News

June 13, 2018 Patrick Smith

Spritzes & Fizzes & Highballs, Oh, My!
While a stiff drink never goes out of style, in the summer heat it’s hard to beat something refreshing, something bubbly enough to tickle your tongue as well as it tickles your fancy. Enter our three summertime players: the Spritz, the Fizz, and the Highball.
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June 13, 2018 Mish Sukharev

Your New Summer Fling: The Aperitivo
If there’s just one tradition we could transplant from Italy to this side of the Atlantic, it very well might be the Aperitivo Hour. Here, on our side of the globe we’ve inherited the decidedly more New World-style, Happy Hour. And don’t get us wrong, Happy Hours are great - but Aperitivo Hours are just something different - more relaxed, more convivial, more joyful. Who can say no to a late afternoon in the sun, enjoying a glass of something light, delicious and refreshing?
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April 10, 2018 Patrick Smith

Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Terroir But Were Afraid To Ask
Terroir is a term that is thrown around a lot these days in the spirits world. Any number of luxury spirit brands claim to exhibit Terroir, which in most cases they seem to define as a sense of place. When the definition is that vague, who can argue with them? Our very own Patrick Smith is on the case!
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February 21, 2018 Mish Sukharev

How To Fall In Love With Lemon Bars and End Up With New Cocktails (Part 3)
My perfect lemon bar has some passionfruit in it (as I wrote about in Part 1), and now that I had the Lemon Bar Clarified Milk Punch on hand (that we made in Part 2), I was ready to make the perfect cocktail homage to my favorite dessert.
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January 24, 2018 Meredith Lantz

The best bottles of 2017 to try now and love forever
2017 was the year of the shake up. Once reliable bases were all but erased, and it was all about the big, loud, new-sense of spirit, eager to drain the swamp and pomp... out of cocktails and spirits of course.
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January 22, 2018 Meredith Lantz

Sipping Gin and Drier Amaro made by the Bay's OG in craft distilling
Farid is one of the Bay Areas's original distillers, and he started doing small batch gin before those terms were ever even strung together in a sentence. His gin is produced in batches with fewer than 300 at his Falcon Spirits distillery in Richmond California. From start to finish the production take a month, during which he actually uses a proprietary method of vapor infusion as he produces his gin. That method helps capture aromas with the least amount of impurity. The 100% grain spirit is six times distilled and carbon filtered, which creates a lighter bodied, very botanically balanced sipper.
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January 22, 2018 Joe Barwin

Amaro like a Distilleria Varnelli boss
Located on the slopes of Mount Sibillini in Eastern Italy, Distilleria Varnelli has been creating intensely Italian liqueurs there since its founding in 1868. Some 150 years later, the families’ intensely Italian four women strong fourth generation continues to insist on 100% natural ingredients and traditional techniques. Elda, Gigliola Simonetta, Mari Donatella and Orietta Maria still personally oversee the secret phases of production, hopefully it’s the very old school extraction of botanicals over a wood fire. The mission: “Offer products that make pleasant moments of social life still more pleasant, with ancient flavors reinterpreted in a contemporary way.” Perfect. If you can’t tell, I’m totally stanning for these D’oro Donne and their quintessential Amaro.
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January 22, 2018 Melissa Watson

How to Make a Spritz: Way More than Just Aperol
The Aperol Spritz has been everywhere lately. It’s a San Francisco brunch favorite. I live in the suburbs and a local restaurant even named their happy hour Spritz Hour!

I’m sure you’ve seen it around. Bubbly and bright orange. Day drinking appropriate. Won’t knock you on your butt too fast. Approachable like a glass of wine but enough of a mixed drink to lend a little cocktail cred. But the spritz has been around longer than Aperol so you shouldn’t be afraid to tinker and come up with your own variations.

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January 19, 2018 Melissa Watson

Amaro + Artichokes: an education and a cocktail recipe
Bitter tends to be an acquired taste to most palettes so don’t be surprised if you don’t enjoy Amaro at first, I didn’t! I’ve been into this category of liqueur for most of a decade and I love how many people have decided to join me on the bittersweet side of life. Most amaros (or amari if you pluralize properly in Italian) are made in Italy but American distillers have been creating their own versions more and more.
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January 19, 2018 Joe Barwin

Lo-Fi Aperitifs, Perfect for Spritz's and Never Fail Cocktails
Looking for a light, flavorful, refreshing, and low ABV cocktail for those summer afternoons? Let us introduce you to the perfect solution.

Lo-Fi Aperitifs are a line of vermouths and amaro crafted with California wines and natural herbs & botanicals. It can be enjoyed on it’s own, or used generously in a cocktail — not just whispered over a martini. They infuse their wine with a unique blend of botanicals are listed right on the label. Everything that’s in it, is on it!

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January 19, 2018 Meredith Lantz

5 Bottles to Gift the Women in your life this Mother's Day
The Moms in our life do a lot for us, because of us, and often in spite of us. This Mother's Day skip the cut flowers, and pick up a bouquet of fragrant aromas from the uncut power of these spirits distilled, created, or inspired by women. See below.
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January 19, 2018 Meredith Lantz

Rosé? No Way. 5 beautiful bottles to gift the dinner party host
The intoxicating chorus of Rosé's pop and clink will always be a warm weather hit single, but we're hoping this summer's anthem is more about these literally red, haute, alt-rocking bottles. Each pick will incite refrains of oohs and ahhs when you present this as your dinner party host gift, but they're so easy to drink, it won't be long before you're singing the chorus to Drunk in Love.
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