Costco wines tasted by professional Sommelier

I ran across this because the Youtube algorithm tossed it up in my feed (Lord knows why).  But Andre Mack seems to have some chops as a sommelier, and he has a really interesting tasting of Costco (Kirkland Signature) wines.  These range from $4 to $30 a bottle, mostly in the $8 - $12 range.  Bottom line: some dogs but surprisingly few.

My impression: can confirm on the Kirkland Pinot Grigio.  It's not something you'll find at a Michelin Star restaurant, but it's really good vino locale (or in French, le bon vin de table).  And it comes in the 3 liter box for $13.  Endorsed.

So I watched this and thought that Mr. Mack seems legit.  As a follow up, I watched this tasting of the same wine from different vintages, 1978 to 2016.  I believe that Mr. Mack is indeed legit.  There's good stuff here.

I like how he describes himself as a wine "nerd" - guilty as charged, although my days of real wine nerdism are a third of a century in the rear view mirror.  I even built a wine cellar under the basement stairs.  What Mack says here about how wine ages is exactly what I saw with a case of Bordeaux (1986 Gruaud Larose).  Over the span of six years the wine definitely and obviously changed each year.

Ya know, if I had kept that untouched, the $30/bottle (1990 dollars) would be now worth ~ $300/bottle (2024 dollars*).  But you need to not move every 5 years, so that won't work.

But watch the first video for sure, and go get you some legit cheap wine at Costco.  I hadn't known that they're the top wine merchant in the US.

*About 30 cents/bottle in 1990 dollars, given how inflation is running.

Yo Ho Ho

For my birthday, The Queen Of The World got me (among other things) a really interesting book:

Wayne Curtis' book, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails.  You see, I've gotten interested in (good) rums in the last year or two, and she (heck - and you) know my interest in history.  This was a twofer.

It's way more interesting than you might think.  For example, if there hadn't been rum, there very well may not have been an American Revolution.  Really.

The book charts the history from the early funky and maybe undrinkable stuff to how rum conquered the New World in the early twentieth century - and how Prohibition almost changed it into something unrecognizable.

But it ends on a high note, with Tiki drinks - particularly the Mai Tai - is a chapter that is clearly a love letter to the lost Tiki Bar era.  It's great fun, and great entertainment.  This book comes highly recommended.

And the original Trader Vic Mai Tai is nothing like what you get in a bar today, unless you seek out one of the few great old Tiki Bars that Curtis writes about.  But we do have a recipe from Trader Vic, highlighted in this excellent Tasting History video from Max Miller:

Both book and video are heartily recommended, Me Hearties.

Chet Atkins - Kentucky Derby

Today is the Kentucky Derby, so music is to get you in the mood.  There are no lyrics, just Chet Atkins at his picking best. 

I've previously posted The Queen Of The World's Mint Julep recipe and so there's no need to repeat that.  Instead, I will give you my recipe for a killer smoked Old Fashioned:

Ingredients:

• Luxardo cherries (yes, I know they're crazy expensive; they're also crazy good)
• Two slices of orange, at least 1/2" thick each
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• Blood Orange bitters
• 2 oz (or to taste) Kentucky Bourbon (I like Four Roses which is good enough to sip neat but not so expensive that you don't want to mix cocktails with it)
• Ice

The hardware:

A rocks glass (preferably of the Second Amendment type, just because):

A muddler: 

 

A cocktail smoker:

Assembly:

1. Remove the rind from one orange slice and put into rocks glass with two Luxardo cherries and the sugar.

2. Muddle the fruit until you have basically a fruit slurry.

3. Add two shakes of bitters.

4. Add the Bourbon.

5. Stir with a spoon.

6. Add ice.

7. Use smoker as directed.  This is the one that I have and how it works:

8. Put a plate over the glass and let the drink rest with the smoke in it for five minutes.  Don't skimp on the time, because the smoke flavor will infuse the drink.

9. Garnish with two Luxardo cherries and the other orange slice.

I said it was a killer drink; I didn't say it was quick to make.

A note on Luxardo cherries: these are something like $20/jar, although Total Wine has a #10 can of them for like $99 which really drops the price per cherry but gives you a lot of cherries. If you are wondering why they are so expensive, let me just say that these are nothing like the Red Dye #2 cherries that you get at the supermarket.  Nothing at all like them.  It defies description, so you will have to take my word that they're worth it.  

Or not, heck it's up to you.

Let me just say that a jar will last you the better part of a year so it would be a shame to go to all the work on this cocktail and not have good ingredients.  

I would SO go here

FOtB Pachydermis2 is tending bar at the coolest bar ever.

I would totally have a drink there.  Oh by the way, his mask was because they were excavating rock.

The Queen Of The World's Mint Julep

Today is the Kentucky Derby, and so favored daughter of Kentucky (and Kentucky Colonel) The Queen Of The World's Mint Julep comes to mind.  Her recipe follows:

Open a nice bottle of wine.

She's not a Mint Julep fan, although she makes a fine one (as co-blogger and Brother-from-another-Mother ASM826 can attest).  But really - she says get you a nice bottle of wine instead. I think that's kind of funny - you might be able to get yourself deported from Kentucky for disliking the cocktail - but the number of things about her that I think are adorable is a long list indeed.

If you're betting, then the best of luck to you.

The oldest wine still being made

The island of Cyprus still makes what seems to be the oldest type of wine that we know about.  Commandaria got its name from the headquarters of the Knights Templar in the 13th century, but the wine was old even then: King Richard the Lionheart (of Crusades and Robin Hood fame) has it at his wedding, but it far pre-dates that.  You have to go way, way back to 800 BC when Hesiod described a wine called Cypriot Manna.

It is a sweet, fortified wine - if you've ever had Port or Icewein then I expect this would be similar.  The grapes are harvested and then left in the sun so that evaporation concentrates the sugars.  Today's Commandaria is aged several years in oak barrels - in ancient times the wine would have been stored in big terra cotta jugs.

I'd like to try this sometime, if only for the history of the thing.

You can read about a more or less recent tasting here.

Party time! Excellent!

I posted this ten years ago, and it's still funny.  You can get them here.

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1999 1912

Apologies to the artist formerly known as "Prince" ...

The world's oldest wine

It dates from the Roman Empire:

The Speyer wine bottle (or "Römerwein") is a sealed vessel, presumed to contain liquid wine, and so named because it was unearthed from a Roman tomb found near Speyer, Germany. It is considered the world's oldest known bottle of wine.

It's still full of liquid:

You can see the high quality of the glass bottle.  Roman glass was highly prized by other civilizations and was widely exported as a luxury good.  Roman glass is found regularly in China.

But it's cool to see the actual liquid wine from ca. 325 AD.

I'd drink that

HAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I'd totally drink that.

A [blank] and his [blank] are soon [blank]

San Francisco watering hole offers a $43 martini:

Epic Steak, a waterfront dining spot popular with the finance and tech sectors that have come to dominate the city's downtown, has begun offering the £33 Fog Point Martini, a drink that bills itself as being infused with, umm, fog. 

The drink, it is said, is made with a special vodka crafted by the Local Hangar 1 Distillery using water gathered from special "fog catcher" machines that condense the water vapors out of the "marine layer" that blows into the Bay Area much of the year. 

That, combined with some vermouth and a lemon twist, will set you back a cool $43 bucks, plus tip, and the gnawing feeling that you have sold your soul to live in an unsustainable bubble society built on delusion and bravado.

Now I like a good martini as much as the next man (Bombay Sapphire straight up, extra olives, don't be chintzy on the vermouth).  But I start to mutter dark comments when the price approaches double digits.  For $43, I'd expect to get right toasted.

But hey San Francisco hipsters - always nice to have another reason to punch you! And El Reg brings the snark:

You will not be surprised to hear that the drink is a hit in the Bay Area and the fog-infused vodka sold out faster than a computer science grad at a VC mixer.

Is it National Punch-A-Silicon-Valley-Hipster week?

Watching the Olympics is better when you're drunk

Especially if you're watching the Irish sports commentator announcing sailing (which he clearly doesn't know anything about).



Open a Guinness, kick back, and enjoy!  Just make sure you watch all the way to the end.

Hat tip: Chris Lynch.

Bacon Mary

Bloody Mary made with Bakon vodka. Man, it's good.



Given the name by the Queen Of The World. You might say "knighted", even. Arise, Sir Wilbur ...

Global Warming is good for champagne

Good news for holiday tipplers:

Now Champagne makers have gone a step further, claiming that global warming has been good for them.


According to Reuters;

As France prepares to host world leaders for talks on how to slow global warming next month, producers of the northeastern French region’s famous sparkling wine have seen only benefits from rising temperatures so far.

The 1.2 degrees centigrade increase in temperatures in the region over the past 30 years has reduced frost damage. It has also added one degree in the level of alcohol and reduced acidity, making it easier to comply with strict production rules, according to champagne makers group CIVC.

“The Champagne region and Germany are among the northerly vineyards which have managed to develop thanks to warmer weather,” Jean-Marc Touzard, coordinator of a program on wine and climate change at French research institute INRA.

“Even if I feel very concerned by climate change, I have to say that for the moment it has had only positive effects for Champagne,” Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, president of the group that bears his family’s name, told Reuters at the company’s Reims headquarters.

Remember, the bubbles in champagne are carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas said to warm the Champagne region of France and produce better wine.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Paddy's Day protip

You know you have a drinking problem when your fridge starts looking like this.

Let's be careful out there.

Wine recommendation - Vinas Chilenas Sauvignon Blanc Reserva 2013

We like a lot of Sauvignon Blanc here at Camp Borepatch, and so I picked up a bottle at Trader Joe's absurdly low $4.49 list price.  This will be making an appearance in the wine cellar here.  This review doesn't do this justice, giving it only 85 points out of 100.  However, this is a crazy good price/performance ratio, and so while a New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon will indeed be better, you will pay two and a half times as much.  This review is more in like with my thinking (although perhaps a little generous), but as with all reviews, your mileage may vary.

For daily white vin de table drinking, this has migrated pretty high up on my wine list.

The drunkest cities in America

Interesting.  Also interesting that this wasn't published in Modern Drunkard.

In my liquor cabinet

Act the First:

Take one bottle of a-step-up-from-bottom-shelf bourbon.  I like W. L. Weller which is decent and goes for around $12 a bottle in these parts.

Take one ginger root (not the yucky powered stuff).  Peel a thumb sized piece with a vegetable peeler.

Put ginger slivers into the bourbon.  You may need to pour off a shot before you add them, to make sure there's room in the bottle.  Don't let that shot go to waste.

Let steep for at least a week.  Presto!  Ginger bourbon, which is just another example of why 'Murica kicks butt.

Act the Second:

Take one bottle of a-step-up-from-bottom-shelf vodka.  I like Stravinski Polish Vodka - it had a sign saying it was distilled 5 times.  It runs around $10 around here.

Take one grapefruit cup - you know, the ones that come in a plastic cup at the local supermarket.

Put grapefruit sections in the vodka.  You may need to pour off a shot before you add them, to make sure there's room in the bottle.  Don't let that shot go to waste.

Let steep for at least a week.  Presto! Grapefruit vodka, which is just another example of why 'Murica kicks butt.

Exeunt.

Ten foods that taste way better with bacon

Because bacon.

Made Man is an interesting site, perhaps to be a less urban (and online) GQ.  There's quite a lot of "Top X" lists - top five sport-touring bikes, that sort of thing.  But there's also a mix of actual manly stuff that you'll never see in GQ: How to set Kawasaki Bayou 300 Valves, How to set the timing on a '79 Harley, How to make Motorcycle tires sticky, that sort of thing.

Plus, they have a regular Friday cocktail blog.  It is pretty heavy on the snark, with the last several being focused on the theme of the Government shutdown.  For example, the Washington on the rocks:

Washington on the Rocks
3 ounces dry vermouth
1.5 ounces brandy
1 teaspoon simple syrup
3-4 dashes bitters
Glassware: Rocks glass
Method: Pour all ingredients into the glass, stir gently, fill to the top with ice, turn off the news, and enjoy.

Pretty interesting mix of stuff, and way less precious than you might think.

I'd never thought to put horseradish in a bloody mary

Sounds pretty good, though.  And replacing the black pepper with Old Bay would be pretty good, too.

Ginger bourbon

Because I love* y'all so much, this is a surprisingly good enhancement to cheap-n-decent bourbon whiskey.  Remember, use decent-n-cheap bourbon, and not the top shelf spendy stuff, because otherwise why did you spend the spendy on it?

Ingredients:

One thumbnail sized piece of ginger root, peeled

Ice

Decent, inexpensive Bourbon Whiskey.  I think that W. L. Weller is a great price/performance leader for inexpensive-n-good bourbon,  It's around $12/fifth in these parts.

Procedure:

Roughly chop the ginger root, and then crush in a mortar and pestle.  If you don't have one of these, you can take a (clean) brick from your yard and whale on it until it's, well, crushed

Fill an Old Fashioned glass (half height cocktail glass) with ice

Toss in the ginger root mush and shards

Fill with an ounce and a half of your bourbon

Swirl to combine.  Let sit 5 minutes to steep, and serve to a skeptical but soon-to-be-adoring public.

* Platonically, of course.