Although bourbon was made the official liquor of the USA in 1964 by an act of Congress, a spirit that should have been in consideration would have been rye whiskey.
July 4th is here and America celebrates with fireworks and parties. Many of these parties celebrate with alcoholic drinks. What many Americans might not know is that the United States has had a national spirit since 1964.
I was in the grocery store the other day and I saw two packages that made me say I know what I am making for dinner in the next day or so. One bag had sea scallops and the other a mixture of different seafood, such as octopus, clams, mussels, small shrimp and squid.
I had some shrimp at home and some fresh Roma tomatoes that I knew I had to cook soon.
As a kid whose parents were both from the South, iced tea was in both homes. Sometimes it was sweetened and sometimes not.
Weirdly, I did not drink much iced tea, but my mother had hot tea in the morning, and as I got older, I would drink hot tea with my mother and stepfather.
The first time I tried a pomegranate, I was hooked. I was about 8 or 9 years old, living in Houston, Texas and my next door neighbor had a pomegranate tree (they can be a bush too, depending on how you prune them) and when it produced fruit, it was truly bountiful.
In today’s bourbon world, small craft makes up a good percentage of many different brands out there. Not really in sales, although they certainly are taking on more and more market share, but Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and more established distilleries are still dominant.
It is really hard to keep up with all the new distilleries and the products they put out.
When I lived in the Washington D.C. area, one of the best friends I have had in my life loved to go to Denny’s, a restaurant that is famous for being open 24 hours and serving huge breakfast meals that are reasonable.
KC was a fanatic about eating at Denny’s if we were coming back from a bar, nightclub, or a party at some friend’s house.
Growing up in Florida, Texas and then the Washington D.C./Baltimore metro area, I was always had seafood around to eat.
The problem was, during my years in Texas and Florida, I only ate fish. Even then, I was very particular on what fish I would eat. Flounder or red snapper was my go to.
When I first learned to bartend, the place I worked for specialized in Coladas and they were not frozen.
We made a mix and then poured the mix into a shader with ice, then added the spirit, shook for a minute and then poured into a goblet of about 10 to 12 ounces.
I had always heard of a Flip, a type of cocktail that goes back to Shakesperian times and the early Colonial times. I have some very old bartending books, but the recipe I worked with came from newer times.
