I wish it was so. Mascarade just didn’t work for me.

On its own, Mascarade is distinctly cough syrupy. Seriously, I swear I’ve had cough syrup with this very flavor. Now maybe that’s a complement to cough syrup — I can drink that stuff all day when I’ve got a bad cold — but I can’t imagine that’s a flavor too many people are looking for in a spirit. Sure, peach and apricot are there, but they just don’t provide the real punch of fruit that I’d have liked.

Mascarade (just 32 proof) fares better in cocktails, but not by much. The
stuff overpowers anything it touches. I tried making the “Mascarade Martini” (1 oz. Mascarade, 1 oz. vodka, 2 oz. orange juice) and expected a more complex Screwdriver. What I got instead was the strong taste of Mascarade cut with a little orange. Mascarade might be fine in tiny quantities, but you probably wouldn’t even notice it was there… and then what would be the point? Considering it has to be refrigerated after opening, one bottle could last an eternity.

Just found this one… If you happen to have mangosteen fruit, mango juice, lime, and gin, the Penang Angel might be something tasty. Now where to get some mangosteen…

C- / $26 / web

Well you can’t judge a book by its cover nor a vodka by its bottle: Cirrus is serious stuff, heavy duty vodka that, if I didn’t know it was from Virginia, would swear was drawn from the teat of Mother Russia herself.

Crack open the bottle and get a whiff. No need to get up close, Cirrus fills the room with its aroma of medicine and rubbing alcohol promptly. Distilled from potatoes, old-school-like, Cirrus has an Old World structure from start to finish. It’s a little tough to drink straight. Lemon peel is there as is some herbaceousness, maybe flowers. But a moderate bitterness is a little rough on the finish, and the medicinal notes are heavy. It improves, surprisingly, as it warms up.

Fine in cocktails, I found it tough to enjoy straight. It’s also very hard to find, by the way, mainly in cities near Virginia.

B- / $22 / cirrusvodka.com

Peñín and his crew offers ratings on a whopping 8,100 Spanish wines with his latest book, the Peñín Guide to Spanish Wines 2008. I highly doubt you’ll find a better authority on the region anywhere, and over the course of nearly 1,000 pages you’ll not only find review after review, but also helpful information on understanding Spain and its wines, including maps, color photos of wine brand labels, and even phone numbers and email addresses for most of the wineries covered.

My only complaints: I couldn’t find a listing for the last Spanish wine I tried in the book, which was a disappointment but not a crushing one. A bigger concern is that Peñín’s ratings tend to fall in a pretty narrow range. (He uses the 100-point scale but virtually everything scores in the 80s. It’s a stretch to find ratings in the 90s and after a few days of flipping through the book I’ve yet to find a single review in “classic” territory, 95 and up.

At about $30, it’s probably not for the casual wine drinker, but anyone with even the slightest interest in Spanish wine will be well-served by owning a copy of the book.

Buy it here!

]]> http://www.drinkhacker.com/2008/05/08/book-penin-guide-to-spanish-wines-2008/feed/ http://www.drinkhacker.com/2008/05/07/review-rain-vodka/ http://www.drinkhacker.com/2008/05/07/review-rain-vodka/#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 03:29:21 +0000 cnull http://www.drinkhacker.com/?p=331 Another entry into the organic spirits universe, Rain (a product of Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace Distillery) is a widely available vodka that few will have trouble finding on store shelves.

Pull that eye-catching blue stopper from the raindrop-shaped bottle and a sweet, perfumy aroma fills the air. Rain’s odor gave me much promise, but the taste was a bit disappointing. The sweetness is in the flavor, surprisingly heavy with butterscotch, but it’s overpowered by grainy notes, surely a remnant of its basis in white corn, from which the spirit is distilled. The bite is hard: This tastes a lot tougher than 80 proof. But my real complaint is a strange chalkiness in the glass, literally a powdery texture to the vodka that had me wondering if there was something stuck to my tongue.

Works superbly in cocktails (and you can’t beat the price), but it’s not my favorite straight.

B / $16 / rainvodka.com

It’s an old story, really: Some folks in the biz feel that certain critics (specifically Robert Parker) are being pandered to by winemakers who know what kind of wines they like. “Big wines” full of oak and heavy with alcohol are often the result.

It’s a fair point. There are wines that are so overdone that they are hard to drink. One wonders what critic actually enjoys them at all, but Parker seems to like them, and his ratings move cases.

But I disagree that California has lost its way. In fact, I find it’s easier than ever now to find outstanding wines with rich fruit and real terroir, wines that haven’t been manipulated and which will stand the test of time. Unfortunately there’s also plenty of average wine out there (and some downright bad wine, too). You just have to be willing to taste and taste a lot in order to find what works.

I take some issue with Feiring’s praise for Mike Dashe’s “un-Californian” wine which she defends vigorously. No, not that I’ve had Dashe’s wine, but that Feiring seems to have made up her mind about it based on how it was made before she tasted it. Ditto for Cathy Corison: Her praise seems largely based on low alcohol content than anything else. (I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how a wine can be “shockingly” elegant.) Really, isn’t Feiring simply subbing in her own prejudice for lighter style, less-alcoholic wines for Parker’s gut punchers? That old problem of “personal taste” rears its head again, proving that not all wines are for all drinkers, and that there really is something for everyone out there.

That is, after all, how White Zinfandel got started. Just ask Robert Parker what he thinks about that.

Thanks for the tip, Jairaj!

Every April some 5,000 buyers and wine professionals tour Bordeaux during “tasting week,” offering opinions on barrel samples and trying to judge how that wine might taste when it makes it to bottles. Producers take that feedback and price the wine based on “early orders and gut feelings.” Clearly, little of that pricing has anything to do with the actual cost of growing the grapes and making the wine. (In fact, it’s arguable that in “bad years,” when prices are depressed, the costs to make the wine are actually higher than in great years, since many producers have to keep grape quantities and bottle production down if the grape crop isn’t so hot.)

Supply and demand at work. Check out the full story at Fortune.

Don Julio’s Añejo tequila is top shelf stuff. This aged spirit has an immediate kick of vanilla, butterscotch, and Christmas spices, with a good, mellowed agave flavor that seeps into all of it. The wood is there (as it should be: it’s aged 18 months in oak barrels, though that’s shorter than many premium añejos), but it’s not overdone, as you get with some tequilas. Who likes to feel like they’re drinking liquefied oak? There’s some initial bitterness if you drink this tequila straight out of the water, but like fine wine it tends to “open up” after a few minutes exposed to the air and the bitterness fades away. (If you take it on the rocks, this effect happens much more quickly, by the way.)

Don Julio is good served neat or on the rocks, and I especially enjoy it with a Sangrita chaser. (Making Sangrita from scratch, ugh, that’s a whole other post someday.) It’s pricey, but it’s just about worth it.

A- / $43 / donjulio.com

El Mayor (translation: “The Greatest”) is a relatively new entrant to the tequila space, an old brand that relaunched in 2005 during the tequila mini-boom. As with all premium tequilas, it’s 100% blue agave. El Mayor’s claim to fame is that its agave is grown in the Jalisco Highlands, which it says leads to a sweeter product.

The proof is in the sipping: El Mayor Blanco is noticeably sweeter than most other Blancos on the market, very smooth, creamy, and lightly spicy. Think nutmeg and allspice hints, and a touch of floral, too. The tequila bite is there, but it’s mild. El Mayor has the smoothness of a Reposado while maintaining its crisp, unaged character. That’s a tough act to follow, and it’s a spirit that I recommend highly, though it can be quite expensive. It works exceptionally well in cocktails, too, and the bottle is a nice conversation piece, too. I look forward to trying the Reposado and Anejo bottlings in the near future.

A / $40 / elmayor.com

By now few are surprised by $2 wine. Two-Buck Chuck (aka Charles Shaw) has been a massive seller in these parts for years. I even know people that swear by it. (I can’t stand the reds but, if forced, I can stomach the whites.) It isn’t surprising that other labels would like to grab a little of Chuck’s market share.

Oak Leaf Vineyards is the latest challenger, and the company’s selling Chardonnay, a Pinot Grigio/Chardonnay blend, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and White Zinfandel. I tried the Chardonnay and the Merlot (all the wines are non-vintage, with no year specified) just to answer the question: How good (or bad) could this stuff possibly be? (After all, the label has actually won at least four medals at various wine competitions!)

The answer: Surprising, but not in the way I expected. Though “cheap white” is usually a better bet than “cheap red,” the Chardonnay was a miss, lacking much structure at all and reminding me more of the kids’ apple juice that had sat out too long and fermented than of real wine. The punch of alcohol is strong, feeling almost like a fortified wine (or at least a doctored one). I give it a C- at best.

The surprise was the Merlot, which was immeasurably better than the Chard, though still nothing to write home about. An initially decent mouthful of light fruit is palatable, but it ultimately gives way to some bitterness and green, vegetal notes. Again, that punch of raw alcohol, though much slighter here than in the white. It’s passably drinkable in a way that the Chardonnay is not, but it’s hardly something to treasure and hang on to for when you’re grilling a filet mignon. Let’s call it a C+.

Would I go out of my way to pick up a bottle of Oak Leaf? No, but the sheer feat of getting wine into a bottle at retail for 197 cents is nothing short of impressive. I will add that extreme value wines like this do serve one important role in the beverage industry: They expose people who’d otherwise be drinking beer, soda, or something else to wine in a positive way, rather than the overwhelmingly negative one associated with, say, Thunderbird. Oak Leaf, I would hope, might give drinkers a taste for wine… and then encourage them to aim one shelf higher with their next purchase.

So, how to make one? The Mint Julep is filled with lots of decisions, most of which are a matter of personal taste. Granulated sugar or simple syrup? Muddled mint or just a mint rub? What kind of bourbon to use? Straw or no? Even the kind of cup you use is up for debate.

The original Julep is a pretty easy affair: Dump a little sugar and water in a glass, muddle with mint, fill with ice, pour in the bourbon, and drink. Modern science has provided new options: The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Felten recommends making a mint-steeped simple syrup (or using Sonoma Syrup Company’s bottled mint syrup), and drinking the thing with a straw. (As much as I love Felten, he also recommends a $300 ice shaving machine and solid silver tankards (mine are silver plate), too.)

The choice of bourbon is another sore subject with many. However, I find almost any bourbon works well in a Julep because the mint and sugar overpower any subtlety in the spirit. It’s one of the few times I actually use Jack Daniel’s. (And don’t tell me a Tennessee whiskey is heresy: The Mint Julep originated in Virginia, not Kentucky.) So feel free to grab the Jack, Jim Beam, or whatever’s on hand. Today I’m using Knob Creek, one of my favorite bourbons in any cocktail.

I like to add a float to my Julep, something that’s a bit out of style in most recipes, probably because the 3-plus ounces of bourbon you’re getting here is enough booze for anyone. But a dark rum float adds some flavor that take the Julep from “minty sweet bourbon” into a more interesting direction, especially on that first sip — which, for the record, I highly recommend consuming without a straw. Sticking your face into the mint and breathing that heady aroma in deep is what the Mint Julep is all about.

So, at long last, here’s the full recipe!

The Drinkhacker Mint Julep
3-4 oz. Bourbon
1 oz. simple syrup
10-15 mint leaves, depending on size and pungency
1 scant teaspoon dark rum

Drop a handful of loosely torn mint leaves into a silver tankard or rocks glass with 1 oz. simple syrup. Muddle lightly (heavy muddling can bring out bitterness), then fill about 3/4 of the way with crushed ice (crush it the best you can but don’t worry if it’s still pretty rough and rocky). Fill with bourbon to about the level of the ice and stir to mix the Bourbon with the syrup and mint. Top up with crushed ice to overflowing, then splash a very small amount of dark rum on top as a float. Garnish with a nice spring of mint and serve immediately.

All measurements are approximate. The Mint Julep, in my mind, is one of the best cocktails for just grabbing a bottle and making up proportions as you go, to suit your taste. Now get out there and make some bets!