Category: Drink

A conversation with winemaker Mark Neal

On several Napa Valley winery tours, my wife and I were asked by the tasting room manager what plans we had for our visit. Our response usually was, “To visit the best wineries in the valley recommended by our friend, Mark Neal.” That was always greeted with a smile; Mark is well-known in the valley, an authority on vineyard farming and experienced in producing some of the best wines from his vineyards in the valley and on the slopes of Howell Mountain. I’ve known Mark for about 15 years. We met at Leary’s Fine Wines & Spirits in Newburyport, Mass., and I was one of the people who convinced him to sell his wines in New Hampshire.

Recently Mark and I had a long phone conversation about his years in the wine business with some follow-up questions by email; here (edited and condensed) are his responses to my questions.

How did you get involved in the production of fine wines?

Upon returning from the Korean War, myfather, Jack Neal, worked for other farmers, managing their ranches and orchards. … In 1968 he formed his own company, Jack Neal & Son, to manage these ranches and orchards, the same year I bought my first tractor.

When did you begin to buy land and grow your own grapes for wine?

At the age of 20 I bought my first property, 1½ miles away from my parents in Rutherford. … In 1990 I bought land on Howell Mountain to develop into a vineyard. … Our first wine from this property was produced in 1998.

The year 2020 has been a challenging year for all of us. Napa Valley was much in the news twice, with fires threatening the valley from different directions. What have been the effects of these fires?

The Aug. 17 LNU fire … was in the eastern part of Napa County and it headed east. The second fire, called the Glass Fire … started Sept. 27 and came down Calistoga to St. Helena … then crossed over the valley…. The fires spread rapidly because of a surplus of deadwood within the forests. These trees typically have a lifespan of 30 to 40 years, and the forests must be managed. This has not happened, and in its path not only did [the fire] devastate the forest but [it] destroyed many wineries, homes and vineyards. Both fires left the smoke and ash to settle on the grapes for weeks. Our grapes were damaged by smoke and ash, so we didn’t make wine this year … You cannot make ultra-premium wine with damaged fruit or with these conditions that were left from the smoke that would have resulted in a smoke-tainted wine.

However, beyond losing one vintage, a greater cost has come as a result of the continuing Covid shutdowns. This not only has sent ripples through the vineyards but through the entire distribution chain with the closing of restaurants, other businesses, and employment.

What is the biggest challenge you and/or the California wine industry faces in 2021? 

I believe that [the impact of] Covid 19 … will continue into the 2021 wine business. …We [have] already seen the destruction of wine sales in the restaurants and wine retail shops in the last nine months. Some have shut the door for good. Some I believe held on for the holiday rush and that of course has been shut down.

What is the biggest opportunity of 2021? 

We will continue to strengthen relationships with our distributors, retail and restaurants … to meet everyone’s needs during these times. … We will also continue to support and grow our direct-to-consumer segment. 

Neal Family Vineyards has several wines available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets. The 2018 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, priced at $19.99 andsourced from the Rutherford Vineyards, has tropical notes of pineapple and citric, with a clean finish. The 2017 Rutherford Dust Vineyard Zinfandel, priced at $23.99, has a bit of petite syrah added to it, enhancing the fruit. The 2015 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, priced at $49.99, is superb with great dark cherry notes and a long finish.

Featured Photo: Mark, with sales marketing director and daughter Jessica, and winemaker Jordan Stanley. Courtesy photo.

Do you remember reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were a kid?
You’d get to a turning point in a story, then find instructions like:
“To poke the sleeping bear with a stick, turn to page 130.
To run away from the sleeping bear as fast as you can, turn to page 170.”
So, then you’d turn to page 170, and read something like:
“Oh, no! You run away so fast that you don’t watch where you are going and ram into an oak tree, dislodging a porcupine, which falls on you. You scream so loudly that you wake the bear, who eats you, then picks his teeth with the quills. The End.”
This drink is a little like that, minus the hostile wildlife. It is an adventure in sesame.
I’ve been thinking a lot about fat-washing, lately. Fat-washing is what upscale bartenders call a method of infusing alcohol with the flavor of something oily. You hear occasionally about bacon-washed bourbon, or butter-washed rum. Almost any food that is fat-soluble is also soluble in alcohol. Shmancy bartenders can use that chemical loophole to add background notes to a cocktail. Theoretically, you could use this technique to make a peanut butter and jelly martini, for instance. (Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Let me write that down…)
A week or so ago, it occurred to me that if you can fat-wash peanut butter, couldn’t you do the same thing with tahini, the sesame paste used in hummus? I adapted a recipe for peanut butter-washed bourbon:

Tahini Rum

1 liter inexpensive white rum (As usual, you probably don’t want to use your good stuff, when you are covering up most of the subtle flavors with tahini. I used Mr. Boston.)
16 oz. tahini (I like Krinos.)

1. Combine rum and tahini in a very large jar or other air-tight container. Shake with great vigor.
2. Store the jar somewhere warm and dark for seven days, shaking twice per day.
3. Strain through a fine mesh strainer, then filter through a coffee filter.

This results in a fantastic sesame rum. It is silver in color. It is smooth and tastes delicious. You could easily sit in an armchair with a brandy snifter of the stuff. There is, however, a drawback:
The rum and the tahini have spent a week getting their groove on. At the end of it, the rum has gotten everything she wants out of this fling, says, “Well, this was fun…” and goes on her way. The tahini, on the other hand, has turned into Rick Astley, and is determined that he is never going to give her up.
As much as the rum has bonded with the tahini, the tahini has bonded with the rum, and without the use of a lab-grade centrifuge — which my wife will not let me buy — a liter of rum nets you between 10 and 12 ounces of finished product. Given that there was a relatively small investment in the rum to begin with, that might be OK.
But there is another way:

Sesame Rum No. 2

1 cup white sesame seeds
4 cups white rum

1. Over medium-low heat, toast the sesame seeds in a small skillet, stirring constantly, until they have turned the color of a graham cracker or a lion.
2. Transfer seeds to the same large jar or airtight container. Add the rum. There will be a satisfying sizzle.
3. Shake, then store in the same warm, dark place for four days, shaking twice per day.
4. Filter through a coffee filter.

This sesame rum is not as smooth and silvery as its little brother, but it is also delicious. It has a deep golden color and really pops in your mouth, shouting, “It’s SESAME TIME, Baby!”
And you net about a quart of rum.
So, now you’ve effectively made the first of your Choose Your Own Cocktail choices — silvery and sleek, or bold and bronzy.
Here is your second choice:
The Vera Cruz Chameleon
3 oz. Tahini rum
3 gr. (a very small handful) cilantro
¼ oz. simple syrup
Tonic water to top (I like Fever Tree)
Tiny ice cubes

1. Rinse the cilantro, then muddle it thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
2. Add rum, then dry shake. (This means without ice.) This will allow the alcohol to extract color and flavor from the cilantro.
3. Add ice and simple syrup, then shake again, until cold.
4. Strain into a large glass, over tiny ice cubes.
5. Top with tonic, then stir gently.

This is really delicious. The first flavor to hit you is the cilantro, but there is a delightful, smooth sesame aftertaste. If you are a cilantro fan — and of course you are, because you are smart and tasteful — you will love this.
But wait! What’s that you say? You’re not a cilantro fan? That’s very sad, but I’ve got you covered there, too.

The Lebanese Chameleon

3 oz. Sesame Rum No. 2
3 gr. (a very small handful) flat-leaf parsley
¼ oz. simple syrup
Tonic water to top
Tiny ice cubes

1. Rinse, muddle and dry shake the parsley as above. Do NOT shake a second time.
2. Filter your parsley/sesame rum through a coffee filter, into a tall glass, half filled with tiny ice cubes.
3. Add the simple syrup and stir vigorously.
4. Top with tonic, then stir again, this time gently.
5. Drink with immense satisfaction.

So, do you remember that classic of American literature, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back? The one where the cat leaves a greasy pink bathtub ring that threatens to engulf the neighborhood? If you don’t filter the parsley rum, you will get the same stain, but in swamp green. It will taste delicious but will not look appetizing. If you want to skip the filtering step, drink this cocktail in a tiki mug.
A note on tiny ice cubes: I recently discovered that you can buy small silicone ice trays that make tiny (about ¼-inch) ice cubes that are like crushed ice, but better! They chill your drink extremely well and they look really, really cool.
So you can make a cilantro-based cocktail with tahini rum or sesame rum, or use the same recipe — again, with your choice of rums — with parsley, instead. You are somewhat spoiled for choice.
And there are no bears.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured Photo: The Vera Cruz Chameleon. Photo by John Fladd.

Beers for the holidays

You need some beer to get you through the rest of 2020. Has a truer statement ever been made?
In a year like no other, I think we’re all eager to get the rest of this year over with. Yes, OK, we should probably take a minute and try to enjoy a subdued holiday season, but really, let’s get 2020 in the rearview mirror as quickly as possible.
Beer isn’t going to help the end of the year get here any faster, but maybe it will help make the road a little less bumpy and the holidays a little more enjoyable. Well, we can all hope.
We’re celebrating the holidays with fewer people all together this year, but I think we’re still all looking for the same things when it comes to beer at this time of year: rich, malty, maybe a little sweet and maybe with a little spice. I’m thinking flavors of chocolate, caramel, mint, nutmeg and vanilla, and so on.
Here are a few beers to help get you through the holidays and through the rest of the minefield that is 2020.

Kringle’s Krook by Portsmouth Brewery (Portsmouth)
This robust black ale has plenty of roasty, toasty malt character and it’s balanced out by sweet flavors thanks to the addition of candy canes and fresh mint—so yes, this is like drinking a peppermint patty in beer form. A seasonal treat for sure.

Sundae Nights Mint Chocolate Chip Stout by Kettlehead Brewing (Tilton)
Wow. If Kringle’s Krook is a peppermint patty in beer form, it sure sounds like this one is mint chocolate chip ice cream in beer form. This imperial milk stout, which comes in at 10.8 percent ABV, is brewed with cocoa nibs, mint and a “heavy dose” of milk sugar, says the brewery. My goodness — I look forward to trying this indulgent brew.

Bell’s Christmas Ale by Bell’s Brewery (Comstock, Mich.)
My dad said he and my grandfather used to take the Samuel Adams Scotch Ale and mix it with a Budweiser to lighten it up in terms of body and flavor, as the brew was quite “strong.” Look, I was just a kid when he told me this, and at that time who was I to question the move? I’m an actual adult now and as such I have questions, like, I don’t know, maybe just don’t buy that particular beer if you need to water it down? I don’t understand. Anyway, Bell’s Christmas Ale is a bold, richly flavored brew with big notes of caramel and a nice touch of warming alcohol — perfect for sipping by the fire.

Winter by Wachusett Brewing Co. (Westminster, Mass.)
This is a nostalgic pick for me from an underrated brewery as many family holiday gatherings featured this brew as a prime selection. Winter features a traditional holiday bouquet of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice in a roasty, toasty brew that doesn’t overpower your palate. Extremely well-balanced, Winter is the quintessential holiday brew.

Udder Vanilla Milk Stout by Loaded Questions Brewing Co. (Portsmouth)
I haven’t tried this one but when you combine lactose, vanilla and chocolate malt together in a beer, are we not talking about a glass of chocolate milk? What could possibly be wrong with this one? The brewery says it has “restrained sweetness,” which I think suggests this brew might have a good bit of versatility, too.

What’s in My Fridge
Pompadour by Schilling Beer Co. (Littleton)
This is about as good an American pale ale as I’ve ever had. It’s been a few years since I’ve had this one and it just did not disappoint. Characterized by flavors of citrus, peach and maybe apricot, this is easy drinking and delicious. Absolutely one of my favorite beers of all time. Cheers!

Featured Photo: Beer is your friend as we close out 2020. Photo courtesy Portsmouth Brewery.

Looking for a winter drink? Warm up with spices

The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler. The holiday season is upon us and the first snow has arrived. Wish to gather with friends? One way to gather with another couple or two is in your driveway or back yard around the firepit sipping on mulled wine.

Hot spiced wine, or mulled wine, has been around forever, it seems. Depending on its cultural origins, it may be known as glühwein, vino caliente, glögg, vin brulé, bisschopswijn, vin chaud, candola, vinho quente, or by other monikers. Mulled wine exists in just about every European culture and the recipes for making it appear to be limitless. In England mulled wine is known as Wassail, a name whose origins are Anglo Saxon. Like Christmas, this hot punch transformed itself from pagan rites to revolve around the coldest, darkest nights of the year. In its earliest form it was a drink made from mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar. It was served from huge bowls on New Year’s Eve and Twelfth Night (Jan. 6). This warm drink took on a significant cultural identity as through the centuries it was used to toast the holidays.

Hot mulled wine can be a simple concoction prepared in a slow cooker or over the flames of that fire pit. In its simplest forms the ingredients consist of a bottle of robust red wine, an orange (or oranges) sliced into rounds, a half dozen whole cloves, a couple of cinnamon sticks, some star anise, honey to taste, and if you want, a measure of brandy. It takes literally five minutes to make and is scalable from two servings to enough for a large holiday gathering (for next year).

For the wine, I selected Petite Petit by Michael David (originally priced at $19.99, on sale at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $12.95). This wine is 85 percent petite sirah and 15 percent petit verdot. It is large and fruity with aromas of dark fruit, raspberry and plum. To the taste the black cherry “jammy” flavor comes through with some oak on the edges. This wine is perfect to use as a base for this concoction, as it will hold up well with the additions of fruit and spices. It is well-stocked throughout the state, and the price is so attractive! The petite sirah produces a deep-colored, robust, full-bodied peppery wine, with some tannins, that ages well. The petit verdot, used in blending the famous Bordeaux wines, has a dry, full-bodied taste of blackberry. Like the petite sirah, the strong tannins and high alcohol in the wine from this varietal allow it to age beautifully. It is perfectly matched to the petite sirah! These grapes are grown in Lodi, in San Joaquin County, in the center portion of California’s Central Valley. With long hot summers, these grapes are allowed to ripen well to produce a lot of sugar.

Now, how to make mulled wine: Combine your ingredients in a saucepan and give them a stir. Heat the wine until it just barely reaches a simmer over medium heat. Remember, alcohol boils off at 173 degrees (F), so be careful. Reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes or so. Using a strainer remove the cloves, cinnamon sticks and star anise, and serve in heat-proof mugs garnished with the fruit and cinnamon sticks. Remember, this recipe is very flexible. You can include apple cider or orange juice in the mix. You can use sugar instead of the honey for a sweetener, although it is not as rich as honey. Additional fruit can include thinly sliced apples or frozen pitted cherries. Additional spices can include ginger, peeled and sliced, and a vanilla bean cut open from end to end. The options are limitless and the possibilities endless.

Don’t let the cold, dark December days (and Covid) get to you. Invite a couple or two to gather around the fire pit and share the warmth of the holidays with a steaming mug of hot mulled wine. Savor the moments and cherish the memories of this time when we must be ever so creative in how we can remain connected.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo

Shortly after the end of the First World War, it became fashionable for wealthy British to spend at least part of their winter in Southern France. Their money went further there and the Riviera had been spared the worst of the destruction during the War. They could see and be seen by their peers, while sitting in the sunshine and pretending to be bored by their privilege.

This was so common that a train service developed to pick the Smart Set up in Calais, on the other side of the English Channel, then take them, via Paris, to different stops along the Mediterranean. Because the sleeper cars were painted blue, this train became known as The Blue Train.

One interesting aspect of this was that upper-class British adventurers started challenging each other to race the Blue Train across France in their cars. For a brief period of time this became a standing challenge, like swimming the Channel, or shooting leopards — a chance to show off for their peers and look good doing it. Because, of course, the other members of their social circle would be on the Blue Train itself.

“I say,” one of the passengers might say, pointing at a cloud of dust in the distance, “do you think that is Waldo and Reggie?’

“I believe it is! Oh, jolly good; we must drink a toast to them! Waiter!”

Which, theoretically, is where we get The Blue Train Cocktail.

If you go searching for a recipe for a Blue Train, you will find dozens, which vary wildly in their ingredients and methodology, but the oldest ones are extremely simple:

• Three parts brandy

• One part pineapple juice (Pineapple juice? Where did that come from?)

• An unspecified amount of Champagne

I like the romance of this drink and such a simple formula seemed extremely flexible, so I decided to try various riffs on it. Instead of Champagne, I substituted prosecco – because what am I, fancy? – and several different types of brandy:

• Several sources suggested using apricot brandy and that seemed promising. As it turns out, not so much.

• Ginger brandy was even worse.

• Then I decided to return to the fruit theme and made a batch with blackberry brandy. Please, for the sake of everything that is good and wholesome, do not do this.

After a great deal of experimentation and heartache, I was able to fine-tune this recipe to its ideal proportions:

• Three parts brandy

• One part pineapple juice

• An unspecified amount of Champagne

(1) Shake the brandy and pineapple juice over ice.

(2) Strain into glasses

(3) Top with Champagne

This is not a drink that is meant to be sweet. If you use prosecco and a sweet brandy, it ends up tasting like cider, which is fine, but then, why not just drink cider? This drink calls for a drier, more bracing, more refined set of ingredients. I am a big proponent of using bottom-shelf alcohols; when you are making cocktails with strong-flavored ingredients, the subtler nuances of more serious, expensive labels can easily get overwhelmed and covered up.

Not in this case. If you’ve got good brandy, self-respecting brandy, this is a good time to break it out. The same with the Champagne. I’m not saying to buy the best Champagne, but this is a good opportunity to use a dry Champagne that isn’t afraid to look at itself in the mirror. This is not a drink that was developed by people who cut corners.

Serve this with something salty, like caviar.

Or Cheez-Its.

Cocktail-inspired gift suggestions

• Truly excellent cocktail cherries — Bada Bing Cherries from Stonewall Kitchen ($7.95 for 13.5 oz., or $34.95 from 72 oz., if you’re really serious) A good cocktail cherry can save a cocktail. A good cocktail cherry can bring a moment of sunshine and contentment in a gray and sullen world. These are very good cocktail cherries. They are rich and deeply flavored, with the slightest hint of muskiness, like a half-heard whisper. And they fit in a stocking.

• A proper kitchen scale — KUBEI Upgraded Lager Size Digital Food Scale ($23.99) Like many people over the past several months, I got sucked into the fraught world of sourdough bread. In theory it’s pretty simple. There are few ingredients. Peasants have been making it for centuries. In the trenches, though, sourdough is a cruel mistress who will toy with your emotions and leave you a spent, whimpering husk.

The secret to establishing detente with her is a good kitchen scale.

Weighing – especially by the gram – gives you freedom and power in the kitchen. Your measurements become precise. You use fewer dishes. You start writing weight-equivalents in your cookbooks.

This is an excellent, affordable scale. It switches easily between grams, ounces and pounds with the press of a button. It is battery-powered but can be plugged in or even recharged. It measures to an accuracy of a hundredth of a gram. It has a tare button.

A tare button!

If you don’t know what that is, you will. Oh, you will…

Featured Photo: A Blue Train. Photo by John Fladd.

Coffee, doughnuts and beer together at last

Harpoon Brewery and Dunkin’ teamed up last year to bring the beer world the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter. I thought it was a nice take on the coffee porter, featuring distinctive notes of roasted coffee and chocolate in a robust, malty package.

I suspect Starbucks fans disagree with me, so I just want to offer that qualifier right off the bat.

If you haven’t noticed, Harpoon and Dunkin’ decided to take things to another level this fall. I, as usual, am months behind, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a Harpoon-Dunkin’ mixed-pack during my pre-Thanksgiving run to the beer store. This was not your run-of-the-mill mixed-pack.

My wife requested pumpkin beer and I wanted a coffee-flavored brew, so the mixed-pack, which featured the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter and a Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale, caught my eye. The deal was sealed when I saw the mixed-pack included a Boston Kreme Stout and a Jelly Donut IPA. This is real.

Between Thanksgiving itself and the day after Thanksgiving, I enjoyed a pour of each one. What I enjoyed most and found most impressive about the entire foursome was that they held true to their pairings. The Coffee Porter truly tastes like the Dunkin’ original coffee blend and the Boston Kreme Stout tastes very much like a Boston Kreme doughnut, and so on.

I made my comment about Starbucks in jest but I suspect whether or not you like any of these Harpoon-Dunkin’ brews depends very much on whether or not you like Dunkin’ from both the doughnut and the coffee perspective. If you aren’t a fan of Dunkin’ coffee, nothing to see here.

I think the Coffee Porter was my favorite; I like the richness of the brew. That said, it’s not too heavy. I enjoyed it Thanksgiving afternoon as we finished up meal prep.

I can’t honestly say that I liked the Jelly Donut IPA, but my wife enjoyed it. I just didn’t think the sugary sweet jelly flavor paired well with the hops, but this legitimately tastes like a jelly doughnut. It’s worth giving it a shot as it may well be the most unique brew you’ve ever tasted.

The Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale tastes so much like an actual pumpkin spiced latte that sometimes I forgot whether I was drinking a coffee or a beer. It’s sweet and features the combination of pumpkin, cinnamon and sugar you expect from this as a coffee — a tasty, seasonal treat. The pour is more or less the color of pumpkin, more orange-y than I expected.

The Boston Kreme Stout was excellent with notes of sweet chocolate and coffee and a smooth finish. This one was much lighter than expected, and because of that, I think this makes an excellent choice for someone who normally doesn’t like stouts.

A final note is that I feel that mixed-packs make excellent choices for holiday get-togethers, as they provide a variety of options and hopefully something for everyone. Now, I know we’re celebrating in smaller numbers this year so just go ahead and save that sage advice for next year.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.