There’s no denying the supreme drinkability of a cold, crisp rice beer, as industry stalwarts like macro Japanese breweries Sapporo and Asahi demonstrate. But smaller craft brewers are increasingly tinkering with the style, recognizing the mass appeal of a clean, crushable beer while still experimenting with their own interpretations. Whether using whole grain sushi rice or toying with unique hop profiles, these rice beers deliver on both drinkability and delight. Crux Bochi Bochi Japanese Rice Lager Ryan Atagi, Crux head brewer and fourth-generation Japanese American, created Bochi Bochi as a ..read more

It’s natural to see ebbs and flows among any booming industry, and non-alcoholic spirits are no different. Since U.K.-based Seedlip more or less kicked off the concept in 2015, there has been a Cambrian explosion of products in the spirit-free sphere. This is great news for drinkers (or non-drinkers, as it were). The increasing interest from consumers and breadth of experimentation among producers has allowed for innovation and, more importantly, evolution in the category, and the new Almave Blue Agave Spirit is a good example. Re-creating not just the flavor but the full sensory experience of ..read more

In 2017, Steven Liles—a career bartender then working at Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco—was named Bartender of the Year as part of that year’s Imbibe 75. Liles, who passed away this week after a brief and sudden illness, was a bartender’s bartender. Behind the bar, he demonstrated the kind of chatty effortlessness mixed with technical proficiency that can only be developed over years of dedicated practice, and through a true love of the profession. And even though he helmed one of the world’s foremost tropical bars for more than a decade, his own tastes, and his character, invariably led him ..read more

For our May/June issue, we sat down with Aaron Goldfarb, author of Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits. His new book explores the intriguing world of “dusty hunters” and why they chase down vintage spirits. Fortunately, this popular pastime isn’t exclusive to private collections, but also bars and restaurants where well-heeled imbibers can sip on 90-year-old cognac or even cocktails made with vintage booze. In Dusty Booze, Goldfarb also cites 17 places around the country where one can drink vintage spirits. But we asked him to narrow it down even further to his personal picks, including ..read more

In the fall of 1930, word of a new cocktail spread across the United States. It was called the Hallelujah Cocktail, and it consisted of brandy and rum, shaken with lemon, vermouth, and grenadine. It was several years before Prohibition ended, so most people first learned of it not in a bar, but when they received a postcard with the recipe printed on the front. Almost all of these were mailed from Colón, Panama, at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal. Among those receiving postcards were many delegates headed to the annual meeting of the Four Square Gospel Church in Los Angeles. Aimee Sempl ..read more

The Kalimotxo may not be for those who feel overly precious about the sanctity of their wine, the simple combo of red wine and Coca-Cola is a delicious Spanish classic. While the drink can be traced as far back as the 1920s, the crimson-colored highball wasn’t officially dubbed the Kalimotxo (aka Calimocho) until 1972 when, supposedly, the organizers of a festival in the Old Port of Algorta needed to salvage 2,000 liters of unpleasant red wine and found that serving it with an equal measure of Coca-Cola did the trick. Today, the increasing stateside appreciation for Spanish wine and Basque cui ..read more

The story of pisco is woven from the threads of Peruvian history—a tapestry shaped by colonization, adaptation, and reclamation. The country’s mountainous coastal region is considered one of the ancient cradles of civilization, ruled by the Inca Empire until Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1530. With them came European agriculture, including cattle, poultry, and grapes, which became wine made by Jesuit monks, and soon the brandy that came to be called pisco. “It is the first distillate of the Americas,” says Adam Weintraub, founder of Museo del Pisco, a bar and library of the spirit with thre ..read more

The percolating interest in shochu in the U.S. underscores how an appreciation for the spirit is taking place at many levels, with cocktails frequently functioning as an on-ramp for new drinkers. “Bars like Katana Kitten and Bar Goto [in New York] and Thunderbolt [in LA] and more are allowing consumers who’ve never tried shochu to experiment with the spirit in a cocktail, and in turn open their palates to a new world of flavors,” says Chikako Ichihara, a representative for the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association. The ultimate aim, of course, is for drinkers to explore shochu more deeply ..read more

On the beverage menu at Loreto, a sceney Mexican seafood restaurant in LA’s Frogtown neighborhood, Tepache Sazón is available by the bottle. The traditional Mexican fermented beverage takes up space on the menu next to their house Michelada, $18 cocktails, and Mexican wine from Valle de Guadalupe. It stands out on the menu for clocking in at 7 percent ABV as the only non-beer, non-cider, and non-wine option. Yet when I visited last July, not even our server was able to give me an accurate description of it:“It’s like a kombucha,” he said casually. Of course, we ordered it. It poured a lightly ..read more

If you’ve been drinking Margaritas since before the cocktail renaissance of the early 2000s, you, too, probably have not so fond memories of neon-green mixes laden with artificial sweeteners and preservatives. Cut to 2024 when craft bartending is de rigueur, and Margarita mixes aren’t quite so stigmatized. Case in point: Q Mixers Margarita Mix, which won a silver medal at the 2023 LA Spirits Awards. Q has since expanded its Margarita mix lineup to include a spicy grapefruit flavor, and last week it debuted a Spicy Mango Margarita Mix. Building off its standard Margarita mix of agave and lime ..read more