.

December 8, 2010