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.

Starbucks experiments with new name (@USA Today)

This is the first in a series of reports from Tales of the Cocktail 2009.

I arrived in New Orleans on Tuesday, the day before Tales of the Cocktail would be in full swing. Still, there were a few events scheduled for the evening. First off, the bloggers reception held at M.S. Rau Antiques on Royal Street. There, I was fortunate enough to meet many of my fellow cocktail bloggers and see some really amazing … Read more

The first session I attended during last week’s Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans was a panel titled “2009 Big Trends in Cocktail & Spirit Service.”

The panel consisted of Jim Meehan, Michael Waterhouse, Devlin Tavern, and Simon Difford (Source Guide) and was moderated by Ryan Magarian (Aviation Gin).

The program covered the 4 Ps of Cocktail Service Success, not unlike the 4 Ps of marketing: product, precise execution, promotion, passion.

It was here … Read more

Patrón recently launched it’s new and improved “Patrón Social Club,” a place where tequila aficionados can learn more about the brand, ID their bottle, learn about Patrón-sponsored events, and try out some very good tequila cocktails.

What makes this different from the ordinary spirit brand website is the way they have brought in content from some of the blogosphere’s top voices. They include, Urbandaddy, Thrillist.com, Daily Candy, and going.com, and cover a wide range of … Read more

Some people are paying thousands of dollars for vintage scotch. And scientists say a lot of it is fake. (Well, it’s real scotch … just faked to seem old.)

How can they tell? Easy. Scotch made after 1950 has more radioactive particles due to the proliferation of nuclear bomb testing.

“So far there have probably been more fakes among the samples we’ve tested than real examples of old whisky.”

The technique the scientists use is

… Read more

Fifteen margaritas for $18? Not bad. Sauza is introducing its “Margarita-in-a-box,” hoping that the home-bartending trend will expand to include pre-mixed cocktails. Sauza says this will be the first boxed margarita with real tequila on the market.

The Wall Street Journal notes that two other major liquor companies plan to release pre-mixed cocktails this summer, suggesting that perhaps distillers are hedging their bets.

The artisan cocktail movement has thrived in bars and at home during … Read more

Inhabitat has an interesting post about Maker’s Mark.

With all the attention smaller, boutique spirits makers have garnered for “green” offerings, a nationally distributed “corporate” brand surprises us all by using locally sourced grain and engaging in many other sustainability initiatives.

I was also surprised to learn that the Maker’s Mark Distillery functions on less than 200 of its 620 acres of land. The remaining land is operated as a nature preserve, where Maker’s Mark

… Read more

Asylum reports that Brown-Forman, the makers of Jack Daniels and many other brands, posted a 13% increase in profits. I’m not surprised, people drink good times and even more in bad times. Brown-Forman’s CEO Paul Varga attributed the growth “the strength and resiliency of our brands and people.” I am leaning towards a combination of great brands and lots of newly-unemployed Americans.

To help get you through these trying times, Asylum put together their Top … Read more

Brown Forman released Woodford Reserve 1838 Sweet Mash Whiskey.

The significance of this is that the process used to make this new bourbon hasn’t been used commercially since before Prohibition. The bourbon we all know and love is “sour mash.”

In very basic terms, “mash” is the mixture of fermented grain and water used in making bourbon.

The sour-mash method involves holding back mash from one fermentation to use it in the next batch to … Read more

Students at Rice University are working on a beer that helps fight cancer and heart disease.

We’ve all heard that “red wine is good for you.” Well, the Rice students wondered if they could make a beer that had the same health benefits.

BioBeer — a more consumer-friendly name than the original Frankenbeer moniker — will be brewed using yeast genetically modified to produce resveratrol.

Resveratrol, a naturally occurring compound found in red wine and

… Read more