Every one and their mom is having a rosé wine tasting this week. Its almost like the release of every year’s Beaujolais nouveau on exactly the third Thursday of November. Luckily for me though, I enjoy rosés far far more than I’ve ever taken to a Beaujolais nouveau (granted, I’ve only tried the cheapest kind).

So in honor of wine consumerism, a group of us headed down to our ecletic neighborhood wine store, Crush, to sample some wares in their annual War of the Rosés. There was a lively and energetic crowd, consisting mainly of young female Midtown drones come to drown out their petty sorrows with free wine (ok, I may have made the backdrop up, but forgive me a mite of jealousy for our salary differential). But our group did stand out a bit; instead of the collared shirt, black skirt and office pumps, I was sporting a bright red tshirt depicting squirrel violence, one of our group had a blue tubetop, the last one was wearing sneakers and brought a JanSport backpack. But hey, we’re used to it, dressing like students in the Upper East Side means you get used to shopkeepers looking either 1) suspiciously or 2) disdainfully at you.

One fact still remained though; none of us knew much about wine. We understood the concept behind roses. We knew they tend to be cheap, low quality wines, meant for being quaffed in copious quantities with a picnic basket full of food. Finally, we knew… or at least, thought, they were supposed to be light and fruity and all the other wonderful easy characteristics of a white zinfandel that didn’t just suck.

Well. We certainly didn’t get that.

Our first few glasses were disappointing; perhaps we were just expecting the wrong thing. Most of us enjoy dry wines, but… not in our roses. We moved on quickly to the next table, where upon my first sniff, I exclaimed.

“Buttered popcorn!”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“No! It’s hot buttered popcorn, theatre-style!”
“Huh… well I guess I can kind of see that.”

I quickly lost this good will though, after exclaiming “Buttered popcorn!!” for each of the next 3 wines.

“Dandan. Are you sure you’re not just hungry??”

We moved on, tried a few inoffensive, but unremarkable wines, none of which had that light fruitiness that we had come to associate with roses after years of acclimation. Spotting a couple bottles of sparkling rose in the corner, and remembering the wonders of the FRV 100 we had tried a couple weeks ago, we planted ourselves in front of the sparkly and readied ourselves for magnificence.

I took the first sniff, of the Strohmeier 2000 Schilcher Sekt Reserve we were served.

Hesitation. “Wasabi. Definitely. Wasabi.”

The other two girls stared at me like I had grown two heads, one of which was made out of green horseradish.

“No, seriously! Wasabi!”

They sniffed. Tasted. Mouths dropped open.

J: “This is… this is like an entire sushi meal in one.”
Me: “Isn’t it?! Isn’t it?! There’s that salty miso soup at the start, an intense buttery tuna belly in the middle, and then the long wasabi/soy sauce finish.”
A: “Crazy! You’re right! This is crazy!”

How could one sip of wine, hell, one sip of rose, taste of an entire sushi entree? I have no idea. There’s black magic in this. None of us could decide whether or not we actually loved it, but the novelty factor was so strong, it didn’t even matter. Hell, I could just skip dinner and drink a glass of this. It’s Violet Beauregarde from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory all over again!
Unfortunately, it was also the most expensive wine, knocking in at $26.99 with the discount for the day of wine tasting (normally $29.99). Even if a whole bottle would’ve ended up being too much weird wine, it would’ve been worth the cost just to videotape your friends faces as they try the wine. This is not your grandmother’s rose.

All in all, not a bad expenditure of a Thirsty Thursday hour. Even though we ended up not buying anything, the experience truly broadened our expansions in terms on roses (one friend couldn’t believe the geographical diversity represented by the wines that night — and here we thought roses only came from California).

Wines we tried at Crush
Jean-Paul “Big Boy” Brun’s 2007 Rosé d’Folie (Made from Gamay in Beaujolais)
“Cool Guy” Copain’s 2007 Le Printemps Rosé (Pinot Noir from California)
Gérard Boulay’s 2007 Sancerre “Sacrificer” Rosé (Pinot Noir from Sancerre)
“The Commander” Commanderie de Peyrassol 2007 Rosé (Syrah from Provence)
“The Ferocious” Fenouillet 2007 Rosé (Syrah from Rhone)
Lauverjat “Loverboy” 2007 Sancerre Rosé (Pinot Noir from Sancerre)
“Lean and mean” Lafond 2007 Tavel Rosé (Grenache from Provence)
Triennes “Go ahead and Try Me” 2007 Rosé (Cinsault from Provence)
Jules “Rules” 2007 Rosé (Grenache from Provence)
Palmina “You’re Mine-A” 2007 Botasea Rosé (Dolcetto and Nebbiolo from California)
Stringtown “Meantown” 2007 Rosé (Grenache from California)
“Strong arm” Strohmeier NV Schilcher Sekt (Sparkling Blauer Wildbacher from Austria)
“Vintage Strong arm” Strohmeier 2000 Schilcher Sekt (Sparkling Blauer Wildbacher
from Austria) (our favorite, and unfortunately, apparently only available from Crush while in the US).

As Neil informed you previously, wine tastings are made out of all sorts of win. What he neglected to talk about, however, is how much win you can find post-wine tastings, from the dregs of papers lurking around in your purse. Being the woman, and holder of all things that is material (though yes yes, thank you to the menfolk that hold the wallets when purses are not in use), I ended up with the papers indicating our favorite choices.

They’re not too illuminating if you’re actually interested in the wines, but fairly entertaining regardless.

We didn’t manage to try all the wines there (I was determined, but my compatriots are far more rational than I), but from the ones we did try, we went in numerical order, roughly. Thus, you can see, in paper form, with what amazing swiftness we managed to go from sobriety to inebriation.

I love the last page, where there are notes on 4 wines; consisting of “!!!!”, “whee”, “whoa!”,  and “DD likeys”.

Haha, but all in all, it was a lovely wine tasting, I’ve discovered that my eno-childhood contained far too many bursting Starbusts-type fruity explosions that most of these French wines tasted very boring & watery to my palate. Ah well, children always did like bright colors.

There were still a couple gems that stood out, of which one, the FRV 100 (try pronouncing it in French, it becomes effervescent), was actually affordable ($19.99/btl) and truly the star of the party. I’ve never had a rose like it, and I might never again (once I’ve opened the one bottle I bought). The others were in the $40-70 area, a range that I hope never to approach on a general consumption level.

One of the best things about living in Cambridge is the Cambridge Brewing Company. It’s a nice, spacious location, with a lot more restaurant space than bar space (the food’s pretty decent though I’m not too impressed by the pizza), not too crowded on the weekends. And, of course, they make their own beer; the sides of the rooms are lined with enormous vats of beer, and you won’t be ordering a Corona here.

The biggest downside is that it’s at Kendall Square, so if it’s too full you’ve got a bit of a hike to get anywhere else. Also, they close at 1 for some reason, probably related to the fact that it caters more to adults who appreciate artistry, and less to grad students who want to get thrashed. I wear both hats, as the situation warrants.

This is an ale-only establishment; they’ve got I think four house beers that are always on tap (a golden Kölsch, an amber, a pale, and a porter), plus another five to ten seasonal beers that they rotate through as they become ready.

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Wine tastings rock so hard. For a really low buy-in, you can try a diverse assortment of wines, talk to people who actually know things about wine to pick up terminology (useful if you’re interested in calling wines something beyond “dry” and “sweet”), and get pleasantly drunk. Usually at like five in the afternoon. Oh, and usually there are hors d’oeuvres.

So when one of Dandan’s friends proposed doing exactly that at Cercle Rouge in Tribeca, we jumped. Like most wine tastings, this one had a (innocuous) gimmick: all the wines were organic and French (I seem to recall being told that there would be Italian wines too, but I don’t recall seeing any).

There were around 80 wines, with a pretty good distribution of regions whose names I really ought to recognize. I took notes (I always take notes at wine tastings so that I don’t look so much like a jackass who’s just there to get toasted), but they’re somewhere either in Dandan’s apartment or in the trash.

In summary: there was a lot of good wine, but I noticed a few trends: there were a lot more blends then I would have expected, there were several rosés that people were taking seriously and totally not just drinking because they were 19 (in fact, the sparkling FRV 100 Gamay was possibly the best wine we had), and, most telling of the difference between the French and the American palates, I found that a lot of the wines lacked any “punch.” There wasn’t a single wine I tried that offended me, but out of the few dozen I tasted there were only a few that were particularly distinct. Do I expect wine to taste too much like citric acid and Kool-Aid? Was I in the wrong mindset? Was I drunk? On all three counts, the answer might be “yes.”

Whatever the case, the vintners were enthusiastic and informative, the hors d’oeuvres were worth the $5 by themselves (steak tartare… mmm). After most of our modest party had hit their limit, the authors of this column squeezed in a bonus round or two, and then we all wandered down the street to the affiliated wine shop where we bought a few bottles of the better stuff. We hoofed it, mildy intoxicated at six in the evening, over to Chinatown where we devoured a platter of Vietnamese food and then rather a lot of espresso. I seem to recall that most of the wine we bought was consumed over Pictionary later that evening.

If that’s not a fine day, then I don’t know what is.

There are some milestones in life that we’ve all experienced and can relate to. Getting your driver’s license. Holding onto your first paycheck. Finding out that tonic water has calories.

Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it’s true: the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, tonic water is not just water with quinine, and your father was the one that accidentally ran over Pookie when you were 8.

Neil: “What? No, you’re making things up. Tonic water doesn’t have any calories. It’s tonic water!”
Me: “Why do you think gin & tonics are so sweet and delicious? It’s not gin & magic.” (note to self: create a cocktail called Gin & Magic)
*One wikipedia article later*
Neil: “Tonic water has as many calories as soda? That’s bullshit!”
Me: “Oh trust me, I know.”

Tonic water, usually sweetened with, of course, high fructose corn syrup in the US, has around 120-140 calories per 12oz can, which is pretty much exactly the same as any other soda that rots your teeth and gives you diabetes. It did, at one point, consist merely of carbonated water with quinine, back when it was used as an anti-malarial by British forces in tropical countries. I’d love to see if I could actually find some tonic water that’s still made this way, with no sweetener and massive amounts of quinine so that 1) I can drink G&Ts instead of take anti-malarials when/if I travel to the appropriate place (like, outside my Manhattan apartment in 20 years), and 2) just to see what the original G&T taste was like. Btw, one of the above statements is completely fallacious, but I’ll leave it up to you and your doctor to figure out which.

Anyhow, after a revelation like that, we had to drown our caloric sorrows with some gin & tonics. We picked up tonic water from Whole Foods, which sells their own 365 label of tonic water, for the reasonable price of $2ish/6 cans. The one over at Union Square also sells Q tonic water (read: designer tonic water made ’specially for G&Ts) for $11.99/4 bottles, but I’m not made out of enough gold to buy it (I might pick it up next time though, just out of curiosity and financial masochism).

Matchup between our current in-house gin brands…! All G&Ts were made with 1.5oz gin to 3oz tonic water (1:2 ratio), poured over ice and garnished. 1 can of tonic water makes exactly 4 G&Ts.

The Great Hyperbole-Free Gin & Tonic Matchup - 2008!

Brand	Hendrick’s	Bombay Sapphire	Tanqueray Rangpur
Garnish	Floating cucumber slices	Wedge of lime	Wedge of lime
Verdict	It’s… surprisingly very good and refreshing! We both thought the taste of Hendrick’s by itself was… “weird”, but with the floating cucumber slices in particular, it became the best “summer”-ish drink. Great balance.	Great juniper/botanical tones cutting through the sweetness of the tonic water. A classic gin & tonic	This just didn’t taste right. The lime infusion with the gin just ends up feeling too… harsh, and the tonic water didn’t help round that out
Rating

To summarize: Hendrick’s puts an interesting twist on the G&T, Bombay Sapphire makes a classic, and Tanqueray Rangpur is a dud. Till next time, friends!

For kind of a while now, I’ve been on a dark coffee kick. From a strictly political standpoint, that’s dangerous; some would claim it’s a slippery slope from there to being another Starbucks drone. I disagree; I think that 20% of the problem with Starbucks is soporific music, and the other 80% is the fact that most of their beverages no longer classify as coffee. They certainly do roast their beans a bit dark, and that may not be to everybody’s liking, but that’s a standard coffee-house aesthetic decision, and not a sign of the apocalypse.

So, after working my way through a pound or so of some Viennese Roast that I bought out of the bin at the local co-op, I found myself at Trader Joe’s in desperate need of coffee.

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Rejoice, ye humble supplicants kneeling at the foot of the Beer Gods; our prayers have been answered!

Take MenuPages, add beer, you get BeerMenus.com, or a rather comprehensive listing of bars & restaurants and their respective beer menus, currently only available in New York (but of course). A quick browse through the site yielded many fruits; I finally know where I can find that delicious amazing nectar known as Dogfish 120 (and for only $7/bottle? I feel like that’s got to be some kind of typo… maybe a little bit of investigative journalism is at hand? Oh the depths I’d go to for the Truth and a bottle of Dogfish), and there’s apparently a free beer & … oysters? tasting on May 6th at Blind Tiger Ale House. Well sir, you’ve sold me twice - beer & oysters rank right up there with oxygen in my book.
On a more disappointing note, the uptown offerings seems to be fairly meager. A walk through my neighborhood shows 8 restaurants/bars. That’s at least 30x that existing up here. Conspicuously missing is the UES beer mecca of David Copperfield’s (if 30 taps & 100+ bottles doesn’t count, then nothing does).

Still, a solid/clean site that just launched 2 days ago — looking forward to seeing this site become a real go-to spot for beer in the city. In retrospect, it’s quite amazing that this particular Web 2.0 niche took so long before being filled…!

So the editors of this illustrious journal were sitting around experimenting with martinis one day recently, and — violating the second rule of alcohol consumption — we had a computer open. As anybody on the entire planet could tell you, computers and youtube go together like gin and olives (which is to say: very well but it’s not exactly good for you).

I honestly couldn’t tell you the details of how this happened, but we wound up on the youtube channel for something called drinkstv.

In a phrase: oh the pain. They’re wrong about everything, wrong in a way only a South Florida bartender serving up liquor to flabby, overtanned fratboys (and the female equivalent) can be.

Maybe some people enjoy having their intelligence insulted. Me, not so much. Try this experiment:

1. Watch this little clip on how to make a mint julep.
2. Okay, now do it again but don’t look at her boobs this time.
3. A LIME?! SPRITE?

For those not in the know: mint, bourbon, sugar (powdered or granulated; there’s some debate), a splash of water, and a lot of crushed ice. That’s it. It’s not a “mojito with bourbon.” In fact, the only thing they have in common is mint and sugar — and you shouldn’t really be bruising the mint in a julep so even that’s kind of a stretch.

And that abomination used fairly costly bourbon to boot.

Make no mistake: I’m not opposed to hot bartenders (though “oh look cleavage” and “hot” comprise a Venn diagram that doesn’t overlap all that much), but their job isn’t to be hot; their job is to give me something nice to drink. If you really want to use sex to sell your product, open a strip club — and then hire competent bartenders. If I’m ordering cocktails at all — and I don’t order anything more complicated than a whisky sour much exactly becaue of stuff like this — I’m going to do it because I think the bartender knows his or her trade.

Because let’s face it: this is the internet, and it’s full of things way more titillating (har) than anything you can see behind the bar at any club. For free, even.

God help me if I went up to this woman and ordered a sazerac.

In closing, let me note that the comments on the youtube video I linked make it almost worthwhile. Usually youtube comments are transcendentally stupid, but for once they actually seem to get it.

Having recently acquired a $5 gift card, I stepped into a Starbucks yesterday - for the first time in a while (yay for living in a city where the number of small independent coffee shops actually outnumber the chains). I was downtown, at Astor Place, and wanted to sit down to read for a bit. After nearly backing out after seeing the swarm of NYU students buzzing around the place, I decided the line was moving fast enough for me to pick up a caramel apple cider — pretty much the only drink I get there anymore, since I no longer have that sweet tooth for frappuccinos that my 15 year old self had and I don’t have a high opinion of their coffee, tea, or cappuccino. As I was idly looking at the menu overhead, I noticed the board looked… strange.

Coffee	$1.10	10
Tea	$1.10	0
Caramel Frappucino	$4.79	300

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As a scientist, I like quantitative formulas. As a young Manhattanite, I like to drink. To wrap these statements altogether, to find out which brands have been enjoyed the most from my home bar, I suggest the following:

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