Inside Spirits

03/17/2024

The Glendalough distillery in Ireland is situated on lands once occupied and protected by Saint Kevin. That was back around 700 AD. These days they even use oak wood for their pot still whiskey that was made, sustainably, from trees right at the foot of their mountain, and a delight it is. But they....

12/30/2022

Sparkle All the Way on Inside Spirits:

That fabulous time of year when we all celebrate and are festive more than any other time of year is once again upon us.  Get-togethers with loved ones, friends and co-workers are seemingly a daily event.  Parties are held and festive food is served and devoured, and along with that we commonly qu...

12/30/2022

Sparkle All the Way on Inside Spirits:

06/03/2022

Shane Munn and Martin’s Lane Winery Tasting wines with Shane Munn is always a relaxed, fairly modest affair, except for the steep knowledge he imparts, every time out. That, and the extraordinary wines he makes, and he genially pours. Over several years now Munn and the wines he makes at Martin’...

07/30/2021

Egan’s Irish Irish whiskey (yes, with an “e”, just as the Americans do with Bourbon), is experiencing something of a renaissance. Often, it is an older, venerable name and brand, from over two centuries ago, that is being reborn by a family’s diaspora. Glendalough comes readily to mind. And ...

05/03/2021

Perfect Prosecco pairings with the ever passionate, energetic and charismatic Sandro Bottega.

11/09/2020

The Glendalough Pot Still Irish Whiskey. We have Irish monks to thank, to begin with. In pursuit of knowledge about the parfumerie processes, they travelled all the art to the Mediterranean shores. as part of the sojourn, they also brought back to Gaelic lands the distillation process. All this happ...

10/29/2020

The Bottega Alexander Frugal times, frugal means. Inventiveness. Ecology even. We could learn a few lessons form the birth of eau du vie, marc, grappa, or as it was once, originally known, graspa. I was fascinated by the grappa process there. Who better than Sandro Bottega himself to explain the who...

10/09/2020

Heaven’s Door Whiskey Let’s start a new urban legend, although it is based on a Western movie. James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, director Sam Peckinpaugh, and Bob Dylan, are sitting in a bar after a long day of shooting. The film is Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dylan has a small on-camera part...

10/02/2020

A. de Fussigny reaches 200 years and counting. The first barrels for export went out the front gates in 1814. A. de Fussigny still ships out that gate, on the banks of the Charente River, in the heart of downtown Cognac, to this very day. The distillery remains steadfastly boutique, artisanal, with....

10/01/2020

Known for its mellifluous and fulsome song, the nightingale appears in nature and, in multiple instances, in art, from Romantic poetry right on back to Ovid and Sophocles. But in Vancouver, on Hastings Street just a few paces off Burrard, in a retired bank building, a different kind of song emanates...

09/30/2020

It was 1890. The Dias family patriarch planted his first coffee beans, built a plantation high in the hills in Brazil’s Mogiana Valley, based on sustainable and ecological principles, and what is now the family farm has run that way to this very day.  The entire farm is self-sustaining, with its ...

09/29/2020

The relationship between oak casks and single malt Scotch whiskies is more mysterious than Abelard and Heloise. Volumes have been written, over the centuries, about this alchemical interaction, the spirit extracting from deep below the surface, often charred to one degree or another, all kinds of na...

09/28/2020

At Hawksworth, fine dining in Vancouver is alive and very well. Since opening to virtually instant acclaim in 2011, Chef David Hawksworth and his A-list team have subtly gone about their chosen business, of proffering the finest ingredients, almost all local, prepared in imaginative and visually arr...

04/02/2020

What Andres Faustinelli does not know about whisky is almost not worth knowing. Over dinner at Per Se Social Corner, he regales the table with animated tales of how many trials it took to arrive at his wonderful new whisky, the Bearface One Eleven Oaxaca Release. First came Bearface itself, aged sev...

03/27/2020

Ardbeg Kelpie Kelpies, according to agile Scottish lore, are shape-shifting water spirits that inhabit the small, inhospitable islands called skerries, that dot the Atlantic shores of that country, and Islay has more than its fair share of both.  Perhaps that inspired Ardbeg distillery to introduce...

12/23/2019

&t

Many would argue that any season is cocktail season. Fair enough. But the festive holiday season, which sends out the past year and ushers in the new, has a special place. Virtually every spirit has its core of special, even iconic, cocktails, from simple but highly effective gin or vodka and tonics...

12/21/2019

Pierre Szersnovicz has spent his life making, bottling, and carrying the flag for Courvoisier cognac. He happily retired, but his previous title was Director of Spirit Quality Control, which reflects his deep knowledge of the entire process of assembling a great cognac, from the ungi blanc grapes th...

11/05/2019

Enter from the sidewalk, pass under the awning at 60 East 65th Street in New York, and you immediately find a world unto itself, distinct from whatever in your life brought you to this sidewalk at this moment. People arrive early, and are seated in a small lounge area, the restaurant proper only a f...

10/30/2019

On my last trip to Montreal, last February, I was not surprised to find snow on the ground and a not so welcoming minus ten-degree temperature.  Not surprised, but ill-prepared to walk in the snow for even a couple of blocks.  I am after all from Vancouver, and walking in the snow in below zero .....

10/29/2019

Stranded on a desert island, if you only had one pot , or pan, to cook in, what would it be? We asked some experts, but we also thought about camping trips of yore, what worked, what didn’t. Heath Gordon is Chef De Cuisine at Center Cut Steakhouse, The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial C...

10/24/2019

At the Allison Inn and Spa, they hit the bullseye. Nestled almost coyly into the low rolling hills at the northern tip of Oregon’s willamette Valley wine country, sits the Allison Inn and Spa. It is ideally situated, less than ten minutes’ drive from proximate wineries, while only 90 minutes fro...