Inside the Weird World of Meat-Distilled Mezcals

Camper English

The first pechuga on the U.S. market came from Del Maguey; it is the same as the vegetarian Del Maguey Minero but infused with fruit, rice, and other ingredients and redistilled with a chicken breast hanging from strings inside the still. The technique isn't unique in the spirits world; many gins are made in a similar method called vapor infusion. Just not with livestock.

http://lush.la/MFnLua [ Details ]

The Bourbon Family Tree

Colin Spoelman & David Haskell

This chart shows the major distilleries operating in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, grouped horizontally by corporate owner, then subdivided by distillery. Each tree shows the type of whiskey made, and the various expressions of each style of whiskey or mash bill, in the case of bourbons.

http://lush.la/19gaVLs [ GQ ]

The Gin Goes Back Into the Barrel

Robert Simonson

Just a year ago, aged gin could still be called an oddity. A few other small distillers were playing around with the niche spirit, including Few Spirits in Illinois, Corsair Distillery in Kentucky and Citadelle in France, which can be counted as a trailblazer, having released its version in 2008.

http://lush.la/1grDMR7 [ The New York Times ]

Proprietors LLC — Designing the Cocktail Experience

Benjamin Hunter & Antonio Diaz

The door reads Chapter & Verse through the clouded glass and is tucked away inside a cooperative workspace called HUB. Through this door is a world of experimentation, design, and a young team of creators and curators of the libation experience. Hundreds of bottles of liquor and spirits rest on several shelves over their test bar made of metal and wood.

http://lush.la/19g7RPo [ Life & Thyme ]

Why People Go To Shitty Bars

Aaron Goldfarb

Shitty bars have no good beer taps, no interesting cocktails, and not even the decency to offer cheap drinks. At shitty bars the food is mediocre (wraps are frequently offered), the aesthetic is flat-screens turned to Sportscenter, the ambience is accidental elbows in your back, the music is set to the Dave Matthews Pandora station, and, if you asked your aloof bartender for an Old-Fashioned, he’d surely respond, “An old-fashioned...what?”

http://lush.la/1g0pBCx [ Esquire ]

Why Do Some People Prefer Bitter Drinks?

Anna-Louise Taylor & Finlo Rohrer

There's been a wave of popularity for drinks like the Aperol spritz, the Negroni, and a host of cocktails flavoured with "bitters". Why are people turning their backs on sweet cocktails in favour of a bitter taste?

http://lush.la/1gLXlVD [ BBC ]

The New Science of Old Whiskey

Wayne Curtis

What _are_ the perfect conditions for storing the barrels in which bourbon ages? It’s a question that no one had really asked before, despite the oft-noticed phenomenon that barrels situated near the windows in warehouses have a tendency to become what managers call “honey barrels”—that is, ones that produce above-average whiskey.

http://lush.la/1c6jPrF [ The Atlantic ]

California Regulator Passes First Ridesharing Rules

Anthony Ha

The California Public Utilities Commission has unanimously approved new regulations around ridesharing services such as Lyft, SideCar and UberX

http://lush.la/1d0bmLk [ TechCrunch ]

An Irish Pub’s Toast to Women

Robert Simonson

Grace, a bar and restaurant that he hopes to open in Midtown East by the end of this month, will have a cocktail program created entirely by female mixologists. The bar is named after Grace O’Malley, a 16th-century Irish pirate and chieftain. And the women enlisted to draw up the drinks menu include a murderers’ row of some of the city’s best mixologists.

http://lush.la/1c6lltU [ The New York Times ]

When That 'Local,' 'Craft' Liquor You Pay Big Bucks for Is Neither

Wayne Curtis

It’s a little-known fact, but you don’t actually need a still to call yourself a distiller. The vodka makers I visited had adopted a simple and surprisingly common business model: buy a large quantity of potable alcohol from an industrial supplier, run it through a tall charcoal filter to remove any trace impurities, cut it with water, decant it into bottles, and then slap on a label touting it as a local craft product worthy of its premium price.

http://lush.la/19emy2q [ The Atlantic ]

Armagnac Explained

Simon Difford

It's said, "Armagnac is for men and Cognac is for boys" and Armagnac tends to be big, bold, complex and robust, so far from mass market. Its supporters (and I'm most definitely one) wouldn't want it any other way.

http://lush.la/19oCAws [ diffordsguide ]

The Surprising History Of The Cocktail

Jared Brown

By the dawn of the 20th century, the term "American Bar" was entrenched in European vocabulary. American Bar nights were popular society events staged as charity fundraisers. Hotels and restaurants in London caught on to the trend as well but none would prove as influential or enduring as the one at The Savoy.

http://lush.la/198VVfa [ The Telegraph ]

Make Mine a Single: The Rise of Stronger Spirits

Charles Passy

Bartenders say the higher-octane offerings give them more options, especially when it comes to delicate spirits, such as cognac, that can easily be lost in a drink in their more mildly flavored, standard-strength versions.

http://lush.la/1991Rot [ Wall Street Journal ]

Rhum Agricole

Wyatt Peabody

One minute you are casually drinking rum with a few friends at a bar in L.A.—next thing you know, you’re frantically seeking passage to an insanely difficult-to-get-to island in the French West Indies. What happened? You tasted appellation-grade rhum agricole—the purest expression of rum on earth.

http://lush.la/N6yj3u [ LA Times Magazine ]

Still Life

Paul Clarke

There are now around 30 craft distilleries in New York; almost all are less than four years old, most less than two, and new startups appear with such frequency that any exact count is almost immediately obsolete.

http://lush.la/1kFh8FC [ Imbibe ]

Death By Flavored Vodka

Derek Brown

What it doesn't do well, or promise to do well, is taste good. It may well taste like something candied, spicy, syrupy, or sweet, but the entire product is a ruse. Flavor or authenticity are less important than the emotional impact of the product.

http://lush.la/1991tX9 [ The Atlantic ]

Working At A Manhattan Strip Club Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Sara Copeland

The first dancers I meet are Sky, Rain, Bijoux. and Candy (Pam, Kathy, Judith and Brenda). One is an ex-Mormon from Utah, two of them have kids, and one is 19. They arrive early, because if they are dressed—or rather undressed—and ready to go by 6, they get to pay a discounted house fee. A house fee is what the dancers pay the establishment for the privilege of working there. For the first few hours, hardly anyone enters. Dancers don’t even start stage shows until about nine, so until then, it’s like being in a sad, dead, neighborhood dive bar where the only patrons are women in lingerie, and if you go to the bathroom you are greeted with signs that say “Your boobs never EVER touch the customer,” all translated into Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Polish. This leaves plenty of time for all the moms to pull out their phones and compare baby pictures, while I die a little inside.

http://lush.la/1990TZw [ BlackBook ]

My Nutmeg Bender

Wayne Curtis

But in doing some research recently, I learned something new: nutmeg will fuck you up.

http://lush.la/198WzJF [ The Atlantic ]

The Old-Fashioned

Troy Patterson

A classic that can be destroyed, perfected, perverted. It can also reveal the depths of your character.

http://lush.la/uVapo2 [ Slate ]

In Praise Of Hogo And The Allure Of Funky Rum

Paul Clarke

I’d long sought a word more apt than “funky” for that characteristic found in rum (and in relatives like Batavia arrack) that is typically caustic to a novice, but that functions as an aphrodisiac for the liquid libidos of true-blue rum junkies.

http://lush.la/19oCOUf [ The Cocktail Chronicles ]

'Bar-tweenies' need lessons in basic mixology

Gary Regan

Not all drinks being served in today's cocktail lounges, though, deserve space in a chilled glass. I hate to be the one who says this, but I'm betting you've seen it coming. The cocktailian craft has been grossly mishandled of late, and it's time to rein in a few newcomers to the craft who seem to have missed the point.

http://lush.la/198UGN4 [ SFGate ]

Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?

John Cloud

A new paper in the journal _Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research_ suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. <a href="" title="Beer goggles by afagen, on Flickr"><img src="" width="640" height="429" alt="Beer goggles"></a>

http://lush.la/OP2NLq [ Time ]

Bar and Peace

Sometimes, when the light is just right or you are with a certain person, you look into the mirror behind the bottles at the back of the bar — you always look wonderful in that mirror — and experience a moment of breathtaking transcendence. You are entirely at home in the world, the song on the jukebox is exactly the right song, the drink is perfect, and everything, everything is exactly as it’s meant to be.

http://lush.la/198XLgj [ The New York Times ]