The Wall Street Journal has a fun little piece analyzing stadium beer prices against the baseball team’s record.

What it found is that on average the more a team wins, the more its stadium charges for beer.

According to data collected by Team Marketing Report for the 2009 season, beer prices vary dramatically among big-league teams. A 21-ounce beer costs $4.75 in Pittsburgh, but you’ll shell out $8.75 for a 20-ounce brew at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. This led us to wonder: Does quality have anything to do with beer prices?

Surprisingly, it does. A team with a .600 winning percentage charges, on average, about $1.30 more for a 16-ounce beer than does a team with a .400 percentage.

I’d venture that the quality of beer has something to do with it, too. It’s true things are more expensive in San Francisco, but damn if there isn’t a pretty decent beer selection at AT&T Park. Looks like Phillly beat out SF for record/beer price relationship. But not so sure they beat the Bay when it comes to selection.

Can a Ballclub’s Record Justify Its Beer Price @ Wall Street Journal

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We’ve been hearing for a while now that red wine is good for our health. And resveratrol is the name of the compound that supposedly wields these healing powers.

You may have seen ads online or spam in your inbox hocking resveratrol in pill form. (Although, I’d prefer it in the form of a glass of red wine.)

Naturally drug companies want in on the action. GlaxoSmithKline has paid $720 million for rights to resveratrol research.
But what’s the science behind it? If a glass of red wine is good for the blood and heart, is a supplement also good or maybe even better?

The LA Times has a good article on this, for those who want to delve into the science behind these health claims:

To bring resveratrol cheaply to a growing market, supplement makers have taken to extracting the plant compound not from grapes or wine but from an exotic weed — Polygonum cuspidatum, or Japanese knotweed. They are mixing it with a wide variety of other dietary supplements (including the antioxidant acai, which also has taken the supplements world by storm), concentrating it in mega-doses, micronizing it “for optimum absorption” and capturing it in a pill, capsule, powder and even a topical cream. … The flurry of commercial activity has taken off despite the fact that researchers don’t even know exactly what resveratrol does.

Apricot is one of my favorite summer fruits, and what better way to enjoy it than in a champagne cocktail!

You can adapt this recipe to use any of your favorite fruits … or any of your favorite liqueurs, for that matter.
The Bubbly Apricot

2 oz. apricot and triple sec puree (instructions below)
champagne or sparkling wine

Pour apricot and triple sec puree into a champagne flute and carefully top off with chilled champagne.

Apricot and triple sec puree

1/4 cup triple sec
2 fresh apricots

Chop apricots and place blender along with the triple sec; puree. Makes enough for 2 cocktails. (Optional: put ingredients together and store in freezer for an hour or more, before pureeing)

more Drink of the Week cocktails

We knew that alcohol was good for you! First, we hear red wine is good for the heart. And now a study says that beer is actually good for our bones, preventing osteoporosis.

Silicon plays a major role in bone formation. Beer has been claimed to be one of the most important sources of silicon in the Western diet.

The study subjects were all women, presumably because osteoporosis is more common in women and not because this phenomenon is only true for women. So ladies and gents, drink up!

Beer Could Stop Bones Going Brittle (@Telegraph UK)

Photo Credit Telegraph UK

Sangria is designed for hot summer weather.

The Spanish wine punch is designed to cool and refresh. Just the word sangria makes me feel happy and relaxed.

But in addition to being delicious, it can also be quite cheap. It’s a great way to enjoy fresh fruit that’s a little past its prime but still good.

Savvy Housekeeping has a white wine sangria recipe that allows you to enjoy a summer cocktail treat while keeping an eye on expenses:

I punched the numbers this morning and discovered that this sangria only cost me $3.70 a pitcher, or $.62 a glass. Compare that to a bottle of white wine ($11 or so, or $2.20 a glass) or a margarita (roughly $4.50 a glass using decent tequila, I’m guessing).

A Frugal Cocktail (White Wine Sangria recipe @ Savvy Housekeeping)
Photo credit: Savvy Housekeeping

more cocktails…

• Paloma (drinkoftheweek.com)
• 4th of July Watermelon Cocktail (drinkoftheweek.com)
• The Bee’s Teas Gin Cocktail (drinkoftheweek.com)

Got what it takes to be a winemaker? Want to create your own national wine label? Then audition for the Public Television series “The Winemakers” for a chance to go to Rhone, France and prove yourself.

Auditions will be held July 27 in San Francisco and August 3 in New York. If you can’t make it to either of those, you can upload a two-minute video audition which will be judged by popular vote.

THE WINEMAKERS will plunge a diverse group of twelve men and women head first into one of the most uniquely challenging and rewarding professions in the world: the business of making wine.

Over the course of six half-hour episodes, this real-life cast of characters will experience every aspect of the wine industry from the ground up — with one goal in mind — to win the chance to launch their own wine brand.

The Winemakers

Starbucks is opening a Seattle location that will serve beer and wine — with more to come. If the experiment goes well, the concept could be tested in other cities.

The test move to sell alcohol is clearly an attempt to fight off growing competition from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, says Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a restaurant consulting firm. “