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By Sandy Block, MW The bread and butter of every Champagne house remains its Brut Non-Vintage blend. This is most often an alchemical assemblage of dozens of different wines from far flung villages within the Champagne viticole, as well as multiple vintages, including older “reserve” wines, and a varying proportion... Read More

By Pink Lady It may take us a while to warm up here in old, cold New England, but a sure sign that the days are getting longer – and our moods are getting happier – is the introduction of light, bright, citrus-y cocktails on menus statewide. And rum. In... Read More

By Harvey Finkel When I was but a boy, I would be transported weekly to Victorian England by the Sherlock Holmes radio program. Almost as much as the adventure, I enjoyed the usual coda, in which Nigel Bruce, genial, stalwart, comfortable Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone’s incisive Holmes, sitting before... Read More

By Andy Crouch There’s something about a beer garden. The communality and conviviality, the open air, the slowing of time to allow for a beer or two surrounded by good friends and laughs. A familiar sight in many countries around the world, from Europe to Asia, beer gardens have been... Read More

by HARVEY FINKEL History was unscrolled for me recently when my inbox received a notice concerning Napa Valley’s Larkmead Estate. I recalled with favor Larkmead wines from my California-wine enlightenment of the 196Os and 197Os, and the long, complex, and interesting life story of the site, which has managed to... Read More

by PINK LADY April weather can be touch and go here in New England, sometimes kicking off with a snowstorm and winding down with spring buds. As our favorite bars start to throw open their windows and patio furniture creeps onto sidewalks, it seems these days like every watering hole... Read More

by SANDY BLOCK, MW Brunello di Montalcino is the stuff of legends, the product of a walled fortified Medieval hillside village south of Siena overlooking the southernmost part of the rolling Chianti Colli Senese zone where grapes have been ripening continuously for centuries. Perched on a ridge at heights of... Read More

BY ANDY CROUCH There is no denying that the India Pale Ale style has been pure fire in the past five years. And IPA has substantially evolved from its early days in American brewing, when it more closely resembled its maltier British predecessor. It changed over decades, growing less reliant... Read More

by PINK LADY Most of the world get shamrocks in their eyes in March, to which we say Slainte! We can thank Irish monks for turning the stills invented in ancient Mesopotamia (by early female chemists, ahem!) into Irish whiskey making machines. Back then they drank the first stuff that... Read More