Category: Drink

Wines that help you dig in to the Mediterranean

The domestication of grapes and the production of wine have their roots in the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor as early as 6000 B.C. Through trade, the agriculture and imbibing of the fruit of these labors spread throughout the Mediterranean to the coasts of modern-day Turkey, Lebanon and ancient Greece. The Greeks, in turn, took their favorite beverage to southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and the southern coast of France and Spain as early as the eighth century B.C. with their establishment of trading ports. In this column we will explore a lesser-known white wine from Sardinia and a robust red wine from the Languedoc region of southwest France.

Our first wine, a 2019 La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna, by Sella & Mosca (originally $13.99, reduced to $11.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets), is a wine most associated with Sardinia. Known as rolle in southern France, and grown in several different regions in Italy, it has been cultivated almost exclusively in Sardinia’s Gallura region, on the northern tip of the island. The label of this wine includes the statement, “Denominazione di Origine Controllato, the most strictly regulated denomination in Italy – Vermentino di Gallura.” These grapes thrive in Gallura’s vineyards, buffeted by the strong cold mistral winds that originate in the Atlantic and North Sea, travel across France, then leave the mainland entering the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. The name “mistral” comes from the Languedoc dialect of Occitan and means “masterly.”

Vermentino lacks the strong acidity of most Italian wines, and Sardinia’s vermentino runs the spectrum from round and tropical to linear and mineral. The differences depend on where it is grown and the winemaker’s style. Some use steel, although some also age in wood. “Vermentinos from Gallura are structured but elegant, with pronounced mineral, almond and balsamic notes. They also have a hint of saltiness, thanks to the vicinity of the sea,” says Emanuele Ragnedda, of Capichera, a producer in the region. This vermentino has a pale straw color. To the nose it has a very slight tropical pineapple note along with pear and a touch of lemon blossom. To the tongue it is fresh with citrus, with some minerality, ending on a crisp note. This is great aperitif wine or it can be paired with seafood.

Our second wine hails from the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the south of France. This spans the coastal region of France from the border with Spain to Provence. There are around 700,000 acres under vines, making it the single biggest wine-producing region in the world, being responsible for more than a third of France’s total wine production. Languedoc was first planted by the Greeks in the fifth century B.C., and along with Provence is the oldest wine-producing region in France. The region excelled in wine production from the 4th century through the early 19th century. The phylloxera epidemic in the late 19th century severely affected the Languedoc wine industry and the region faced economic difficulties well into the ’70s until outside investment and re-focusing production led to many good new single varietal and classically blended wines.

The 2016 Domaine La Rougeante Corbières (originally $35.99, reduced to $17.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets) is that classic blend of mouvèdre, grenache and syrah. The color is a dense, opaque maroon; the nose is of blackberry and plum with some dried herbal notes. These carry through to the tongue in a full mouth feel with medium leathery tannins, which call for air after opening. A long finish with these rich fruit notes ends in some minerality. This is a wine to be enjoyed now or cellared for three more years and paired with grilled red meat, a rich stew, or a hearty pasta. The local fare of the Corbières region that runs from the Mediterranean coast to the Pyrenees with its Catalan culture includes tomato, garlic, eggplant and artichoke. These are dishes rich in flavor, so the wine needs to be robust and hearty to stand up to the food, and this wine does just that.

These two wines differ markedly from the routine whites and reds consumed on a regular basis. They are worth exploring not only for their uniqueness but to honor their storied past. Take a virtual trip to the ancient Mediterranean with these two wines. Invite them to your next dinner on the patio.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

I understand that you’ve got a lot going on right now — a pandemic, work headaches, psychotic squirrels terrorizing your birdfeeder, etc. So it’s understandable if you’ve lost track of things and forgotten that it is Yachting Season. We’ve only got so much emotional bandwidth, and some things drop through the cracks.

Fortunately, Esquire has your back. Or at least they did in 1969.

The Esquire Drink Book from that year strikes a very particular tone. Hidden amongst the recipes for Brandy Daiseys, Black Roses and racially-insensitively-named drinks that were probably pretty good but have been ruined for us now are the cryptic instructions for an innocuous-sounding cocktail called the Connecticut Bullfrog:

“This cocktail must never be served on shore but always on a boat, provided that the boat is not over 45 feet long, and the owner is the skipper (no hired hand). The ingredients are awful but the result does have something. Here they are and you must have them on board:

4 parts gin

1 part New England rum

1 part lemon juice

1 part maple syrup

Shake these ingredients together until your arms ache. Then have someone else do the same thing with about 10 times the usual amount of ice.”

— Esquire Drink Book, Frederic A. Birmingham, 1969, E.P. Dutton & Co., p. 216.

Having all these ingredients on hand, and being emotionally and intellectually at sea, I felt the need to field test the Bullfrog. I am the sole owner of my entirely imaginary yacht — which, being imaginary, is infinitely less than 45 feet long.

Not surprisingly, the Bullfrog was problematic from the get-go. I filled the large half of my cocktail shaker with ice — about 11 ounces — and added the seven ounces of liquid ingredients, at which point the smaller half of the shaker would no longer contain all the components.

(This cocktail deserves a poster: “The Connecticut Bullfrog cannot be contained.”)

So, I switched — as you will have to, if you decide to dance with the Bullfrog — to a large, one-quart jar.

I told my digital assistant to start a stopwatch, and started shaking.

The jar got uncomfortably cold very quickly — cold, as in frosty enough to bond my hands to the glass. Once I was able to pry them loose, this was solved by wrapping the jar in a tea towel.

The next problem was an unexpected one. I was pretty sure that my arms would start aching fairly quickly. I am not terribly fit in a general sense, but a regular regimen of martial arts and cocktail shaking have apparently toned me in unexpected ways. I lasted nine minutes. I know this because I asked my digital assistant how long I’d been shaking this jar.

“Over an extended period, possibly;” she told me, “then again, maybe not.” This sounds philosophically important, but was not as useful in a practical sense as I was looking for in the moment.

It took another full minute of shaking to stumble on an acceptably worded command to find out how long this exercise had been going on.

As instructed, I handed the jar off to my teenager in the next room, who lasted two minutes, five seconds before losing interest and handing it back to me.

At this point, a reasonable shaker (in a cocktail sense; I’m reasonably sure a Shaker, as in the 19th-century furniture-making religious community, would not have found themselves in this situation) could be forgiven for thinking that this project’s glitches were more or less over. Unfortunately, physics had other plans.

Air — particularly moist air — expands when it is heated and shrinks when it cools. Home canners use this fact to hermetically seal jars of compote and … stuff. Apparently, the same effect occurs when you shake an icy alcohol solution in a wide-mouthed jar for 11 minutes. It took a rubber jar-gripper and a lot of swearing to open the Bullfrog jar.

Pouring the contents into a tall glass was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy in contrast.

So, is the Connecticut Bullfrog worth all the effort? Is it actually any good?

Almost disappointingly: yeah, it is. I really wanted to sneer at a cocktail designed to be drunk by investment analysts named Scooter and Bunny, but this is one of the most refreshing drinks I’ve had in a long time. The combination of gin and dark rum — I went with Myers’s — gives an almost whiskey-like background flavor, which plays well with the acid of the lemon juice. There isn’t enough maple syrup to make this too sweet, but enough that there is some body and depth.

I do feel that more experimentation is called for — specifically, subbing out juice and syrup for other, less 1 percent-y ingredients –— and, as a friend observed to me, given the sheer amount of shaking required by this recipe, the drink really ought to be called the Kinetic Bullfrog.

Featured photo: Connecticut Bullfrog. Photo by John Fladd.

Tart and refreshing for your taste buds

Whoa, it’s mid-August. When did that happen?

That can only mean one thing: Pumpkin-flavored beer is right around the corner.

Honestly, I’m kidding. It’s not right around the corner. It’s already on the shelves.

But let’s forget about pumpkin beer for a moment, shall we?

We’re still very much in the thick of summer. The temperature supports me. You still have time to get to the beach or the pool. It’s hot and it’s humid and there’s no reason to turn the page to fall. Pumpkin can wait.

I’ve found myself drinking a lot of session IPAs and a lot of Pilsners over the past month or so and decided I needed to shake things up. When it comes to beer, nothing shakes up your taste buds quite like a sour brew. And within the sour realm, nothing screams summer quite like a gose: tart, salty and refreshing.

A style the German Beer Institute says is about 1,000 years old, it is perhaps most defined by its saltiness. Food & Wine wrote in a 2016 article the brew’s name stems from the river Gose in Germany and that the beer’s original saltiness was probably a product of “mineral-rich aquifers” in the town of Goslar, where the brew originated. Today, though, brewers just, you know, add salt.

That characteristic tartness and salinity of a gose just wakes you up and kind of whacks you around — sometimes you need that, especially when it’s still blistering hot out.

In terms of summertime sours, it’s awfully difficult to beat Dogfish Head’s SeaQuench Ale, which is a session sour. The combination of bright and tart lime and sea salt just refreshes right to the bone and leaves you begging for another sip (or can). Paste Magazine refers to it as tasting “like a margarita without all the sugar and it makes me want to go straight to the beach.”

That is just a winning description and the beer really epitomizes what I’m looking for from a sour during the summer months: bright, tart, refreshing, flavorful and unique. Also, the gose style is typically brewed with a very low ABV, allowing you to enjoy a few without getting bogged down.

Here are a few gose brews to bring with you as you savor the remaining beach days.

Margarita Gose by Great Rhythm Brewing Co. (Portsmouth)

Apparently I have a thing for that lime-sea salt combination. This one also blends in orange flavor in an extremely light, very, very drinkable package. A perfect summer brew.

Poppy’s Moonship on Blackberries by Schilling Beer Co. (Littleton)

This is just an exciting brew. The pour is a bright red, and the blackberries add extra layers of richness and tartness. Despite the added richness, this is very sessionable.

Love is Love Gose by Great North Aleworks (Manchester)

There’s that lime-salt combination again. This “slightly tart” wheat beer is brewed with sea salt, coriander and lime. The brew screams refreshing. The super low ABV makes it OK to have a couple.

Sour Lime Ale by Portsmouth Brewery (Portsmouth)

This is another gose that relies on lime juice — and zest — to produce a thirst-quenching and tart brew. At just 3 percent ABV, well, I’m not going to tell you how many you can have.

E09 Blueberry Lemon Gose by 603 Brewery (Londonderry)

As much as I love the flavor of lime in a gose, the blueberry-lemon combination here works really well. This is a fun brew that will delight your palate.

What’s in My Fridge

Lemongrass Lager by Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers (Framingham, Mass.)
I had one of these after a particularly frustrating round of grass cutting on a hot day, and yeah, this was a winner. With fresh lemony flavor, this just slides right down your throat so easily, it’s a little scary. Great summer beer; great anytime beer. Cheers!

Featured photo: Summer in a can. SeaQuench Ale by Dogfish Head Brewery. Courtesy photo.

A look at some wines from Provence

It’s summer and the beginning of sunflower season in New Hampshire! Sunflowers evoke thoughts of Vincent Van Gogh and his painting of the bright, robust flower. Van Gogh painted sunflowers 11 times, with seven of those paintings executed while he was in Arles, in Provence. Van Gogh found the area to his liking, with its sunshine and bright colors. He created some of his greatest work in the short 14 months he was in Arles.

Marseille provided Julia Child with experiences that ran counter to those of her residency in Paris. Julia and Paul Child’s Parisian friends thought Marseille “a rough, crude, southern” place. “But it struck me as a rich broth of vigorous, emotional, uninhibited Life — a veritable ‘bouillabaisse of a city,’” Paul said, according to Julia Child’s My Life in France.

The cuisine of Provence is decidedly different from Parisian cuisine; it’s founded on olive oil and garlic and an abundance of fish and fresh vegetables. It borrows from its Italian neighbors but remains decidedly different from them.

Provence is rich, if not as sophisticated as Paris. It covers a wide swath of territory from the Alps and Italy to its north and east to the Pyrenees and Spain on its west. It was the first region conquered by the Romans beyond the Alps. For a time, it was home to Popes at Avignon. Its coastline with its blue water is called the Cote d’Azur, and its film festival at Cannes is world-famous. With its warm climate and the fragrance of lavender and citrus, it is no wonder the perpetual season of summer of 300 days of sunshine along the coast lures many to visit, and some to stay.

With these notable differences in climate and cuisine from the rest of France, it is expected that the wines of this region would also differ greatly from those of parts north. Provence is known for the production of rosé wine. Rosés are produced throughout France, but the rosés of Provence are unique in their character and structure.

Our first wine, a 2019 Château D’Esclans Whispering Angel Côte De Provence Rosé (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $22.99), is a blend of grenache, cinsault and rolle (vermentino), an Italian white grape identified by its French moniker, rolle. The grenache and cinsault impart their spice-fruit to the wine, while the rolle adds floral and citric notes to the blend. The color is an almost clear very pale peachy pink. To the nose, there are slight floral, lily-like notes, along with some citric. To the tongue the same is carried through with a very slight orange peel coming across the tongue. This is a light wine of 13.5 percent alcohol, created by Sacha Lichine. His 2006 acquisition of Château D’Esclans, located northeast of San Tropez, has resulted in building a world-class brand and providing a strong contribution to the popular growth of rosé wine. Sacha is the son of the renowned Alexis Lichine, who was instrumental in the rebuilding of the wine industry destroyed by World War II, as well as the author of The Wines of France, published in 1952. This wine has a pedigree all but surpassed by the expertise of the generations who created it. It can be sipped on a warm, sunny afternoon, or paired with a light supper of a green salad, dressed with cheese and fruit. Doesn’t that sound like what Provence should be?

Our second wine is a classic, a 2017 Château Beauchêne Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Réserve (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $37.99). It is a blend of 80 percent grenache, 10 percent syrah and 10 percent mourvèdre. The color is deep ruby red, the nose is of raspberries and spice, tampered with the sweetness of vanilla. To the tongue it is rich in flavor while remaining dry and slightly leathery from the tannins. There is a good dose of red fruit: cherries and plum, with a slight earthiness that makes this an ideal accompaniment to grilled meat, especially lamb. Château Beauchêne is owned by Michel Bernard, whose family has lived in Orange, just North of Avignon, since the 17th century. Today Chateau Beauchêne has become the hub for the vinification and maturation of all the cuvees from the different vineyards owned by the family. Three appellations are represented over their 175 acres: Châteauneuf du Pape, Côtes du Rhône Villages, and Côtes du Rhône.

These are two exceptional wines worth considering for your pretend visit to Provence. Enjoy them on the patio with your favorite Provence fare!

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

I deeply distrust economics.

Yes, I acknowledge that economics provides some convenient answers, but I don’t really trust it. It’s like the character in a movie — always shot with shadowy lighting — who supplies the hero with important information. Everything seems on the up-and-up, but something about the whole exchange makes you realize that she really isn’t on the hero’s side. When things fall apart badly in the third act, you nod your head and tell your eye-rolling date, “Yup, thought so.”

Economics pretends to explain a great deal about human nature, but once you make peace with the concept that money is imaginary and economics is arbitrary, everything sort of falls apart.

“Why is such-and-such worth so much money?”

Because that’s what people agree it’s worth.

“Janitors and farm workers do work way more important than CEOs; why don’t we pay them more?”

Because we don’t want to.

Totally. Arbitrary.

And yet — OK, have you ever made an impulsive purchase or invested a lot of time and money in something that ultimately hasn’t worked out? Hobby supplies or a disappointing vacation or a boyfriend — that you kept around or stuck with long after they ceased to be rewarding?

You or I might call that Poor Judgment, but economists have a name for it (because of course they do): the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The idea is that we don’t want to “waste” all the money and heartache that we’ve put into something unproductive, which makes sense on an emotional level but isn’t actually terribly logical. That money and effort are gone, no matter how you feel about it. Investing more time in Bradley or shelf space on scrapbooking materials doesn’t make much sense if they aren’t going to fulfill you.

Which brings us to triple sec.

It is a sweet, low-octane, vaguely citrusy liquor that 99 percent of us have around because of that time we were going to make a pitcher of margaritas, but we forgot to buy limes, and then we had a series of hard weeks at work and ended up drinking all the tequila one slug at a time, directly from the bottle, in lieu of sending ill-advised texts.

Anyway, an economist would tell us to throw away the triple sec; it’s just taking up shelf space. Marie Kondo would ask you if it was bringing you joy, which — let’s face it — it isn’t at the moment. It’s really hard to envision a scenario where you are lying on a polar bear rug in front of a fire and purring, “Hey baby, let’s drink some triple sec.”

Let’s give Marie — and the polar bear — a break, and stare the economist in the eye and let him know that yes, in point of fact, we are using that triple sec.

The Firecracker

3 1-inch cubes (~45 grams) of fresh watermelon
1½ ounces golden rum
1 ounce triple sec
½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Muddle the watermelon thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. It will surprise you how easily it dissolves, like it’s been waiting for an excuse to completely fall apart. Better it than you.
Add ice and the other ingredients. Shake until very cold.
Strain into a coupé glass.

Drink several of these while watching Wall Street Week in Review and shouting “YOU DON’T KNOW ME!” at the TV.

Surprisingly, it is the watermelon that takes a back seat in this cocktail, providing color and a vague fruitiness. The rum is great — rum is everybody’s friend — but is there mostly to bridge the different varieties of sweetness. The stars of the drink are — again, unexpectedly — the triple sec and cayenne. Citrusy sweetness and in-your-face spiciness don’t seem like they would work together, but they do. That’s yet another mystery that economics can’t solve.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Alcohol-free brews are on the rise

My wife visited a friend a few weeks ago and came back from the excursion asking if I’d ever tried non-alcoholic beer. Her friend had been talking up Athletic Brewing Co., which is based in Connecticut and brews an array of alcohol-free beer.

While I had heard of the brand, honestly, I couldn’t say that I had ever had a non-alcoholic beer in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever even tried an O’Doul’s. I suppose I always wondered — if subconsciously — what’s the point? (I know what the point is.)

Not that I’m condoning drinking to get drunk as a responsible choice, but the alcohol in beer is an undeniable, perhaps critical piece of the puzzle. Still, beer does, you know, taste good. Sometimes you want to enjoy a beer but maybe not take in the alcohol, you know, like on a Tuesday. Other times, maybe you’ve already had a few, you’re feeling pretty good and you’d like to keep enjoying the moment — but you know you need to slow down or stop altogether. That’s an instance where an alcohol-free beer can help keep the good times rolling, while keeping you in a responsible frame of mind.

Beyond those instances, obviously others are choosing to live without alcohol for a variety of reasons.

According to a Boston Globe article in May, sales of nonalcoholic beer are up nearly 40 percent in both 2019 and 2020. It’s probably time for me to get with the program.

I was skeptical, but the Athletic story was compelling. The founder, Bill Shufelt, notes on the company website he made the decision to cut out alcohol as a way to live a healthier lifestyle, but non-alcoholic options were limited in the marketplace.

“From the start, we’ve planned to offer more non-alcoholic beer variety than the world has ever known,” Shufelt says on athleticbrewing.com.

I was impressed. It was time to dive in.

I started with Athletic Brewing Co.’s Upside Dawn Golden Ale, which the brewery describes as “refreshing, clean, balanced, light-bodied,” with “aromas subtle with floral and earthy notes,” and yeah, that description fits the bill. It’s also gluten-free for those wondering and just 50 calories.

Do I think it’s missing a little zip with no alcohol? Yes, I do, but that could also be in my head. This is a perfect brew for a screaming hot day. It’s crisp, light and refreshing, and, as you might expect, very, very easy to drink. I could have one of these at the beach or after mowing the lawn — or during since it’s about time I make use of the cup holder on the riding lawnmower.

I should also note that when they say alcohol-free they mean less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume.

Next up was Athletic’s Free Wave Hazy IPA. Candidly, I don’t know if this is going to satisfy New Hampshire’s hop enthusiasts or “hop heads,” but it does have enticing hop character featuring a citrusy burst in a well-balanced package. Athletic uses Amarillo, Citra and Mosaic hops in this brew. It’s pretty impressive. I’ll have this again for sure.

At the moment, Athletic also brews a stout, a second IPA, a Berliner weisse and a Mexican light lager.

Athletic isn’t the only option for non-alcoholic brews, as major breweries like Brooklyn Brewery, Dogfish Head and Sam Adams are all pumping out non-alcoholic brews, so you undoubtedly have some choices at your local beer store.

What’s in my fridge

Combover IPA by Schilling Beer Co. (Littleton)
It’s the strawberry notes on this one that stand out for me. You’re getting big citrus and pine flavors but the strawberry flavor gives this American IPA a unique twist. This is one of those IPAs that just begs for another sip. Cheers!

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.