Each year, the Raiders toast and turn the goblet of their fallen comrades, whose name is also inscribed upside right. When two remain, they will toast with the bottle of Hennessy. …Read More

Today marks the 79th Anniversary of the implementation of the 21st Amendment, also known as Repeal Day (for repealing the disastrous 18th Amendment, which went into effect on January 17, 1920). Make sure you enjoy a tipple today to celebrate!

Prohibition was a dark period in America. It pitted recent immigrants against Americans who had been in the country for generations and rural areas against urban. Hypocritical politicians voted dry and drank very wet. I … Read more

January 17th marks the infamous day that Prohibition went into effect. Depending on your politics, it was either a day of mourning or great joy. As the “Noble Experiment” went into effect, across the country …Read More

A Victorian evening … with Carpano Antica, Punt e Mes and Fernet Branca …Read More

Tips on choosing bourbon for your Kentucky Derby Mint Julep …Read More

5 Ways to Drink Like an Old Man

By Carly Wray

This article originally appeared in TheSpir.it.

Old-man bars live and die by their regulars. Not regulars as in the guy behind the counter sort of remembers your order from your last visit—regulars as in Charlie’s been sitting on that stool since the end of the Nixon administration. The bartender knows his kids, busts his chops, and pours his drinks as stiff as he did … Read more

How a cure-all became a cocktail component
By Carly Wray

This article originally appeared in TheSpir.it

It’s 1820. A German doctor sets out for Venezuela to join Simon Bolivar’s fight against Spain. It’s not long before he’s Surgeon General, manning a military hospital and overseeing the casualties, not just of war, but of tropical diseases. Chills, sea sickness. Ravaging disorders. And it’s not much longer before he conjures a cure: Angostura bitters.

In the end, … Read more

Learning to love a mysterious Italian bitter
By Carly Wray

This article originally appeared in TheSpir.it

There’s a fairy tale quality to fernet — we’re talking Brothers Grimm here, not Walt Disney. Alone in a glass, the cola-brown spirit conjures the woods and strange roots dealt by witches; there are medicinal notes, too, but of the sort bought in burlap and taken on faith.

A magical series of things happens when you do a shot … Read more

Way back in 1933 the USA was gripped with an economic depression and to make matters worse, a prohibition on alcohol. The Eighteenth Amendment, “Prohibition,” set the act of getting a decent cocktail back years. Unless of course you were rich, then one could still get the good stuff (with a doctor’s note). The great bartenders all fled to Europe or Latin America as they were now outlaws at home. Drinkers were forced to go … Read more

Today June 12th, marks the anniversary of a tragedy committed over 250 years ago.

In 1744, the Portuguese Crown declared that the production, distribution, and sale of cachaça, Brazil’s noble spirit, would be illegal in the Portuguese Colony of Brazil. Fortunately for us all, the Brazilians rebelled and the virtues of cachaça won.

Still over 250 years later, cachaça, is still being tortured. Why, in many countries, including here in the United States, cachaça is … Read more