This review first appeared on AlcoholProfessor.com.   Boozy Book Review: Canadian Whisky: The Essential Portable Expert (Updated and Expanded Third Edition) By Camper English   Canadian whisky has generally not inspired the culty fandom of whiskies from Scotland, Japan, or the US. The category is dominated by easy-drinking brands like Crown Royal, Black Velvet, and Canadian Club which disappear when mixed with ginger ale and come in a rainbow of flavored varieties. Fans of the category only pay as much attention to the history, heritage, and production of Canadian whisky as they do t ..read more

This is a description of my Ice Bling class. I am currently teaching this class at Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco as part of their Beverage Academy.  Find all of my classes and events at the Classes and Events page here on Alcademics.com.    Ice Bling: Learn to Make Clear Ice and Cut Ice Diamonds, Spheres, and More!   In the class on cutting up and blinging out clear ice we'll: Discuss how to make clear ice with directional freezing Try out tools including saws, knives, ice picks, pattern plates, cookie presses, and more. Cut up "logs" of ice into big cubes Cut cub ..read more

I'm hosting a series of cocktail book related events in San Francisco! Y'all know I love drink books - studying them, reading them, and sometimes even writing them.  The series will be hosted on Monday afternoons at the Hotaling offices near the TransAmerica Pyramid, roughly once per month. The timing was chosen as it is usually a good day for bartenders on their days off.  The first seminar features special guest Marcovaldo Dionysos, a legend in the San Francisco bar community. This kick-off event is April 8th, 2024 and will take place from 1-2:30PM.  Sign up here, and the ..read more

Here are new drink books coming out in 2024. These are just the cocktails and spirits ones, rather than beer and wine. I would imagine there will be a lot more toward holiday 2024 but this is plenty for now!     Links are to Amazon and I may earn an affiliate fee from sales.    A Quick Drink: The Speed Rack Guide To Winning Cocktails For Any Mood By Lynnette Marrero And Ivy Mix With Megan Krigbaum Let’s Do Drinks: Inspirational Tips, Personal Secrets, And 75+ Recipes For A Fancy Night Out Without Leaving The House By Elliott Clark The Connaught Bar: Cocktail Recipes And Ic ..read more

This story first appeared on AlcoholProfessor.com.   Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits (Abrams Press, March 5, 2024) is the first book devoted to a specific phenomenon within the liquor industry. Dusty hunters chase after bottles from bygone brands or old formulations that are no longer available. When I first learned about dusty hunters, they were of the tequila variety. The spirit category had and still has a large amount of variation in quality over the years, even within one brand. Brands move between distilleries, are made on new or different equipment, are distilled from aga ..read more

The reporter for this story in The Guardian and I talked a long time about clear ice, iceberg water, and bottled water.    Not much made it into the final story from me (so it goes) but I did get mentioned in the lead paragraphs!   Towards the end of 2009, Camper English achieved a major breakthrough in his kitchen in San Francisco. After months of experimentation, English, a drinks industry consultant, created the perfect piece of clear ice: a cube with minimal fissures and microbubbles, as transparent as air. His method for making clear ice – freezing water in an insulated c ..read more

For many years I have been compiling The Big Drink, a list of the most iconic cocktails in San Francisco, for 7x7 Magazine.  Here is this year's list ..read more

The flavor of nonalcoholic beer is far ahead of that of spirits (and I think wine, but I know a lot less about wine both alcoholic and not). And now that it is, nearly all the largest beer brands have released nonalcoholic line extensions recently. Off the top of my head:  Blue Moon Sam Adams Corona Guinness Tsingtao Paulaner Weizen-Radler Peroni Sierra Nevada Heineken Stella Artois Dos Equis Weihenstephaner Hefe Budweiser Coors Brewdog Beck's This is interesting because until the past couple of years, for the most part, nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits were not line extensions of ex ..read more

This review first appeared on AlcoholProfessor.com.    Boozy Book Reviews: A Field Guide to Tequila: What It Is, Where It’s From, and How to Taste It A Field Guide to Tequila by long-time Mexican resident and tour operator Clayton Szczech (Artisan, October 3, 2023) tackles tequila on a level of detail not yet seen in other works. The text is mostly broken up into micro-topics that span only a page or two for easier reading, with some sections tackling broad topics like the definitions of tequila categories and how pieces of equipment work, with others zooming in on ne ..read more

I've added two classes to the calendar for March, and for anyone in San Diego I'll be there this weekend. Click on over to the Events Page for details.    ..read more