A fine and happy March to you all. I hope everyone had a happy Mardi Gras and hope the upcoming alcoholiday, St. Patrick’s Day. (Note, though ‘alcoholiday’ has an entry in the urban dictionary, I am hereby claiming originator’s credit, ’cause I didn’t know about it. Further I am hoping to popularize it as a third type of official holiday. State, religious, and alcoh are now all recognized holidays.) I must admit, as I sit down to write this article, that I did not know just how much work I had made for myself in taking three courses this semester. It is difficult to do
My first order of business is to dispose of the ‘bitters’ part of the entry. Bitters, in reference to beer, is usually known, in the States, as pale ale. Or at least I think it is. Truth be told, I found very little material on the subject, and while I’m sure there is someone out there that can give me a list of why bitters are different from pale ale, I’m willing to leave the current discussion there. I’ll be covering pale ales later in this series, so I don’t want to give too much away. If you feel strongly on the subject, please leave a comment. I’d love to know some specifics, and I believe in crowd sourcing.
Now, that would be a very short article, and that’s not my style, so I’m going to bring you some new products that I’ve come across. First up is from the folks over at Smirnoff Ice, who have released a series of new flavors to their malt beverage line. I’ve come across a variety of flavors at my local watering hole and at the liquor store, but even a trip to the Smirnoff website wouldn’t confirm the full product line. I’ve come across mango, passion fruit and my personal favorite, pineapple. For those who aren’t familiar with Smirnoff Ice, it is a malt beverage with a generally smooth experience, acceptable for drinking by those who want something refreshing and not too heavy. Though they probably wouldn’t like me saying it, Ice is somewhere between a beer and a wine cooler. They’re easy to drink, and can still get a buzz going, but I don’t know if they’d qualify as a great work of art.
My favorite bartender brought the pineapple flavor to me, knowing my enjoyment of both the brand and the fruit, and for the last month, my trips to the bar have been exclusively in appreciation of that product. I haven’t found it on retail shelves yet, but the other flavors are showing up, so I’m hopeful that I might soon be able to buy pineapple Ice at for home consumption. If the folks at Smirnoff are watching, they’d do well to do two things: first, tell me when or where I can get pineapple Ice, and second, make it easier for us poor fools to know what the entire line is (bribes in the form of sample product are accepted.) As soon as I get some of this stuff at home, I may start mixing with it; my friends in the ‘tending occupation are looking at the pineapple/mango flavors for tropical drinks, and I like what they’re thinking.
Finally, it is with sadness in my heart that I make this next announcement, because I am unable to go this year (bloody education!) Tickets go on sale for Tales of the Cocktail on March 1. If you have any chance to go to this event, I highly recommend it. The folks that put this event of do an absolutely smashing job of bringing together nearly the entirety of the cocktail world for a few days in one of the greatest cities that the U.S. has to offer. As an added bonus, you can meet Dan, our fearless leader here at Bar None, and this year, you might be able to hang with the CocktAlien, making his Tales debut. (And, for the record, they don’t pay me to say this. Well, Dan does, but the folks out at Tales don’t. I just really like what they’re doing.) If you’ve got a week’s vacation time this summer, give NOLA a thought, and come out and enjoy Tales.
Until next time, Caw!
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