Post its and magic markers aren’t going to make your next whiskey tasting very classy. The Proof Whiskey Tasting Game solves all those problems in a sexy html5 web app that looks wonderful on an iPad as well as other web enabled devices. → charming! grant me more!
There’s no sense drinking top shelf whiskey in a cheap-o glass, and there are precious few glasses as thoughtfully designed as Rikke Hagen’s work for Denmark-based Normann Copenhagen. Combining elegance and function in a simple Nordic design, the Normann Copenhagen Whiskey Glass provides a wide opening to allow for aroma, temperature, and volume to come together for a whiskey tasting experience that will linger in your mind long after you’ve had your last sip. → charming! grant me more!
We don’t know what why Bulgari brands their name with a “V” in place of a regular old “U” – must be some crazy Illuminati code for something – but the iconic jewelry, watch and fashion accessory brand is putting the “sparkling” back in sparkling mineral water via its limited edition bottle collaboration with Italian water kings San Pellegrino. → charming! grant me more!
For any man who’s gotten tired of the same old cocktails they’ve been ordering from his favorite bar or club, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie and Beyond – 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them just might be a holy grail of sorts. And oh yes, that really is the full title of the book. → charming! grant me more!
Philadelphia-based Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has got to be one of the most pretentious design firms on the planet. Their name is a reference to a seminal 1936 essay by German cultural critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. They describe themselves as a “community of free thinkers and artistic innovators deliver[ing] inspiration and aspiration back to The People.” Geez, we get it – you’ve got taste, personal as political, fuck the Man and all that jazz; you don’t have to lay it on so thick. Luckily, in spite of all the questionable grandstanding, Art in the Age backs up their rhetoric with some pretty damn cool stuff. Case in point: RHUBY, an 80-proof Rhubarb Tea that hearkens back to the days of yore, when 18th-century luminaries like Ben Franklin and horticulturalist John Bartram were knocking back glasses of the stuff to celebrate the America’s birth. Bartram’s original garden tea recipe employed rhubarb, beets, carrots, lemon, petitgrain, cardamom, pink peppercorn, coriander, vanilla, and pure cane sugar (uh, pretty sure that covers our five fruits and vegetables for the day!), which Art in the Age has re-appropriated into a spirit. Best of all, even today, rhubarb tea is as versatile as it is tasty: Art in the Age offers a bunch of cocktail recipes, with such delightful names as Red Hound (RHUBY + grapefruit), Rhuby Tonic (RHUBY + spring herbs + tonic water), and Black Rhuby Lemonade (RHUBY + blackberries + basil + sparkling lemonade), intended to spark your own cocktail creation creativity. So are your taste buds tingling in anticipation yet? Unfortunately, RHUBY has yet to be formally rolled out, but while you’re keeping your eyes peeled for it at your local liquor store, you can get more details about this splendid creation’s history (and the full recipe list) over at the Art in the Age blog. Long live rhubarb!
Boxed wine has always been frowned upon by those aficionado-purists who swear by the glass bottle, but Wineberry hopes to change that with its robust bag-in-box offerings. Forget about cardboard, the Windberry box is crafted with wood from sustainable forests – a bold design choice that lends the box an air of old school class and charm. Another plus: the bag-in-box design shields the wine from air and light, preventing your delicious vino from oxidation. Oh, and the wine itself? Top notch. Recommended is their Chateau Les Maines Bordeux Rosé, which blends lively citrus flavors with a subtle mineral and herb finish – perfect for a summer barbeque at the beach or a idyllic picnic at the park. And with one box large enough to accommodate four bottles worth, Windberry has pretty much convinced us to ditch the corkscrew this summer and say hello to the spigot instead. Available now at Winchester Wine.
You’ve never been to Scotland but you should sure be familiar with Scotch. Oban is an ageless brand started in 1794 by John and Hugh Stevenson who founded not only the whiskey but the town of the same name. The family has a rambuncious history with the brand and eventually out it out of the family but the traditions are still kept as every bottle has been enjoyed as a single malt since the 1880s. The taste is smooth and easy to love for all occasions. The distillery which was renovated in the 1890s and now provides tours of the awesome facilities although there has been rumors of it burning down. No fear, it is still a rumor and the whiskey will still be flowing.
Raised in French white Oak barrels for three hundred and six four days, the Casa Noble Reposada Tequila grows up to become a smooth and bold grown and sexy tequila. Refined and perfected through the infusion of vanilla, chocolate, butter, citrus and sweet agave, you will feel like refinement and bliss is only moments away from your lips. For you tequila rookies, a tequila can be called a Reposado when it is aged for at least two months but this magical concoction is aged for the maximum of three hundred and sixty four to maximize the richness. Let it be known that if you want to break your Reposado virginity, you can’t go wrong with this one.
