I have the great pleasure in my position as wine manager for Twin Liquors to visit wineries and vineyards located all over the world. I absolutely love meeting the winemakers, vineyard managers and all the other people that have a hand in making great wine. I find that wine is a visceral experience that provides the link to the place it is grown once I have returned home.  You don’t have to travel to far off places to enjoy this experience. You can travel the wine country right here in the Texas Hill Country!  

The “art” that comes out of LA can be plastic, but the craft behind it can be genuine.  It’s a beautiful thing when the genuine is embraced by the public, because then it has the opportunity to proliferate. When speaking of art in terms of food or drink, you need a consumer in order to allow for a cycle. Take Austin for instance…there is a growing number dedicated to the creation of authentic food and drink experiences, but often times, these bars and restaurants struggle because they do not have the consumer base. As Austin’s population grows that has and will continue to change. In LA, and other major cities, you have a large enough consumer base to support the creativity. Specifically of course I speak of the cocktail, and I want to mention 213 ventures. CEO Ced Moses, son of Abstract Expressionist, Ed Moses, is making Art in his own right. And people are buying it.

By Eric S. Bochner

Sake is big and getting bigger. We’ve all had sake at our favorite sushi joint, served warm in the little porcelain carafe with a Dragon roll or dropped into a glass of Sapporro for a sake bomb, but there is a lot more to sake than the starchy dry rice wine that can leave you wearing a bitter beer face.  Sake comes in several grades and can display a wide array of characteristics, ranging from fruit-driven aromas to crisp and dry to flavor infused sake. These sakes are served slightly chilled and can be enjoyed alone or as the keystone of a cocktail, and believe me, there is no end to what you can do with your sake. I recently visited the Sake One sakery in Forest Grove (outside of Portland, Oregon) and learned the process behind making this ancient elixir that is sweeping the nation by storm.

There is a tradition in Siena, an annual event held in la Piazza Il Palio, the name of the event derived from the name of the piazza, or vice versa. Il Palio is a contest, the 17 contratae (districts of Siena) competing with a single horse and a single rider. They ride bareback around the outer ring of the piazza, a large imperfect circle that looks to be about a quarter of a mile around. The sidewalk café at which we sat is in this ring, and during the competition the tables are cleared away and dirt is poured and packed over the cobblestones. Thousands of people pack into the center of the piazza for the races and the vendors all around sell photographs of the intensely popular event. It will be something to plan for on the next visit over.

By Brenda Audino

I was recently on a trip to Oregon wine country in the Northern Willamette Valley and had the opportunity to visit with several well renowned wine makers. While they often disagree on whether it’s best to use a single vineyard for purity of the vineyard’s expression or which specific Pinot Noir clone makes the best wine, they all seem to agree that to make great Oregon Pinot Noir they must first start with great grapes. 

I love to have the last word… but made by a bartender, or a mixologist? 

by Paul Gingrich

I have been a Maker’s Mark Ambassador going back to before I got into this wonderful life I live.  For those unfamiliar with what a Maker’s Mark Ambassador is, I will explain.  Maker’s Mark has a group of core enthusiasts that love Bourbon and more to the point love Maker’s Mark.  They have an online program that you join, for free, to become an ambassador for the brand.  You swear your undying love for the brand (not a hard thing to do if you love Bourbon) and you are not only assigned a member number, but your name, along with a few others, is put on a plate and attached to a barrel at the distillery in Loretto Kentucky.  When your barrel comes mature and ready for bottling, you and the other Ambassadors that have been assigned to that barrel are invited to come down and not only purchase a bottle or two from your barrel, but actually do the red wax-hand dip of the bottles that is the signature of Maker’s Mark. You also get notified, via email, of events that are geared to Ambassadors only.  The most famous of these events is the Maker’s Mark Ambassador’s weekend.  This year it took 

by Paul Gingrich

-I had the singular pleasure of doing a bareboat vacation in the British Virgin Islands for eight days at the end of May 2010.  Judging by the response I got to my Facebook postings, a lot of friends, customers and family (that seems redundant) of Twin Liquors have been there before me. There are so many things to see and so much Rum to drink, that it’s hard to pack it all in. Even an extended week was not enough.  The British Virgin Islands are a place that draws people from all over the world.  It would be hard to see it all without having the freedom to move about that a sailboat provides.  I have been to Grand Cayman and to Hawaii on land based vacations in the past.  That works fine for those places.  To truly experience the BVI demands that you do it from the deck of a boat.  Seven of us were on a forty-one foot Catamaran for eight days.  It was a perfect platform with the perfect crew.  We went from Virgin Gorda on the eastern extreme to Jost Van Dyke on the western extreme.