Back in early December, when I first started thinking about writing this year-end wrap-up, I thought that 2011 was a pretty blah year for new spirits, especially compared to 2010, when a month didn't go by without at least one or two spectacular brands debuting in bars and...

My daughter turned 18 months old this week, which means that in 2011 I listened to far more Yo Gabba Gabba and the Fresh Beat Band than any new records that came out this year. Not that I'm complaining. I actually like both shows -- perhaps, I sometimes worry, a...

Time was, when Christmas or Hanukkah suddenly loomed large on the calendar and last-minute shoppers began to panic, there were three places you could reliably count on for a quick armful of pretty cool presents -- the record store; the bookstore; and the liquor store. Well, record stores are about...

This is the time of year when most folks go to their liquor stores in search of the tried-and-true. They're looking for the name brands that will impress whoever's unwrapping the gift-wrapped box under the tree or at the holiday party. But to that I say, BAH! Why be a...

As cocktail culture becomes more sophisticated and permeates further into the mainstream, more and more restaurants have decided to dispense with their dusty bottles of unrefrigerated vermouth and start taking their cocktails more seriously. A great wine list alone, restauranteurs are learning, does not make a great bar. Sophisticated drinks,...

It's embarrassing how messed up the news of R.E.M.'s breakup has left me. I'm a 42-year-old father, for the love of Stipe, and I'm going around mourning my loss like I'm a moon-faced teenager. And it's not like they've died or anything. It's not even like they're not still friends....

Feel like traveling back in time but don't have a way-back machine? Your taste buds may get there before the rest of you. Using impossibly rare vintage spirits and the most cutting-edge scientific means at their disposal, distillers and historians are working in tandem to enable us to drink the...

Part industry gala, part trade show, part cocktail party, part cheesy wedding. The second annual Ultimate Blast, hosted by the Ultimate Beverage Challenge, had something for everyone. Most notably alcohol, and lots of it, from many of the world's most noteworthy mixologists, distillers and distributors of...

I hate autumn. No matter how many years I've been out of school, I can't lose that feeling of dread I get when the nights get shorter and the temperatures get cooler. The end of baseball season and the beginning of hockey season both depress me immensely. I don't even...

You may think that it was pitcher A.J. Burnett who came through in the clutch last night to save the Yankees' season and force a deciding Game 5 in their American League Division Series with the Tigers. But you're wrong. It was me. The Bronx Bombers wouldn't have had a...

Labor Day has come and gone. The white linen pants have been put away until Memorial Day. The football season is kicking off in earnest. For kids, it's back-to-school time. And for a lot of us over-21s, it's back to the liquor store, to stock up on some liquid courage...

Pity the poor daiquiri. Mention the word to your average neighborhood bartender and the odds are probably 50-50 you'll wind up with a slushy, fruit-flavored morass of syrups and chemicals, designed to mask any hint of alcohol and get the drinker blotto as quickly and painlessly as possible. And hey,...

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year -- or you simply aren't a cocktail geek -- you know that the hottest trend to hit the mixology scene is barrel-aged cocktails. The idea of aging pre-made cocktails seems to have been bouncing around for several years, but...

The spirits game is a jungle nowadays. There are so many good new ones hitting liquor stores on a monthly basis that, in order to really make a splash, you need to have an angle. You can't just barrel-age your whiskey. It's got to be aged in barrels made from...

As I prepare to celebrate my first Father's Day as a father, I've been reminiscing about my own father as he was when I was growing up, before my parents divorced when I was six. The smell of his pipe tobacco (which he no longer smokes). The feel of his...

Serious collectors of Frank Sinatra -- the ones who buy the endless CD compilations with one rare track, the under-the-counter bootlegs, the import LPs with different artwork -- are a notoriously tough bunch. They're happy to shell out the bucks for music they've already bought half a dozen times, but...

When the good folks at Tanqueray Gin first invited me to cover a cocktail safari for the HuffPost, I had visions of donning a pith helmet and tramping through the savanna in search of the perfect martini. What wound up transpiring was only slightly less thrilling, and much...

The Manhattan Cocktail Classic started off as a thrilling and audacious experiment in the fall of 2009 and morphed into a full-fledged event last year. Now that the third Classic has ended, it's hard to imagine Manhattan in May without it. And it's even harder to figure out...

When a company as enormous and influential as Jack Daniel's unveils a new brand for only the third time since Old No. 7 Tennessee Sipping Whiskey debuted in 1866 -- and for the first time since the Clinton administration -- you know it's going to be a big...

If you like to drink, you couldn't be living in a better time. Everything from a barrel-aged Negroni to a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich in cocktail form is out there for the drinking, provided you've got the money and the inclination. The fever pitch to whip up...