“The government issued posters and pamphlets saying wine from hybrids contained excess quantities of methyl alcohol, which was ‘proven to cause madness,’” says Borel. “Of course, the claims had no scientific basis, but it took decades for that to be proven.”
Source: The Rebellious French Village Making Wine Banned by the E.U. – Gastro Obscura
Port might be said to be literally the ultimate sleeping draught. In northern Portugal there are presumably some people who drink port in the middle of the day, but for most of us, if we drink port at all, it is a post-prandial treat, the last thing to pass our lips before late-night toothpaste. Yet the sad thing is that too many wine drinkers – even wine drinkers open to every sort of exotic combination of provenance and grape variety – see port as too strong and/or too sweet for them.
This is such a shame because the quality of port being made today is higher than it has ever been, and the range of different styles of port that are reasonably easy to find outside Portugal is so much wider than it was.
Source: Port – the perfect nightcap | Articles | JancisRobinson.com
You may know it from Tupac, Key & Peele, or Dr. Evil, but “pouring one out” is a lot older than you might think. It’s actually straight-up ancient.
Just a quick refresher for the uninitiated: pouring one out refers to “the act of pouring liquid (usually an alcoholic beverage) on the ground as a sign of reverence for friends or relatives that have passed away. In most cases, a 40 ounce bottle (see: forty) of liquor is used.” That’s Urban Dictionary’s definition. Funny thing is, it isn’t much different from
Source: Libations And The Ancient History Of Pouring One Out | VinePair
With names like Shastafarian Porter, Joint Effort Hemp Ale and Fresh Bongwater Pale Ale, craft breweries’ affinity for weed is unabashed and long-established.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-cannabis-industry-should-take-cues-from-what-s-on-tap
The expectations of how a wine from a certain region should taste go back hundreds of years, but the global industry that has been built atop them is largely a product of the past century. If natural wine is a backlash against anything, it is the idea that it is possible to square traditional methods of winemaking with the scale and demands of that market. There is a sense that alongside economic success, globalisation has slowly forced the wine world toward a dull, crowd-pleasing conformity.
Continue reading: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/15/has-wine-gone-bad-organic-biodynamic-natural-wine
The team sampled 12 brands of beer from large brewers and craft brewers from around the Great Lakes. In every sample microscopic plastic fibers and particles were detected. Most of the fibers were smaller than five millimeters in length.
Wattenberg said what was interesting about the beer samples was a discrepancy in the amount of plastic contained in the final product when compared with the water used to make it.
https://www.wpr.org/minnesota-researchers-find-microplastics-beer-made-great-lakes-water
Randall Grahm’s iconoclastic obsession will involve breeding new varietals from scratch and growing them where grapes have never been grown before.
Largely out of curiosity, the spirits panel recently tasted through 20 bottles of blended Scotch in an effort to see what they offered. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two drinks writers, David Wondrich and Robert Simonson. First, some definitions. All Scotch whisky must be made in Scotland. Single malts come from a single distillery and are distilled entirely from malted barley. Malting simply means soaking the barley until it germinates, which releases enzymes that convert starch
Source: Does Blended Scotch Still Have a Place in the Modern Bar? – The New York Times
Grape or grain, but never the twain,” goes the old saying, but brewers no longer seem to care. In a craft-beer world where no ingredient is off the menu – even really disgusting ones such as beard yeast or peanut butter – grapes have become an increasingly common addition to the brewing process.
Source: Brewing on the vine: four beer/wine hybrids to seek out | Life and style | The Guardian
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