It was a long winter in NYC. On a surprisingly sunny Sunday afternoon in early March, however, a few days after a nor’easter hit, Brooklyn’s Vanderbilt Avenue was teeming with life. Traffic filled the two-lane thoroughfare, and residents seemed eager to make the most out of the first spring-like day of the year.
It’s sloppy at some places,” Pittsburgh sommelier John Wabeck says of the wine scene in his adopted hometown. “In the summer, you can still get warm red wine. I’d love to stamp that out.” Known as the Steel City, Pittsburgh is more often associated with Boilermakers — a shot of whiskey and a pint of beer […]
Hoof Hearted Brewing Company, in Marengo, Ohio, got its name from a fart joke. ”Like many of the world’s most successful businesses,” Trevor Williams, the head brewer and an owner, says with a laugh. (Hint: say the name out loud.) The company’s brand identity is appealingly irreverent, sometimes crass, and ultimately hilarious. Nostalgic beer names and labels […]
Among a pantheon of seemingly overnight, 21st-century sensations (Cardi B, Instant Pot) lies Meiomi, a 12-year-old California label with $315 million in the bank. Boosted by chart-topping national appetites for Pinot Noir, Meiomi is now a wildly popular label with its fair share of detractors. Love it or hate it, you should know about it. Here […]
Colorado native Jordan Gardenhire moved to Los Cabos, Mexico in 2004 and opened Baja Brewing Company, the first craft brewery in Baja California Sur, with his father, Charlie, in 2007. Baja Brewing Company has since grown into a sizable operation that just so happens to be located on a particularly beautiful Pacific coast. The company makes […]
The sun beams through the windows of The Saratoga, a year-old cocktail bar and restaurant in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Hosts, cooks, and bartenders buzz about, readying the ship for a busy Friday night. The back bar, which seems to stretch toward the heavens, sparkles in the afternoon light. Brandon Clements, co-owner of The Saratoga […]
Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room, which snagged the 2017 Spirited Award for Best American Cocktail Bar, is actually three bars under one roof: a casual Punch Garden, the Spirits Library, and the crown jewel of the operation, the Tasting Room. All are co-captained by head bartender Suzy Critchlow and beverage director JP Fetherston. Critchlow runs the […]
Pittsburgh bartender Nicole Battle didn’t set out to work in restaurants. But “somewhere along the way, it became clear to me that doing this was making me happy,” she told The Incline last spring. Now president of the United States Bartenders’ Guild Pittsburgh chapter, Battle mentors up-and-coming service pros and manages Pittsburgh’s stellar DiAnoia’s Eatery, […]
Jared Williamson is no slouch. The Indiana native got turned on to brewing while working at New Albanian Brewing Company in New Albany, Indiana in 2005. “One day they finally taught me how to use the keg washer, and the rest is history,” he told STL Beer Bulletin. At NABC, he learned everything from brewing […]
