The Barley-Confection Synthesis: Tips for Pairing Beer and Halloween Candy

All Hallows’ Eve is fast approaching. An exorbitant trove of candy has been procured; the front yard is decorated with fiendish skeletons, gravestones and zombies. Perhaps you will be chasing around a few moppets veiled as Minions as they traverse the neighborhood streets in diligent search of sugar-coated treats. Alternatively, your evening responsibilities may include staying at home and doling out confectionary delights to ghoulish passersby. In either case, and with all of these painstaking Halloween preparations, it may have been easy to overlook one inexorable fact: you are destined to possess a large candy cache come All Saints Day. The confection inundation dilemma: what to do with it all? Fear not; there is still time to plan appropriately.

This week our expert beer panel hits the sweet spot with ten spooky beers that will pair brilliantly with your leftover Halloween candy. So dig through that candy bowl, extract the preeminent confections, and let’s get to work.

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The Enchanted Vinous Collective: Spooky Wines and Halloween Wisdom With Jorge Garcia and Kevin Keaveney

In Part I of the Enchanted Vinous Collective, I recommended a few bargain spooky wines to bring to your Halloween party that will simultaneously keep you in theme and a few extra dollars in your pocket. Win-Win. On certain occasions, however, you may require a high quality vino for your All Hallows’ Eve exploits. Perhaps you are attending a party hosted by your sommelier and oenophilic friend. In that case, a bargain wine just won’t impress. Or perhaps you prefer to indulge at home with a glass of wine and your favorite cinematic Halloween horror. We have you covered.

To inject qualified expertise into the Halloween dialogue, I sit down with Kevin Keaveney and Jorge Garcia (LOST, Hawaii Five-O), two consummate Halloween super fans and masterminds behind Skeleton Key Hawaii’s unparalleled haunt experience, Mummy: Curse of the Crypt. We sample a few spooky wines from the top shelf while discussing Halloween movies, music and events that are certain satisfy your ghoulish proclivities. Need some inspiration and recommendations for all things Halloween? We have it.

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Wine Country Conflagration: Devastating Wildfires Sweeping Across Northern California

Many readers, including myself, are extremely blessed. Wine brings joy to many of us, and we have the financial means to procure it without much thought or hesitation. With it we celebrate, we toast, we fellowship with friends. Wine is a catalyst for festivity, merriment and conversation.

We colloquially discuss wine in terms of varietal, region or style. This week, however, we are painfully reminded that each glass is unequivocally defined by people. It represents farmers. It represents families. It represents communities with proud traditions and heritage. People like us; families and communities like our own.

Too many of those who labor tirelessly to produce our favorite wines presently find themselves injured, homeless, and with their livelihood entirely dismantled. A state of affairs that is difficult to fathom.

In lieu of a regular post this week, I am compelled to pause and reflect upon, and to raise awareness of, the devastating wildfires sweeping across Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties of Northern California.

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The Enchanted Vinous Collective: Spooky Wines for Your Halloween Palooza

October is here. Let the Halloween excitement commence. It is finally time to adorn your long-anticipated, carefully-crafted costume for this year’s epic All Hallow's Eve Extravaganza. To accompany your glorious attire, some spooky skeleton cake pops and a bottle of wine should be a sufficient entry fee. So, what wine befits such an occasion?

This is not the night for serious wines. Proof is in the mirror: you are presently stuffed with pillows and outfitted in an uncomfortable body suit in vain attempt to impersonate everyone’s favorite Star Wars galactic gangster and crime lord, Jabba Desilijic Tiure aka Jabba the Hutt. You look sufficiently nonsensical; don’t confuse things further by toting a 2010 Cos d’Estournel.

Instead, go spooky or go home. In this post, I offer a few easy tips and recommendations for procuring the perfect vinous beverage for this year’s Allhallowe'en Palooza. Let's get creepy ...

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Musings by the Snifter: An Autumn Whiskey Primer

Autumn has arrived. Welcomed brisk morning air, fall colors, flavors and smells. Unwelcomed pumpkin spice lattes, leaf peepers and premature Christmas paraphernalia at Costco. But the best of all: whiskey, the illustrious beverage of my noble Scotch-Irish heritage. Smoky, caramel, dried fruit flavors and alcohol that warms the palate encapsulates the quintessential autumn beverage. As autumn descends, this post ensures that you are primed and ready for whiskey season.

Whiskey is more than just a tasty inebriating beverage; it is an elicitation of time, place and people. Place evidenced by terroir, climate and agriculture. Distillers use and adapt to what is around them. People influence the final product through economic considerations, cultural traditions, and distilling practices that impart exclusive flavors. This autumn whiskey primer presents a narrative of whiskey and its famous regions in this context. Hopefully, it has you reaching for a glass …

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Cork vs. Screw Cap: Uncorking Conventional Wine Bottle Closure Lore

Let us muse, for a moment, on the issue of bottle closure methods, a debate that has gained momentum in recent years. Which is superior: the time-tested, almighty cork, or the upstart, convenient screw cap?

The two camps are entrenched. Traditionalists claim that only cork allows wine to age gracefully. Those hipster modernists, on the other hand, insist that screw caps prevent excess oxidation and cork taint, while affording easy opening. Get drinking, 10 seconds faster.

Who is correct… or is there even a “correct”? Let’s find out ...

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