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Amaro: The Spirited World Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs with Cocktails, Recipes and Formulas Book Review

In Book Reviews by Thomas Fondano2 Comments

If you read articles on cocktails and drinking trends, the word “bitter” will inevitably come up. If get serious about cocktails, you will inevitably go through a “bitter, brown and stirred” phase. The Italian word for bitter is amaro.

Amaro: The Spirited World Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs with Cocktails, Recipes and Formulas by Brad Thomas Parsons is a primer and guide to every widely available amaro on the market. Parsons takes the reader through the various styles: apertivos like Campari and Aperol; Italian classics like Averna, Cynar, Meletti; aromatized wines like vermouth, quinquina and barolo chinato; American made bitters like Art in the Age Root, Calisaya and the much maligned Jeppson’s Mälort (tasting notes: Urinelike hue. Intensely bitter. Astringent and aggressive. Rocket fuel kick.) Think you’ve never had amaro? If you’ve had Jägermeister, you’ve had amaro.

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Camp Robber Whiskeyjack Review

In Flavored Whiskey Reviews by Thomas FondanoLeave a Comment

If you’re going to make decent whiskey, you need a lot of time. But time is money, and your whiskey is going to need years. So how does a distillery make money in the meantime? The answer is usually vodka and its juniper cousin gin. For a moment unaged whiskeys were all the rage and thankfully that moment has mostly passed. Is there a good way to use an immature whiskey? New Hampshire’s Tamworth Distilling & Mercantile seems to have found an interesting solution.

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The Manhattan: The Story of the First Modern Cocktail Book Review

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The Manhattan: The Story of the First Modern Cocktail by Philip Greene offers a richly detailed history of the ingredients and the evolution of the cocktail itself. Greene takes the reader through the myriad origin stories (spoiler alert: most of them aren’t true!) and beyond to the descendants of the Manhattan such as the Brooklyn. One of my favorite stories in the book details how the Manhattan exposed a politician’s hypocrisy and destroyed his career.

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Creative Juleps For Your Kentucky Derby Party

In Cocktails by Thomas FondanoLeave a Comment

The julep is an old mixture, which like many began as medicine. Not old like early 20th century. Old like over a thousand years old. And not “medicine” like a morning pick-me-up, anti-fogmatic, corpse reviver, etc. Actual medicine made from macerated flowers. (900 AD wasn’t the height of medical science.) How it became the delicious cocktail we enjoy today began around 1770 with a mintless rum drink that later evolved into a brandy drink and eventually wound up as the drink we know today. In 1938, the mint julep became the official drink of the Kentucky Derby and sadly most people only think of juleps around the first Saturday in May. If you ask me, we should be drinking juleps during the hottest days of July and August when juleps truly are medicinal against the heat.