BarSmarts Wired: Professional Bartender Training Online
We got an invite a while back to take a class called BarSmarts Wired, the online version of the BarSmarts Advanced seminars for professional bartenders. We've heard good things about the program, but after the summer we had, it had slipped our minds. It took a well-written (and positive) review from Colleen at About.com to jog our memories, and sign up for the online course.
Besides the knowledge, skills and theory that you get from BarSmarts Wired, you receive with your tuition a bag filled with professional bar tools. This bar set is a pretty nice one, not some cheap freebie, and includes a Boston shaker, jiggers, a bar spoon, strainers and a very nice zester. The set alone exceeds what you would pay $42 for and since that is the price of the course.
This is one of the few online bartender programs that is worth the time and effort. You will learn a lot and be able to bring that to your bar to improve customer service.
You've still got a few days to sign up at the BarSmarts Website, and don't forget to read Colleen's review to get some tips if you're planning to do it. And if you need some more convincing, check out Pernod Ricard's video demo about the program - just remember you have to sign up before the end of September if you're going to do it.
(Big ups to Colleen Graham and Samantha Harrigan for giving us info about the program)
In a piece of news we wouldn't cover in a million years if not for two awesome reasons, Scarlett Johansson is going to be fronting the bubbly. Not for nothing, Luxist, but we think our picture is better. OK, can't talk now, staring.
Moet & Chandon has a new face for its champagne, the first movie star to front for the brand. They introduced celebrity spokesperson, Scarlett Johansson at the "Tribute to Cinema" gala at London's Big Sky studio.
Ah, Massachusetts. Though it's a longtime home of liberal politics and conservative drinking laws, boozers in the Bay State recently won a victory due to a federal court overturning outdated laws about shipping wine to private homes. However, MA's Attorney General is fighting to overturn this boon, for reasons unknown (and unfathomable) to us. We're all for shopping local, but this is just the kind of throwback Puritanical bullshit that helped drive us away from Massachusetts in the first place, so we're not all that surprised.
Despite a decisive opinion and remedy order by widely respected U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley will spend taxpayer dollars to appeal the judge's decision, which promised an expansion of consumer choice in fine wine.
What can you do? If you live in Mass you can head over to Free the Grape and send a letter to good old Martha (who we picture clocking in at 200 years old). If you live anywhere else, order some wine online in solidarity for your dry-lipped brothers and sisters, who have to drive all the way to a real liquor store for their wine. If you're not sure what to get, head over to our sister site Cheap Fun Wines for ideas.
Image via Celebrate Boston (We cherish the city; that's why we moved away)
We're a little behind the 8 ball on this, but we got a tip that Sparks Energy Drink is on the chopping block. Apparently, a bunch of state district attorneys have a problem with the fact it's an alcoholic energy drink, packaged like Red Bull and other popular ones, and maybe aimed, just a little bit, at younger drinkers. We haven't had good experiences with alcoholic energy drinks (read our Tilt review) but hey...some grown up type people like 'em. Do they have to suffer?
Twelve buzz-kill state attorney generals who brought claims that Sparks -- the caffeinated alcoholic energy drink -- was being marketed to underage drinkers and have reached an agreement with booze giant SABMiller to reformulate the recipe so as not to include caffeine or taurine or any energy-drink ingredients.
As an of-age Sparks drinker whose enjoyed it on bike rides, at Christmas parties and before job interviews and hospital visits, this is terrible news.
Ever woken up after a nice evening bender, then checked your email to find replies to messages you sent out the night before in your drunken haze? You read through your fiery, or worse yet horny, missives filled with misspellings and purple prose, and wish you could take them all back? Google has put together a tool that will help you avoid that embarrassment by forcing you to solve a series of math problems before you message is sent, if you're emailing after hours.
That's OK, we guess, but what we really need is for someone to keep us from drunken shopping at Amazon - we really don't need to buy four new DVDs, three CDs and I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski at 3 AM (though the book is pretty damned awesome).
We just read a nice article about organic and sustainable cocktails, and we have to say - we're starting to be sold on them. Check out this piece on the Slow Food Nation Conference, and their new inclusion of organic liquors, for some good perspective on the future of organic, sustainable cocktails. If you're anxious to get drinkin', here are some of the organic spirits featured at the conference:
Spirits on offer included certified organic brands such as Square One Vodka and 4 Copas tequila, well-crafted spirits from artisan San Francisco producers such as eau de vie from St. George Spirits and gin from Distillery 209, and genever from Anchor Distilling.
Rick over at Martini Groove just covered a cool-looking new magazine called Mutineer, and we thought we'd share it with you. Looks like this rag's right up our alley, with good advice, humor, and a little bit of attitude.
Take a bit of Maxim, add some A.D.D., throw in some comic book stylings, then get drunk. Now you know how they came up with Mutineer Magazine.
This magazine is not for the Master Mixologist trying to create a drink by learning the techniques of Molecular Gastronomy. This one's for today's cocktail crowd that wants to learn a bit more, branch out a bit, and have a bit more fun.
Mutineer Magazine [via Martini Groove; make sure to head over there because he's got a "super secret" link to their first issue]
We're not ones to toot our own horns (well, maybe occasionally when the Victoria's Secret catalog comes in). However, we were just profiled for Gear Crave (aka The Men's Buying and Lifestyle Guide) and we thought we'd share it with you, our loyal reader. We think it came out pretty well, and not just because it's about us.
We just got word that Jessica Simpson, aka the reason Daisy Dukes were invented (sorry, Catherine Bach) has been tapped to market a Texas beer called Dallas Stampede. We're not marketers per se, but here are our ideas for the campaign:
Market their beer as the Chicken of the Desert
Make a life-size cutout of her for each liquor store, and remove a small piece of clothing for every case that is sold in that location (yeah, we know they did that in Major League)
Advertise that they drop a pair of her underpants into every fifth batch of Dallas Stampede beer, but don't tell anyone which batch is which
Yeah, we know - we're marketing geniuses. Let us know if you want us on your corporate team.
OK, so this doesn't have much to do with our mission statement or whatever, but it's pretty damned cool. Maybe we can get them to start doing some guest reviews or something.
For the last 55 million years, the pen-tailed shrew has survived on a diet consisting of beer.
How's that for an evolutionary bender?
The shrew lives in the forest of Malaysia and feeds on the flowers of the bertam palm. Produced year-round and constantly fermenting, its nectar is about 3.8 percent alcohol -- roughly equivalent to a Sam Adams light.
We're all for booze-related innovations here at Liquor Snob, and we can see some real potential for drinking wine out of a can with a pop top. We could finally live our dream of shotgunning wine, and it would be much easier to sneak it into movie theaters - we won't tell you where we had to hide our corkscrew when we watched The Dark Knight this weekend.
Yep, you read that right - American beer juggernaut Anheuser Busch is being bought out by a foreign company. We should've read the writing on the wall back when AB started mucking around making horrible-tasting hard liquor, but we really didn't think about it much. We have two questions - A) will they still be able to go with red state marketing campaigns if they're not owned by 'Mericans, and B) will they be able to create a Budweiser beer that doesn't taste vaguely of Clydesdale piss?
InBev is the world's second largest beer maker, with brands that include Stella Artois and Becks.
The deal must be approved by shareholders and European and U.S. antitrust regulators. The merger will produce the fourth-largest consumer product company worldwide.
Calling all NYC readers - if your taste runs toward the independent in your booze, we've got the event for you. It's the Independent Spirits Expo, featuring all sorts of liquors we've tried and loved here, including our perennial favorite Orange V vodka, Zuidam gin, Zyr Vodka, and Scorpion Mezcal.
It all goes down tonight at the Astor Center in the East Village between 5 and 8 (sorry for the late notice), and the price is only $25 for all sorts of great stuff. If you're interested, register through the link below and get 40% off (that means only fifteen bucks for you non-math types).
Head over to Thrillist for more details and to rock the discount.
The tasting will feature vodkas, rums, cachacas, whiskies, and specialty liquors, including:
Castries Peanut Cream Liquor
Mae De Ouro Cachaca from Brazil
Brinley family of exquisitely flavored rums from St. Kitts
Zuidam Gin from Holland
Zyr Vodka From Russia
Orange V - Florida Orange Flavored distilled in the USA
Tuthilltown Spirits, Whiskeys and Vodka from NY's Hudson Valley
Rhum Clement from Martinique
Scorpion Mezcal From Mexico
Luna Sueno Tequila
44North Vodka
Square One Organic Vodka
Martin Miller's Gin
St. Germain
Uluvka Vodka
Bluecoat Gin
LOFT Organic Liqueurs
Tru Organic Vodka
Remember a few years ago, when the only way you could get absinthe was to order it online for exorbitant prices, or convince a friend to mule a bottle or two back from Europe? Those days are over, friends, because we're suddenly about to see a glut of absinthe brands hit American shelves. We've already seen Lucid and Kubler, and according to our friends over at The Real Absinthe Blog, you can expect to see a whole lot more.
Bevlaw, a firm concentrating on the federal regulation of alcohol beverages. has been keeping track of the product and label permissions given to absinthes, and recorded 12 by May 2008. These include the early launches such as Lucid, Kübler and St. George, the more recent launches such as Grande Absente Originale, Le Tourment Vert, and La Fée Parisienne, and some that have yet to reach the market. These include Mythe Absinthe Traditional, Libertine, and Mata Hari Absinthe Bohemian.
Head on over to The Real Absinthe Blog to read more, which includes all sorts of interesting news and a bunch more brands. We've included an image from the upcoming brand that intrigues us most - we're not sure what absinthe creme liqueur tastes like, but we can pretty much guarantee it's not your grandma's Bailey's.
BarSmarts Wired: Professional Bartender Training Online
We got an invite a while back to take a class called BarSmarts Wired, the online version of the BarSmarts Advanced seminars for professional bartenders. We've heard good things about the program, but after the summer we had, it had slipped our minds. It took a well-written (and positive) review from Colleen at 
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