Happy New Year from the Cocktailians crew to you. And we turn six years old today! Happy blogiversary to us!
Here are some things that have caught our eye lately:
- perhaps appropriate for the date, a look at the science of hangovers;
- over at Serious Eats: Drinks, Michael Dietsch shares his cocktail resolutions for 2014 -- in short, learn more about this wonderful stuff we call booze;
- and Andrew Strenio picks his top spirits of 2013;
- Contributors to the great new PUNCH magazine share their cocktail resolutions for 2014 as well;
- and Wyatt Peabody looks at top r(h)ums;
- and Anne Zimmerman tells us about one man's search for the Tom & Jerry of his youth;
- and Roger Kamholz explores nouveau American absinthe;
- Joaquín Simó extols one of my very favorite drinks, the Corpse Reviver No. 2, in Playboy;
- where Jeffrey Morganthaler sings the praises of Audrey Saunders' Old Cuban;
- even so, my friends and I were drinking Honey Fitzes last night;
- despite these good-looking recipes for new cocktails at NYC bars;
- MrBaliHai gives us his original recipe for the Big Mezcalhuna;
- the WSJ jumps on the punch revival, and adds the recipe for Dale DeGroff's tasty Millennium Punch;
- the NYT looks at the distilleries of NYC;
- and had a neat drinks-focused Dining section a few weeks back, highlighting some creative winter cocktails around town;
- and suggesting some drinks for parties;
- and Rosie Schaap spends Christmas at a bar;
- while Robert Simonson drinks at an airport (not to be confused with the cocktails you can make aloft, as tackled by yours truly & Erick Castro);
- and their T Magazine identifies drinks with tea as an emerging trend;
- LeNell brings us a hot tiki drink and a hot Grasshopper for this wintry weekend ahead;
- Rosie Schaap tells WNYC about all sorts of hot spiced wine drinks, from wassail to glühwein to gløgg;
- and paired drinks with folk songs;
- Chuck Cowdery fills us in on some interesting corporate history from the 1980s that I hadn't heard before, involving conglomerates, Age International, and Sazerac;
- Janet Patton examines the commodification of bourbon, in the Lexington Herald-Leader. (The paper's coverage of the bourbon industry is solid and worth a look.)
- Thinkgeek has some nifty flasks. I especially liked the one emblazoned with an ethanol molecule, and the one with the built-in shot glass;
- the Gin Kit from Uncommon Goods is an interesting idea -- infuse your own compound gin! -- but you could likely roll your own for much cheaper;
- Remember those "Cocktail Collection" neckties from the '80s and '90s, with abstract microscopic photographs of booze under polarized light? Mashable reports that the company is back, as BevShots;
- I put together some more reviews of NYC bars for CLASS magazine, including of Golden Cadillac, Manhattan Cricket Club, Henry, A Liquor Bar in the Hudson Hotel, Trouble's Trust in the New York Palace, Grace, and Play in the Museum of Sex;
- and if you liked Golden Cadillac -- I sure did -- check Regan Hoffman's invocation of the NYC bar scene, circa 1977, for PUNCH magazine;
- along these lines, Robert Simonson limns the hidden history of the Harvey Wallbanger;
- and tastes some historic spirits;
- In a crime wave, people are making off with Moscow Mule mugs;
- Sku runs down the crazy year in whiskeys;
- and -- lucky man he -- tastes some Prohibition-era bourbons;
- Atomic Grog has an exhaustive review of Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's new book, Potions of the Caribbean. Can't wait to read it for myself;
- In AFAR, Wayne Curtis tells us about Martinican rhum agricole;
- and delves into barrel aging in The Atlantic;
- Critter Bitters -- the cricket-flavored cocktail additive. Hmmph;
- though ginger snap syrup sounds like it's more up my alley;
- craft distilling as punk rock; and
- Chef Edward Lee drinks bourbon around America in a boozy book tour.
Happy New Year, y'all. Let's make 2014 memorable, and remember to drink good things.