I read a lot of random blogs and thankfully, one of them led me to this; The Book Bar. Basically a bunch of designers lived together and one of their housemates worked at the Stanford library. Apparently the Stanford Library throws out their old books so this group of guys gave the books a second chance at life, put a whole bunch of them together and built a bar for their house.

Check out the site for a photo gallery of the entire building process.

Kudos, gentlemen. We think you’re pretty awesome and we love your resourcefulness. If you need any bar supplies, let us know. Just make sure to keep our cocktail books ON the shelf for reference.

TAGS [ STANFORD | BOOK BAR | HOME BARS ]

If you haven’t heard already, July is Gin and Tonic Month. We’ve proclaimed it as so, and so it is. July, at least around here, is typically sweltering hot. A good gin and tonic refreshes like not many other cocktails can… especially with all-natural tonic water.

I’ll admit, I was wary of the idea that premium tonic water could taste much different from my standard grocery store bought stuff. A couple of years ago when I finally gave my first natural tonic water a taste, I was blown away. Q Tonic arrived here and we all enjoyed a taste test to see if it really was all it’s cracked up to be. It is. I will never go back to drinking synthetic, high-fructose tonics again. Ever.

Since our first taste of natural tonic water, other great brands arrived, each one offering a certain something that makes it different from the others. Besides Q Tonic, we now have Fever-Tree and Fentimans premium tonic waters.

We’ve tasted all of them and each person here has his or her favorite, all depending on what he or she looks for in a tonic. The most cost-efficient way for you to do the same is to pick up the Tonic Water Sampler pack, filled with 2 bottles each of Q, Fever-Tree and Fentimans tonic waters. I’d be surprised if you aren’t blown away by these like I was.

I wish all of you a rad Fourth of July weekend and hope you give natural tonic water a try next time you’re using it in a cocktail or even on its own.

Cheers!

TAGS [ TONIC WATER | NATURAL TONIC WATER | Q TONIC | FEVER-TREE | FENTIMANS ]

I think I’m finally coming to the slow realization that Summer might be one of the best seasons of the year. Sure the sweltering heat and the mosquitoes aren’t my favorite, but there has always been so much to do. So, Fall, I officially give you second place in my seasons contest. Don’t try to dissuade me with your gorgeous leaves, low humidity and crisper temperatures, Summer is the season of festivals!

As festivals go, there are a ton of great ones! The Watkins Glen Wine Festival this year on July 16-18th, for example, has a Toga party on Friday night before the tastings on Saturday and Sunday. I’m not going to incriminate anyone with photos of anyone I know, but not everyone necessarily dresses in a Toga. Some opt for more unusual costumes such as the knights from the Holy Grail. If you want to get in on the action and either feel a bit more modest, or fun/ridiculous go for an unusual costume, like a beer keg, or even a nurse’s outfit. I don’t think anyone will throw you out with costumes like these!

So go forth, and find festivals! Let me know if there are ones that you like and maybe I’ll see you there!

TAGS [ SUMMER FESTIVALS | FESTIVAL COSTUMES | WINE FESTIVALS ]

There are many things that women generally tend to excel at – raising children, coordinating fashionable outfits, baking and gossiping. Also, according to recent statistics, women are now better at graduating college and being employed. This blog post, however is about women’s superior beer tasting skills.

According to this article, SABMiller is hiring more and more female taste-testers. Apparently, their "sensitive woman-tongues can taste certain flavor subtleties better than men."

Despite the fact that men account for 72.8% of all beer sales (worldwide), the makers of Miller and Coors brands, Pilsner Urquell, Peroni and Grolsch are convinced that women can better detect undesirable chemicals that make beer taste skunky. The company has 1,000 advanced-level tasters and 30% of them are female – that number has more or less quadrupled over the last decade. The "Taster of the Year" at SABMiller is a 33-year-old female with an "unusual knack for identifying extremely low levels of troublesome chemicals." She chalks it up to her "love affair with perfumes."

There haven’t been any scientific studies to prove this hunch but the folks over at Carlsberg A/S tested their taste-test panelists this year and noted that they’ve observed women performing better than men. Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Chemical Senses Center seems to think that we can chalk up the female edge to the fact that women can usually smell things better.

This may sound harsh but in my humble opinion, everyone on the Miller Coors tasting panel should get their noses and tongues checked. Most of that stuff tastes like grade-A garbage to me… then again, I’m a woman so I’m in tune to that stuff, right?

It’s a fun little idea to ponder but at the same time, men can still pee standing up. In my mind, that certainly trumps the whole smelling thing.

TAGS [ TASTE TESTING | BEER REVIEWS | BEER TASTE TESTER ]

As summer begins, I think of all of the great times to come and of course of the ones I’ve had. Many a summer night was spent outside playing beer pong and to think of all of the red cups I’ve wasted is terrible.

Reusable beer pong cups are definitely the way I would go if I were able to do it all again. Ruining your vital organs in college is your fault, but don’t kill the earth. Just seeing the oil spill in action and how it is ruining lives and our natural resources should give you pause to think for a moment. What we do can affect the earth, so if you’re planning on enjoying yourself in the summer months, enjoy responsibly, and environmentally… But definitely still have fun!

TAGS [ BEER PONG | BEER PONG CUPS ]

On Saturday night, Margaret took me out for dinner at a BYOB Thai restaurant, as a belated birthday present (thanks again Margaret!). After choosing one of her favorite, inexpensive reds from her vast collection of vino, we hopped into my car and headed to the restaurant.

There was only one other table filled when we got there so the waiter brought us our wine, opened, with glasses, right away. Margaret explained that she positively loved going to this joint because, being BYOB, the bill stayed rather low (unless you’re ordering an exorbitant amount of food).

Until another table of guests popped in with a 6-pack of beer, the thought had never even dawned on either of us that, despite it being customary to do so, wine was not the only option for a BYOB restaurant. The epiphany was almost funny to me, seeing how I tend to pair more beer with food (check out these beer/food pairing posts from Deron too!) than wine, and drink beer on a much, much more regular basis. I still cannot believe the thought had never crossed my mind. Duh.

In my defense, though, this was only the second BYOB dining experience I’ve had in my life, the first being 5 years ago. So honestly, I had never really put an ounce of thought into the idea at all.

I suspect that many of you out there have brought beer to BYOB restaurants, having had said "epiphany" long ago, but for those who haven’t, this post’s for you.

Cheers!

TAGS [ BYOB RESTAURANTS | BYOB ]

On thursday April 10th of 2010, Mexico witnessed the first battle between Wine and Craft Beer at Pujol Restaurant, ranked 72 amongst the 100 best restaurants in the world, and for us without any doubt is one of them, because is one of the few places that have a "Beer Menu" that can pair along with their dishes.

This first event took almost one year from its conception to the realization; we did a first approach to the restaurant and come up with the event, after a few months of evaluation they accepted it. An appointment was made with Sommelier Marianna Ramírez and Primus Brewmaster (that would be Me) to try the 6 course proposal of Chef Enrique Olvera.

Each one took their notes about flavors and textures experimented. During this time only water was served, this way we wouldn’t have any reference. At the end a deadline was established to decide which brew or wine was chosen, this way you could get them since not all can be found in Mexico. When the deadline arrived, an invitation to friends and clients were made, and finally the ones who showed up where the judges of this competition.

The appetizer - Soursop and Pear “"Tepache"

The Battle

1st Round - "Aguachile" of octopus with seaweed

Albariño Pazo de Señorans Vs Blanche de Bruxelles

2nd Round - "Huarache" of Kobe Beef

Chardonnay Monte Xanic Vs Tempus Alt Clásica (3 fotos)

3rd Round - "Tortilla" Soup

Rosé Coco Vs Stone Arrogant Bastard (3 fotos)

4th Round - White Snook "al pastor"

Cotes de Rhone, Coudoulet de Beaucastel Vs Tempus Reserva Especial

5th Round Suckling pig "Carnitas"

Gaja Sito Moresco Vs Brewdog Dogma

6th Round - Nitrogenated Chocolate Mousse

Domaine Pinnacle Ice Cider Vs Lindemans Framboise

The development of this battle was a unique experiment, because at the same time the judges were deliberating, behind the curtains we were doing the same. Each Wine and Craft Beer maintained a close relation with the course, on the 1st round we both wanted citric notes, on the 2nd wooden flavors, on the 3rd strong flavors to balance the dish, on the 4th harmony between beverage and dish, on the 5th one wanted harmony and the other one contrast and on the 6th fruity notes.

There were 12 judges on this battle, only on the last 2 rounds we had an extra judge that arrived late, because of Mexico City’s finest traffic.

The results were these:

This 2 ties and 2 winning for each needed a Champion, so we counted each vote to see which had the most points, surprisingly it all ended on a Technical Tie between the contenders.

For us this Technical Tie is a great result, since we know (and demonstrated it) that Craft Beer is at the same level of Wine, it is just a matter of having diversity of Beer styles produced in Mexico or Imported, all of them giving a proposal and an experience, in other words, NOT more of the same.

The truth to be told is that we never challenged Wine against Craft Beer, the actual battle was between Beer against the idea of what people have about Beer. We strongly believe that this event changed the perception of some people about it and we warn that this kind of battles are still going to be held, so feel free to publish this information with your friends and media for future events or reference.

Cheers

Rodolfo Andreu
@PrimusRodolfo

Cervecería Primus
@PrimusBreweryMX