This new brand hails from New York, where a former Seagram exec decided to strike out on his own in the brave new world of tequila. As the story goes, founder Ken Austin scoured Jalisco for the best spirit that hadn’t made it to the U.S., and found it on the highest agave plantation in the area, where the agave was being slow-roasted at low temperatures in order to keep a mellow, sweet character in the resulting spirit.

The result is Avion, bottled from this mysterious source (and even ready in reposado and anejo versions) and ready for sale in the U.S.

I tasted all three varieties during an Avion visit to San Francisco recently and have sampled the Silver on its own later — only reconfirming my thoughts about this solid, top-shelf product.

All are 100% agave and 80 proof.

Tequila Avion Silver – Sweeter than the blanco you’re probably used to, with a buttery body and fruity notes of pineapple and lemon. Herbs and some agave kick in for the finish, which is smooth and without almost any bite at all. Gorgeous. A / $45

Tequila Avion Reposado – Aged 6 months, quite long for a reposado, which gives it impressive caramel and vanilla notes, which play well with the agave in the body. It’s surprisingly light in color for a spirit with a flavor this rich, while also disarming in its complexity. A / $50

Tequila Avion Anejo – A masterpiece. Aged two years, giving it huge vanilla and cinnamon character, with notes of nougat, chocolate, and fresh cookies. Maple syrup lines the finish, but all the way it is nothing but smoothness. A beautiful, old tequila that can stand up to the big boys’ anejos — and extra anejos. Also an absurd bargain considering the quality. A+ / $55

tequilaavion.com

Do you want to taste some seriously “lights out*” wines? Look no further than Del Dotto, a postmodern institution along Napa’s main wine trail, and the proprietor of a tour I’ve been hearing about for years as a “must experience” event.

This weekend I finally summoned up the courage and paid the whopping $50 to take the hour-long tour into Del Dotto’s wine caves — really more like a walk down a long hallway, I guess — and the experience will not soon be forgotten.

No, not because of the wines, which are invariably over-oaked and incredibly intense and heavy with alcohol, the blatant house style here — although some are quite good.

No, it’s the winery that you won’t soon forget. Overdone with frescoes, columns, balustrades, cornices, and other forms of overdone architecture not often seen in modern America, Del Dotto is a gaudy throwback to a time that has never actually existed. And lest Del Dotto’s faux-talian inspiration not prove readily apparent upon entry, the soaring — pumpingly loud, really — vocals of Andrea Bocelli, piped into the tasting room and the caves via a dozen amplifiers, are ominpresent and impossible to ignore.

The winery’s guides are earnest and try their best to be heard over the tenor’s crooning, and they really do seem to believe the patter they are selling — that using heavily toasted oak and spending nearly two years in a barrel is the right way to treat a wine, no matter what varietal it is, and sure enough, the winery has its fans. It only sells direct, never appearing at retail.

Along the tour, all wines are tasted straight from the barrel, and the guides are generous. Thoughts on everything we sampled follow.

deldottovineyards.com

Del Dotto Winery Tasting Report

2006 Del Dotto Cave Blend / $49 / B+ / soft, with chocolate/blueberry notes, lush body

2008 Del Dotto Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Cinghiale Vineyard / $75 / B- / jammy, overdone

2008 Del Dotto Sangiovese Napa Valley / $49 / A- / velvety, with herbal notes, unlike Italian sangiovese in any way

2008 Del Dotto Cabernet Sauvignon Lot X / $65 / B / incredibly rich and smoky

2008 Del Dotto Cabernet Sauvignon Lot R / $65 / B+ / more floral on the nose, but lots of wood; tart finish

2007 Del Dotto Cave Blend / $49 / B- / minty

2008 Del Dotto Estate Merlot Rutherford / $58 / A- / a return to form for merlot, lots of cocoa and blueberry notes

2008 Del Dotto Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena Mountain DV10 Block 2 / $125 / B+ / woody with a hard finish

2008 Del Dotto Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena Mountain D254 Block 1 / $125 / A / much better balance

2008 Del Dotto Cabernet Sauvignon Vineyard 887 St. Helena / $125 / A- / heavy jam notes, but solid

NV Del Dotto Zinfandel/Syrah Port / $75 / A- / whiskey notes, intense

* A phrase of uncertain origin but meaning “great” which we picked up during our tour here.

“New Mix” is not a slogan stuck on the can of El Jimador’s ready-to-drink tequila cocktails. It’s the actual name of the product: New Mix.

Hugely popular in Mexico, New Mix now comes in five flavors. We’ve had the first three flavors sitting in the fridge literally for months, and finally we are getting around to cracking them open to see what all the fuss is about. (We’re still not sure.)

Each is 5 percent alcohol and is made with actual tequila. The drinks are lightly carbonated.

Thoughts in each follow.

El Jimador New Mix Margarita looks like a lemon-lime soda, and frankly tastes like it too. The fizzy concoction is solid soft drink up front, then you get that tequila bite in the finish. There’s not much of it, but it’s noticeable. That said, this tastes almost nothing like a margarita (with none of the flavor of triple sec that it claims to have), but a lot more like a Seven-and-Tequila, but I guess that wouldn’t look as good on the label. C

El Jimador New Mix Paloma – A paloma is traditionally a grapefruit juice and tequila cocktail, and this rendition does at least smell like grapefruit when you crack open the can. The flavor is a little funkier than that, though — less grapefruit and more of a canned fruit salad. Less tequila bite than the margarita New Mix, which in this case is not a great thing. C-

El Jimador New Mix Spicy Mango Margarita – It’s not an orange crush in that can, it’s a spicy mango margarita! El Jimador radically overreaches here, pulling off something that is more reminiscent of Red Bull than anything that bears resemblance to spice, mango, or margarita. No idea where this one came from or why it exists. D

eljimador.com

Yes, Virginia, there is more beer in Mexico than Corona.

Don’t be fooled by the dark, squat bottle. Bohemia is a fairly simple pilsner, a light gold beer that offers a nice, easy-drinking balance of sweet and bitter. There’s a distinct note of gingerbread on the nose, which is quite pleasing, and the body comes across as very fresh and full of life. The finish brings some bitterness, though the finale can run to the watery instead of the crisp.

Altogether this is a solid effort. Not quite Pacifico, but a good, food-friendly beer that is almost ubiquitous in its availability.

B+ / $14 per 12-pack / femsa.com

The uninitiated may think of Texas as the frontier, a place where whiskey is probably as common as water. Not so: In fact, for years, Tito’s has been the state’s only legal distillery.

Now a few upstarts are coming out of the skunkworks, and the state has its first whiskey since Prohibition. Operating out of Waco, Texas, Balcones Distilling doesn’t just make the first whiskey in the state, it also makes, as far as anyone can tell, the only whiskey made from blue corn — in this case, Atole, a Hopi blue corn meal. The distillery’s first two products — Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whisky, and an odd offshoot, Balcones Rumble — are reviewed below.

Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whisky – Wow, intense. Clearly a young corn-based whisky without a lot of time in the barrel. The starchy character (“white dog,” in the parlance) is overpowering on the nose alone, with a huge, grainy body and a finish redolent of petrol. Some sweetness makes this drinkable, but like so many younger whiskies, it isn’t easy going. Why this wasn’t left in the barrel for another three or four years is a mystery to me. Batch BB10-10. 92 proof. C / $45

Balcones Rumble - Perhaps aware that Baby Blue was not made for easy consumption, Balcones created Rumble, not exactly a liqueur (it’s a serious 94 proof) but close enough. Made from Texas wildflower honey, Turbinado sugar, and Mission figs, Rumble looks like whiskey but tastes like something else. That Balcones corniness is apparent on the nose, but it’s a much sweeter spirit on the whole. Only the fig character really comes through, the rest is mainly a sweeter version of Baby Blue. Batch R10-10. C+ / $36

balconesdistilling.com

This is Bordeaux? This blend of 80 percent Merlot and 20 percent Cabernet Franc has an intense, New World character that does not feel like Bordeaux at all. Ripe with black currants and thick plum character, the Merlot shines through, and the tannins, in just a few years, have mellowed into a silky and smooth texture. Chocolate and a touch of leather and tobacco rush the finish. Shocking balance and richness in a wine of this price, and none of that overwhelming earth that so many Bordeaux wines succumb to. That this wine costs a mere $20 is almost criminal. Snap it up.

A / $20 / neipperg.com

Hailing from Sheffield, Massachusetts, Berkshire Mountain Distillers is a new (est. 2007) boutique distillery that makes a ragtag assembly of vodka, gin, and rum. Primarily available in the Northeast, we tasted through the company’s current lineup, with one exception (we’ll get to that later).

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Ice Glen Vodka is distilled from unknown materials, and is blended with water sourced directly from the Berkshire Mountain property, and finally charcoal filtered. The result is a surprisingly plain vodka. Though the body is buttery and rich, there’s only a minimal amount of flavor here. The primary taste is merely watery. It isn’t until the finish that some of vodka’s more traditional, medicinal notes start to come on, and linger they do for quite a while. This is an acceptable vodka but a hard sell at this price. 80 proof. B- / $30

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Greylock Gin is more unique, flavoring its spirit with juniper, coriander, angelica, orris root, orange peel, licorice, and cinnamon. Intensely aromatic, the juniper is a bomb on the palate of this London Dry style gin, with citrus the secondary note. Licorice is curious — and quite a delight — in the finish. This is a gin that feels quite versatile, though it does pack a wallop in the flavor department. 80 proof. A- / $30

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Ethereal Gin Limited Edition Batch No. 1 is exactly what it claims to be, a limited edition gin with unique flavoring agents. In this case, it has all the ingredients of Greylock, plus lemon, cubeb (grain of paradise), black pepper, elderberry, spearmint, rose hips, and nutmeg. As you might expect, it’s even more powerful than Greylock, and the mint and lemon shine through clearly. The finish turns a tad bittersweet, though. Perhaps this gin is just too busy? There’s already a Batch No. 2 (pink label) on the market as well, with a different recipe. 86 proof. B+ / $40

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Ragged Mountain Rum is the only brown spirit in this lineup, a pot-distilled and barrel-aged (for undetermined time) rum from Blackstrap molasses. The nose is distinctly earthy, not sweet, and the body backs that up — not wood, but the earth proper. Crafted as a sipping rum, I didn’t get the joy of drinking rum out of Ragged Mountain that I do with sweeter, aged styles, instead finding myself thinking this rum would work better in a simple mixed drink. B- / $30

berkshiremountaindistillers.com

Anne-Laure Helfrich isn’t your typical European winemaker. At 23 years old, she’s probably the youngest person I’ve ever encountered in this business, yet she’s known the wine trade all her life. A third generation beverage-maker (grandpa started with Kirsch and dad moved the family into wine), Helfrich spends much of her time on the road, spreading the news about her family’s brand of wines from France’s Alsace region. I had the good fortune to taste six of Helfrich’s wines over dinner at San Francisco’s Bar Tartine.

Thoughts on the full lineup — three table wines, three grand crus — follow.

2009 Helfrich Riesling Alsace / $15 / B / made in a very dry style, malty and easy

2009 Helfrich Pinot Gris Alsace / $15 / B+ / retains a salmon color from contact with grape skins, left with a strawberry character and slight residual sugar, moderate body, very drinkable

2009 Helfrich Gewurztraminer Alsace / $15 / B / typical Gewurz style, with a rough palate; finish offers melon with floral touches, somewhat restrained

2007 Helfrich Steinklotz Riesling Grand Cru Alsace / $25 / B+ / tart

2008 Helfrich Steinklotz Pinot Gris Grand Cru Alsace / $25 / A- / more balanced than the standard bottling, good sweetness level, peach notes

2008 Helfrich Steinklotz Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Alsace / $25 / B+ / fuller body, but similar to the standard bottling

A new liqueur called Harlem is making a splash in the cocktail scene, its goal nothing less than knocking Jagermeister off its precious perch at the top of the “grimace and swallow” shot category.

That’s an awfully tall order: Jager has 70 years of history and sick college students behind it, all unabashedly downing ice cold shots and Jagerbombs as if their lives depended on it.

Similarities — squared off bottle, dark color, herbal aroma, bittersweet flavor, and syrupy consistency — aside, Harlem is a quite different experience than Jagermeister.

It’s darker in color — a deep brown vs. Jager’s red-hued ochre, and it’s stronger in alcohol, 80 proof to Jager’s 70. The body is different too, more sweet and less bitter, with a flavor that tastes of root beer and orange peel. Though Harlem looks ominous, the finish is smooth, with light bitterness that is more pleasant than the grimace-inducing finish that Jager invariably leaves on your face.

Meant to be consumed straight from the freezer, I’ve tried it both cold and at room temperature, and it’s actually acceptable both ways, though superior when it comes out of the icebox.

Harlem hails from the Netherlands, by the way, hence the name — it’s not (in theory, anyway) a reference to the Manhattan neighborhood.

For an even more root beer-toned liqueur, check out Root.

A- / $23 / harlemshots.com

Smirnoff keeps cranking out the flavored vodkas, its two latest being the exotic mango and the humble peach. Both are 70 proof bottlings and are naturally flavored.

Smirnoff Peach Vodka – Peach is a common fruit, but it’s not often used in spirits (perhaps due to its legacy with SoCo?). As a vodka flavoring, it works fairly well, exuding strong, fresh peach aromas, lots of sweetness, and no bite at all. I can’t see this being used in anything other than ultra-fruity cocktails, but if you’ve got the right recipe, it’s probably on target. B+

Smirnoff Mango Vodka – Mango spirits are relatively common nowadays, and Smirnoff’s rendition is not the best of the bunch. Yes, mango comes through on the palate, but it’s got a medicinal edge and a harsh finish that belies its proof level. Passable, but little more. B-

$17 each / smirnoff.com