beverages

Tasting Notes: Flemish Sour Ale, Delirium Tremens, Centine Toscana

My literary muscles have been flexed thoroughly on the subject of food, but not so beverages. And yet I drink beverages every day. I am drinking beverages right now! (An overly sweet Chai tea and a glass of water, for the record.) Last week I decided to throw my hat into the wine/beer writing ring by taking notes upon sipping from various bottles. What follows are my tasting notes for the various beverages I tried. I hope you will find them as useful and insightful as my regular work here. I hope to make this a regular feature.

Discovering Amaro

Recently, the L.A. restaurant Sotto invited me in to experience their new cocktail menu. Having been to Sotto before I knew I couldn’t just go there for cocktails, the food is too good. So I made an actual reservation and while the restaurant comped two cocktails (I had the grapefruit-y Modest Mouse with Espolon reposado tequila, Averna, Punt e Mes, Angostura orange bitters, Pamplemousse rose, and grapefruit oil; Diana, my date for the night, had the lovely Swept Away with Martin Millers Westbourne strength gin, Saler’s gentiane, Nardini amaro, Benedictine, and house orange bitters) the alcoholic highlight, by far, was the Amaro they let us try at evening’s end.

Smoothie Update: Coconut Water & Mint

Hey, so I read all your comments on my smoothie post and you all have good smoothie ideas (though spinach in a smoothie still skeeves me out). The other day I had an idea of my own: instead of adding orange juice to my smoothie, I added a little box of coconut water. My goal was to make it taste like the coconut-infused smoothie from The Parker in Palm Springs and, sadly, the coconut water didn’t have that effect. (I’m thinking coconut sorbet might do the trick, or coconut milk.) Still: since coconut water is good for you, it was probably a smart choice. The best part was I added some fresh mint this time around and that really made things interesting. So give coconut water and fresh mint a try in your next smoothie… it’s refreshing!

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