Five Boozey Steps to a Green Drinking Binge

Green is the buzz word, and there's no exception to this rule in the alcohol industry, where breweries and distilleries all around the world are working to give us the greenest buzz possible. Here are five super green choices for an environmentally friendly drinking binge.

1. Wolaver's Organic Brown Ale
Start the evening off with this tasty organic beer. According to an East Coast Beer roundup on Planet Green, Middlebury, Vermont-based Otter Creek Brewing Company rolls out 100 percent organic beer in packaging made of recycled board and case boxes made of unbleached paper. The brewery is packed to the brim with eco smarts, including a free-air cooler, an efficient lighting system, and a boiler system that runs on a biodiesel mixture. Processed grain is sent to feed local livestock and wastewater is purified. The company also uses local ingredients as much as possible.

Credits from left: Reyka Vodka; Otter Creek Brewing Company; tripletlads via Flickr

2. Parducci Cabernet Savignon 2005
Down a bottle of cabernet with dinner. Although the wine's not organic, the family-owned Parducci Wine Cellars in Mendocino, California is America's first carbon-neutral winery. When the facility switched to 100 percent solar and wind power last spring, it became 100 percent carbon-neutral, no easy feat.

And that's not all: Grapes hail from local vendors, staff practices organic farming methods and pest management using biodiesel tractors, and packaging is eco-friendly. According to the Wine Cask Blog, Parducci Cabernet Savignon 2005 is what you want for "oh-so-smooth" drinking. Sounds good to us.

3. Benromach Organic Whiskey
For dessert, throw back a shot of Benromach Organic Whiskey. This $60 potion, "rich and fruity with sweet, resinous flavors," is handmade and matured in virgin American oak casks carved from sustainable wood. The distillery also takes care of its soil, bringing us the first bottled Single Malt Whiskey fully-certified by the Soil Association.

4. Reyka Vodka
Chase the whiskey with a shot of Iclandic Reyka Vodka. At this point you'll really dig their trippy Web site. Reyka is the only distillery in the world that uses 100 percent Geothermal energy, sparkling clean energy that comes from steam drawn from local Icelandic hot springs. Sounds nice, doesn't it? It get's better. Instead of coal, the folks at Reyka scoop up some lava rocks, naturally abundant to the area.

5. RW Knudsen Organic Apple Juice
Now, depending on your mental capacity, you can either a) consider a mixer or b) start drinking only juice. Best case, go local with that juice. Those of you in Florida can say hello to screwdrivers. But for many of us, the apple is the fruit of choice. Luckily vodka mixed with apple juice is a delicious new trend. And we're not talking about that watered-down sugary clear stuff from grammar school snack time. Go cloudy. And organic. Cider works too. Certified organic RW Knudsen Organic Apple Juice is made from 100 percent organic apples, with no added sugar or artificial flavors. And the company, a pioneer in the organic market, boasts some fantastic green initiatives too. The facility has an extensive recycling program (which has diverted over 37,000 tons of trash from local area landfill since 1996) and much of its power is generated from methane gas, waste heat generating during production, and a 200 Kilowatt Photo Voltaic solar energy system.

Even if green binge drinking is not for you, with the holiday season around the corner, it's the perfect time to stockpile your liquor cabinet with eco drinking options. Salut!

More on TreeHuger and Planet Green
Green Drinks - Should You Shop For Organic Spirits?
The World's 5 Most Wicked Green Wineries
Buy Green: Organic Cabernet Sauvignon
Buy Green: East Coast Beer
How to Go Green: Beers
Buddhist Temple Built from Beer Bottles

More From Mairi Beautyman on Huffington Post
Five Ways to Green Your Yoga Workout
More Loving for American Expats, Plus Six Green Reasons to Vote Barack Obama
Four Ways for a Stylish and Tasty Green Dinner Party
From the Olympics to Sears, Wearing Recycled Bottles Goes Mainstream
Clothing Made from Milk and Bottles Made of Paper? The Eco Design Revolution
Terrorists or Heroes? Sea Shepherd Fights for Marine Life
Does Terrorism Make us Travel Greener?

Comments

[KellyFromTheWinery]

I would like to offer a big thank you to the Huffington Post for highlighting Parducci’s sustainability efforts.

We became the first US carbon neutral winery by measuring our total carbon footprint using the California Climate Action Registry’s protocol (the basis for California’s new climate regulation – AB32), focusing on internal mitigation efforts, and then purchasing carbon credits to offset our remaining footprint.

Internal mitigation is the primary focus here at the winery. Through careful experimentation, research and planning we began the process of reducing waste and improving efficiency. Because energy use is the largest contributing factor Parducci’s carbon footprint (almost 80%), power conservation and green energy were the winery’s first priority.

Internal Mitigation efforts (short list)

• We installed the first phase of our multi-part solar installation in 2007.

• 100% green power: we transferred all of our energy needs to non-polluting, renewable sources by supplementing our on-site solar power with Green-E® certified wind energy purchased from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) in 2008 .
- Ccompletely separate from our carbon offset purchase.
- Annual positive environmental impact is equivalent to removing 172 cars from the road for a year, or planting 242 acres of trees, or not driving a passenger vehicle 2,171,450 miles.

o Completion of an energy-efficiency audit and lighting retrofit in partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)

o Using bio-diesel in company vehicles and farm equipment

[Rucio]

In the matter of Parducci Wine Cellars, there's a big difference between being powered by wind and solar and just supporting those industries by buying renewable energy credits, or green tags (an invention of Enron). Parducci uses its own solar power, but it does not use any more wind energy than its neighbors do.

To claim that it's "carbon neutral", the company buys green tags that are matched to wind energy that someone else uses and has already bought. Parducci is not thereby neutralizing their carbon footprint -- they are buying "indulgences".