German brand G Spirits certainly seems to hope silicone makes their liquor delicious. These folks aren't adding silicone to their liquors - they're pouring the booze they make over the (we can only assume) enhanced mammaries of an "international Playboy model." No, we are not making this up.
German liquor company G-Spirits has created limited-edition bottles of whiskey, vodka and rum that all go through one very special step before bottling: Each drop of liquor is poured down the bare breasts of a naked model before it's packaged for your imbibing pleasure.
Does it actually change anything about the character or taste? Depends what the model was up to before she came to the distillery we suppose, but if you're interested you can try it out for $150 to $180 per bottle. Is it weird that the only reason we want to get a bottle of this stuff is to put it in a room with a bottle of Ron de Jeremy and film some footage?
Welcome to the fourth entry in a series of Liquor Snob posts in partnership with PAMA pomegranate liqueur. If you like this one, check out our first, second and third posts.
The holidays are approaching fast, and if you plan to entertain or attend some parties, it's crucial to have a few tricks up your sleeve for food and cocktails. PAMA, with its ruby red color and cocktail-modifying versatility, is a good tool to have in your kit for making holiday-themed drinks. One quick, easy and delicious option is the PAMA Poinsettia, pictured above:
PAMA Pomegranate Poinsettia (Recipe and Image via BarNoneDrinks)
Ingredients
1 oz. Pama Pomegranate Liqueur
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Orange Juice
3 oz. Champagne
Instructions
Mix first three liquids in a tumbler with ice. Slowly add champagne stirring gently. Rim a flute glass with orange zest. Strain into the champagne flute.
To make your life even easier if you're planning to make more than a few, you can pre-mix the first three ingredients and store the mixture in the fridge or display it on ice for your party. Then it's just a quick three ounce pour topped with champagne when your guests start to clamor for more. The PAMA Poinsettia is a holiday classic with a new twist - so what other tricks does this versatile liqueur have up its sleeve for the holidays?
Continue reading:"PAMA Poinsettias and Preparing for the Holidays"
We were shopping for a party this weekend when we stumbled across some information for a new product that tickled our fancy for the holidays - Vermont Ice Apple Creme Liqueur from Boyden Valley Winery. We've enjoyed this Vermont-based winery's other products (big fan of their Glogg when we're too lazy to make our own), so we're excited to try out this new offering.
Until recently the Vermont Ice line was mostly ice wines and ciders, but it's being expanded with this new apple liqueur, and you can expect to see a maple liqueur coming out soon as well. The award-winning Vermont Ice Apple liqueur is a combination of ice cider, apple brandy and cream, which has potential to be out of this world on a cold winter night. It weighs in at 30 proof (15% ABV), and retails for about $30 for a 750ML bottle.
Learn more about Vermont Ice Apple Creme and pick up a bottle from the Boyden Valley website, and we hope to review it soon.
Welcome to the third in a series of Liquor Snob posts in partnership with PAMA pomegranate liqueur. If you like this one, check out our first and second posts.
It's one thing to be able to make a delicious cocktail - say achieving the perfect balance of sweet, sour and strong and creating flavors that dance on the tongue - but believe it or not flavor isn't the only thing that can make a good cocktail great. Texture is an unsung hero of for many home bar tenders, and playing with texture can be a fun way to achieve the next level for your drinks. What do we mean by texture? It can be anything from the "mouth feel" to other tactile experiences associated with a drink - learn more below.
What do we mean by "texture"? Basically it's anything that affects the physical feel of your interaction with the drink. Camper at Alcademics put together a nice list of textural descriptors to help you wrap your head around it, and also included some excellent tips for manipulating texture in your drinks:
Some Texture Descriptors for Cocktails and Spirits
Thick, syrupy, not dilute enough
Thin, weak, non-integrated, over-shaken
Silky
Light
Bubbly, fizzy
Tannic, astringent
Soft, pillowy, foamy, frothy
Slushy, viscous, chewy
Crunchy
Gloppy, chunky
As pointed out in the above post there are all kinds of ways to fiddle with the texture of a cocktail, including:
Modifying Sweeteners & Other Ingredients: Adding or removing sugar, or changing what you use to sweeten a cocktail (e.g., honey, agave nectar, etc.) can also change the mouth feel.
Modifying Ice & Temperature: Shaking a drink will break up the ice and cause it to form a layer on top of the finished cocktail; stirring does not do this. Chilling a drink more will change the liquid's viscosity - be careful because too cold or too warm can both negatively change the experience of a drink.
Adding Specific Texture Modifiers: An old trick for foaming up a cocktail is to add egg whites before you shake. You can also play with thickeners, pectins and other specific modifiers to change the feel of a drink, or substitute sparkling wine or seltzer for a still ingredient.
Modifying Glassware: Rimming a glass with salt or sugar is a sure fire way to change the drinking experience.
PAMA's position is that their product is excellent for toying with certain aspects of texture for multiple reasons, one big one being the tannins from the pomegranate, which "have a drying effect on the tongue and cause the mouth to water in response creating the illusion of texture on the palate." Learn other ways PAMA can change a drink's texture at Pama Pros.
An excellent time to be thinking about texture is when you're pairing your cocktails with food. If you're about to tear into a 2,000 calorie meal of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pie, are you going to want a thick, heavy, syrupy cocktail, or do you want something frothy and light? We know how we'd answer - and we've put together a list of Thanksgiving-friendly cocktails using PAMA that will pair well with your turkey day and give you a few chances to play with texture.
Welcome to the second in a series of Liquor Snob posts in partnership with PAMA pomegranate liqueur. Read our first post.
Ever since we did our Pama review a few weeks ago, we've been thinking about this pomegranate liqueur and how it fits into our cocktail-mixing toolkit, both at home and behind the bar. The first thing that struck us about PAMA was that it was much more versatile than we originally gave it credit - we were able to use it tasty cocktails from a modified Kir Royale to a tasty Manhattan (pictured above) and we wanted to spend some more time investigating just how versatile it can be.
Welcome to the first in a series of Liquor Snob posts in partnership with PAMA pomegranate liqueur.
What is PAMA?
PAMA is a liqueur made with pomegranate juice, vodka, and a bit of tequila. It weighs in at 34 proof (17% ABV) and while you might expect it to be on the sweet side, it is actually quite tart, and adds a striking ruby red color to cocktails. It stays far away from the syrupy sweetness we've seen in other fruit liqueurs, and can actually be used in cocktails to reduce the overall sweetness of the drink.
The Look: As mentioned, PAMA is ruby red and really makes its presence known when added to a cocktail.
The Nose: Dark berry fruits are the first thing you'll smell, tart and fruity without being syrupy. There is an assertive (but not overwhelming) whiff of the vodka and tequila that form its base.
The Taste: More berries, with a surprising tartness that lingers on the tongue. It has a mouth feel similar to wine, and while it has a thickness to it, it's not syrupy. If you know what pomegranates taste like, you know pretty well what PAMA tastes like, and we mean that in a good way.
The Verdict: PAMA is available at our local liquor store for $19.99, and we feel this is a very fair price for a good product. In comparison to some of the other "pomegranate" liqueurs we've tried, PAMA is the clear winner, and we enjoyed playing with using it to modify our cocktails.
Our fellow bartenders started off a bit skeptical at first, but once they tasted it every single one of them had an idea for a cocktail, from just mixing it with soda for a good low-alcohol "session cocktail" to mixing it with beer (see our recipe ideas below, as well as some notes on using PAMA as a cocktail modifier).
Hey, you know when you have too much to drink and suddenly terrible ideas seem like awesome ones? We've heard some people say alcohol eats away at your judgment - though we've always attributed it to vile humours and foul daemons that need to be exorcised with more booze.
Turns out the folks at Sad and Useless have finally figured it out - when you get drunk enough you can actually hear the liquor talking to you. And it turns out that liquor is a jerk! See more pictures of scumbag booze.
For us, drinking is the fun part and the buzz is the awesome side effect, but apparently there are people out there who'd rather get the loopiness without crushing their way through a cocktail. For those people, we offer you Quantum Sensations, which is apparently the Binaca of booze. You breathe it in, you get a buzz, and apparently you're unbuzzed seconds later. Sounds like the opposite of a good time to us, but maybe it'd be good if we decide we need to freshen up our buzz while we're in the bathroom. [via Gizmodo]
Seriously, it's not available in the States yet and even when it is you may want to tread lightly according to Ubergizmo:
One ought to tread on such a device with caution, however, since there is no way to regulate the use of such a device, and even after recovering from a state of drunken stupor, there might be slight side effects which could affect the motor and cognitive skills of the person.
As we all know, Valentine's Day is coming soon, which puts us in the mind for romance. As most of us know, chocolate is a traditional gift for said holiday. Many folks also know that tequila is a great way to inspire more...amorous feelings in themselves and their romantic partners.
Luckily for you, Patron has compiled these two last concepts into one bottle, also known as Patron XO Cafe Dark Cocoa. Using Patron silver as its base, this liqueur brings together two amazing products of Mexico - tequila and chocolate. Available for under $25 per bottle it clocks in at a pretty reasonable price, and initial reports indicate it's a pretty amazing combination of its two flavors.
Our review will be out soon; pass the time by checking out the Dark Cocoa page at Patron Tequila.
We just got our review bottle of Southern Comfort's Fiery Pepper, a tabasco-infused twist on the whiskey liqueur. We can't wait to see what the addition of a little fire does for a spirit that's always been on the sweet side. Our review bottle came with a smoke detector and four light-up shot glasses too - we're looking forward to bringing the heat.
How much is it worth to you and your friends to be able to build a shot luge? We hope you said "I dunno, like a hundred bucks..." because that's how much the Build-A-Luge Blackout Edition will run you. Containing everything you need for said blackout, from ice trough to stand to pourers, for less than the cost of a single college textbook. There is no downside.
Also known as "Chili Four Loko." Pretty sure these guys came up with the only possible way to make Four Loko worse for you beyond chasing it with bleach - they drink it out of a bacon cup.
EDIT: Our bad - it's "crazy alcohol rainbow pig." We'll get it right next time.
If you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, you probably haven't heard of Four Loko. Known in these offices as canned blackout, the high-octane (caffeine and alcohol) beverage was pulled off store shelves in 2010. The brand is accused of targeting underage drinkers with soda-like flavors, and linked to a surge in date rapes because of such. In the wake of the furor, the company's fratty founders have kept their heads downs, but that didn't stop folks from teeing off on them and their brand:
"If you set out to engineer a booze delivery system that is as cloying, deceptive and divorced from the usual smells, tastes and presentation of alcohol as possible, you'd be hard pressed to come up with something more impressive than Four Loko," wrote former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni in the midst of the flap last fall. "It's a malt liquor in confectionary drag...Four Loko cans--I paid $3.50 apiece for mine--are something to see, each sporting a few ultrabright, childlike hues in a kind of rippling weave that evokes a camouflage pattern. Fatigues like these are what an army of Teletubbies would wear into battle."
Like you needed another excuse to drink on Thursdays, but here you go - the National Geographic show Ultimate Factories will be airing episodes about Jack Daniels and Coca Cola in March. The JD episode will air Thursday, March 10, and the Coke ep will air on the 17th.
Jack Daniels:
Ultimate Factories travels to Lynchburg, Tennessee, where tradition and technology intersect to make 150 million bottles of Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 each year. The factory holds enough whiskey to fill 3 million bottles at any given time, fermented with yeast that descends from the same used in the original batch 140 years ago.
Coca Cola
Coca-Cola reaches more countries than there are in the United Nations, and it takes a power factory to provide a beverage with a famously secret formula consumed in over 99 percent of the populated world. Machines in a bottling plant pump out almost 800 bottles per minute, utilizing specialized air-veyor belts to maximize efficiency.
Our recommendation is that you start drinking Jack & Cokes on the 10th and just keep going for the week. That way you'll be properly lubed up for St. Patrick's Day.*
Does Silicone Make Booze Taste Better?
Continue reading: 
We were shopping for a party this weekend when we stumbled across some information for a new product that tickled our fancy for the holidays - Vermont Ice Apple Creme Liqueur from 
For us, drinking is the fun part and the buzz is the awesome side effect, but apparently there are people out there who'd rather get the loopiness without crushing their way through a cocktail. For those people, we offer you Quantum Sensations, which is apparently the 
We just got our review bottle of Southern Comfort's Fiery Pepper, a tabasco-infused twist on the whiskey liqueur. We can't wait to see what the addition of a little fire does for a spirit that's always been on the sweet side. Our review bottle came with a smoke detector and four light-up shot glasses too - we're looking forward to bringing the heat.
How much is it worth to you and your friends to be able to build a shot luge? We hope you said "I dunno, like a hundred bucks..." because that's how much the 
If you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, you probably haven't heard of Four Loko. Known in these offices as 
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