Drink: Page 19

Share the Feast

Drink

Give thanks. Go ahead and feast, share a grand meal with friends and family. Sure, it’s not easy to feel celebratory in these times. Tea Party Republicans did all they could to undermine our confidence, to extol Ayn Rand’s absurd “virtue of selfishness” and to profane the very concept of communion. But this season and the impulses behind it are ancient: We celebrate the harvest. We come together as a community of families to share our bounty, even if we face a bleak winter. Continue reading →

Nature’s Playbook

Drink

For the people who live on the ground, in the real world, being stuck between House Republicans and these heavy rains is rather like being jammed between a bunch of rock-heads and a really soggy place. The result, of course, is a lot of hurt. Makes it tough to write/think about wine. Continue reading →

Transits in Wine

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September in western Oregon can be dazzling. It’s a transitional month, pregnant with promises but already yielding the year’s harvest, the bounties of farms, fields and vineyards. This month usually finds Oregon’s vintners trembling on the brink: The vintage can make or break over the next few weeks. Grape clusters hang on the vines, fruit daily richer in color, sugars rising, flavors changing almost hourly. Continue reading →

Mysterious Pinot

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Last weekend, Kat and I attended the annual salmon bake at the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in McMinnville, urban heart of the north Willamette Valley wine country. This remarkable annual event (2013 marked the 27th version) in wine culture draws participants from nearly all the regions of the world where pinot noir is cultivated and vinified —Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Canada (!), Germany, California and, of course, France (Burgundy) and Oregon. Continue reading →

In Good Spirits

Adair Village’s 4 Spirits Distillery makes great liquor while honoring fallen heroes

Drink

Dawson Officer stood at the eighth hole of the Shadow Hills Country Club golf course, watching as golfers and prospective taste testers piled out of their cart and onto the green. “Do you want to try some whiskey?” Officer asked from behind his table, where bottles of vodka and bourbon whiskey were displayed.  “You want to golf for me? I’ll just stay here with the liquor,” a golfer joked, moseying up to the table for a shot.  Continue reading →

Brews News

Lane County’s beer scene spilleth over

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Our fair county is savoring a yeasty beer boom. Aficionados have celebrated a new Whiteaker tasting room for Oakshire, Ninkasi’s plans for an expansion, Plank Town’s installation in downtown Springfield and Friday afternoon growler fills at Claim 52. The rest of the year looks like it won’t have any trouble keeping pace; on tap is a neat little package of delights for your (responsible) boozing pleasure. Continue reading →

Busing the Boozy

A party bus leaves a trail of glitter

Drink

The Facebook invite headline read “Party Bus!” It was a celebration for two friends, one moving away and the other turning 30. The theme was “Glitter.” Having never been on a party bus before, I was intrigued. And yes, there was a glitter theme, even though the party was scheduled for a sunny, Sunday afternoon. We were to be squired around to three wineries by My Party Bus. Continue reading →

A Taste of Italy

Eugene’s Elixir Inc.

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In 2009, Andrea Loreto was trying to market his time-consuming creation, a liqueur called Calisaya, but working with a third-party distributor didn’t go smoothly. In spite of what he terms a distribution “disaster,” he had enough positive feedback from consumers to confidently open his own distillery. That’s how Eugene’s Elixir Inc. was born, and how Eugene got its only member of the Oregon Distillery Guild, a nonprofit that happens to be the nation’s first distillery guild. Continue reading →

Splendor in the Glass

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Memorial Day has passed, so it’s OK to drink white. But, “The first duty of a wine is to be red.” That quip has been attributed to various wags, most enduringly to Alec Waugh, English novelist, who added, “the second is to be a Burgundy,” by which he meant pinot noir (not an unreasonable amendment, according to pinotphiles). Wine scholars have argued that Waugh was merely repeating an eno-adage that originated in the Middle Ages, or maybe with the antique Greeks. Whatever the actual source, a lot of bad attitudes about white wine have ensued. Continue reading →