This is a list of the new drink books coming out between April through June of 2023 that I know about. You can view all of these books together at this link at Bookshop or this one on Amazon. The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spheres, and Other Chill Cocktail... Continue reading

After the New York Times quoted me for this story: The Height of Domestic Luxury? Designer Ice. A few other publications have picked up the beat. The Specialty Food Association (they put on the Fancy Food Show) published this piece Specialty Ice is Trending. And Deseret News published an explainer... Continue reading

Punch editor-in-chief Talia Baiocchi writes about another ice trend on TikTok, that of teeny tiny ice cubes. It's a fun story and she asked me to share my thoughts. Read it here. Continue reading

In an interview on Forbes.com with fellow ice nerd Jonathan Baker of Portland, Maine, I get a shout-out as the originator of the directional freezing system. The article is interesting all around and the pictures, taken by Baker, are great. You can see more on his Instagram account here. Continue reading

This is a quick post on some books I've read on women distilling in olden times. Distillation of spirits came out of medical alchemy (which is to say medical proto-science), and early alchemy books included lots of recipes for distilled medicines with stuff like gold and silver included in them.... Continue reading

My latest story for The Alcohol Professor is about trends in aquavit. Check it out here. Continue reading

I'm quoted in this article about fancy ice cubes in the New York Times. The Height of Domestic Luxury? Designer Ice. Join me in my obsession, preorder The Ice Book today! Continue reading

In the February issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine, I was quoted on one page about the medicinal history of sparkling water and my book Doctors and Distillers was cited. On the next page, my forthcoming The Ice Book was cited and I provided quotes for a story on ice. That... Continue reading

Over at Bevvy.com, I wrote an explainer on baijiu. Check it out here. Continue reading

Over at AlcoholProfessor.com I reviewed The Anchor Brewing Story. Buy it here on Amazon. Continue reading

Looks like it's been a few months since I did a New Booze post, gathering together new products hitting the market from my Instagram page. Well then, with no further ado, here they are: Continue reading

Over at AlcoholProfessor.com I reviewed Brian Freedman's book Crushed: How a Changing Climate Is Altering the Way We Drink. Read the review here. buy it on Amazon here or Bookshop here. Continue reading

I recently read Of Ice and Men: How We've Used Cold to Transform Humanity by Fred Hogge. I just wanted to note that I think the chapter on the "Ice King" Frederic Tudor was very well done. I've read a lot of books on Tudor and this was probably the... Continue reading

I've been working on methods to more easily produce huge 3" or so cubes that I can then use to carve into ice diamonds or put into an ice ball press to make spheres. Previously I was trying out inserting dividers into the cooler to make the ice blocks and... Continue reading

Here's an interesting problem and solution: James Hogarth reached out to me to describe the following. He is using water filtered with a Zero Water filter in a clear ice system. This filter removes all the major dissolved solids in the water, and it comes with a little TDS meter... Continue reading

If you read my book Doctors and Distillers you know that cure-all theriacs often contained viper flesh. Now one person has recreated a recipe for a branded theriac called L’Orvietan, with everything but the snake. Bernardini had to travel across Europe on the trail of L’Orvietan. He scoured historic archives... Continue reading

I was delighted to learn that The Perfect Tonic, the name in the UK for Doctors and Distillers, has made it to the short list for the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards. The four finalists are: A Sense of Place by Dave Broom Drinking with the Valkyries by... Continue reading

I have several ways to make ice spheres at home, but the one that takes up the least amount of space is using a thermos and ice ball mold. This method produces nice large ice spheres but they're not as smooth and perfect as those made in the IceOlogy trays... Continue reading

San Francisco went from a city of very few rooftop bars to... a few I guess. I remember when El Techo de Lolinda was new and exciting, then we had Charmaine's, Kaiyo Rooftop, and now Cavaña. There are several new ones in the East Bay also. Well I just had... Continue reading

I provided lots of quotes for this story on making clear ice on MarthaStewart.com. Continue reading

I received email from Rafael Agapito at Copa Barrafina, the "little sister" bar Copa Lisboa. He wrote to tell me about some groovy recycled plastic bartop and table tops. He says: We collected plastic package over 3 months, and over 80kg of plastic was recycled into our counter and table tops. We have a permanent collection point in Copa, where anyone can bring their plastic to be recycled. Our plan is to use this material in a lot of other applications in the near future, including a hand wash sink that attaches to the toilet basin as a lid and... Continue reading

I provided some context for a story about carbonated water for Wine Enthusiast. “Naturally carbonated mineral spring water was thought to be extra healthy compared with regular mineral water, and far healthier than surface water from rivers and streams,” English notes. “European and American mineral springs rich in iron or... Continue reading

On the website for Bar Convent Berlin, Jan-Peter Wulf reviewed Doctors and Distillers. Read it here. Continue reading

In my first story for Bevvy in a while, I wrote about the various ways spirits producers are aging or finishing their spirits in barrels on trains, trucks, boats, and floating docks. Continue reading