Continuing on the summer theme here at Drinkhacker we turn to this unique summer beer, a pre-mixed shandy! Leinie’s Summer Shandy is a Weiss beer mixed with lemonade (or at least, per the bottle, “with natural lemonade flavor”), and it doesn’t take long to find both flavors in the bottle.

The beer side is very light, almost like a Mexican lager, but any nuance of Weiss beer is lost to the lemon overtones, which are obvious in every sip. Alas, it’s less lemonade and more lemon juice. Frankly I think the brew is missing some sweetness that would make it taste a bit more like a homemade shandy.

Overall impression: Not bad, very drinkable, light (just 4.2 percent alcohol), and indeed very “summery,” just as the name implies. A little tampering with the recipe ought to make this brew a real standout.

B / $8 per six-pack / leinie.com

Sloe Gin Fizzes were the first cocktail I mastered, but it’s been years since I’ve had one. No reason why, really. Sloe gin, a liqueur flavored with sloe berries, the fruit of the blackthorn tree, has hardly seen the renaissance that other spirits have in recent years. There hasn’t exactly been a clamoring for the stuff in the market.

Well, Plymouth (which I’m on record as stating, unequivocally, makes the best gin on the market) is trying to change that by introducing a premium sloe gin, perhaps the first of its kind. Plymouth threw a swanky party for its new bottling last night at Bourbon & Branch here in San Francisco, and I was fortunate enough to try the spirit along with a number of cocktails made with it.

First, a bit more about sloe gin: It’s made by steeping sloe berries in gin (Plymouth gin, of course), and watered down to 52 proof. 26 percent alcohol makes it a pretty standard liqueur rather than a true gin, so plan accordingly. Served straight, it’s quite tart, really too sour to enjoy on its own, but in cocktails it really shines.

Sloe gin’s natural habitat is the Sloe Gin Fizz, and in its preparation here (with fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, fresh egg white, and a splash of club soda) it was a real delight, creamy, with a good mix of sweet and sour. In a good cocktail, sloe gin tastes a lot like cranberry, and in The Wibble (recipe below), you get the essence of sloe gin at its best. This concoction, which includes grapefruit juice and blackberry liqueur, is like a Cosmo on steroids. Really good.

Amazingly, the addition of sloe gin to gin and Campari made the “Sloegronie” impressively drinkable, still quite bitter, but much better than a real Negroni. Finally, I finished up the night with Plymouth’s Southside (pictured, because it was so cool looking), which actually didn’t include sloe gin at all. Essentially a Mojito with gin instead of rum, I was impressed with how much more interesting this now-tired drink could be. Sub in lemon for lime and add a shot of sloe gin and you’ve got a Sloe Gin Genie (pictured at top, next to the bottle). I’ll give it a try when I get a bottle of my own to play with.

Plymouth Sloe Gin isn’t quite yet available in the U.S. yet, but keep an eye out for it. (If it’s sold at the same price here as it is in Britain, it’ll run about $35 a bottle.)

The Wibble
1 oz. Plymouth Gin
1 oz. Plymouth Sloe Gin
1 oz. freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
1/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/8 oz. simple syrup
1/8 oz. Wild Blackberry Liqueur (Creme de Mure)

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Get ready for this. 3 is the world’s only soybean vodka. And by “soybean vodka” I mean “vodka that’s made from soybeans.” No, really.

If you were to ask me what a soybean vodka might taste like, I’d probably come up with something like this: A meaty spirit with strong overtones of bitter herbal liqueurs — think Jagermeister or Fernet Branca — pungent like a Turkish bazaar. It’s the least-neutral “neutral” spirit I’ve ever tasted.

That isn’t to say it’s terrible. I can’t imagine drinking this straight for long (despite the bold claim on a sticker affixed to the bottle that it’s scored a “Perfect 100 Rating!”), but in certain heavily herbal/bitter drinks — something with Campari or Sambuca, perhaps? — it would probably work well. That said, most people looking for something to toss a splash of tonic into are going to be knocked off their barstools.

C+ / $20 / 3vodka.com

Premixed cocktails are usually a mixed bag. In fact, they’re hardly cocktails at all but rather heavily carbonated malt liquor, watered down to about 6 or 8 percent alcohol and flavored with a variety of components that can be either reasonably tasty or very nasty.

Bacardi (which makes it share of the aforementioned malt liquor drinks) offers something new with the Bacardi Classic Cocktail Mojito, a pre-mixed cocktail that continues to build on the Mojito craze, the drink that simply will not die.

Thankfully, this is something new. Bacardi Classic Cocktail Mojito is 15 percent alcohol and made from real rum and natural flavors, not leftover King Cobra.

The taste is surprisingly good, with real rum, lime, and mint present all in the glass. The sugar flavor is a little off, tasting more saccharine than it should, but overall it’s quite pleasant. Note that the drink is not carbonated (a traditional Mojito includes club soda), so you might want to add a little if you need fizz… but then you’ll probably want to add rum too, to compensate.

This would be a fine item to serve at a party when you don’t have time to make fresh cocktails and guests aren’t expecting the world out of you. Just pour it over crushed ice and add some fresh mint and maybe a squeeze of fresh lime… most people won’t know the difference.

B / $20 (1.75-liter bottle) / bacardi.com

Does price matter? Russian Standard offers an “original” version of its vodka in addition to a “Platinum” bottling and its vaunted “Imperia,” which I’ve previously reviewed. All are made in basically the same way, with a few differences, namely in the filtration systems they employ. But Russian Standard “Original” is just $22 a bottle, while Imperia is $34 (though I can find it on sale for $29 right now. Is it worth $12 more? Or even $7?

I put a shot of Imperia side by side with Original Russian Standard, and to tell the truth, any difference was extremely slight. Imperia was a tiny bit smoother, while Original had a stronger tone of wheat to it (or what is commonly referred to as “bread”). The Imperia was faintly sweeter than Original, too.

But on the whole, unless I was drinking these straight and competitively, I’d never be able to tell the difference. Add a mixer, and you can forget about noticing a difference at all.

So there you have it: Russian Standard’s cheapest and priciest vodkas are, for all intents and purposes, pretty much identical.

B+ / $22/ russianstandard.com

How Russian is ZYR Vodka? There’s a picture of the Kremlin on the bottle, that’s how. Distilled from Russian rye and wheat (”made from the rich black soil of Russia’s heartland”) and created with water drawn from deep in Russia’s aquifers, the only way this could be more Russian is if the ghost of Lenin delivered it to my doorstep.

Intriguingly, the brand new ZYR is bottled based on recipes recorded by Dmitri Mendeleev (much like Russian Standard’s Imperia claims), creator of the Periodic Table of Elements and officially responsible for standardizing vodka production and proof levels for Mother Russia in 1893. If anyone knows chemistry, it’s gonna be Mendeleev, and his nine filtration processes and five distillations speak to some serious smarts in the booze-making department. (That said, I doubt Mendeleev had a UV filtration system in place in the late 1800s, but still, I like the idea.)

Oh, so how’s it taste. One whiff and you’ll know this is vodka, and it’s distinctly Russian in origin, too. One taste and it almost knocked me down, a bracing jolt made stronger by intense cold straight from the freezer. It mellows when it warms up a few degrees, ultimately leaving you with a lemony, peppery, and surprising buttery character to the mouthfeel, not oily like so many other vodkas. There’s quite a bite to it which makes it feel at once very traditional and still difficult to sip for more than a shot. It works well as a mixer, though at $30 a bottle you might not turn to ZYR for Long Island Iced Teas…

A- / $30 / zyrvodka.com

As far as I can tell, Tenoch makes only one type of tequila, this reposado bottling that’s lightly golden, aged in oak, and bottled in a stoneware jug designed to look like an agave plant is enveloping it.

Tasty stuff, it’s lightly peppery and sweet like caramel, with herbal notes dancing around your mouth. For sipping tequilas, it’s just about perfect, creamy and lush, filling your mouth wonderfully.

The downside is the price. At $42 a bottle (or urn?) you won’t be making margaritas out of the stuff, and I woefully regret spilling half a shot on myself. Not just for the wasted money, I mean, but for the wasted tequila, too.

Highly recommended.

A / $42 / gviimports.com

Mad props to Ketel One. This brand is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for introducing ultrapremium vodka into the market, and it’s still going strong today. Made in The Netherlands from wheat, the 80-proof spirit is very traditional on the whole, and not in a bad way.

The taste is clean, lightly citrusy and tinged with lemon, with a touch of sweetness and a menthol aftertaste. (It’s appropriate that Ketel One released a citrus-flavored vodka some years ago; it really doesn’t need a lot of extra flavor to make it clearly lemony.)

It works very well in mixers and is doable straight, but an undercurrent of charcoal makes it a little rough for extended drinking. Not a bad vodka, and at a decent price for something that’s, on the whole, quite refined.

B+ / $22 / ketelone.com

If it weren’t for the many gravel roads and all the snow, I would have sworn that, while touring Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the crown jewel of its growing wine operation, I was in the heart of Sonoma. Willamette has everything you’d expect from Northern California wineries: Gorgeous tasting rooms, courteous staff, weekday crowds, and even outrageous tasting fees at some locations. What I didn’t see that you can’t miss in Sonoma? Ubiquitous gift shops in every tasting room.

Getting around Oregon’s wine country isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible either. There’s a lot of confusing, dirt-and-gravel roads, little signage, and nothing that seems to run straight and flat. All those hills make for good Pinot Noir, but they don’t make it easy for you to get around if you’re not local.

The Willamette Valley is less than an hour’s drive from Portland, and though you’ll run into traffic, two-lane roads, and lots of stop lights, it isn’t unpleasant. If you’re anywhere near the area, I highly recommend a trip. Best advice: Order a free copy of this Oregon Wine Country brochure, which includes a huge and detailed map of the area. It’s far better than the one you’ll find in any guidebook or magazine, and you’ll need it if you go touring in the area.

Best wine of the five wineries we visited would have to go to Penner-Ash’s (pictured) 2006 Carabella Vineyard Pinot Noir (its first ever bottling as a vineyard designate), pricey at $55 but sedate and smooth like old Burgundy, and stripped of any barnyard tones. Also a real surprise: An Oregon Syrah, made from grapes from the south part of the state, and a rose Pinot Noir, the first of its ilk I’ve ever tried.

A close second as a favorite wine: WillaKenzie Estate’s 2005 Pinot Noir Emery ($45). (WillaKenzie, incidentally, was unique among the wineries in that it has no tasting fee.) It also scored an A in my book.

Nothing at all bad at Archery Summit except the prices. All of its 2005 and 2006 Pinots (see below for full list) scored A- from me, though some fetch up to $100 a pop. (Not pouring: The $150 Archery Summit Estate Pinot Noir.)

Putting aside the $15 tasting fee, Domaine Serene had some nice wines, though nothing that blew me away. A shocking laggard, however, was the vaunted (and pictured) Domaine Drouhin (which is run by Burgundy expatriates), which failed to impress with much in its brief, three-wine lineup.

Bonus tip: While waiting for your flight at PDX, check out “Made in Oregon” in concourse C, which sells Oregon wines (few of which I can find in California at all) for shockingly amazing prices. And yes, you can legally carry them on your flight with you if it’s direct. I bought four bottles here. Score!

Oh… that’s right… I mentioned snow back there. Did I mention the insane weather? Check out these two photos, shot a few miles and hours apart on the same day. (click for larger) If you’re heading to Willamette any other time but the dead of summer, bring a jacket!

Full Tasting Report

2006 Penner-Ash Dry White Riesling, $24, B
2006 Penner-Ash Dussin Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir, $60, B+
2006 Penner-Ash Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, $48, A-
2005 Penner-Ash Oregon Syrah, $32, A-
2006 Penner-Ash Roseo (Rose of Pinot Noir), $15, B
2006 Penner-Ash Goldschmidt Vineyard Pinot Noir, $55, A-
2006 Penner-Ash Carabella Vineyard Pinot Noir, $55, A

2006 WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Gris, $9 (375ml), B+
2006 WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Meunier, $23, B
2006 WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, $25, B+
2005 WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Noir Pierre Leon, $26, C+
2005 WillaKenzie Estate Pinot Noir Emery, $45, A

2006 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Chardonnay Arthur, $30, C+
2006 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, $45, B+
2004 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Laurene Cuvee, $65, A-

2005 Domaine Serene “Cote Sud” Chardonnay, $45, A-
2005 Domaine Serene “Yamhill Cuvee” Pinot Noir, $40, A-
2005 Domaine Serene “Two Barns” Pinot Noir, $75, A-
2004 Domaine Serene Rockblock “Del Rio” Syrah, $45, B

2006 Archery Summit Premier Cuvee Pinot Noir, $48, A-
2005 Archery Summit Renegade Ridge Estate Pinot Noir, $85, A-
2005 Archery Summit Red Hills Estate Pinot Noir, $85, A-
2005 Archery Summit Arcus Estate Pinot Noir, $100, A

Hawaiian vodka? Sure, why not? While you may be expecting a pineapple- or coconut-flavored spirit in Ocean, bottled on Maui (the first vodka ever bottled there), it’s actually a surprisingly supple, unflavored vodka, lightly sweet and incredibly smooth. In fact, it’s one of the smoothest vodkas I’ve sampled in recent memory, fine straight or as a mixer.

Ocean is distilled from organic corn and rye, presumably not grown in Hawaii. The water, in a new twist, really does come from the Pacific Ocean (3,000 feet down, so they say), purified and desalinated and mixed into to the spirit to arrive at the requisite 80 proof. The result is something that nods at its Hawaii an roots without being cloying.

Altogether this is a shockingly light and very pleasant spirit that, despite the kind-of cheesy bottle and outrageous price tag (the only real problem with the thing), is hard not to recommend.

Stick this in your Chi Chi!

A- / $37 / oceanvodka.com