KegWorks Blog

Recently featured in the Santa Barbara News Press Scene Magazine are some of KegWorks’ top tools for bartending. Whether you’re a professional bartender or you play one at home, these accessories can make the arduous job of tending bar quite a bit easier, so they’re always great to have on hand.

Black & Tan Spoon
One helpful gadget, especially around St. Patrick’s Day, is the Black & Tan Spoon. It’s used to make layered beer drinks, like the classic Black and Tan (hence the name) or Half and Halfs. Easier to use than any regular spoon for these treats, the Black & Tan Spoon can almost guarantee perfect layered results every time. What’s more, it has a crook in its handle which lets it easily rest on top of the pint glass, so you don’t have to worry about trying to keep it steady in a rush.

Cocktail Shaker
A favorite of bartenders everywhere is the Cocktail Shaker. Mixed drinks can be stirred up and chilled all at once with a few flicks of the wrist, and then easily strained into a glass. The cocktail shaker is a time saver, and mixes up cocktails much more than just stirring alone ever could.

Margarita Glass Rimmer
If you’ve ever tried to decorate a glass rim with sugar or salt using your hand or some devised contraption, you know it can be a difficult task. That’s where the Margarita Glass Rimmer can really come into play. This three-compartment tray holds your margarita salt and sugar, and the third compartment has a sponge for filling with water. A quick spin on the water sponge, and your rim is ready for a dip into sugar or salt, whatever you fancy.

Cocktail Muddler
This tool brings me back to the days of muddled Old Fashioneds - a favorite poolside drink of my parents - and watching Mom mash oranges and maraschino cherries to a pulp before adding the spirits. The muddler is used to crush fruit, mint leaves or other things of that nature to open up and release their flavors for a better tasting, more opulent drink. A more modern cocktail that’s best created with a good muddling is the Mojito.

Bottle Opener
It may be a simple tool, but most bartenders would say it’s indispensable. The bottle opener is arguably the quintessential element of all bar tools, helping to get hundreds of bottles of beer to patrons faster and easier than trying to do it all by hand ever could. You’ll find bottle openers in all shapes and sizes, but the professionals usually choose one that’s flat with a rubbery grip.

Those are just some of the many bar tools that make tending bar a bit easier and a lot more fun. Stay tuned for more tricks of the trade coming soon!

In Augsburg, Bavaria during the last half of the 15th century, a purity law with respect to brewing practices was adopted. It was called Reinheitsgebot and is still around today. Brewers were using cheap ingredients and substitutes in their beer trying to increase their profits and in turn, creating a bad tasting and sometimes lethal beverage. Punishment under this law resulted in the beer being destroyed and the brewer being fined. The only allowable ingredients were water, hops and barley. (The effects of yeast were unknown at the time and thus have only recently been added to the list of allowable ingredients.)

This law that started in Augsburg, was expanded to all of Bavaria in 1516, and finally adopted throughout Germany. The law led to Germany’s reputation for consistency and quality. The law remains in effect today for Germany’s 900 plus breweries, as does Germany’s reputation for quality and consistency.

Do you know dirty beer glasses can make your draft beer cloudy and flat? If you don’t, read on! If you already do, get drinking.

A dirty glass can keep you from getting a proper head on your draft beer, give your beer a funny taste or make a good beer flat.

What to watch out for:

• Flat beer: If the foamy head disappears quickly when you pour your beer or your beer has that not-so-fresh taste.
• Cloudy Beer: If your beer is not clear and crisp looking, but instead is hazy and cloudy.
• Beer that tastes anything but clean and fresh. If it smells like soap, and tastes like soap – it’s probably soapy!

Have you ever heard the term “beer clean”? It’s colloquial in the bar and restaurant industry; It means ‘really, really clean’. A dirty glass can be laden with oils, dirt and other residuals that you cannot see. These contaminants keep you from pouring the perfect tasting draft beer. So, it is essential, for a true beer lover, to keep your beer glasses ultra clean, or “beer clean”.

Here is what we suggest:

Commercial bars usually use expensive electric cleaners designed specifically for cleaning beer and bar glasses and these work really well for high volume bars. For the home bar owner, a simple, inexpensive powder made specifically for cleaning beer glasses and a manual brush will do the trick.

Hope this helps pave the way for better beer. Keep your eyes out for more beer and bar tips.

When I tell people that my family owns a 1,000-acre ranchero with an agave farm, I get tons of questions about the tequila making process. The fascination, I guess, is that tequila is surrounded by so many stories, myths, and legends.

Here, I will try to answer a few of the questions I have gotten over the years.

Harvesting the Plants

Tequila means “the place of harvesting plants” and is made from “agave tequilana azul” (blue agave tequila plant in English), or simply “agave” for short.

The local people also often call agave, “maguey.” Maguey stems from “gusanos del maguey,” which are the caterpillars that infest agave plants. (This is where the worm in the Tequila bottle comes from.) In Mexico, you can also buy these worms at local markets. They taste great deep-fried with hot sauce in a tortilla - this snack is called “Chinicuiles.” Add a Chapuline (grasshopper) for an extra burst of pepper extract… mmmmmmm… so good. Anyway, back to the tequila plants…

Agave takes 7-10 years to grow. Once the Agave is matured, a “Jimador” is called to inspect the agave to see if it’s ripe for cutting. The sugar levels have to be just perfect. Once the “Jimador” decides that the plants are ready, he chops them down to the core. At the core of the agave plants are the piñas (pineapples).

Turning Water into Wine

The piñas are then taken to a distillery and loaded into an oven. Here they are roasted in “hornos” which, loosely translated, means furnaces.

The roasted piñas are then squeezed for the juice that will eventually make tequila. Once the juices are extracted from the piñas, special yeast recipes are added, and the juices are left for fermenting. During fermenting, the yeast and sugars of the agave plant convert into alcohol. This is when the distillation begins. All tequila, at this point, is clear colorless. The type of aging is how tequila gets its taste and color.

Here are some common types of tequilas:

Blanco or White
Not aged, bottled immediately after the distillation process.

Reposado or Rested
Aged a minimum of 2 months, but less than a year, in oak barrels.

Añejo or Aged
Aged minimum 1 year, but less than 3 years, in oak barrels.

Extra Añejo or Extra Aged
Aged minimum 3 year in oak barrels. This is a new type that started in late 2005.

Oro or Gold
Unaged tequila that has added caramel, fructose, glycerin and/or wood flavoring to resemble aged tequila, like Jose Cuervo.

Reserva
A special Añejo that keeps in oak barrels for up to 8 years. Reserva is the best tasting, hardest to find and most expensive tequila on the market.

When buying Tequila you want to look for a seal that says “Hecho en Mexico.” This means that it was made with 100% agave and bottled in Mexico. Famous Tequilas, like Jose Cuervo, is only 51% agave and exported to be bottled in other countries. Many don’t consider Jose Cuervo real tequila.

The Birth of Tequila

My family’s farm is in Zacatecas, Mexico which borders Jalisco, Mexico. Jalisco is known for being the birthplace of both Tequila and Mariachi music. Both Jalisco and Zacatecas are known for “Blanco Mexicans” (White Mexicans), as large communities of light skinned Mexicans of European decent, many who are French and German, populate these regions.

A little town in the western part of Jalisco, northwest of Guadalajara, is the “Town of Tequila.” Here, the district’s first tequila factory was established in 1600.

Until 1996, Jalisco was the only state in the union to farm agave. Then, in 1996, the high demand for tequila, along with 12-inches of snow that killed the agave harvest, caused prices to soar. But this also brought ease on restriction. My family’s bordering state of Zacatecas, was finally allowed to grow agave.

Unfortunately, because of the lengthy time to farm agave (7-10 years), along with the distillation process, tequila lovers are still feeling the hefty prices at the checkout counter.

Estoy apesadumbrado, mi amigos!

- Quitano
Mow Your Own Lawn

Graduation usually indicates the beginning of a new chapter in life. These new horizons often include a new job, new relationships and, more than likely, new living arrangements. Moving into a new house or apartment provides a fresh set of frustrations, details to attend to and loose ends to tie up.

We’ve addressed one such detail by putting together a set of kitchen essentials to quickly and easily stock your cupboards in one masterful stroke. It has everything you need to get cooking (literally), from pots and pans to knives and measuring cups. See for yourself.

By getting married relatively soon after college I dodged the bullet of having to stock a kitchen, since my wife likes to cook, shop and tweak a wedding registry to perfection (though some here in the office might argue I dodged that bullet only to get hit by the ICBM of marriage… but I digress). My singular kitchenware contribution was a set of glass mixing bowls I got free for opening up a checking account a few of years prior.

My younger brother’s experience is a different story, though not an uncommon one. After graduating from college last year, he and a buddy got an apartment and learned firsthand how annoying it can be to track down all the tools customary to the average kitchen. What they ended up with was mostly secondhand from friends and family, which is nice, except that most of the cookware is in bad shape and hardly qualifies as “essential.” My brother likes cupcakes, but I highly doubt he has much, if any, need for four cupcake pans. To this day, he still uses a frying pan with a loose handle that’s missing most of its Teflon coating.

Amid major life changes it’s understandable when young adults don’t have the need for proper cookware at the front of their mind. It’s up to you - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. – to recognize that need and address it before an issue arises. You don’t want your loved ones eating fast food every day because they don’t have the tools to cook at home, do you? Promote self-sufficiency and ease a major life transition with this ideal graduation or housewarming gift.

This set, however, isn’t only for college graduates. College students moving from the dorm to an apartment, young couples just starting out, or someone of any age facing circumstances requiring a change of address would all make good use of this set.

Also, these essentials are perfect for stocking kitchen shelves in a summer home, cottage, beach house or cabin. Just today, a KegWorks coworker was lamenting all the time and energy he was going to put in furnishing his new summer home on a nearby lake. As the two of us discussed this afternoon and I reiterated above, this thoughtfully assembled and affordable set instantly makes the kitchen one less detail to worry about.

You need to check this out!

One of our customers, Unique Car Audio, in Gilbert, Arizona pimped out this limo, complete with a draft beer system accessible from both inside and outside the limo. Sweet, right?

Even sweeter - apparently, this limo is being used to help one of my favorite cities, the Big Easy. The limo is part of a fleet of volunteers that are traveling cross-country to promote the resurgence of New Orleans. As these do-gooders say on their Web site: “Our mission is simple: to encourage Americans and funhogs worldwide to return to New Orleans, a city eager – and ready – for tourists of all ages to come back”.

We hear that this brigade will be featured on the Ellen show. We’ll see.

We are just psyched to be part of this ingenious creation. And psyched that selling draft beer parts can double as our philanthropic contribution (just kidding).

Really though, I was in just New Orleans, and the hurricanes are flowing and the blues are roaring. So, march yourself down there whether your limo is pimped out or not.

Hey all you dads and graduates out there… I know you don’t want some crappy tie this year. But getting your family and friends to know what you do want - that can be a bit tricky. Well, here’s one idea that’s sure to push them in the right direction:

Send a KegWorks Wish List! It’s super easy… here’s how:

• Under each product you love, click “Add to Wish List”
• Create an account if you don’t have one already
• Then, let your family know by entering their email address on our Wish List page

It’s quick, easy and we don’t sell bad ties… so you can be assured you won’t get one!
Start your Wish List now!

We have tons of great gifts for you to give or receive, for all types of budgets. If you’re looking to spend under $25, check out our Authentic British Imperial Pint Glasses. These are the real deal, each complete with official government stamp. Or, if bartending is more your thing, you’ll love the Mr. Boston Platinum Edition Book, packed with 1,500 drink recipes, tips from masters of mixology, and info on tools, techniques, garnishes and more. Want something that’s sure to get a laugh every time? How about the Bonny Boy Manneken Pis Liquor Dispenser… not only is it a conversation starter, but it’s a convenient and fun way to refill your glass… again and again and again. We’ve also got some great antique-looking metal bar signs. Add some personal style to your home bar, bedroom, apartment or anywhere you’d like with the “Free Beer Tomorrow” Metal Pub Sign. It’s a rustic reproduction of a sign you would’ve seen in restaurants or pubs in the 40’s and 50’s.

Maybe you’re looking to spend a bit more on your Father’s Day or Graduation Day gift… does somewhere between $25 and $50 sound about right? We’ve got some great choices for that range too, like the Mr. Beer Homebrew Beer Making Kit, Premium Edition. This is perfect for anyone who’s ever thought about brewing their very own, fresh beer at home - no experience necessary! The Mr. Beer Premium Kit comes with everything you need… even bottles! Follow the easy instructions, and you’ll be enjoying your first home brewed beer in just two weeks. If cocktails are more to your taste, you’ll love our Fee Brothers Bar Cocktail Mixers Starter Set. It comes with 6 specially selected 4-ounce bottles of mixers - West Indies Orange Bitters, Falernum, Blue Curacao, Curacao-Triple Sec, Orgeat (almond flavored syrup), and Sloe Gin. Plus, we’ve got a plethora of delicious Cocktail Recipes to bookmark and print out! For all of you Guinness Lovers (like me) out there, we’ve got the perfect bar sign… the Guinness Toucan “Lovely Day” Wooden Pub Sign is the perfect addition to any bar or room. It’s large, colorful, and officially licensed by Guinness.

Finally, for those of you looking to give or receive gifts that are in the $50 to $100 range, we’ve got you covered. The Guinness Bar Stool, for example, is a perfect choice for any bar, kitchen or apartment. These premium quality stools are constructed from heavy gauge tubular steel with a beautiful chrome plated finish. The thick, foam padded seat has a commercial grade vinyl covering, which is screened on the underside with the classic Guinness Diamond Pint logo, so the design won’t come off no matter how many people sit down to give it a spin. Or, check out this Deluxe Portable Travel Bar Set… it’s been featured in Playboy, FHM, Men’s Journal and Stuff Magazine. A dream come true, this set allows you to take your own private bar with you, wherever you go, with cocktail service for 2. The premium leatherette cocktail case with deluxe velvet interior has everything you need, including a cocktail shaker, tongs, jigger, strainer, two martini glasses and more, with plenty of room for two bottles of your favorite liquors.

Those are just a small sample of some of the fantastic gifts to give or get from KegWorks this Father’s Day or Graduation Day… way better than any lousy necktie could ever be! Check out our entire selection of gifts for dads and grads today!