But two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nightlife goes on. Investigative reporter Adam Robb has been traveling into the country to talk to locals and document everyday life for everyday citizens who have been living amongst the backdrop of war. 

In his journey, which he wrote about for Wine Enthusiast, Robb visited experimental cocktail bars that highlight foraged ingredients—some of which hail from the forests around Chernobyl—coffee roasteries, dance clubs and Neapolitan-style pizzerias, observing the atmosphere and chatting with the hospitality professionals who aim to bring a sense of normalcy to people living through extraordinary times.

Along the way, Robb learned how living amongst drone and missile attacks, drafts and daily deaths and injuries “brings out a real selflessness,” he tells us on this week’s episode of The Wine Enthusiast Podcast. 

“People don’t expect to be driven to that level of virtue,” he says. “The best of them experience a level of empathy that no human being is normally pushed to experience.”

Listen as Robb goes deep on his experiences and offers a peek into the Russo-Ukrainian War through the lens of the country’s hospitality industry. He shares insights into how drinks professionals have been stepping up to create safe spaces for their communities to come together and enjoy the moment, the creativity of the Ukrainian mixology scene, how it warrants a place in the international spotlight and his plans to try to help it garner the attention it deserves.

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Episode Transcript

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

Speakers: Sara Ventiera, Adam Robb, Samantha Sette

Sara Ventiera  00:09

Hello, and welcome to the Wine Enthusiast podcast. You’re serving the drinks culture and the people who drive it. I’m Sara Ventiera, senior digital editor here at Wine Enthusiast. On February 24 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine in what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War Two. More than two years later, the fighting continues. But for Ukrainians who have stayed in the country everyday life goes on. Last year, investigative reporter Adam Robb spent a night out bar hopping in Lviv and documented his evening eating pizza and drinking gin and tonics to the sound of air raid warnings for Wine Enthusiast. He recently returned from a major bar event in Kyiv. So we decided to check in on the current state of the country and its nightlife scene. Listen to find out about the lessons learned about trying to live a normal life against the backdrop of war.  All right, Adam, so you wrote this really amazing piece for us about a night out drinking in Ukraine with air sirens voiced by Mark Hamill, going off in the background, lots of people drinking and living their lives. Let’s just start from the beginning. Why did you go to Ukraine in the first place?

Adam Robb  01:26

Yeah, so the day of the Russian invasion, I remember I was in Paris working on the travel story, and meeting with some documentary producers about a trafficking investigation I was working on at the time, and I was in the bathtub with the Meurice drinking Champagne in the bottle of Ruinart that, like they sent up. And I was watching the news of the invasion on the TV screen built into the bathroom mirror from the bathtub. And that’s my first association with alcohol in Ukraine, and that was February ’22. So, December two years ago, at the end of 2022, I should say spent most of 2021 and 2022, more than a year and a half investigating a big crypto fraud scheme. And by the end of 2022, that story had led me down another rabbit hole. And suddenly I found myself having dinner at Torrisi. So with Ja Rule. Now, Ja Rule and his business partners who declined to partake in this particular fraud scam, I was investigating. And he and his partners were so proud of this fact. Now generally, two business partners, one was in the background really just on paper, and the other was running his day to day operations. And that guy is my point person. So, right before dinner—I don’t know why I hadn’t done this earlier—but I looked up the third partner, the one on paper, and I’m looking at the Google results back when Google Search worked. And I thought, wow, this guy has the worst SEO imaginable because every result for his name is about some guy who was arrested 20 years ago for kidnapping and torturing and branding someone. And it got me thinking, when was Ja Rule in prison? And what was this guy in prison? Were they in prison at the same time? And it’ll start to click in my head. So, now I’m a little freaked out. I have just enough time to watch the episode of What Order SVU they made about Ja Rule’s business partner. You could look it up and watch it on streaming. It’s called “Branded.” And I’m watching the episode but don’t have to leave for dinner. And I’m stressing about how do I bring this up in conversation? Where do I bring this up? Do I bring this up and I get to Torrisi and Ja Rule is running three hours late, so I’m sitting with his publicist, drinking Negronis, eating bread and finally Ja sits down. And I’ll say he’s incredibly charming and charismatic and person and the waiter rushes over, I remember, Ja charmed the reading glasses right off the waiter’s face and wore them the rest of the night, reading the menu and the waiter Ja Rule, if you wanted an emergency martini to catch up with us. And instead Ja Rule ordered a Moscow Mule, but he caught himself and said “Wait, no, we can’t say that anymore because of Russia.” And he ordered a Kyiv instead, and I just must have made some mental note that at that moment, like wow, Ja Rule is so about international affairs and boycotting Russia, and good for him. So, in the back of my mind that Ruinart moment, the Moscow Mule moment, I think subconsciously, I’ve been primed to think about Ukraine and drinking in context together for a year before I committed to traveling there. And a few months after the Ja Rule dinner, I’m about to publish the investigation but Buzzfeed News shuts down before the story is published. And right away, I found another investigation for New York Magazine. And I remember I was in a group that maybe were in Beverly Hills at Dante, I get the phone call from my editor: go ahead with the investigation. And I’m off to the Cannes Film Festival for a few weeks to investigate an LA bar owner turned movie producer who had previously confessed to me that he was under investigation for terrorism. And it was years earlier we were at this great little sushi restaurant in Silverlake that isn’t there anymore. And he just got off the phone with his lawyer who had broken the news to him and maybe he had a little too much sake and felt confessional at that moment, and now all these years later, he’s a movie producer with a project at Cannes, it’s a big story. And the week after I get back from France, the story becomes a little too heated, and that story gets killed. And first I’ll just say, because this is the Wine Enthusiast podcast, I do all my food and drink and travel writing and research while also reporting out longer investigative, intensive, aggressive stories.. So, if you do find yourself in Cannes, you’d be remiss not check out the Turkish Coffee Negroni and the Tobacco and Date Old Fashioned at Rüya, a Turkish restaurant on the terrace at Carlton Hotel in Cannes or take a long walk to the Bijou Plage from the vendor central guys at the end of the Pointe Croisette and grab a Garibaldi there at sunset. But after two of those long investigations got killed back-to-back, I needed a break from writing about bad people. And I’m looking to write something more positive. So, last August, I’m wondering what to do next, and I read a story in The Washington Post by their Ukraine Bureau Chief. And it’s all about how Ukrainians are boycotting Campari, because it’s sold in Russia. And I realized a few things while reading the story. One, I guess, I can’t drink Garibaldis anymore. Two, I realize it’s possible to write lifestyle coverage about a country at war. Their story, The Washington Post story, is written through a business lens, but they’re also talking to local bar owners. And it made me think long before Alex Garland’s Civil War movie had come out this past spring, like what would lifestyle reporting journalism look like during a ground war, and in Civil War, it’s like a road trip movie following journalists traveling from New York to DC. And one of the journalists writes for, quote unquote, like what’s left of The New York Times. And that was the headspace I was in reading this Washington Post story a year ago thinking like, if we are at war in America, and we also have media jobs, what would The New York Times’ style section, food section, travel section, T Magazine, what would Wine Enthusiast be publishing every day, every month? And that’s when it all kind of clicked for me to start covering the bar scene over there. And I hate to say this, but before I pitched Wine Enthusiast, I pitched another nameless spirits publication, and the editor, that outlet had told me that this was a terrible idea. Because if I wrote about the hospitality scene in Ukraine, they wouldn’t be seen as suffering enough. And this is really upsetting to me, because I think, if I’m living in a country at war, and I’m trying to hustle and do my thing, and live my best life—because we only have this one life—and it’s one moment, we’re only this age once, that I would want some foreign journalists to find me in America, and capture me with all my dignity and spirit. And I would want there to be some document that said, I got through this time being active and creative, being a great bartender, a great chef, giving comfort to others contributing something, not that I was just some anonymous face waiting in line for a bowl of borscht from some international aid organization. And, and I’ve been guilty of that, I had written a story prior for Food & Wine Magazine, where I interviewed José Andrés on the phone while he was driving out of Ukraine, and I tried to go with him and it didn’t work out. So, I don’t really have a sense of the ground. And, so I finally went on my own, I wasn’t with any American chefs, and I wasn’t shadowing anyone, I just kind of immersed myself in it. And I think my reporting was better off for it. And the third thing I realized, during The Washington Post story was I realized war reporters go to terrible bars. I realize now, when I see a war movie, and they’re all the hotel, bar drinking, bragging, fucking, watching CNN, whatever they’re doing, they really just don’t know where else to get a good drink and they don’t care. So, I Googled the bars in the Washington Post article, and I just knew there had to be better options out there. And I think the first thing I did was check the World’s 50 Best Bars Discovery list. If there was a legitimate great bar over there, as a starting point, it would be on their list, and there were a few. So, I followed those bars to Instagram and found the bartenders and seeing who they follow, where they go, what they post, and then moved on to restaurants and began piecing together an itinerary and requesting interviews. I should point out, it’s an insane thing to do. It felt very good. And I just wanted to contribute something positive to the world. I wanted to challenge myself. And again, it’s an insane thing to say, but at that point, I’d been really burnt out from investigations and I felt like I’d rather die than have their story killed. And, in terms of the kind of reporting I’d like to do, these stories aren’t offending litigious people and they would see the light of day. And that was really reassuring to me. So, no matter what happened, the reporting wouldn’t be frustrated by some outside force. And I felt better and safer doing it. 

Sara Ventiera  09:06

Well, I think those were two things that really struck me about the story when I was going through it. One, was, A, the bar scene sounded incredible, and the cocktails and creativity just sounded like what you would find in I mean any major city with a great culinary scene. But on top of it, the sort of sense of normalcy in the midst of this, you know, major war,  it kind of struck me in a way where it’s like, it’s hard to imagine what that would be like, you know, as an American who hasn’t lived through, you know, a ground war like that. You know, like how do you carry on with your life while you’re surrounded by fighting and you know, airstrikes and all of those sorts of things. And I think you did such a great job of sort of like, showing what that process was like.

Adam Robb  09:56

It was just surprising to me being on the ground, I think, I was also working on story at the time for Conde Nast Traveler about Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw and them setting up business there, and I felt on my first trip to Ukraine that it was so easy interview everyone that they were very focused, very engaged, and I guess very stoic. And that surprised me. No one, no one was overly emotional while I was speaking to them. And then when I got to Warsaw, and I spoke to Ukrainians who had left the country behind, and they knew they were safe now, they were the people who were emotional, they were the people who cried, because they walked away and, and went toward safety and a better life, and I think they had some, some residual guilt. But everyone on the ground in Ukraine was just everyday living their fullest day-to-day life, even though like the PTSD, like the collective PTSD of, of whole towns, villages, cities, was just, it was like electricity in the air, like you couldn’t not feel it, no matter where you went. And eventually you figure out that there are bars, where people go to, to drink, to cope. And there are bars, you can quietly or loudly celebrate or just live for today. And so it took a while to get a sense that those were two very distinct things. 

Sara Ventiera  11:16

Yeah, I think I mean, you seem to in the piece, highlight the bars where people we’re living for today. I know, you mentioned that it was mostly women that were in the bars, because a lot of the men were out fighting. What was the difference between, you know, the vibes in those bars versus the vibes, and the ones where people were going just to cope?

Adam Robb  11:37

I remember my first day in Lviv, going to a coffee shop, and it being very busy. It was a beautiful, sunny day, last September/October. And there were lots of people outside with their laptops working or, or just relaxing in the sun. But there was a very quiet energy about it. And I couldn’t quite figure out where that was coming from. And the coffee shop owner explained to me that you just don’t know, if the person next to you just lost someone, or they just found out they’re briefly being drafted. And everyone’s mindful of that in an environment like that, and want to be respectful and quiet, and no one gets too rowdy. And then a few hundred feet away, there was a bar called People Place that had a DJ in the window, and had like groups of women, young women dressed up going out for the night, and like kicking off their night there with a non-Aperol, Aperol Spritz because they were boycotting Aperol. And it was crazy how that shift could just be a few hundred feet apart. And you could walk from one room to another.  

Sara Ventiera  12:50

Well, and I mean, what is it— you know, again, hard to imagine—but what is it like going into a bar like that? You know, most bar scenes, it’s a lot of people looking to go out and meet members of whatever sex they’re attracted to. So for it to be mostly women, like, what did that feel like?

Adam Robb  13:11

It took a minute to realize that there were no men. That happened to me more than once that I remember just a couple of weeks ago, leaving Ukraine on my last trip, that I was taking the train out back to Poland, and I’m looking around the train car. And it took me a minute to realize I was the only man on the train. And the men since the second day of the war, they haven’t been allowed to leave the country, if they’re able bodied between a certain age, and it was just all women and children around me. And it’s just like a shocking thing to witness and realize that these are the people left behind. The men, the male bar owners that I’ve met, seemed more worried about business than about being drafted, which is good. But really, they were just living for that day in that moment. And I think the women going to really busy popular bars like that were very much doing the same. There was a sense I think, a year ago, where it was more inappropriate, more looked down upon to party. And then on this past trip, I went to a brand new bar in Kyiv called Haram that was like a multi story underground nightclub, like a big popular steakhouse in Kyiv. And they had opened in the past year during the war. And it had multiple, you go in downstairs and just the coat check is the size of like other bars I’ve been to and then you go into this massive cavernous underground party space and there’s multiple like unique bars. One was like a smoking bar where every drink is smoked and you can also smoke cigarettes.  And then you like travel downstairs, to this other bar beneath with a huge sacrilegious stained window of the crucifixion, which is also the beginning orgy and there’s a gospel choir with a live band on the side performing like Bruno Mars songs and rap songs, and everyone’s like dancing and just letting off steam, and I think that was kind of missing in the first year. And now people feel either they’re in for a long haul and they can engage with those feelings where it’s okay to just like, let go and let loose. But those are behind closed doors. I think in Kyiv way more than in Lviv, you saw more speakeasies, you saw more unmarked bars, where the best bars in town and the 50 Best Discovery bars like Loggerhead and Beatnik those bars are almost like real speakeasies. You’re not meant to distract from the more somber energy of the city, I guess. 

Sara Ventiera  15:40

And so, okay, so your first trip was to Lviv, right? And this last trip you went, to Kviv or did you travel to both cities? 

Adam Robb  15:50

I went to more places this time. So, yeah, I got a better sense of the country on the most recent trip. But I started in Lviv, took the train to Kviv for what was the first bar show in Ukraine in three years. It was a partnership with Diageo Bar Academy, they put on a show called, uh, the Ukrainian word for unity. And they invited all the best bartenders from around the country. I think they came from everywhere, but Kharkiv. They came from Odessa, Lviv, and Kyvi. And it was the first time like bartenders can see each other in three years. I remember speaking to a bartender from Odessa who has a bar, Fakultat, which is like one of the best bars down there. And he said, his friends don’t come to the bar he owns, he tells them not to come because Odessa is so affected by drone attacks. And drones are really cheap. And so, while Kyiv is always subject to missile attacks, they have a strong missile defense system. But you wouldn’t waste the money to use a missile against a drone. And so the drone attacks are very common in Odessa, and it’s a more dangerous place. And, so he lost his staff, but they left to go to bars in the E.U. or elsewhere. But he was the owner. And he just kind of like been, you know, alone every day in the bar opening and powering through, like representing Ukrainian Odessa and trying to find people with that same spirit like to work alongside him. But he was so excited to come up to Kyiv  and see guys from some of the other bar programs, women at the bar programs to get a sense of just what we’ve all been working on the past three years and to try each others’ drinks and new menus and new concepts. And, even though bar shows are so common, and there’s like the Rome bar show was like a week later, and two resort bar shows next week, and then Bar Convent in Brooklyn and Tales of the Cocktail. But like, it’s a common thing that’s easy enough for local bartenders to find in their community. But it was a big deal to have a bar show in Kyiv. And it just brought out the best of everyone. And so that was the other side of the city. And the surrealness of that was that the night before everyone had arrived, everyone stayed at the same hotel on that Friday night. And there was news that week that Russia was going to attack, like blow up two Kyiv hospitals because they said they were actually like secret military bases. And this was kind of like, I think it’s in the news, it’s like the rumor going around, that ever was nervous there was gonna be an attack on Kyiv that weekend. And, so I remember taking the train from Lyiv to Kyiv, it was like a six hour train ride and getting there at 10:30 pm, and everything closes at like 11 pm and curfew is at midnight. And, like everyone making a rush toward McDonald’s while the alarm is going off at 10:35 pm, and they’re turning people away. And then I had to find my car and it’s my Holiday Inn all before midnight, and then just getting there and hearing the air sirens and when the air sirens wind down, use your dogs howling the street. And you just hear that from like 11 pm till like I think was like 4 am that night. And by 5am I went back to sleep and by 10 or 11 am I guess I woke up and, and like everyone else, I made my way to the bar show. And I realized, I’ve come to realize being there. And it’s a bit of a thing if you learn what’s important, and you put the small things about last night behind you, and you live in the moment. And so everyone went to that bar show. It was a sunny day. Nothing else happened that weekend. And we all lived in the moment and that was a very inspiring thing to witness. So, yeah, so when I rode the train from Lviv to Kyiv, I rode the train with other bartenders who have bars in Lviv and they were very excited for the bar show, just to have something else to go somewhere to see people. And the FMB director at the hotel I was staying at in Lviv, The Grand Hotel, the best hotel in town, she was very proud of the hotel bar program and they had just opened,  like a big Hennessy lounge near a cigar lounge. I don’t think people realize people are coming to spend money and they’re updating things and they’re proud of the environment they create for other people. And she had been through a lot. She was saying her brother-in-law is fighting east now, that she’d lost her brother fighting in the east last year. And she still wakes up every day and it’s really proud of the bars and the restaurants she runs in the hotel. And we got to talking about the program, and people don’t just like to live with their head in the sand or they live in a bomb shelter. Like you want to go out and experience life, experience your interest, your passion, your career and advance yourself, what would make you happy every day, and and feel fulfilled. So, no matter where I went in Ukraine, it was good to see people behaving that way. And I just think that’s something that gets a little underreported.

Sara Ventiera  20:50

Yeah, I mean, it seems, you know, I again, can only imagine what it’s like living under those circumstances and how that must impact your nervous system. Like, I’m sure hearing air raid sirens or as you mentioned, Mark Hamill from Star Wars’ voice going off announcing an air raid, has to affect you on a level that, you know, is beyond just anxiety, but like impacting your body and like your overall nervous system. 

Adam Robb  21:17

I’m glad to say that Mark Hamill’s voice does not give me PTSD right now. But it was a crazy thing, when I was in LA a year ago, I was with this music manager who’s friendly with him. He and his wife were talking about having Mark Hamill over for dinner that Friday night. And I was like, oh, what a nice thing it is to have Luke Skywalker over at your house. And the closest I’ve ever come to that is hearing Mark Hamill telling me to seek shelter during an air raid in Lviv. And it’s a weird thing that he did that, that he recorded. A different voice does it in Ukrainian, but the English version of the air alert app is Mark’s voice telling you “your overconfidence is your weakness,” which is something he says that the Emperor in I think “Return of the Jedi,” and to seek shelter. And then you hear this like a piercing air siren emitting from your phone. And then when you get the all clear, he wishes you “may the force be with you” and tells you it’s all okay. It’s comforting and eerie at the same time. I guess it’s nice to hear a familiar voice overseas. But also be aware you’re listening to a recording that exists long after you know society has vanished off the face of the earth. But still, Mark Hamill’s voice lives on an app warning people to seek shelter, a little dystopian, but it depends who you’re with and it depends on your own seek-your-own-adventure attitude. But there are people who turn the alarm off. And I’ve gotten to the point where I trust people more now in telegram groups, telegram chats to tell me what’s going on than just the more general app, which is just a picture of a missile, saying like, you know, seek shelter. And you adapt and a lot of people that Friday night, because the missiles ever came from Russia. And just the alarm sounded all night. They went to sleep where they tried to sleep, but did not go to the bomb shelter. And the first time the air raid siren went off, the first time I heard Mark Hamill’s voice I was at this bar called Siaivo, which is this amazing, two-story, coffee shop, cocktail bar that reminds me of Drink in Boston. It had low countertops and a very engaging bartender across the way to make you whatever you wanted. And it was with the bar manager, the bar owner, there, and like great guys, and they didn’t even download the app yet. And they were telling me they were looking at their phone when the alarm was sounded. So, I’d download the app right away. And I was like, should we go? And they were like, no, no, no, like, our friends tell us through Telegram that it’s actually just like, Russian planes are flying overhead doing an exercise or something. And it’s not anything we need to immediately prepare for. And, so I stayed out, I knew someone who was staying at a hotel in town, and she messaged me, and she had gone down to the bomb shelter of the hotel, which also doubled at the hotel spa, like in the basement, and she was sitting there on a bench. And people were like in their towels going to it from the spa. She felt embarrassed. And I decided like, you know, you shouldn’t be down there, like, it’s okay, got her out of the bomb shelter and took her drinking. I was glad she cooperated with that and trusted me. And we had a great night and we were able to have like five more hours of our life back to go out and enjoy the city and not worry. And then the alarm sounded, it was all clear, and we were good to enjoy the rest of the evening. But I kind of feel that the only story you find in a bomb shelter is if something happens to you there. So, that’s not where I’d want to be.

Samantha Sette  24:37

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Sara Ventiera  25:09

You detailed the night in the story a bit where you went to the first party since Siaivo. Alright, so that’s how you pronounce it?

Adam Robb  25:16

 I hope so. 

Sara Ventiera  25:17

Okay. And I think you were drinking gin and tonics, I believe.

Adam Robb  25:22

Yeah, they had, they had a great gin bar. And it was the same weekend, or same days as like a big tech conference. And so the bar was like, packed with people from the tech conference, it was rush hour happy hour, it was a full scene. So, it was free just to witness like a normal weekday and see a thriving city and a thriving bar, and it feels like home. And the more you enter environments like that bar at that time, like, the more it feels relatable to you, in America, or anywhere. And it feels like, okay, this is just a normal life, they’re living a normal life. And so it just makes you feel safer and more at ease every day, which was like a good feeling. And it’s a collective feeling. If everyone goes to the bar, if everyone goes out after work, then it just makes the people around them feel more secure. And I remember talking to coffee shop owners, Svit Kavy, the oldest roastery in town. And they were saying how very early on in the war, when the siren sounded, the sense was that everyone should close the doors and pack up and go in the shelter, either like beneath a coffee shop or find one nearby. Pretty much every building had a basement, at least in Lviv. And they got the sense over time that their customers would rather come out. And they felt psychologically safer, healthier, better for it for all being together in the coffee shop, or all being together in the bar, instead of being alone in your basement. And so it was a unique example of resilience to experience. And you don’t really think that just having a gin and tonic at a bar during the evening rush is an act of resilience or an act of rebellion. But it is. It’s a small thing that makes people feel good and feel strong. And that was inspiring to witness.

Sara Ventiera  27:14

And, you know, I know you went to a bunch of other places as well. And I’d say again, the cocktails and the mixology sounded very impressive. What drinks and dishes were you most impressed by?

Adam Robb  27:32

The bar where I was when I got the all clear that first night, second night  was Sino Experimental. Andre, the original owner, and bartender there, he—and a lot of bar owners—talked about how before the war, they all had to kind of like, operate through COVID, which had its own challenges, and then operate in the war. But, so during COVID, he did a lot of batch drinks, which led to him canning or bottling cocktails. And then during the war, he got really into foraging. And it was fascinating. Because I think, everyone, there’s probably something disassociative a little bit, everyone likes to put out their minds when they’re over there. And I think one thing I put out of my mind was wow, we’re really close to Chernobly. And having watched the HBO series—you just don’t think people are foraging in Ukraine. And like in the forest in the West like Transcarpathia, or in the east around Chernobyl, and then putting those things in food or drink. And it’s not good. And he was talking about how he made a really popular cherry soda whiskey drink and the cherries all came from a foraging trip, up a mountain he met someone who had on his property with wild cherry trees growing and offered him all the cherries, he wanted to use them to make the drink. And it’s my assumption that I’m sure foraging is safe and bright enough in the west. And so his drinks, which were based on lots of ingredients, including mushrooms and other things he found like that, that made the bar popular and it allowed him to really stand out at that time. But then, just like last week or two weeks ago, I was with Scott Klopotenko, who’s the most famous chef in Ukraine. He has a new cookbook route about capturing the flavors of all the regions in Ukraine. And he was telling me that before the war, he actually foraged around Chernobyl and served things he found there in the restaurant, like little touches and garnishes in dishes—which absolutely blew my mind. And he was saddened because of the war, all the forest area around Chernobyl is now laid landmines. So, you can’t park there anymore. But I was surprised to see how it doesn’t bother Ukrainians to at least engage their produce and engage foraging. The last thing I thought about was like where my food and drinks were coming from while I was there. But yeah, Andre at Sino changed the menu every week and he just used what was seasonal, what he could find around to really challenge people’s perception of what you know classic cocktails were, and so that was, that was no surprise. And then he led me to another bar called Bar Over, which was a spin off of a bar called a Ditch Bar in Kharkiv. And Kharkiv is all the way in eastern Ukraine, kind of like near the front line that is attacked. I think I was just horribly attacked the last couple days. And Ditch Bar is one of the last bars standing in Kharkiv, and also one of the best—very cool bars, they take care of their own. People come there and get whatever resources they need, but also they make awesome cocktails. They do canned cocktails to go, and one of the owners from Ditch Bar decided to move west and open in Lviv. And you saw a lot of bar owners from the east more and more opening in the west, where it’s safer. There’s less of a reason to attack the west of Ukraine. And so they were opening in Lviv. And so the open bar over there, and it’s this beautiful, intimate upstairs bar and dining room. And just like class cocktails, I mean, he made an excellent Negroni with a non Campari product. And everyone creates not only great drinks, but really intimate environments, everyone really focuses on making a stand out space that is unique into itself, both for its menu and it’s decor and ambiance, energy, like would make it a bar you would see on a 50 Best Discovery list or 50 Best list if they were judges getting in the country, which there are there aren’t right now. 

Sara Ventiera  31:25  

Yeah, I mean, speaking of which, how did you even get into the country? How did that process work? 

Adam Robb  31:31  

Yeah, I flew from New York to Krakow. Krakow, the nearest big airport to the Ukrainian border and so there’s a great car service called A Transfer, highly recommended. And it’s all Mercedes Sprinter vans or Mercedes. But they’ll take you the six hours it takes to drive from Krakow airport to Lviv for less than the price of an Uber from Midtown to Atlantic City. And so as far as bad ideas go, that was an affordable one. And so they’re great drivers. They know how to navigate Polish customs, and Ukrainian border control. And the first three, three and a half hours to drive from Krakow to the border, it’s just open highways and you see US military equipment, or other NATO military equipment moving into Ukraine. So, you see police cars, like escorting tanks and things up flatbeds, going into the country. And then you get to the border control and it’s multiple lines. Because no planes go into Ukraine or ships, everything comes in now by truck from the west. So, you see miles and miles of lines and trucks that are like everything for World Central Kitchen to fuel, whatever. And so you see those backed up for, I have no idea how long they process, I can imagine how long those drivers like sleeping their trucks, waiting to just move up, I guess one batch at a time, through customs. The car lines are a little bit shorter and so when you enter Ukraine, when you leave the EU,  you leave Poland, you get ushered through, they don’t really like to search your luggage or anything. And then in Ukraine, it’s pretty easy. The only issues are like when you leave Ukraine and get to the EU, I will say they search everything. It takes forever. And I do not recommend the car to leave Ukraine because those lines are tragic. It’s much faster on a train or on a bus. But my experience was that when you leave Ukraine, they open. Like when I was on a train with all the Ukrainian women, they opened every woman’s suitcase and they went through like every possession. They’re just really looking to see what gets smuggled out of Ukraine, into the EU. And yeah, on a human level you can understand that, you know, people want to take valuables with them whatever is important to them and get it, but then I understand you also worry about other kinds of smuggling. But they are very strict and search everything and that slows down the line. So, if it’s six hours going in, it could be like 24 hours going out. So it’s much faster on the train or bus. But the car was the best way. And, so I took the car on the first day and got to Lviv in the morning, and I was slowed down by about an hour. I already had a full schedule of appointments of people to meet and I already missed my first one. I was already feeling over my head because about an hour outside of Lviv traffic just came to a halt, and there was a funeral procession going down the other lane of traffic in whatever small town we were driving through. And our driver got out and I got out, and you saw, like a military band, a whole congregation from a church and young girls like walking behind a hearse with flowers and just the whole town everything stops. And this happens every day because you see the people die every day and there are more every day. And that is one thing that you can’t ignore. And I think that, that was one thing I couldn’t ignore the first time I went. And then the most recent time I went, I think the one that I couldn’t ignore was just how many wounded vets are everywhere, which I did not see a year ago, and how prevalent that was, especially in Kyiv. But going in, we paused for the funeral and then made our way into the city. And I already missed my first appointment with a bakery that I just wrote about last week for New York Magazine that had a viral pastry. And I felt bad because these people, again, have a thriving business, and they’re trying to live their best lives. And you know, I’m late to the game in terms of reporters coming to Ukraine. And so I’m sure they’ve dealt with foreign press before. And, you know, I didn’t need me holding up their whole day. So, it took me a while to get acclimated and to apologize to them, and get a second interview. And that was an adjustment. And I went to the Lviv Tourism Board Office to check in with them, I think they’ve become, they’ve kind of pivoted to being a press liaison office. And they were kind enough to just help smooth over some introductions and, and set me on the right foot for the rest of the day to go smoothly. And they felt good. And then, you know, within hours, I think, after that I really felt at home with everyone I spoke to. And you know, you go to the hotel, you check in the hotel, like you would anywhere else. I think the only thing is that American Express does not work anywhere in Ukraine. And other than that I felt pretty at ease, and that you check in is like any other hotel with all the amenities. Then use that as my jumping off point to just before we town. And then the only thing that was like, I guess little eerie was the end of the first night coming back there, and just like realizing, like the streets out the window are empty. And we’re all just indoors now until the next day. 

Sara Ventiera  36:52  

Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s like my last question, like having gone twice now and having experienced what it’s, you know, or getting a little taste of what it’s like to live life, or at least see life being lived in the midst of war. What’s your takeaway from those experiences, like, what did it leave you with?

Adam Robb  37:17  

It just left me feeling. I wish when this is all over, and people go back, and like, look at the reporting done. I know all the reporting that everyone’s doing over there, at the moment is very important when we’re talking about troop movements and aid and, and money. But I just think the human aspect is a little bit overlooked. And, and I would love to know, after all this, I’d love to see more reporting like that, and just more peoples’ stories told. Because, for the average citizen in all these cities, and towns or villages everywhere, there are just moments that would be otherwise recognized or celebrated just aren’t being seen by the outside world, or even maybe, you know, in the larger world in the country, and that just makes me feel terrible. I just think about how in the US there’s been such a shift from outlets closing and a shift from hard news reporting to lifestyle reporting and influencers and, and TikTok and personal essays, and I think it’s ingrained in Americans under any conditions, the COVID the pandemic is example this like, we’ll always kind of like, celebrate and recognize what we’re doing amongst ourselves. And I don’t see enough of that. I think maybe it’s not ingrained in people over there anyway, to just live that way. And maybe it’s too narcissistic, but people should get recognized for the good work they do. And I just wish there were more reporters there exploring that. So, I find that fulfilling and it motivates me to keep going back. So, I’m going back in a couple weeks, I’m going back in August to make a documentary. And I just want people there to feel more seen. And and I just want American readers to have more empathy and see themselves in these people and not think that victims of any war, any violence, a tragedy anywhere are like some other kinds of people that aren’t like themselves, because going over there you very much feel these people are are just like you, and I just want that to be better recognized.

Sara Ventiera  39:35  

Yeah, I think that you did a really great job of sort of highlighting the everyday life and like everyday successes and accomplishments of people, but also just the resilience and sort of will to keep going in the face of catastrophic circumstances. I’d imagine that it would probably leave a mark and sort of change you to some extent after having experienced that where most of us have not come even close. 

Adam Robb  40:01  

I think it changed for the better. I think that the people I’ve spoken with would talk about how they’ve been living their lives the last two and a half years, the best of them experience a level of empathy that no human being is normally pushed to experience. And the way they just see themself and one another, and are eager to help one another and engage one another, it brings out a real selflessness and everyone, that is, people don’t expect to be driven to that level of virtue. And it’s a great thing they are and they recognize it’s a great thing, that they have become virtuous in that way. But it shouldn’t take a tragedy to make people that virtuous. 

Sara Ventiera  40:46  

So would you say the takeaway is, we all need to cultivate more empathy for one another? 

Adam Robb  40:53  

Cultivate more empathy and see yourself in other people and that diplomacy is always the best solution.

Sara Ventiera  41:02  

Well, on that note, I really appreciate your time with us and your work on the story. It was a pleasure to read, and we’re very happy to have it on our site. And thank you. 

Adam Robb  41:15  

Thank you so much.

Sara Ventiera  41:21  

It’s hard to imagine how one would go on living life in such extraordinary circumstances. But we’re grateful to get a peek into the ways Ukraine’s hospitality professionals have attempted to cultivate a sense of normalcy and escape for their community. How would you cope? We want to know, you can email us your comments and questions at podcast@winenthusiast.net. Remember, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your favorite shows. You can also go to wineenthusiast.com/podcast for more episodes and transcripts. I’m Sara Ventiera, thanks for listening.

The post Two Years Into the Russian Invasion, Ukrainian Nightlife Is Thriving appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Sotol carries a variety of similar properties to mezcal. From its distinct smoky flavor to its Mexican agave-like plant origin, the resemblance is almost uncanny. Even making sotol “is a process very, very similar to that of mezcal,” says Wendy Eisenberg, cofounder of Casa Lotos Sotol. “The plant is harvested, the heads are cooked over a fire in an underground pit, which provides this very smoky flavor. The plant is then fermented in wooden vats, traditionally, and distilled in either copper or stainless-steel pot stills.”

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But sotol doesn’t come from agave, it comes from the Dasylirion wheeleri, a.k.a. the desert spoon, which, like agave, is part of the same botanical family as the asparagus plant. It grows in the northern deserts of Mexico (not the southern)—primarily in Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila—and in the Southwestern United States.

But sotol carries some distinct advantages: “Unlike agave, which you can harvest once and then it dies, the dasylirion plant, if you harvest it carefully, you can get several harvests throughout the plant’s life,” says Eisenberg.

So why hasn’t sotol caught on like mezcal or tequila? It’s a question with answers found across the spirit’s history.

“The plant was being used by the people who are native to this land for thousands of years,” explains Juan Pablo Carvajal, cofounder of Los Magos Sotol. On top of using it to make baskets and for sustenance, “They would ferment it for use in ritualistic purposes,” he adds. “They would have this brewed beer of sotol that they would use in celebrations. When the copper still was introduced to this territory, that use was already there. So, the easy thing was to take that fermented sotol, put it into the still, make a spirit. And that was when it started to become the spirit that we know today.” That was about 300 years ago.

However, everything went south around 100 years ago. “When Prohibition was happening in the States, we did something that we are known to do very well: contraband,” continues Carvajal. “We took our sotol to the border, and people like Al Capone were coming down to Juarez to buy sotol and corn whiskey that we were making down here. Because of that, the industry grew. And with that growth, a reputation for illegality and clandestine bootlegging grew with it.

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“So, what happened? The Mexican government and the Chihuahua government got together and persecuted a lot of the sotoleros. They prohibited the production and just distribution of sotol. The army would go to where the distilleries were and destroy the stills—some of the sotoleros were even killed. This legal prohibition lasted from the ’20s into the ’30s, but then there were actually a lot of de facto prohibitions. You couldn’t transport sotol, no permits were given for its production. From then until the late ’80s that was the rule. So sotol was still regarded as a very illegal moonshine type of thing.”

While sotol has been making inroads in the U.S. for a while now, there are a few brands that have established themselves. Some to look for: Los Magos fully grasps the history and place of sotol and wants to play a role in its future. Casa Lotos, crafted by fourth-generation master distillers the Ruelas family, makes their sotol in an aboveground brick oven, taking away some of the smokiness. Hacienda de Chihuahua makes nine different sotol-related products, from the base plata to an añejo to a creamy chocolate variety. Desert Door hails from West Texas and focuses on the herbaceous sweet - ness of sotol, but while it is one of the easier bottles to get your hands on, it’s not without controversy as the spirit has a protected domain of origin in northern Mexico (which dictates labeled sotol can only come from Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango). Any of these would make an excellent entre to sotol if you see them on shelves.

Mix It Up

Like tequila and mezcal, sotol’s versatility is one of its best qualities. Due to its natural herbal sweetness and smokiness (in most cases), it can be enjoyed on its own, with a single mixer or in a cocktail. Those who prefer to keep things simple can opt for it neat or on the rocks, while the most popular pour these days tends to be in the direction of Ranch Water: sotol, sparkling water, lime and salt.

And for those looking to take it behind the bar, bar and brand consultant and all-around cocktail aficionado Karl Steuck simply affirms, “Love it.” He notes that it’s particularly good in a Blanco Negroni as well as in his Toca Mi Timbre.

Toca Mi Timbre

Ingredients

• 1 ½ ounces sotol
• ½ ounce Faccia Brutto Apertivo
• 2 ounces oro blanco grapefruit
• ½ ounce lime juice
• ½ ounce serrano syrup (1:1 simple with chili heat)
• CR Citrus smoked dehydrated lime
• Black lava sea salt

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Fill with ice. Shake vigorously to combine and pour over one large ice cube. Garnish with smoked dehydrated lime and a pinch of black lava sea salt sprinkled over top.

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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The post Is Sotol the Next Mezcal? appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

It’s still early days for “Mezcalifornia,” as some have jokingly dubbed the state’s burgeoning agave industry. Agave spirits produced outside Mexico can’t legally be called mezcal or tequila. But already, small batches of California-made distillate show glimmers of promise, with wild, far-ranging floral, vegetal, smoky or mineral flavors reminiscent of mezcal.

Right now, it’s challenging to get your hands on a bottle. But eventually, California agave will be coming your way.

If it weren’t for climate change, there might not be a Mezcalifornia.

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“We’re desperate for water out here,” says Alec Wasson, executive director of the California Agave Council, a trade organization of growers and distillers. “Over the last 20 years, it’s been trending less and less water. That’s how we got into agave.”

Some growers have turned to drought-resistant agave to supplement or replace crops that require lots of water; others are using the succulents as a firebreak, as increased wildfires have threatened the state’s agriculture.

Of course, California isn’t the only U.S. state working with agave: Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, among others, are also working with the plants, and other countries around the world are growing agave, too. But California is clearly at the forefront, in large part due to the work of dogged visionary Craig Reynolds, president and founding director of the California Agave Council.

Three decades of work in the California legislature (including a 14-year stint as chief of staff for now-retired senator Lois Wolk) prepared him well to navigate gnarly regulations in agriculture and beverage alcohol. Further, he and his wife were longtime volunteers with Project Amigo, traveling regularly to Colima, Mexico, to work with the non-profit, which supports educational opportunities for local children. A fundraiser selling tequila bottles to support the organization led to Reynolds trying his hand growing agave and bottling an agave spirit.

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That journey led him back to California, where he saw the potential for drought-resistant agave to supplement crops across the state. Along the way, he’s joined with other pioneers who see the possibility of creating a homegrown agave spirit.

Of course, America’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for agave suggests plenty of demand for the spirit, whatever it ends up being named. Between 2003 and 2023, tequila and mezcal volume grew 294%, or about 7.1% yearly growth on average, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

“It’s ultimately irrelevant what you call it,” says Reynolds. “We want our agave to be its own thing.”

Agave Plants in Wine Country

While the movement started up north in Yolo County, it has since radiated all across the state.

“It feels like you’re in a different world,” Wasson says. “You’re not used to seeing this in California. Everywhere you look, there’s pointy agaves.”

For many would-be growers and distillers, the first question is which of the 200-plus types of agave will work best, depending on variables like elevation, soil types and climate. “Agaves are durable, but frost is an issue,” Wasson notes. In Mexico, the huge, green-gray blue weber (Weber Azul or Agave tequilana) is the only variety approved to make tequila—and some Californian growers are planting blue weber here. But many seek to make their mark with different varieties.

For example, at Stargazer Spirits in Glen Ellen, cofounders Laurie and Adam Goldberg cultivate more than 30 agave types in the bowl of an extinct volcano, in Sonoma’s Moon Mountain AVA. After a long career working in craft beer import and distribution, the couple finally purchased their own farmland in Sonoma County.

“As we looked to what was going on with climate change and the drought in California, it seemed like a good idea,” Laurie recalls. (Of note, agave requires about a quarter of the water that wine grapes do, they estimate.) They started by planting 1.5 acres; over three years, that has grown to six, and they’re hoping to expand that to a total of 80 acres.

Today, they’re keeping an eye on which agaves thrive best, with plans to winnow that to about 15 varieties. So far espadín— a key variety used to make mezcal—has been a bust, they say, while salmiana has thrived, offering “really beautiful bell pepper and jalapeño flavor.”

“There are hundreds of varieties of agave that can be distilled,” Adam says. “And they taste very different, like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay taste different. And the same plant grown in three different places will taste differently.”

And while grapevines mature in a season, agave plants stay in place for about seven years, the hearts buried firmly underground. “They really extract from the soil,” he says. “Agave is reflective of the soil and the place, even more so than grapes.”

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From Almonds to Agave

Similarly, Stuart Woolf works with a dozen different agave varieties, purchased in Mexico and transplanted to the U.S. His Fresno County-based Woolf Farming company is known for tomatoes, almonds and other crops—but drought concerns drove him to found California Agave Growers, which focuses on providing agave nursery stock to distillers and others in the state.

“Agave represents a glimmer of hope that we can help keep these lands and keep the water flowing,” Woolf says. “We’re vertically integrated: We grow tomatoes and process them. We grow almonds, and we process them. My vision is: Could we one day have estate-processed agave in California?”

Ultimately, he’d like to produce a distillate featuring blend of agaves that would be unique to the state—an “ensamble,” in mezcal-speak.

“Talking to other growers and craft distillers here in California, people aren’t looking to do a knock-off of tequila’s legacy or mezcal,” he posits. “We’re looking to create something a little different.”

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It's Like Caddyshack

Meanwhile, the state’s agave farmers are grappling with how to grow agave in conditions that may be very different from those in Mexico. It’s not easy—although sometimes growers find humor in the situation.

Among the key issues: differing climates and soil means differing pests. “They don’t have gophers in Mexico, at least not like they have here,” Woolf complains. “Gophers love agave! It’s our number one pest. It’s a sweet plant, there’s sugars in it, and gophers will eat the entire bulb underground and the whole plant just lays down.”

At agave symposiums, the gopher problem is often the first question posed by growers. Some set gopher traps; others encourage owls to prey on the burrowing rodents.

“It’s like Caddyshack,” Woolf says, half-joking. “My son is out in the field throwing smoke bombs into the gopher holes.”

Door-to-Door Service

Perhaps the most intriguing business model is that of Gian Nelson of Jano (pronounced “HA-no”) Spirits: while he waits multiple years for his agave plants to ripen, he has found a creative workaround to find fully matured plants to harvest and distill.

“We’ve taken to knocking on people’s doors,” he explains, approaching properties and even residential homes where fully grown plants are visible, often as decorative landscaping. “When we see Agave americanas we’ll knock on their door and start a conversation and harvest their agaves. There are plenty of ranches with them roaming free on their property. We’ve become a door-to-door service. We take the pups off the mother agaves.”

When possible, he also works with farmers on small-batch bottlings.

“Our first two batches, we were lucky enough to get to know Henry Garcia, our first Agave americana farmer,” Nelson says. “He and his father were growing these agaves to make pulque, a kind of agave wine. Unfortunately, his father passed away. I got to know him. We’re both ex-Marines, both of Mexican descent. We made our first batch with him.”

Committing to pursing a local expression, the agave was fermented with native yeast from the property and cooked in an earthen underground pit for 5–6 days, using local wood for the fire, similar to the way ancestral mezcal is made. After distillation in copper pots, the spirit was proofed with well water, also from the property. “In that way, you can really capture the land and the people who grow these plants,” Nelson explains. The finished spirit had a citrusy profile, with a bit of smokiness from the cooking process and a vegetal, jalapeño-like bite.

“There’s a lot of complexity to it,” Nelson says. “The highest compliment we ever got was, ‘Oh, this isn’t mezcal?’”

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The Wild West

Compared to Mexico, which has centuries of well-honed traditions, California’s fledgling distilleries are still figuring out how it’s all going to work. Some steam agaves, akin to tequila; others cook them in a pit, akin to mezcal or raicilla; still others are jerry-rigging stills typically used to make whiskey or vodka.

“We’re trying to blaze our own trail when it comes to processes,” Nelson says. “I think of our ancestors, the gold mining pioneers. They had to figure it all out, there was no mining industry. We don’t have tahonas [stone wheels to crush agave] or hornos [ovens to cook agave]. We have to figure it out. We’ve had enough harvests under our belt, we have a pretty good foundation for what we have to do. And we’re refining it every time we have to do it.”

While many have relied on consultation with legacy distillers and growers in Mexico, plenty of others relish the excitement of going their own way.

“There’s a cool freedom that comes from being outside the rules of tequila and mezcal,” Adam Goldberg says. “Because we don’t have the rules that dictate how our spirits need to be produced, how the agave needs to be registered and grown…we’ll see different styles and production methods you wouldn’t see in Mexico.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that California agave is completely freewheeling. In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law legislation requiring that “California agave spirits” can only be made from California-grown agave, and that they cannot contain any flavor or coloring additives.

But the biggest challenge of all? Growers, distillers and agave enthusiasts alike are eager to see more bottlings come to market, and demand still outpaces supply.

“It’s so new, as soon as one of the distilleries comes out with a new batch, it sells out so quickly,” Wasson says. “People are gobbling it up, they’re so hungry to try it.”

But that scarcity won’t last forever, proponents promise.

“Right now, the biggest restriction in California is the limited availability of agaves,” laments Nelson, who is literally knocking on doors of ranchers and homeowners to harvest their plants. “But there will be more agaves, and that will open the door to other distillers that want to put their efforts in and make agave spirit.”

“A lot of great things will happen,” Nelson predicts. “It’s like the wild West. We just can’t wait to get there.”

With typical California hubris, Wasson even name-checks the Judgment of Paris in 1976, the infamous moment when a California wine bested a French favorite in competition. “I look back at my history, [when people were told] no one can make world-class wine in California; no one goes to California to drink wine,” he says.

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California Agave to Try

Made in very small batches, it’s still very difficult to get California agave spirits, especially out of state. But if you’re eager sip some, here are the ones to hunt down:

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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The post Welcome to Mezcalifornia: Inside California’s Agave Boom appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Though I had just turned in a story about the Sotheby’s auction of a rare Adami edition of The Macallan 1926—which sold for an eye-popping $2.7 million, I wasn’t delusional that I’d just acquired liquid gold. But hundreds of people make a hobby or a business out of chasing down antique bottles, often shorthanded as “dusties,” as they gather dust in homes or on liquor store shelves. Surely one of my bottles had value?

Buying dusties has become easier than ever, as specialists like London-based Old Spirits Company and auction houses source collectible bottles from around the world, and bars like Billy Sunday (Chicago, Charlotte) dole out individual pours of vintage amaro. But selling a bottle? Harder than I expected.

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I grabbed my detective hat and a copy of Dusty Booze, a new book by writer Aaron Goldfarb (Abrams Press, March 2024), about the adventures of so-called dusty hunters. The guidelines in the book (plus websites like Whiskey ID and deep dives into collector forums on Reddit), helped identify what I had.

Paper strips across the closures of two of the bottles were tax stamps, required by Bottled-in-Bond Act from 1897 through 1985. Parsing out the wording on the stamp, which changed every few years, narrowed my range to 1982 or later. So those bottles likely were 1982–1985. The remaining two bottles had no tax labels on the bottle neck, meaning they were likely post-1985. However, neither had a Surgeon General warning on the back, which became mandatory in 1989. So I assigned those a date range of 1986–1988.

Sleuthing turned out to be easier than selling. I approached a Facebook group dedicated to vintage Scotch. “Common,” sniffed one member about my Dewar’s White Label.

Meanwhile a newsletter from Old Liquors, a small purveyor of rare and antique spirits, landed in my inbox. It was an enticement to stock up for the holidays, but I tried my luck as a seller instead. Managing partner Bart Laming was mercifully blunt: “They are not rare and of low value, best to drink them.”

Finally, I aimed a Hail Mary at Skinner Auctioneers, which has a robust vintage spirits department. “Regrettably, the market hasn’t kept pace and we’re unable to accept them for consignment,” responded Louis Krieger, deputy director of fine wines & rare spirits at Bonhams Skinner.

The mission to sell the bottles had failed. Apparently vintage isn’t the same as valuable. Yet, I still had a pretty good consolation prize, Goldfarb assured.

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The blended Scotches in particular were likely pretty good, he explained, as they were assembled before the single-malt boom of the 1980s. Prior to the 1960s, most Scotches were blends; my vintage bottle likely contained older and higher-quality whiskies than a modern-day equivalent. “A lot of older blended Scotch is better than we know it today,” Goldfarb said. As for the rest: “I’d hang on to them, drink them, turn them into cocktails.”

And that’s exactly what I did. I cracked open the Chivas Regal 12-year-old, finding hints of leather, tobacco and peat smoke—a much drier pour than the usual bright honey-and-fruit notes. And as a final toast to the end of the adventure: a round of vintage Rob Roys.

This article originally appeared in the May 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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Perhaps nothing better encapsulates this than when, in early March, Mexican police raided the home of Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin, two vocal advocates for the disclosure of additives in tequila. Writer-at-Large and spirits reviewer Kara Newman wrote about the event in her recent article for Wine Enthusiast, “Following a Mexican Police Raid, the Fight Over Additive-Free Tequila Heats Up.”

We caught up with Newman about the raid and why additives in tequila are so divisive in the first place. It turns out that Newman doesn’t think that additives are inherently bad—they include sweetening syrups, caramel coloring and oak extracts intended to make a tequila seem smoother, older or sweeter—but the lack of transparency about their use is problematic. She also suspects that there’s more to the raid than meets the eye.

“I always believe you have to follow the money,” Newman tells us in the episode. 

Listen as Newman goes deep on additive use in tequila and why, for some, it’s so concerning. She also talks about additive use in other spirits, like whiskey, Cognac and rum, and why branding a product as “additive-free” has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool. So powerful, perhaps, that it sparked an encounter with law enforcement.

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Episode Transcript

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

Speakers: Kara Newman, Rachel Tepper Paley

Rachel Tepper Paley  00:08

Hello and welcome to the Wine Enthusiast podcast. Your serving drinks culture and the people who drive it. I’m Rachel Tepper Paley, Digital Managing Editor here at Wine Enthusiast. Tequila is the fastest growing spirit category in the United States. In 2021, it officially surpassed whiskey and retail sales, making it the second most popular spirit in the country behind vodka. But as interest and tequila heats up, so does the conversation around additives like sweetening syrups, caramel coloring, glycerin, and oak extracts intended to make a tequila seem smoother, older or sweeter. In a recent article for Wine Enthusiast, Writer-at-Large and spirits reviewer Karen Newman wrote about how this debate recently came to a dramatic head when Mexican authorities raided the home of two vocal advocates for the disclosure of additive use in tequila. Today Kara joins us to talk about the raid and zoom out on the big picture of what it means for your next bottle of tequila.

01:06

Rachel Tepper Paley  01:10

Hi, Kara. Thanks so much for being here.

Kara Newman  01:13

Hi, Rachel. Glad to talk with you.

Rachel Tepper Paley  01:16

Before we get into, let’s explain what went down on March 27. Here’s what we know. That day Mexican authorities raided the home of Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin. They are the co founders of Tequila Matchmaker, which launched a program now known as the Additive-Free Alliance in 2020. The voluntary program essentially allows the group to inspect the distilleries of participating operations and do analyses to prove they’re not using additives. The operations that pass tests get to put the Alliance’s, “Zero Additives” stamp on their bottles. During the raid, hundreds of pieces of equipment were confiscated from the Saschagrin home under the accusation that they were being used for illegal distillation. Many in the spirits community feel that there’s something fishy about all of this. The Additive-Free Alliance has for some time been at odds with the Mexican government’s Tequila Regulatory Council, also known as CRT, which recently announced a similar initiative for an additive free verification program and making things fishier, local reports suggest that CRT officials were present on the scene of the raid. This sounds like a startling scene and certainly not something we see everyday in the spirits industry. Kara, can you tell us a little bit about why people care so much about additives and in tequila in the first place and how widespread is their use?

Kara Newman  02:38

Okay, well, it’s hard to tell exactly how widespread the use is, according to the folks at Tequila Matchmaker upwards of 70% of tequila producers are using additives in one way or another. But really, the reasons for the objections really has a lot to do with transparency. I mean, just like in food, people have allergies, or they have aversions, they might want to steer clear of those additives. For example, some of the artificial sweeteners used in tequila, in addition to things like agave, I mean, they also use stevia, saccharin, aspartame. And people might just want this information disclosed so they can make their own educated decisions. But there’s also a different debate as well. I mean, within the tequila world, some advocates object to the use of additives at all, and one of Grover’s comments has been that using additives creates I’m using air quotes creates “unrealistic expectations.” And by that he means that using additives can create what appears to be a canvas that might not necessarily reflect what the tequila is actually is like one of the primary uses of these additives is to create consistency, and tequila, for example. So maybe one batch might be lighter or another might be darker, one might be sweeter one might not be and adjusting with additives can create the perception that is much smoother and much more consistent across the board. And there’s also one of the other objections. So the final objection is has to do with a process called using a diffuser. And this is a product used by larger scale industrial producers to extract raw agave juice instead of cooking whole agaves is and this process makes tequila faster and cheaper and often much younger agave plants are used instead of allowing allowing agave to mature a typical seven years and is diffuse create a much more neutral product that some actually call it agave vodka. And then some producers will then use additives to create these flavors or textures on this otherwise neutral canvas and that really gets a lot of people very upset, the use of diffusers.

05:02

What are your personal thoughts on tequila additives and diffusers? Is this something that you care about?

Kara Newman  05:08

I personally don’t think that using additives is necessarily a terrible, evil nefarious thing. But it is sometimes used to cover up subpar tequila. And I do think it ought to be disclosed for food safety reasons, not for transparency reasons. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. There’s actually a community of very passionate, deep-dive agave nerds, they’re intense. They’re they’re vocal. And there’s a lot of uproar. There’s definitely a lot of pushback, especially now against using these additives.

Rachel Tepper Paley  05:46

Do you think that the conversation around additives and tequila is at all related to, for lack of a better word, the wellness movement, like we’re seeing people demand transparency in other parts of the food system? Is this the natural evolution of that in the drinks space?

Kara Newman  06:02

Absolutely. There’s definitely been a halo effect similar to that of organic or or natural. For some reason tequila is always described these days as “cleaner.” Again, I’m using air quotes “cleaner” than other spirits. And I mean, that makes no sense. But the conversation around additives really flies in the face of that. And I think sometimes people forget that fermented and distilled beverages are part of the broader universe of, of food products and things we ingest, and they’re deserving of consumer protections as well.

06:37

It’s really fascinating. I’m curious to know more about the differences between the Sanchagrin’s Additive-Free Alliance and the CRT? How do they interact with one another? How are they different? What was sort of like the situation behind this big blow up at the raid?

Kara Newman  06:55

Alright, this could take a long time, I’ll try to encapsulate it. I mean, the easiest way to describe the difference between these two, I mean, it’s a David and Goliath situation. On one hand, you have this independent, two person, organization. And on the other you have a large, powerful government agency. That’s the CRT. And it’s a voluntary program to kill a matchmakers voluntary program to kill makers will hire them and grant them access to their distillery to observe their practices. And then they test at multiple points in the production process along the way. And they’ll then compare those results to what you might purchase at the liquor store and just make sure that everything matches up. And it’s labor intensive, time intensive thing to do and they get paid for doing it, quite frankly. And my opinion, is that the the CRT, one of their objections is that somebody else is going in and, and making money profiting off of what’s going on in the in the tequila world by and large and I’m sure that raised some some hackles. And, you know, I always believe you have to follow the money. And I really do believe that’s what’s going on here.

Rachel Tepper Paley  08:11

And just to be clear, it’s correct. Like the brands pay for the, the analysis. And, and they need to renew the certification annually.

Kara Newman  08:24

Yes, yes, yes. It’s ongoing source of revenue perhaps. Yeah. And there’s some pretty big brands in there, too. So it’s not like it’s just a handful, and lots of them also will pay for the evaluation process. And then they they sail on, they might come back again, or they might not.

Rachel Tepper Paley  08:44

I think that’s really interesting what you said about following the money, especially considering tequila is such a huge moneymaker these days, as we said, at the top of the episode, tequila is the fastest growing spirit in the United States. And I have a suspicion that being able to claim that a tequila is additive free, is a powerful selling point. I can tell you, Kara, that as the digital Managing Editor of Wine Enthusiast, your story on this raid, generated quite a bit of traffic, which, you know, maybe was because of the dramatic nature of the story. But I suspect also it suggests that the notion of tequila additives, is a subject matter people are really paying attention to.

Kara Newman  09:29

I think so. I think so. I mean, again, in the spirit of follow the money. I’ll tell you just just between us between between you and me and everybody listening to the podcast. Since that article came out, I’ve been getting bombarded with pitches about additive-free tequilas. And there’s there’s clearly a commercial case to be made. I mean, one of the people I interviewed for the article was Ivy Mix. She’s a bartender, she’s the owner of Fiasco!, a retail store in Brooklyn. And she said that additive-free tequila, she looks for additive-free when she’s made her purchasing decisions for the retail shop and also for her bar Leyenda, also a tremendously influential bar also in Brooklyn. And the fact that she’s out there saying, “Well, I’m not going to bring in these bottles unless they’re additive free,” that’s, that’s meaningful, and other people will, will follow her, her lead. And I do think that consumers, you know, they’ll be watching, they’ll vote with their feet, they’ll vote with their wallet. And I think it says something that even PR reps are sitting up and taking notice, and every company now wants to be additive free, whether they are or they aren’t. I mean, there’s, for the moment, there really aren’t any more arbiters are there. I mean, we’ll we’ll see what happens.

Rachel Tepper Paley  10:54

I think that some people would want to make the case that added a free tequila tastes better. Do you think that’s true? Do you think it’s sort of besides the point because people are interested in additive-free tequila for other reasons? Or is it more convoluted than that?

Kara Newman  11:12

Here’s the thing about additives in tequila. I mean, they, they do impact how it tastes, I attended a seminar where we tasted side by side, tequilas with additives and tequilas without additives. And you see that the difference? The ones with additives, there’s kind of this, this yummy kind of cake, better flavor sometimes or there’s glycerin as this kind of, like smoothness that’s very appealing. And, again, it’s I think the problem isn’t that additives are being used, but that they aren’t being disclosed. And a true story, one of the one of the reviews, more than one of the reviews I’ve done for for Wine Enthusiast, I will receive tequilas, I will taste them. I’m tasting them blind. I don’t know what’s in the glass until later. And then when I go to do the unveil, I don’t know that there are tequila that there additives, it’s not always listed on the bottle. Maybe it says caramel color, maybe it doesn’t. And more than once I’ve been caught out interviews saying, I’ll rate something, let’s say a 93. And it’s a tequila that was, you know, it was it was something I enjoyed, I thought somebody else might enjoy, you know, it tasted good. And I’ll find out later in a fairly public semi-embarrassing way that that bottle did indeed include additives. And some of those same, you know, deep-dive agave nerds I was talking about earlier. They will you know, they’ll call me out in forums and say how, how dare you give this bottle a 93. When we know that it was made with a diffuser, you know that the evil word diffuser, and it was flavored with additives. And I fell for it hook line and sinker. And it doesn’t mean that those are necessarily bad. But it means that, you know, if I can be duped, other people can be duped.

Rachel Tepper Paley  13:13

So it’s a matter of transparency. Really, in your mind.

Kara Newman  13:16

It is. I think so. I mean, I would like to know, before I go out on a limb and say hey, this is great. It’d be nice to know what it is. I’m saying. What it is I’m recommending and drinking.

Rachel Tepper Paley  13:27

I’m curious how prevalent is additive use in other spirits like vodka or whiskey or whatever.

Kara Newman  13:35

It’s also pretty, pretty prevalent. Yeah, you see caramel coloring a lot in the rum world in particular, you see a ton of caramel coloring of additives, and the brandy world and Cognac, they talk about the use of boise to just sweeten the brandy, you pick up a bottle of vodka sometimes you’ll see glycerin listed. I mean, it’s pretty prevalent. But I do think across the spirits industry, it ought to be disclosed. And within tequila, what we have now is this groundswell of attention in one particular spirits category, because it’s one of the top sellers, because there are these two entities that are kind of coming head to head this David and Goliath situation. And it’s kind of enticing to watch from the outside, though I assume it’s probably not very fun to be experiencing on the inside. And again, it just all comes down to this enormous market that is now going through this very public battle. And I like to think that we’ll get through this. And there’ll be maybe some regulations put into place in the tequila industry that other spirits industries can follow. It would be nice to have something a little more broadly applied.

Rachel Tepper Paley  14:52

I’m just curious if you think that the way that tequila has been marketed, which is like something of an ancestral product has anything to do with like, why ire over additives has been so extreme and tequila versus other spirit categories that use additives?

Kara Newman  15:11

Oh, that’s a good question. I wonder how this would have played out if it had been the Mezcal industry instead of tequila? Yeah, tequila has a lot of, of smaller players, for sure. And a lot of growers, I mean, basically like, like anywhere else across the industry, they’re farmers. They’re raising tequila. And they’re raising agave. But I think one of the key differences between agave and other crops like, like corn or rye used to make whiskey is that the stakes are so much higher for Agave because it takes so long to grow. It’s not an annual crop. Like I said, it can take anywhere from seven to even 10 years for agave to fully mature. And now that it’s such a huge market in the US and across the world, it’s getting a lot more attention. There’s a lot of pressure to plant and harvest more Agave more quickly, in turn that’s led to some of those, those diffuser tactics, because often, younger Agave is used to create a neutral product, which then goes through the process of having additives to make it tastier or make it seem more old, smooth premium, I guess premium is definitely a good word to apply here. And in the end, I know there’s a lot of money at stake, there’s a lot of livelihoods at stake. And people just want something that they can pour at home and and enjoy. Do you think that there’s an argument to be made for sort of restrictions, or at least like the need for transparency around additives is like being protective of tequila’s identity? I don’t know. But I think it probably would be a good idea.

Rachel Tepper Paley  17:03

It’s kind of crazy to imagine a future where you have a tequila in like every flavor of the rainbow like you have with vodka, like cotton candy flavored tequila, you know, sherbert flavored tequila? Like is that you know, you have to ask yourself is that the world we’re trending to if you know, additive use isn’t regulated or or disclosed. I think that’s well said. You reached out to Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin when you were recording out this article. They said they were declining to comment on their lawyer’s advice. What do you think the path forward here is?

Kara Newman  17:24

You bring up a really good point, there is a burgeoning corner of the tequila world called cristalino. And basically, it’s aged tequila that has the color filtered out, you know, hence crystaline, cristalino. And often it’s sweetened with agave. But it’s usually disclosed. I mean, that is the description of the product. It’s filtered, it’s usually sweetened. It is what it is. It’s controversial. Not everybody loves it. You know, not everybody has to be a tequila purists. But it’s a growing section, and a lot of people really enjoy it. And as long as you know what it is, you’re getting, I certainly don’t have any objection. You know, it takes all types. I have a lot of respect for the people who produce tequila. And it’s nice that there’s such a variety within that category alone. I mean, everything from blanco, reposado, anejo, extra anejo. I mean, that’s great. But for example, I don’t think that extra anejo should be amped up with lots of extra color and consumers not told about it. That would be deceptive. That’s where I have problems. I don’t have a problem with cristalino existing or being marketed even though lots of people may disagree. That’s fine. But I like that it’s yet another option and if, as he put it, cotton candy flavored tequila becomes a reality one day, I don’t think I’ll be lining up to drink it. But I will gladly respect, I’ll stand up for your your right to enjoy it. I want you to know what you’re getting. Well, since that article came out, there hasn’t been a whole lot else to say. The Sanschagrins are not saying anything. Don’t blame them. The CRT is not saying anything. And the only thing I’m really hearing on the grounds a lot of drumbeats from press rub saying no write about all our additive-free tequila. And the path forward… what happens next really depends on how much noise consumers make. Similar to the the organic movement or the wellness movement, if people say they value additive-free tequila and make purchasing decisions accordingly, the tequila industry is likely to listen.

Rachel Tepper Paley  20:14

Thanks so much for sharing your insights into this Kara. I really appreciate you being here.

Kara Newman  20:18

No problem. Good talking with you. Thank you

Rachel Tepper Paley  20:25

The debate over additives in tequila adds a new dimension to the spirit’s increasing popularity and what it means for mainstream drinking habits. We want to know:  Do you care about additives and tequila? Email us at podcast@Wine Enthusiast.net and we might share your feedback on the podcast. We love hearing from you and appreciate your support. Please rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. Remember to visit us at Wineenthusiast.com for content and products that bring your love of wine to life.

The post Additives in Tequila Are Hugely Controversial. But Do They Really Matter? appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Distilled since the 16th century, the high-altitude eau de vie, considered Bolivia’s national spirit, is gaining traction in the American market. Just last year, the U.S. government recognized singani as a distinctive product of Bolivia, perhaps opening the door for the spirit to become as sought-after stateside as Mexican tequila, Peruvian pisco or Brazilian cachaça. Now the crystal-clear spirit of the Andes is on the cusp of broader recognition as it shows up on cocktail menus from coast to coast. Below, we get to know the aromatic, floral spirit.

What Is Singani?

Singani is a type of brandy, which is a style of liquor produced by distilling wine. By Bolivian law, singani must be made in one of the officially recognized zones of production and can only be produced with Muscat of Alexandria grapes grown at elevations of 5,250 feet or higher.

Its history can be traced to the days of the Bolivian silver rush in the mid-1500s. When Spanish conquistadors began extracting silver in vast quantities from Cerro Rico, a mountain in southwestern Bolivia, the mining city of Potosí was born. The Spanish had established vineyards 100 miles south in the Sedona-like landscape of the Valley of Cinti, but the grueling labor of silver mining called for something stronger than wine. Distillation began at a nearby vineyard called San Pedro Mártir, which has been producing singani ever since. (You can find it today under the label Singani San Pedro.) 

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Since then, singani has remained a beloved local spirit. Only relatively recently has it become thought of as an export, and in 1988, the Bolivian government declared it to be a native product of the country and codified rules about how it should be produced.

Despite its pedigree, singani hasn’t quite taken off internationally. But that’s changing as high-profile cocktail aficionados become acquainted with the spirit. After learning about singani back in 2007 while filming Che, a biopic on Che Guevara, the director Steven Soderbergh became a dedicated fan and started selling his own. In 2014, he launched his brand Singani 63, and has been an evangelist for the spirit, lobbying the U.S. government to recognize it (he was instrumental in the recent designation) and commercializing the spirit.

How Is Singani Made?  

Singani is produced in a manner similar to pisco. Traditionally, fermented juice from the Muscat of Alexandria grapes is distilled in a traditional still called a falca. While artisanal makers still use antique equipment, most contemporary distillers have modern copper equipment. Different bodegas, or distilleries, craft singani in their own styles. 

Ronald Quinteros, a Bolivian sommelier who runs the Instagram page @Vinosdealtura.bol, explains that “there are singanis of one distillation, of two distillations and of three distillations.” With each distillation, prices increase, but Quinteros insists that a double distillation might maintain more aromas than a triple. 

One thing all distillers agree upon, however, is that the local Muscat de Alexandra grapes are essential to singani. While other South American countries produce grape spirits—like Peru does with pisco or Argentina does with its Fernet amaro—Bolivia is the only country that exclusively relies on a single varietal for distillation. Thanks to this grape, singani has a strong and bright acidity complemented by a subtle and floral sweetness. 

“The important thing is that the Muscat of Alexandria grape exists in Chile, exists in Argentina, exists in the very Spain whence came these very shoots—but this grape has been acclimatized to [5,250 feet] above sea level for nearly five centuries,” says Lorgio Rivera, a retired Bolivian senator and part-owner of the storied San Pedro distillery. The operation has produced singani for nearly 500 years, making it one of the oldest viticultural and distillation sites in the Americas.

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Legally speaking, singani can only be produced in specific regions of Bolivia, which include the valleys of Tarija, La Paz, Chuqisaca and Cinti. In these locations, temperatures fluctuate drastically between night and day, which helps produce a freshness in the wines and a bracing acidity. Meanwhile pests generally can’t survive in such a harsh environment, meaning that less fumigation is needed. While the Valley of Cinti fell out of favor with singani distillers in the mid 1900s, as most moved to the Valley of Tarija, the region still has a cluster of over 50 boutique producers. 

The brand Casa Real, which produces Soderbergh’s label and 80% of domestic bottles, has produced singani in the Valley of Tarija since the mid 1900s. “The only reason we can make wine in Bolivia is due to altitude,” says Nicolas Granier, Casa Real’s commercial director. “It has great implications—higher exposure to U.V. makes the grapes develop a thicker skin. A large part of the aromatic components are in the skin of the grape. So, with a thicker skin, there are more terpenes. That’s why the Muscat of Alexandria in Bolivia has this explosion of aroma.” 

The brand uses a distillation method similar to Cognac that has remained virtually unchanged since the company’s founder, Luis Granier Ballivian, opened his business in 1976. It’s still a family-run operation. “One hundred years ago, my great grandfather studied in France and always held the production of Cognac as a role model,” recalls Granier. “He tried to innovate the distillation and adapt the method of cognac in Bolivia, with Cognac pot stills and double distillation.” 

How to Drink Singani

Though Granier divulged that Soderbergh takes his singani on the rocks, Bolivians rarely drink their beloved spirit straight today. It’s usually mixed into cocktails, especially the chuflay, a mix of singani, ginger ale and citrus reminiscent of the Peruvian chilcano.

“When Bolivian people think of singani, they directly think of the chuflay—not the crystalline spirits in the bottle,” says Quinteros. It’s a fairly simple and straightforward libation, which is intentional. “We want to educate the American consumer, who might not have the skills of an experienced bartender, to make cocktails in a simple manner—more like how we drink it in Bolivia,” says Granier.

But on the American mixology scene, simplicity isn’t always a given. In fact, singani is increasingly becoming known as a versatile clear base spirit for a wide range of creative cocktails.

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Boston’s Wig Shop speakeasy has the Channing Tay-Yum, combining singani with lime, pistachio orgeat, blackberry and black pepper. Chicago’s critically acclaimed Meadowlark mixes Singani 63 with Dolin Génépy, Carpano Botanic bitters and both melon and anise liqueurs to produce the Ferris Wheel. In Denver, the Death & Co outpost uses the spirit in their Death of Disco alongside Lalo Tequila, Génépy, plum, lemon and seltzer. Singani features especially prominently at Washington, D.C. pop-up Casa Kantuta, the nation’s first-ever Bolivian cocktail bar. Nearly all of the drinks here feature the spirit, from the Singani Api Sour (Singani 63, lemon juice, demerara syrup, egg whites and a puffed maiz garnish) to the Tall & Dirty (Singani 63, vodka, Dolin Blanc, Sherry, olive brine and elderflower tonic water).

Granier speaks optimistically about what sinani’s rise portends. “We hope for other Bolivian brands to export as well,” he says. “The market is so big and our category is so small. We applaud each new exportation project.”

For Bolivians, the legal recognition of singani in the States has been a watershed moment. “This recent news of how the U.S. has rightfully accepted singani as a product of origin has welled up the national pride for our spirit,” Quinteros says.

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The post Meet Singani, the Bolivian Brandy Coming to a Bar Near You appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Here’s a shortlist of the brands (and bottles) we’re fired up about right now. Note: This is a highly subjective, of-the-moment list—not a “best-of” ranking—and likely to change over time. After all, the category’s shifting nature is what makes it so dynamic. 

New Arrival

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Abasolo 

While this isn’t the only whiskey-producing brand to come out of Mexico (see also: Sierra Norte and Gran Maisal), Abasolo was the first on my radar. Its whiskey is made from heritage corn that is nixtamalized (like masa), which yields honeyed, roast-y flavors that have me energized to further explore the still-nascent Mexican corn whiskey category. 

Abasolo Corn Whiskey

$47 Total Wine

High West  

When autumn arrives, I look forward to the annual release of this Park City, Utah-based distillery’s blend of straight rye whiskies. 2024 marks the 12^th year (Act 12, get it?) of this Port-finished offering, which will be released in October. Each bottling is a little different, but in general, they’re richly spiced with plenty of caramel and red fruit. A vertical tasting of all the limited releases would be a treat, but we’ve never been able to save any of the bottles. While you’re waiting for Act 12, we suggest consoling yourself with any of the blend’s previous iterations, including Act 9, which earned a notable 96-point rating. 

A Midwinter Night’s Dram Act 9

$300 Rare Reserve

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George Dickel 

To be fair, we’re a little biased: This Tennessee whiskey brand was recognized as a 2023 Wine Star earlier this year. But ever since distiller Nicole Austin came on board, Dickel has been turning out excellent whiskeys, and its Bottled in Bond offering—which we gave a 95-point rating back in 2019—punches above its weight class, providing memorable notes of toffee, dried fruit and oak that work well to sip or mix. (Note: an 18-year-old Dickel bourbon is coming soon.) 

George Dickel Bottled in Bond

$58 Wine.com

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Hatozaki  

Japanese whisky—light, elegant and endlessly complex—is one of my favorites. The category is also one of the most traditional, so when a Japanese distiller bends the rules, that gets my attention. In general, Japan is known for single malts and blended whiskies. However, Hatozaki’s Omakase offering is a limited-edition rye, made in America and aged in Japan, where it’s finished in rare mizunara oak. Tasting notes include sarsaparilla, allspice and black pepper, with a gentle, even slightly floral exhale. However, this surely will raise eyebrows among Japanese whisky purists: New labeling standards specify that Japanese whisky needs to be made in Japan, although these rules are voluntary. 

Hatozaki Omakase

$100 Total Wine

New York Distilling Co. 

In February, Brooklyn-based New York Distilling Co. moved to a larger facility, and launched Jaywalk Rye, a new line (replacing the old Ragtime Rye) with new liquid distilled from Horton rye, a nearly lost heirloom grain popular in the 1800s. It’s an exciting development for a number of reasons: It adds to the burgeoning Empire rye category; it’s an opportunity to literally taste history; and it’s a bold, robust whiskey that makes a killer Manhattan. Read more about the rise of rye whiskey. 

Jaywalk Heirloom Rye Whiskey

$133 Caskers

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Lost Lantern 

An upstart independent bottler, Lost Lantern specializes in special barrels selected from distilleries around the U.S. Sometimes it releases single-cask offerings, other times it blends liquid from multiple distilleries. These limited releases are often completely snapped up before our reviews are even released—which is a bummer, because they consistently land on our Top 100 lists. A recent stunner: Lost Lantern Soaring Spice (97 points), which showcases a real firecracker of a whiskey from Nevada distillery Frey Ranch. Lucky for you, there are still some bottles available. 

Soaring Spice Frey Ranch Distillery Nevada Straight Bourbon Whiskey

$100 Lost Lantern

Bruichladdich 

For a long time, I thought of peated Scotch the way some people think of opera: I appreciated it, but never thought I’d love it. Super-peated Octomore, from Islay’s iconic Bruichladdich distillery, was the bottling that changed my mind, unfurling all kinds of mentholated smoky black magic around a core of oak. Bruichladdich releases a new series of single malts each year; the 14 series featured Octomore 14.1 (95 points), aged in ex-American oak (others in the series were aged in European and even Colombian oak). I’ll be watching for the Octomore 15 series later this year. 

Octomore 14

$220 Sip Whiskey

Rampur 

I’m very much intrigued by the wave of single-malt whiskeys coming out of India. Rampur’s Special Release 2022 (94 points) was one I couldn’t stop thinking about last year, with its haunting sandalwood, incense and candied ginger tones. A visit to India—including its distilleries—is officially on my travel bucket list. 

Rampur Select Single Malt

$125 Total Wine

Uncle Nearest  

This Black-owned, woman-owned brand generated excitement since it launched in 2017. (It was also our 2020 Spirit Brand of the Year.) The brand’s 1856 bottling, a blend of eight- to 11-year-old whiskeys, sizzles with ginger and cinnamon right into the toasty vanilla-tinged finish. 

Uncle Nearest 1856

$48 Total Wine

Waterford Whisky 

There’s a lot about this distillery to like. For one, it focuses on single-farm whiskeys, all made using 100% Irish barley, leaning into the terroir of individual farms and harvest. Further, Waterford spotlights farmers with organic and biodynamic practices; the latter includes lunar planting cycles. The brand’s emphasis on sustainability—and the resulting fruity, almond-y Waterford Biodynamic Luna whiskey, which earned a 90-point rating—makes us want to lift a glass. 

Waterford Biodynamic Luna

$95 The Whiskey Exchange

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As you’ll see, these borough namesakes, past and present, have a specific vibe: strong, no nonsense. Some are a little bitter, while others are sassy, offering a knowing wink. These drinks walk fast, talk fast and know how to navigate the subway. Stand clear of the closing doors.

Queens

The classic Queen’s Cocktail (yes, with an apostrophe; originally the “Queen’s Borough” was named for Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland) is a sunny mix of gin and dry and sweet vermouths, brightened with crushed pineapple.

The dark and brooding cocktail below, with a caffeinated kick, is unrelated to the Queen’s Cocktail. Rather, bar pro Doug Brickel devised it for a trio of bars he previously ran in Long Island. True Noo Yawkers know that Queens and Long Island are the same land mass, often traversed by the Long Island Railroad (LIRR), along which the station in Jamaica, Queens is a major hub.

“When you take the LIRR into the city, you often have to ‘Change at Jamaica,’ or switch trains at Jamaica Station,” Brickel explains. Fall asleep and miss that stop, “and you’ll need to get up in the middle of Queens and wait for another train to get you all the way back home.”

Change at Jamaica

Courtesy Doug Brickel, beverage director, Cambridge Street Hospitality Group, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Ingredients

• ¾ ounce Smith & Cross rum
• ¾ ounce Espresso Bourbon*
• ½ ounce Montenegro amaro
• ½ ounce Velvet Falernum
• Grapefruit peel, for garnish

Instructions

In a mixing glass, stir all ingredients with ice. Strain over a large cube of ice. Garnish with grapefruit peel.

*How to Make Espresso Bourbon

Combine 100 grams (²/3 cup) crushed (not ground) coffee beans and 1 liter bourbon (Brickel recommends Evan Williams). Cover and let sit for 2-3 weeks in a cool, dry place. Strain through a coffee filter. Keeps for several months.

Classic Queen’s Cocktail

Shake with ice 1 ounce London dry gin and ½ ounce each dry and sweet vermouths and crushed pineapple. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Try it at: Diamond Dogs, 34-04 31st Avenue Queens

Brooklyn

All of the borough-named classics are descended from the Manhattan; the earliest known Brooklyn dates to 1908, found in a book by J.A. Grohusko. It “improves” the drink with dashes of bitter Amer Picon and cherry-based maraschino liqueur. (Another version, credited to Jacques Straub, circa 1914, uses dry vermouth.)

But what’s fascinating about the Brooklyn is how modern-day variations have completely lapped the classic. At the now-closed legendary NYC bar Milk & Honey, bartender Vincenzo Errico created a drink called the Red Hook, featuring bittersweet Punt e Mes vermouth. That set off a trend throughout the aughts and beyond, spawning multiple variations named for Brooklyn neighborhoods.

One of the best is The Greenpoint, created in 2005, also at Milk & Honey; a small amount of yellow Chartreuse adds pleasing herbaceous and honey tones.

The Greenpoint

Courtesy Michael McIlroy, proprietor, Attaboy NYC

Ingredients

• 2 ounces rye whiskey
• ½ ounce sweet vermouth
• ½ ounce yellow Chartreuse
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 dash orange bitters
• Lemon twist, for garnish

Instructions

Stir in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Classic Brooklyn

Stir with ice, 1 ½ ounce each rye whiskey and dry vermouth and ¼ ounce Amer Picon and maraschino liqueur. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and twist lemon peel over the top.

Try it at: Leyenda, 221 Smith Street Brooklyn

The Bronx

Before Prohibition, this shaken drink was so popular, it was “the Cosmopolitan of its day,” says Frank Caiafa, writing in The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. While the drink’s exact origins are unknown, the Waldorf-Astoria is among those that lay claim to the drink.

Another bartender, Hugo Ensslin, published two versions of the Bronx in his 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks: one with orange juice, the other with muddled pineapple. Al Sotack’s modern-day riff, below, combines the best of both Bronxes. He had created it for now-closed Philadelphia bar Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co., drawing on a historical theory that a Bronx bartender discovered the drink in Philly.

A fellow bartender (and Bronx native) tried the drink and derided it as “too elegant” to be named for the area famed as the gritty birthplace of hip-hop and graffiti, Sotack recalls. Maybe all it needs is the right setting.

South Bronx

Courtesy Al Sotack, partner, Jupiter Disco, Brooklyn

Ingredients

• 2 ounces Old Tom gin
• ½ ounce blanc vermouth
• ½ ounce sweet vermouth
• 1 teaspoon pineapple juice
• ½ teaspoon orange juice
• 9 drops Bitter End Memphis Barbeque Bitters
• Lemon twist, to garnish

Instructions

In a mixing glass, combine all ingredients with ice. Stir until chilled, then strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

Classic Bronx Cocktail

Cut an orange wheel in eight pieces and muddle in cocktail shaker. Add 2 ounces London dry gin, ½ ounce each sweet and dry vermouth, and 2 dashes Angostura bitters. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Manhattan

The original was created in the 1870s or 1880s, notable as the first to include vermouth as part of its formula. And yes, it was likely invented in NYC; one popular origin story sets its creation at the Manhattan Club.

The iconic drink has spawned countless riffs, including the modern classic Black Manhattan (with amaro), Walnut Manhattan (with nocino), Perfect Manhattans (equal parts dry/sweet vermouth) and neighborhood-named variations like the Little Italy from Audrey Saunders (with a splash of Italian amaro Cynar).

But swap out the whiskey for rum, and you get the Palmetto, an underrated variation that’s great for warmer weather. Shannon Mustipher’s take combines the best of the Black Manhattan and the Palmetto.

Black Palmetto

Courtesy Shannon Mustipher, cocktail consultant and spirits educator

Ingredients

• 2 ounces rum (Mustipher recommends 1 ½ ounces aged Panama rum and ½ ounce Jamaica rum)
• 1 ounce red vermouth
• ½ oz artichoke amaro (Cynar 70 or Faccio Brutto recomended)
• 2 drops saline (optional)
• 2 drops orange bitters
• Orange peel and maraschino cherry, for garnish

Instructions

In a mixing glass, combine all ingredients with ice. Stir until chilled, then strain into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass. Twist an orange peel over the top of the drink to express the essential oils, then discard the peel (Mustipher flames the peel to caramelize the oils; that step is optional).

Classic Manhattan

Stir with ice, 2 ounces rye, 1 ounce sweet vermouth and 2 dashes Angostura bitters. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with brandied cherry.

Try it at: Manhatta, 28 Liberty Street, 60th floor, New York

Staten Island

While there’s no classic cocktail named for NYC’s southernmost borough, that hasn’t stopped modern-day pros from paying homage. For example, Williamsburg “listening bar” Mr. Melo offers a Staten Island Iced Tea, an elevated, low-alcohol version of the super-boozy Long Island Iced Tea, made with eight Italian liqueurs plus housemade cola and lemon, and served on tap.

“It’s lovingly named the Staten Island Iced Tea after the borough with a prominent Italian American population,” bar co-owner Nikolas Vagenas explains.

While it’s not the same as the complex version served at the bar, this streamlined version offers a similar effect. No ride on the Staten Island ferry required.

Staten Island Iced Tea

Courtesy Nikolas Vagenas, food & beverage director and co-owner of Mr. Melo, Brooklyn

Ingredients

• ½ ounce red bitter (Vagenas recommends Select Aperitivo)
• ½ ounce Fernet Branca
• ½ ounce Cynar
• ½ ounce Luxardo Maraschino
• ½ ounce lemon juice
• Lemon peel
• Cola, to top (approx 2 ounces)
• Lemon twist, for garnish

Instructions

In a cocktail shaker, combine all ingredients (except cola) and ice. Shake well, and strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice cubes. Top with cola. Garnish with lemon twist.

This article originally appeared in the May 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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The post An NYC-Inspired Cocktail for Every Borough appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Nearly all honkaku (authentic) shochu is made in Kyushu, home to more than 280 distilleries. Indeed, the highway that winds from one often-remote distillery to another is nicknamed “the shochu highway.”

This expressive spirit, which can be made from more than 50 base ingredients such as rice, barley, buckwheat, sweet potato—and more unusual ingredients like bell peppers, seaweed or pumpkin— outsells sake in its home country. Most Americans, however, are only just starting to discover it.

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What Is Shochu?

A traditional Japanese distillate with roots that can be traced back to the 1500s, shochu (pronounced show-chew) can be made from more than 50 different agricultural products and is fermented using koji (a type of mold also used to make miso and soy sauce), then distilled. Many are bottled at relatively lower alcohol levels, around 25–30% abv, compared to 40% or higher for vodka and other spirits.

The result is a particularly expressive liquid that reflects the underlying ingredient and often has a faint touch of umami, thanks to the koji fermentation. Shochu made from black sugar (kokuto) from the Amami Islands can have a distinct brown sugar note, and even a funky grassiness that suggests agricole rhum; sweet potato shochu is often super-earthy; barley shochu can have a nutty, toasty character, almost like whiskey or beer; and rice shochu often is the most delicate of all, showing floral, citrus, or light tropical fruit tones.

To avoid confusion, here’s what shochu is not: It’s not “Japanese vodka,” nor is it sake (a brewed beverage made from rice) or soju (a Korean distillate).

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How to Drink Shochu

In Japan, shochu is enjoyed neat or diluted with water in some way. That might mean served on the rocks, mixed with hot water to release extra aroma (oyuwari) or topped up with carbonated water into a chilled highball (mizuwari or chu-hai, a casual portmanteau of “shochu-highball”) along with other flavorings like fruit juice or green tea. During my visit, chu-hais seemed to be everywhere—from izakaya menus to canned versions at convenience stores and train station concession stands.

“The Japanese drink very seasonally,” explains Kyle Davis, bar manager at Brooklyn Kura, a taproom and sake brewery in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, which also makes kasutori (sake lees, a byproduct of making sake) shochu. “When it’s cold, they’ll have an oyuwari, versus when it’s very cold, they can have a shochu and soda, a highball.”

Further, shochu is valued for its food-friendliness. “It’s similar to wine,” Davis notes. “A bolder, barley-based shochu might pair well with roasted meats, while a lighter shochu, like a sweet potato with more floral notes, would go really well with fish or chicken.” Meanwhile, the savory, toasted notes of a buckwheat shochu make a fine match for chocolate and fruit desserts, especially when topped up with hot water.

However, in the U.S., shochu is viewed as a cocktail ingredient, as bartenders build creative drinks around the spirit.

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Shochu Sours & Broth-Tails

“Shochu leans into my personal drinking type, which tends to be more on the low proof, low acid side of things, like highballs,” explains Julia Momosé, partner and creative director at Chicago’s Kumiko. It’s also a versatile ingredient, mixing easily with other spirits, citrus and liqueurs, because the flavor profiles within the category are so distinct and diverse, she adds. For example, her Midori Shochu Sour elevates the ’70s classic with a delicate green tea shochu.

While the lower alcohol levels are appealing, it can be challenging to add it to traditional cocktail structures, Momosé notes; it’s not as simple as swapping out vodka or whiskey for the same amount of shochu. Instead, it’s about “finding things that draw out the flavors you find when drinking it straight,” she explains.

Elsewhere, Davis says he often leans into the umami flavors found in some shochus by mixing them into savory or smoky cocktails, such as a robust barley shochu infused with black sesame, nutmeg and orange oil. He also mixes Brooklyn Kura’s housemade shochu with vegan “bone broth” and porcini mushroom salt. “It’s a full-blown broth-tail,” he explains, “served as a little mini cup of soup.

Which Shochu Is for You?

At Boston-based Koji Club, the emphasis is on sake and shochu, both made with koji. While owner Alyssa DiPasquale leans toward rice-based shochus for “clean” flavor and similarity to sake, she encourages those getting to know shochu to sample across a wider range.

“The greatest advice given to me was: Remember there can be many ingredients that can make shochu,” she recalls. “If you try a shochu and maybe don’t like the way that it tastes, remember what the base was and don’t give up yet. Try another one. If you’re a sake fan, try a rice-based shochu. If you want something darker, heartier, try sweet potato or barley.”

To help guests select a shochu, Kura’s Davis uses familiar cocktails as a reference point. For example, for those who prefer drinks with a relatively neutral vodka base, he’ll recommend a crisp rice shochu, while gin lovers might like the floral notes of a sweet potato shochu. “If someone enjoys a more robust, smokier spirit like mezcal or Scotch, I’d steer them toward barley shochu,” while “if someone’s into tequila or a sweeter agave, vanilla flavor profile, the crème brûlée-like taste of black sugar shochu might go well with that.” And rum lovers might take to the fruity, tropical notes of awamori, a Thai rice shochu made only in Okinawa.

Meanwhile, Momosé’s advice for finding a shochu you’ll love is straightforward: “Start simple. Get to know it on its own, and mix with various forms of water,” whether hot water, club soda or tonic water. And if you don’t find the perfect match right away, “keep looking,” she urges.

“There are so many different types,” says Momosé, “and there’s probably something out there that you’ll love.”

Sample These Shochus

Colorful Honkaku Shochu

Distilled from sweet potatoes and rice, this is a savory, lush and food-friendly shochu. Bold flavors include mushroom, roasted chestnut, carrot peelings and walnut. 95 Points.

$55 Wine.com

MUJEN Original

This lively, bracing rice-based shochu offers a mild, citrusy aroma and clean, crisp palate that reflects a grapefruit peel zing. 95 Points.

$ Varies Wine-Searcher

Iichiko Saiten Shochu

A barley-based shochu, this is one of Julia Momosé’s recommendations. It’s “funky and wild,” she says. “It’s wildly nutty and flavorful at the same time.” Best Buy. 94 Points.

$28 Total Wine & More

Mizu Shochu Lemongrass

Distilled from rice and a small portion (5%) of lemongrass, this zingy, mildly sweet shochu is Alyssa DiPasquale’s pick for creative cocktails, like a clarified lychee martini that’s a top seller at Koji Club. “The lemongrass adds a hint of acidity without citrus,” she says. Best Buy. 93 Points.

$32 Total Wine & More

Nankai Gold

Whiskey-lovers might also enjoy this oak-finished shochu, distilled from black sugar cane and rice. Look for gentle raisin, chocolate and honey notes.

$74 Total Wine & More

That Shochu is Made from What Now?

In addition to the usual suspects (rice, barley, etc.), some distillers make shochu with bolder—and sometimes surprising—ingredients. For example, Ochiai Distillery specializes in sweet potato shochu, but also makes Rihei Ginger Shochu, which has a pleasing sweetness and bite like chewy ginger candies. Master brewer and distiller Ryohei Ochiai, a self-described “mad scientist,” has also made shochu using vegetal bell pepper, incense-like mugwort, mushroom, even garlic. Among the few failed experiments: a variety of mountain potato (“it smelled like a swamp”) and togarashi, a spicy red pepper. He had to wear goggles to make it, he recalls; “It makes you cry.”

This article originally appeared in the April 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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The post Move Aside, Saké: Shochu Is Japan’s Best-Kept Secret appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

“The older generation still loves awamori in Okinawa, but the younger generation not as much,” says Akira Nakazato, the master distiller of the notable awamori house Mizuho Shuzo, or Mizuho Distillery, founded in 1848 and now run by the seventh generation of the Tamanaha family. 

To tap into that younger age group before it’s too late, Mizuho and other producers have been tamping down on awamori’s strong flavor to create mixable renditions better suited for cocktails and branching out to other spirits, including gin and rum, that highlight local ingredients and traditions through a new lens.

An Exploration of Okinawan Terroir

Sugarcane has been cultivated across the mineral-rich Okinawan islands, a chain with both volcanic and coral geology, for four centuries. One beloved agricultural product and local specialty is kokuto, or Okinawan black sugar, served in bite-size cubes as a sweet snack and prized for its rich flavor. Combining that lineage with the island’s distillation heritage was perhaps an inevitable evolution.

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Under Nakazato’s stewardship, Mizuho unveiled the ambitious OneRum brand, sourcing kokuto from eight different islands in the archipelago. The result is a tantalizing series of eight rums representing the particular kokuto variety grown on a given island, as well as the terroir of its surroundings. In August, Mizuho released a blended rum including all eight constituent islands in one cohesive, tropical fruity whole.

“This project is connecting Okinawan sugar cane to the future,” Nakazato says, adding that Okinawa’s humid, subtropical environs should ring a bell for devotees to Caribbean rum. “It’s almost the same latitude as their famous rum production. I believe Okinawa can be a new sacred place for rum.”

Also under the OneRum banner is an agricole rhum made with sugarcane grown by Mizuho at its own farm, a project for which they’ve brought in a range of partners such as prominent Japanese bar owners and bartenders. “Compared to rum produced in other countries, you can feel the difference in terroir between Okinawan agricole rhum and the black sugar rum made on remote islands,” says Issey Teruya, the second generation owner of Sammy’s Bar Kiwi, a whiskey and spirits bar on Okinawa.

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For Teruya, one of the local partners who was invited to get involved in the project, Okinawan rum showcasing its unique terroir serves as an introduction to the island and its other more traditional spirits. “For those who don’t know about Okinawa, I would like to have them drink Okinawan rum first and visit Okinawa with their thoughts,” he says.

Kokuto is gaining traction in the bar world thanks to an awamori and kokuto liqueur released in 2023 called Kokuto de Lequio. It’s the brainchild of Shingo Gokan, the founder of Tokyo’s renowned SG Club cocktail bar and other hot spots, including Sober Company in Shanghai and El Lequio in Naha, Okinawa. It’s Gokan’s product, but it’s made in conjunction with a familiar face at Mizuho. “Spirits is a very small world,” says Nakazato.

Gin Is Also In on Okinawa

Perhaps no spirit has spread its production wings as far as gin, and Okinawa can now count itself among its many global homes. A leading example comes from Masahiro Shuzo, an Okinawan distillery founded in 1883. Masahiro Okinawa Gin includes local botanicals such as goya bitter melon, guava leaves, long pepper and shekwasha, a sour citrus native to the island. It is produced with awamori distillation techniques that utilize two different single distillers to create a uniquely flavorful gin.

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Mizuho began its own efforts in 2018 with Ori-gin 1848, its first craft spirits project beyond the awamori realm. According to Nakazato, Ori-gin’s rich, tropical profile evokes Okinawa with botanicals such as pepper, tea, shell ginger and shekwasha. “We use only local ingredients,” Nakazato says, adding that Ori-gin’s recipe also includes a particular strain of sakura yeast, while flavored editions highlight produce such as Okinawan strawberries.

Awamori Made for Cocktails

Another iron in the fire for an awamori resurgence is a brand produced specifically for cocktails. Ryukyu 1429 is an upstart, created in part with funding by the Japanese government to support the awamori industry. Ryukyu 1429 sources awamori from three distilleries—Chuko, Zuisen and Kumejima’s Kumesen—with the goal of buoying the category’s global presence.

“I believe that by creating great cocktails, bartenders can show the public the potential of awamori, similar to something like mezcal, which is now one of the most loved cocktail spirits,” says Gento Torigata, a bartender at the acclaimed London cocktail bar Kwãnt.

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Torigata notes that Ryukyu 1429’s three products each have a distinctive flavor profile that works well in different styles of drinks: Kaze showcases mushroom and spice, Mizu offers ripe tropical fruits and Tsuchi hints of dark chocolate. He recommends novices to the category start with its Tsuchi expression, which the producer compares in some ways to a white whiskey, in drinks like the espresso martini. His riff is the Ryukyu cocktail, incorporating Ryukyu 1429 Tsuchi with Pedro Ximénez and Oloroso Sherries, espresso, maple syrup and a pinch of salt, serving as an accessible introduction for Western drinkers looking to become acclimated to the spirit.

In addition to Kwãnt, cocktail bar luminaries ranging from the famed American Bar at The Savoy to the trendy, avant-garde Sips in Barcelona have turned to Ryukyu 1429 for specialty drinks. If awamori can grab a foothold in those types of establishments, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before spirits and cocktail aficionados around the world take notice. That’s the hope, anyway.

“We believe there will be an opportunity for bartenders around the world to show interest in awamori after experiencing the pleasures of drinking gin, rum and other spirits produced in Okinawa,” Teruya says.

The post Okinawa’s Old School Awamori Houses Are Reaching a New Generation With Gin, Rum and Cocktails appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.