It’s a dilemma for some, I suppose: You want to cool your drink down, but you don’t want it to get watery, a big problem with melting ice. Short of chilled-glass contraptions, how do you get the job done?

Answer: Whisky stones.

Whisky stones are real rocks, soapstone cut into cubes to be exact, which you store in your freezer and drop straight into your drink when you want coldness without meltwater. If you’re starting with a warm/room-temperature beverage, they are slow to work and never get things anywhere close to the coolness that real ice does, but they mostly get the job done eventually. If your drink’s already cold and you just want to keep it that way, they work better, but I doubt that’s a huge application here.

The effect is a little disconcerting, I have to say. You are, after all, drinking from a glass full of gray rocks, which is not the most aesthetic way to imbibe. Despite promises to the contrary, the rocks do impart some flavor to the drink. In plain water, you definitely get a chalky flavor and texture in your mouth. It’s not hard to see why — there are little fragments of dust floating in the glass (and yes, I washed them first). In strong drinks these effects may be less noticeable.

Interesting stuff, and since I usually use ice not just for the cooling but for the water inherent to it, too, I probably won’t use these very often. That said, they don’t take up much room in the freezer, they clean up easily, and they’re quite a conversation starter.

Rock on.

$20 for set of 9 / teroforma.com

Hot weather and worse traffic conspired to make my trip to this year’s Pinot Days a relatively abbreviated one, but I still had the chance to try nearly three dozen pinots from California and Oregon.

Favorite: Eric Kent’s entire line (though one 2008 barrel sample wasn’t nearly ready), a perennial Drinkhacker favorite, plus the wines of Oregon’s Le Cadeau, which I’d never had before but found remarkably lively, fruit-forward, and wonderful to drink.

Lots of good wines to be had, and not a bad bottle all around. Complete ratings (apologies for any typos) follow.

Complete Tasting Report – Pinot Days 2009

Cal 2007 Black Kite Cellars Pinot Noir Redwoods Terrace / B
Cal 2007 Black Kite Cellars Pinot Noir Stony Terrace / B+
Ore 2005 Domaine Serene Pinot Noir Winery Hill / B+
Ore 2006 Domaine Serene Pinot Noir Evenstad Reserve / B+
Cal 2006 Donum Estate Pinot Noir Carneros / A-
Cal 2007 Donum Estate Pinot Noir Russian River Valley / B
Cal 2007 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Stiling / A-
Cal 2007 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Windsor Oaks / A
Cal 2007 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Small Town / A-
Cal 2008 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Stiling / B
Cal 2008 Eric Kent Wine Cellars Pinot Noir Small Town / A-
Cal 2006 Hitching Post Wines Pinot Noir Highliner / B+
Cal 2006 Hitching Post Wines Pinot Noir Perfect Set / B+
Cal 2007 Hitching Post Wines Pinot Noir Cork Dancer / A-
Cal 2006 Hitching Post Wines Pinot Noir Sta. Rita’s Earth / B+
Cal 2007 Jim Ball Vineyards Pinot Noir / A-
Ore 2007 Le Cadeau Vineyard Pinot Noir Cote Est / A-
Ore 2007 Le Cadeau Vineyard Pinot Noir Equinoxe / A
Ore 2007 Le Cadeau Vineyard Pinot Noir Rocheux / A-
Cal 2007 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir Central Coast / A-
Cal 2007 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast / A-
Cal 2003 Michaud Vineyard Pinot Noir / B
Cal 2004 Michaud Vineyard Pinot Noir / B+
Cal 2006 Olson Ogden Wines Pinot Noir Russian River Valley / B
Cal 2007 Olson Ogden Wines Pinot Noir Russian River Valley / B+
Cal 2007 Roessler Cellars Pinot Noir Sanford & Benedict / B
Cal 2007 Rusack Vineyards Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills / B+
Cal 2007 Rusack Vineyards Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley / B+
Cal 2007 Sanford Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills / A-
Cal 2007 Sanford Pinot Noir La Rinconada Vineyard / B+
Cal 2007 Sanford Pinot Noir Sanford & Benedict / B+
Cal 2006 Skewis Wines Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast / A
Cal 2006 Skewis Wines Pinot Noir Russian River Valley / A-

They don’t call it “Brut Gold” for nothing. The bottle of Armand de Brignac is, for real, plated with gold. The bottle is then placed in a velvet bag and a black lacquered wooden box, just for good measure. All the labels are stamped out of pewter. There’s no paper on the bottle at all.

But frankly, Armand de Brignac would mostly be worth its $300 asking price based on the quality of the wine inside alone.

Here we have a classic, though nonvintage, champagne, everything one looks for in a fine sparkling wine. Golden fruit is at the top of the palate, not too sweet, not too bubbly, and a very mild, tart finish. A solid apple and white grape character is imbued with a rich and creamy texture, moderate finish, and a very light hint of brewed tea in the glass.

Really, really quite lovely. Pick a bottle up for a (very) special occasion.

A / $300 / armanddebrignac.com

What do I like the most about Pretoxx? It comes in pill form, so no need to choke back some nasty liquid in the guise of hangover prevention.

Pretoxx is pretty simple stuff. One pill has 600mg of Vitamin C, 100mg of Vitamin B-1, and 200mg of NAC. That’s it. Basically, it’s vitamins, which you’re supposed to take to the tune of one pill per every two drinks, before you head out to the bar.

I tried it as directed, generally felt fine the next day after a long night of drinking… though quite tired. Hard to know without clinical tests one way or the other… but I can say it doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t taste like crap, so I can’t really complain.

B+ / $20 for 60 tablets / pretoxx.com

Every time a holiday rolls around, the spirits makers commission all manner of cocktails from their in-house mixologists and professionals in the field. Independence Day is no exception, and this post full of selected recipes is drawn from what is arguably the biggest bumper crop of cocktail ideas I’ve seen since starting this blog. Hope you like red, white, and blue.

The American Collins

1 1/2 oz. Bombay Sapphire
3/4 oz. simple syrup
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
4 Bing cherries, pitted
8 blueberries

In a Collins glass, muddle the blueberries and cherries in the lemon juice and simple syrup. Add Sapphire and ice and stir briefly. Top with club soda. Garnish: 1 Bing Cherry and 1 Lemon Wheel.

Firecracker

3 oz. Flor de Caña 7 Year Grand Reserve Rum
1 oz. Triple Sec
1 oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz. simple syrup (boil and cool equal parts water and sugar)
4 watermelon chunks
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Whirl all ingredients together and pour into a glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Stars and Stripes

1/4 oz. Lucid Absinthe
1 oz. Blueberry Vodka
1/4 oz. Simple Syrup
Splash of Lemon Juice
Drizzle of Raspberry Liqueur
Ginger beer
Fresh Blueberries

Muddle fresh blueberries and add syrup, Lucid, juice and vodka. Add ice and shake and pour into highball glass. Drizzle Liqueur and top with Ginger Beer. Garnish with one sugar cube.

Sobieski Star

1 1/2 oz. Sobieski Vodka
1/2 oz. Massenez Créme de Peche
3/4 oz. Pineapple Juice
1 oz. Lychee Juice
1/4 oz. Lime Juice
Garnish: Star fruit

Put all the ingredients in a shaker, shake and strain into a Martini glass.

The Roman Candle

4 oz. Korbel Brut
1 oz. Tuaca Italian liqueur
Garnish with dried cranberries

Combine in a tall flute.

ZICO Doodle Dandy

2 oz. ZICO Mango
4 oz. Skyy Infusions Vodka all natural passion fruit
1 oz. Cointreau
Splash of cranberry juice
Slice of orange
Strawberry

Mix all ingredients together in a shaker with ice. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh strawberry and enjoy.

Old Forester Summer Julep

1 1/2 oz. Old Forester bourbon
2 oz. Lemonade
1 oz. Pomegranate Juice

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain over ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Quivira, in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley, is known for its Sauvignon Blancs. (It’s also a fun winery to visit. Take the kids. They have goats.) This 2008 release is no exception to the winery’s string of quality releases.

This Sauvignon Blanc, grown biodynamically, fermented with wild yeast, and aged six months in stainless steel, is crisp and clean, just what you’d want from a sauvignon blanc, really. Peaches are the most prominent character here, with bright green apple and some apricot on the palate. A slight melon tang is present, but it doesn’t last long. The finish is quick and zippy. Perfect for a light meal or sipping idly while the sun goes down.

I had similar notes for the 2007 edition of this wine (pictured), which is grown in a vineyard with a lone fig tree standing in the middle of it.

A- / $18 / quivirawine.com

What’s that hot kick in your typical ginger beer from? If you said ginger, you’re probably wrong: Many brands put cheap chili pepper oils in their brews to give them that kick, which is why so many come off as hot, but not particularly spicy in the way that real ginger is.

That’s just one of the insights I was granted by Tim Warrillow, a co-founder of Fever-Tree, whose artisinal mixers (particularly its tonic water) are the bottles of choice for discriminating drinkers.

We reviewed the company’s Ginger Ale previously — and in the next few weeks (late July 2009) Fever-Tree will finally bring its long-awaited Ginger Beer to the U.S. (It’s already the company’s #2 selling product in the UK, after tonic water.)

Warrillow brought a four-pack by today and we compared his new offering with standbys, including Reed’s, Bundaberg, and the new Gosling’s.

Warrillow’s pride is wholly appropriate. As much as I liked Gosling’s compared to its competition at the time, Fever-Tree runs rings around this brew to the point where I’m almost embarrassed. Intensely spicy with an amazing flavor of fresh ginger, you can actually see bits of ginger floating in the bottle. It’s almost translucent, there’s so much of it in there. By comparison, Reed’s honey-and-pineapple-sweetened ginger beer is pathetic, and the other two ginger beers tasted were effectively weaklings.

That translates to throat-warming heat and lots of it, with a lasting finish that is really quite delicious. But Fever-Tree Ginger Beer isn’t a one-man show. It’s perfectly sweetened (with cane sugar, not corn syrup), and is equally palatable on its own as it is with rum (the Dark & Stormy) or vodka (the Moscow Mule). Or, hell, whatever else you want to throw in there. Fever-Tree’s new brew can stand up to anything, I assure you.

A+ / $5.69 (estimated) for four-pack of 6.8-oz. bottles / fever-tree.com

Tanqueray has its 10. Beefeater kicks that up to 24.

Premium gins — and expansions of big-name brands — are becoming quite the rage, and “24″ from England’s Beefeater is the latest in this trend.

24 is an extension of the venerable Beefeater brand, drawing its name from the 24-hour period its botanicals steep in the base spirit (an unspecified grain spirit) before it magically turns into gin. The botanicals used in this concoction range from the traditional to the exotic, including the usual suspects — juniper, orange peel, lemon peel, coriander seed, angelica root, angelica seed, orris root — some eye-raising, unusual additions — licorice, grapefruit peel, almond — and two extremely odd ones — Japanese sencha tea and Chinese green tea. (Legend has it Beefeater’s founder was the grandson of a tea seller, hence the lattermost additives.)

Traiditonal Beefeater is loaded with powerful juniper character, and 24 is no exception. But here the juniper is softer, tempered by a good amount of citrus. The grapefruit actually comes through strongly, which surprised me.

Sadly I didn’t really get anything I’d describe as tea in this gin — I don’t know how you could when it’s got to stand up to that ingredient list — though I love the idea of it. Maybe, if you strain, and think about tea, you can taste it in there. But maybe that’s just my imagination.

Either way, it’s an interesting, and worthy, gin — but as with regular Beefeater it still strikes me as packing a little too much in the juniper department. But hey, that’s just me.

24 runs a hot 90 proof (needs lots of ice) and bottled in an ornate decanter with an infernal red base. Quite striking.

B+ / $30 / beefeater24.com

Today I did a fun comparison, checking out historical Google search trends for the terms gin, vodka, whiskey, tequila, and rum.

While vodka’s win (based on average search volume since 2004) is no surprise, the fact that tequila was right behind — and has led search volume since late 2007 — was quite a shock.

Also: They apparently love rum in Sweden. (Oh, and wine and beer destroy all the spirits, handily.)

Check out the complete data here!

[click to enlarge]

Snows Lake certainly isn’t going to run out of names for its wines. Named simply “One” and “Two,” what Snows Lake lacks in complexity it makes up for with generally high quality.

Snows Lake is in California’s Lake County, an area north of Sonoma which generally gets little respect as a winemaking region. There’s a lot of iffy wine in Lake County, but Snows Lake is based in the Mayacamas mountain range, and it has one of the highest vineyards in the region. High-quality grapes in wonderful growing conditions lead to impressive results.

2005 Snows Lake One is a 100% cabernet sauvignon, aged in oak for 21 months. On initial pour it’s very tight, but a little air opens things open quite nicely, showing herbal character with a moderate berry core. The nose offers tantalizing smoky, grilled meat character. I’d like to give this wine some more time in the bottle to mellow out before cracking it open, to give some of its wood character time to meld with the earth and fruit in the bottle, but it’s drinkable now. B+

2005 Snows Lake Two takes that cabernet sauvignon and blends in 28% cabernet franc. The result is a definite winner, both fruitier and richer than the One and ready to drink today. Still fruity and herbal and a lot like the One, it’s got a chocolate character in the body that lasts well into the finish, and a youthful exuberance that makes it almost too drinkable. The proof is in the palate: I opened both bottles at once, and by the end of the night, the One was about half full, while the Two had nearly been drained in its entirety. A

$37 each / snowslakevineyard.com