Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Food & Wine

MIONETTO ALCOHOL-REMOVED SPARKLING WINE ($15) Mionetto, a classic Prosecco producer, joined the nonalcoholic game late last year with this briskly citrusy sparkling cuvée; while it doesn’t have quite the presence of their actual Prosecco, it’s an appealing sparkling substitute for anyone who wants to feel festive, but without the alcohol. 2022 SALCHETO BISKERO CHIANTI ($16) I poured this organically farmed Chianti for an event for my recent book, The World in a Wineglass, at Community Wine & Spirits in NYC and was struck again by what a steal of a red it is: juicy, lively, vibrantly flavorful. Plus, Salcheto’s charismatic owner, Michele Manelli, is at the forefront of sustainable practices in Italy. 2019 INK GRADE ANDOSOL ($75) I had this graceful, layered Zinfandel blend at Ink Grade’s new tasting room…

1. COUPLET COFFEE ESPRESSO FOR EVERYONE BLEND “I brew this blend via pour-over with a 1:15 ratio, and I get delicious notes of dried cherries, plums, and cacao. It’s warm, bright, and smooth.” —Sahra Nguyen, Nguyen Coffee Supply, Brooklyn ($18 for 12 ounces, coupletcoffee.com) 2. COSMIC DUST COFFEE ROASTERS SPECIAL BLEND – POLARIS “With Ethiopian and Guatemalan beans, this blend is super balanced and has the classic nutty, chocolaty notes that I always look out for.” —Gefen Skolnick, Couplet Coffee, Los Angeles ($18 for 8 ounces, cosmicdustcoffee.com) 3. COFFEE PROJECT NEW YORK CROWD PLEASER HOUSE BLEND ESPRESSO “This blend is well rounded with notes of black cherry and chocolate and makes a great everyday drinker.” —Jenny Huynh, Cosmic Dust Coffee Roasters, San Jose, California ($19 for 10 ounces, coffeeprojectny.com) 4.…

BAR WORK IS A COMMON CAREER PATH in the cocktail-loving city of New Orleans, but finding stability and upward mobility in the hospitality industry is a challenge, particularly for young workers who face racist assumptions about their abilities and dedication. To combat this issue, industry veteran Touré Folkes developed Turning Tables, a 12-week program that gives Black and Brown aspiring hospitality professionals a 360-degree view of the spirits, beverage, and hospitality industries. “Turning Tables is the only organization in New Orleans that offers what we do,” says Folkes. “It provides technical training, education, industry exposure, job placements, and extensive community resources, including mental health care.” During “Rum Week,” for instance, the cohort tours a local distillery and learns about tasting and the process of making sugarcane-based spirits from Ari…

WINE LABELS CAN BE baffling. The number of terms is vast, and their legal meanings (or not) also vary from country to country. The term “Riserva” in Chianti Classico, for instance, means a wine that was aged at least 24 months (including three months in the bottle), while in the U.S., “reserve” has no actual legal meaning at all. Also, European wines are more often labeled by place (Burgundy, Chianti, Rioja) than by grape variety, and there are rules about what varieties can go into those wines. You can grow any kind of grape you want in Napa Valley and still label it as such; plant some Zinfandel in Tuscany and try to call your wine Chianti, and you’ll be in serious trouble. Europe 1. The region (Burgundy) and, within…

Liquid Life I’VE HIT THE SWEET SPOT of middle age where my elementary school–age kids and Gen Z colleagues think I’m uncool. But they’re the ones toting around those clunky, 40-ounce Stanley water cups with sippy straws, not me. It’s 2024: Nobody’s going thirsty. You know what’s actually cool? My grandfather’s Stanley coffee thermos that he carried on fishing trips. Maybe I’m becoming crotchety, a Gen X version of Andy Rooney grumbling at the end of 60 Minutes. If I start complaining about the quality of the elastic in my tube socks, put me out to pasture. Meantime, please bear with me for a few more paragraphs. I share a birth year with Food & Wine (1978), and that gives me some contextual advantages in this food game, especially when…

YOU KNOW THAT MOMENT when a song, film, or some external force meets your atoms and electrifies them, and suddenly you’re unable to imagine your life before it? That was my first sip of Ardbeg Corryvreckan, chosen for me by the whiskey librarian at a lochside resort in the West Highlands of Scotland after I described my especially smoky, peaty tastes. I found a new devotion. The brand’s master distiller, Bill Lumsden, told me rather proudly that the whiskey brand “attracts weirdos,” and having attended the 14th annual Ardbeg Day festivities in June 2023, I took that for the compliment it was. In the past 200-plus years, Ardbeg has harnessed the native flora, water, and climatic idiosyncrasies of Islay, a sparsely populated island off the west coast of Scotland,…

BLANCHING WHEN THE FIRST spring vegetables arrive at the farmers market—snappy asparagus, fuzzy fava beans, sweet peas—it’s an invitation to shift away from the braising and stewing of winter’s hearty roots and instead to embrace a quicker process. Blanching, a technique in which vegetables are cooked briefly in boiling salted water and quickly submerged in ice and water, is the name of the game for these tender offerings. Aside from being both simple and quick, blanching is a terrific way to hold vegetables at the perfect stage of doneness: Boiling brings them to crisp-tenderness, and the dunk in ice and water sets their texture. One major benefit here is that you can do this well ahead of serving them; simply warm the vegetables in, say, browned butter (like in our…

NOT LONG AGO, I tasted a $54,000 whiskey. It was the Highland Park 54 Year Old, released in February 2023 in honor of the distillery’s 225th anniversary. Was it good? Hell yes. It was sublime, definitely in that fireworks-in-your-brain, Moses-parting-the-whiskey-seas zone. But it’s also $54,000 a bottle. Which is bonkers. Being a normal, paycheck-earning human, albeit one who loves good whiskey, I am relieved to say that you can also find great sipping bourbons and single malts for way, way less than that—not least among them the also-excellent Highland Park 12 Year Old. Ultra-aged and ultra-expensive expressions have their place, but the bottles here are both stellar and affordable. 5 Excellent Sipping Whiskeys HIRSCH THE HORIZON BOURBON ($35) A mix of whiskeys aged either five or eight years, this alluring…

THE COCKTAIL SHAKER is the animating force of the bar. It creates the action, noise, motion, and energy that ultimately become the concoctions that drinkers have the pleasure to imbibe. The modern approach to shaking was developed in the 19th century in America, when it was found that, if two vessels had mouths of different sizes, the smaller rim could fit inside the larger to create a seal, and a drink could be mixed much more vigorously to create new textures and appearances. The first patent for a cocktail shaker, a design by inventer William Harnett, was approved in 1872, thus officially inscribing an object of eternal bartending fascination into the public world. HOW TO SHAKE The purpose of shaking a cocktail is fourfold: to chill, dilute, mix, and aerate…

LALO TEQUILA BLANCO ($50) Agave from the Jalisco highlands is used for this herbal, elegant blanco. It’s equally at home in a margarita, a paloma, or something as simple as a ranch water. MICHTER’S US 1 KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON ($50) This top-notch bourbon has everything you need: caramel notes, a hint of oak, and a smooth, lingering finish. TEN TO ONE DARK RUM ($45) Founder Marc Farrell’s excellent dark rum has lush baking-spice and tropical-fruit notes. It’s perfect in a classic rum punch or a dark-rum daiquiri. FORDS GIN ($30) Fords is expressly intended for mixing: Its ergonomic bottle makes for easy pouring, and botanicals like grapefruit peel and coriander seed help it work with a range of mixers. HAKU VODKA ($25) Distilled from white rice and filtered through bamboo…

Costco Bargains Costco is one of the largest wine retailers in the U.S. And its selections, which are much wider ranging than one might think, are sharply priced, often several dollars less than competing stores. For our Costco-shopping readers—there are many of you—here are some great values. Keep in mind that the chain typically has a deep stock of high-end bottles, too. Brave the parking lot for those 50-pound bags of beans, then stay for the winning wine selections. A Gulpable White 2022 KING ESTATE WILLAMETTE VALLEY PINOT GRIS ($14) A Super Spanish Red 2019 CONDADO DE HAZA RIBERA DEL DUERO CRIANZA ($15) More Than a Century of Zinfandel Expertise 2021 SEGHESIO SONOMA COUNTY ZINFANDEL ($18) A Peppery Languedoc Red 2019 GÉRARD BERTRAND HÉRÉSIE CORBIÈRES ($20) A Legit Champagne NV KIRKLAND SIGNATURE BRUT CHAMPAGNE ($20)…

THE ISLAND OF SANTORINI has had vines for nearly as long as it has had sunsets, and the best of the wines it produces are equally spectacular: stony whites that bathe the taste buds in a bright mineral glow. When evening falls, crowds gaze out across the caldera as the sea ahead of them and the white buildings behind turn a luminous orange, unaware that the volcanic eruption in about 1600 B.C. that left only this west-facing crescent jutting above the waves also layered the island with volcanic debris that today gives rise to unique and wonderful wines. Santorini is the most famous vine-growing island in the Cyclades region, just southeast of the Greek mainland. Even Mykonos, which no longer makes much wine, had vineyards (and fig, olive, and…