Booze
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Booze Food Chain Food & Drink Totally good: Vander Mill Totally Roasted Cider
Posted by Julia Thiel on 01.16.13 at 12:37 PM
- Julia Thiel
- Champagne glasses work for cider too.
And while it's a little expensive, it's also completely worth it. My friend was wrapped up in conversation when she took a sip, but interrupted herself to look at the bottle, exclaiming, "Whoa, this is really good!" (I had the same reaction, except I didn't say it out loud.)
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Booze Food & Drink Now open: Avondale's Beer Temple
Posted by Julia Thiel on 01.09.13 at 02:54 PM
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Booze Food & Drink Beers now available in Chicago: Fireman's, Kona, Jenlain, Pietra
Posted by Julia Thiel on 01.02.13 at 02:27 PM
- Julia Thiel
- From French farm country to downtown Chicago
The Fireman's Brew website has one of the cheesiest Flash intros I've seen in a while: an animated background featuring a blazing fire with the slogan "Extinguish your thirst" printed on it. Naturally, it comes complete with a crackling fire soundtrack. The names are pretty corny too—Blonde, Redhead, and Brunette. Still, the company does donate some of its proceeds to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (though they don't specify what percent).
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
One Sip Booze Food & Drink The cider renaissance: Virtue Cider launches Lapinette
Posted by Julia Thiel on 12.12.12 at 03:00 PM
- Julia Thiel
- This may look wet, but it's dry
Lapinette, whose coming-out party took place last night at Lula Cafe, is a Norman-style cider fermented with saison yeast and aged in French oak wine barrels. Slightly cloudy (in the style of the rough French ciders made hundreds of years ago, it's unfiltered), it's bone-dry, lacking both the tartness and sweetness of RedStreak—which itself is much less sweet than most American ciders. "Fruity" might seem like a glaringly obvious way to describe a cider, but where RedStreak is very fruity (in a lush, juicy kind of way), Lapinette is not. It's woody and tannic, so it dries out your mouth a bit, and while it does have fruit flavors—pear and bitter grapefruit in addition to the apple—they're restrained. And, though I realize this description may not sound particularly positive, the cider is really good, perfect for pairing with food. It may, however, be a shock to palates that are accustomed to Woodchuck. It's on tap at bars around Chicago, but won't be released in bottles for a year or so (RedStreak is also available only on tap).
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Booze Food & Drink One Sip: the Big O ginger liqueur
Posted by Julia Thiel on 12.05.12 at 04:03 PM
- Julia Thiel
- Tagline: "Nothing fake about it"
As a mixer, the liqueur could maybe do with a little more kick (though I haven't had a chance to experiment with it yet), but Kathy Kuper and Bill Foster, the couple who created it, wanted something they could drink straight. They began experimenting with the idea about ten years ago after finding out that the limoncello they were drinking at a restaurant was made by the waiter's grandparents. "That was the first time we discovered you can actually make booze," Kuper says. They went home and tried to make limoncello. "It was just awful," she says. They tried again. It was still awful.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Booze Beer and Metal Music Food & Drink Beer and Metal: Founders Brewing's Bolt Cutter
Posted by Philip Montoro on 12.03.12 at 02:00 PM
Founders president Mike Stevens explains that Bolt Cutter got its name from the brewery's run-in with a bank in its early days. "We were defaulting on our loan," he writes on the Founders blog. "The bank called and threatened to chain our doors shut if we didn't come up with the money that we owed them. We had seven days to come up with half a million dollars.”
Vice president Dave Engbers bought a pair of bolt cutters, in case the bank followed through on its threat. “We were determined to keep our doors open and to keep brewing beer, no matter what it took," he writes. "Luckily, we never had to use them." He still keeps the bolt cutter in his office.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
One Sip Booze Food & Drink One Sip: Perennial Artisan Ales
Posted by Julia Thiel on 11.28.12 at 04:00 PM
- Julia Thiel
- Perennial beers
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
One Sip Booze Food & Drink One Sip: Lagunitas Brown Shugga
Posted by Julia Thiel on 11.21.12 at 04:00 PM
Lagunitas Sucks was so popular that the brewery now plans to brew it year-round—and more importantly, Brown Shugga is back this year. It's less sweet than you'd expect, smooth and biscuity-tasting with a subtle brown sugar flavor and piney hops that kick in with a bitterness that intensifies for two or three seconds before starting to fade. When the beer is cold the hop bitterness is the dominant flavor, but it mellows out as it warms up, letting the malts come through more.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Booze Food & Drink Beer Hoptacular, round three
Posted by Julia Thiel on 11.14.12 at 04:00 PM
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
One Sip Booze Food & Drink One Sip: beers recently released in Chicago
Posted by Julia Thiel on 11.07.12 at 04:00 PM
I tried Omission, a gluten-free beer from Widmer Brothers in Oregon, a couple weeks ago at their release party at Fatpour Tap Works. I'd done a little research (i.e., googling) in advance, and most of what I found praised the brew for actually tasting like beer. Not being gluten intolerant myself, I haven't tried other gluten-free beers, but I can confirm that the two Omission offerings do, in fact, taste like beer. Not particularly exciting ones—the lager is light and inoffensive; the pale ale is a little hoppier but also fairly mild—but definitely beer that I wouldn't object to drinking if it were handed to me at a party. Omission seems to be one of the only gluten-free beers brewed with barley (if not the only one); the gluten is then removed through a supersecret "proprietary process" until it's well under 20 parts per million. It's $10.99 a six-pack at Binny's, which I'd probably pay happily if I were gluten intolerant—since I'm not, though, I want a little more flavor for that price.
