The Cheese Board, what are you drinking?

I love amaro, but I'm no expert. Bought averna for a thanksgiving cocktail that nobody else really cared for. So I've been drinking it often.

bundaberg ginger beer w/whiskey

yum! was making old fashioneds a few days ago until i ran outta rye (saddest emoticon). have a nice-looking recipe for a cynar cocktail with grapefuit juice but crappy stores near me don't carry any aperols far as i've seen. probably better in summer but i want to try https://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/cynar-julep

oh that looks great, I love Cynar and have a bottle

Someone gave us a little bottle of cardamom bitters and they set off a Calvados old fashioned perfectly (my preferred calvados old fashioned uses less sugar than a regular bourbon one would, fyi).

I'd be on for an Amaro thread. Think I mentioned my love for Amaro Nonnino upthread somewhere.

drinking that Cynar julep right now, yummmmmm

I'm curious yet apprehensive about Cynar. Does it taste like artichokes?

not really, just thick bitter sweet depth, very very dark even for amaros (I am not an expert by any means, I learned most of what I know from call all destroyer's cocktail thread)

another good way to try it is the "Little Italy" - 2 oz rye, 3/4 oz sweet vermouth, 1/2 oz cynar, stir w/rocks and garnish w/orange or cherry, basically a manhattan w/cynar

That sounds good, I will try as soon as I replace the rye.

My go to with Cynar is the Tobacco Road, 1 of mezcal, a little less of cynar, peychauds bitters, stir like an old fashioned.

Some recipes call for a splash sherry, some for salt on a big ice cube.

xpost Cynar doesn't taste at all like artichokes. It's a little vegetable, but I like the balance of bitter with smokey caramel. I had a bartender make me a cynar cocktail recently "his choice" and it was soooo good, it was a take on a manhattan but there was some blood orange infused liqueur that they had made in it too. I mostly drink cynar at home with just some soda water.

I tried the sibilia yesterday. A shot, with one ice cube and in a bit of soda water. That bitterness was long lasting.

Love Cynar, just finished a bottle on the back of getting into Bitter Giuseppes.

We do have a classic Fernet thread obv: How do you take yr Fernet-Branca?

xp ooh that looks good too!

currently sipping a Bitter Giuseppe, tyvm

I was looking at the books on amaros/bitters online but everything seems recipe heavy which I am kind of not into. Amazon (booooo, I know) has a $5 off coupon on books right now so I was perusing a nice liquor book to get.

just made julep. cynar is legit af imho. will def. be trying tobacco road @ some point, but next up is prolly Guiseppe. another thx in general for the tip on this stuff in general!

ooof, superfluous general

I got turned onto cynar from a master somm who said it was his favorite amaro for anytime. So even though the label is cheesy, it's really solid.

stuff is a little pricier than i'd anticipated. since i'm a poor student rn this may be my only bottle for awhile. but school's out, finals just finished. and i'm enjoying the heck outta this

How much is it where you are? For some weird reason when I saw it in the grocery store in chile it was like $15USD (a lot cheaper than I expected). In the US it was in the $20-$25 range.

~$45. i hate bevmo but there's not another proper store in my immediate area afaik to look for this kind of ingredient

ouch! yeah it's $25-28 here in Oregon

Ugh that's bad. The amaro sibilia I got was $51 and I was waffling on whether I would rather get a sherry and ny amaro but decided to just go with it. When you travel at least you know what to make room in your luggage for.

Also when I was in astor wines I saw a 70 proof cynar and I just could not deal with figuring out if that was something I wanted or not.

It’s good!

has there ever been a quincie/Yerac irl crossover? sounds like a rollicking good time

I don't think so. Although DC/NY did have some crossover episodes.

oh! this is 70 proof @ least. so maybe it wasn't highway robbery after all. only other amaro option at that store was a nonino which of course i'd want to try @ some point.

it WAS good (i have no basis of comparison obvs). did not taste/seem like i was drinking a refreshment w/that much 'hol

Saint Germain negroni (subbed in for the gin) and a splash of cassis. Superb.

I got a manzanilla sherry (tio pepe) last week and we are making ahi poke tonight. I think that might work together.

I am drinking lambrusco full-time right now. Red wines without food are too much, usually--I don't have energy to cook or eat at night so I'm not pairing wine with dinner--but lambrusco is perfect.

https://images.vivino.com/thumbs/5ieZiblIQe2wBEPMsQy9FA_pl_375x500.png

Also has the added attraction of the cork being secured with a giant metal staple that you have to pry off.

This one is pricier--around $22 a bottle at the only place I know of that carries it:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1016/7695/products/SAETTI_LAMBRUSCO_2015.jpg?v=1503543284

i ordered this gin. it's blue!
https://www.tableandvine.com/labels/B1000004827.jpg
also on the way Amaro Dell'Etna
this all better not suck

I had some sfumato for the first time yesterday. This is one of the few amari that I so far think I like better straight rather than mixed with something. I get so much green, vegetal stalk when it's mixed. I should take a pic of my growing amari collection at some point. so pretty.

Tonight I am drinking a natural wine, a montepulciano from australia. I just got to the end of the bottle and was a bit startled about the amount of upright sediment leftover for a young wine.

"a montepulciano from australia" sort of sounds so inconcgruous to this know-nothing. was it to your liking? have never done the natural wine thing.

went out for natural wine (a bugbear is that this is pretty much necessary in vancouver, where little of what is available in bars and restaurants can be bought at a store) on friday night.

had a couple of bottles

milan nestarec - forks and knives white

czech wine made from müller-thurgau. surprisingly acidic, very refreshing and drinkable, and with some yeast flavours you may associate with natural wine but not too "barnyardy"

and

angiolino maule sassaia

made from garganega mainly (with trebbiano?) which was softly fruity and quite mineral

It's this producer called Delinquente wines from Riverland. I had been seeing their bottles all over the place (very noticeable labels.) It was completely fine for the price point. I had a lot of natural wines in the last month because I was back home in ny and trying to taste a bunch since things are hard to get where I am. Natural wine is a huge category, they are made in all sorts of styles. My spouse hates most of them because they sometimes referment in the bottle or get weird surprise offtastes because they aren't usually filtered or fined so they aren't as stable. I don't mind when wine get on the verge of kombucha.

xpost was I with you? I had that czech muller thurgau on sunday evening.

small world!

i also had an old vine riesling from central valley and got a georgian white that was more straightforward for the non-natural wine lovers I was with.

That's so funny that we both just had that bottle. I thought it was more esoteric and agreed to get it because my friend had been wanting to try it and I am up for anything.

i googled it at the bar and some website said they did 4000 bottles for the year or some such amount, so reasonably esoteric

That's a pretty small amount but we are in large cities I guess.

went out to astoria, mostly honestly so i could try out the beers. buoy had a pretty nice cucumber gose called "benedict cumberbatch". i really enjoyed fort george as well - they had the best poutine i've had in the state of oregon and an excellent hazy ipa called "skies of wonder". i got a growler of that one to go. i'm really liking the "hazy" ipa trend that's started - i was never really into ipas until the hazys came around. i'm also loaded for bear on bottles, more than will actually fit in my fridge.

I'm a big fan of both Buoy and Fort George brewing, they do great work in general. The pub is also nice as you note.

Yeah I love the hazy things. Such a welcome change from years of being bludgeoned with hoppy bitterness. Found a Bell's "Official" hazy @ local store the other day. Have never tried theirs and am looking forward to later today.
Xpost

I also enjoy the hazy ipa trend, but I've found they don't have the same flavor when canned/bottled. If you can go somewhere where they're on tap, I'd recommend it

The Alchemist, Tree House, Trillium & Other Half pretty much drove the haze craze strictly on can sales over the past few+ years, so that's a rather refreshing take mh.