Looking for smooth handled bar spoon w/ muddler

I found this source on the internet - which will then take you to all sorts of sites that have what you are looking for - good luck!

EDIT:  I believe this is what you want.  It also has a thermometer!


Can white wine and red wine be kept in the same cellar

All wine that you want to age for a long time should be kept at the same temperature. The difference in temperatures come when you want to serve the wine. White should be served at a lower temperature than cellar temperature. Red wine, ideally, should be served at cellar temperature. What is the ideal cellar temperature? That is open to debate, but somewhere in the low 50s Fahrenheit (about 11-12 C). Humidity should be kept constant around 75% but there is no evidence you need to keep the humidity that high. You do not want to keep it at an excessively low humidity. You are trying to make sure the corks don't dry out which can cause wine leaking around the cork. You also want as little light and vibration as possible. Think of a cave as your ideal storage facility. You can read the Wikipedia article about Wine Storage


Does eating meat along with booze have any benefits?
Generally speaking: no.
Drinking a little whiskey may be beneficial for the stomach, but would be better somewhat prior to eating.
Even St. Paul ( for those of us who are believers) tells Timothy to drink a little wine because of stomach and frequent ailments.

Stop drinking only water and use a little wine instead, because of your stomach and your frequent ailments. - 1 Timothy 5:23

Drinking in moderation is best. When I am somewhat hungry, I find that one drink will ease my stomach’s wontedness for food if drank about one half hour to an hour before I eat. That includes meat.

Especially after fatty meals, alcohol is said to promote digestion. But it seems it's not the alcohol that has a positive effect on the stomach. On the contrary: alcohol actually impedes gastric emptying. It blocks the action of nerves that are important for the transport of food in the abdomen. So high-proof alcoholic drinks are not beneficial to digestion. Herbal liqueur before a meal can be enjoyable. But here again, it's not the alcohol but the bitter substances the drink contains that stimulate the mucous membranes of the stomach to release acid. That can actually facilitate the pre-digestion of foods. The bitter substances in non-alcoholic beverages such as espresso have a similar effect. The right time for this digestive aid is about half an hour before a meal. And after you eat, a postprandial walk is better than any drink. - Does alcohol after a meal really help digestion?


How should one store liquors in a home bar?

Some tips:

Protect your bottles from sunlight and extreme temperatures.
If your bottles have cork tops, make sure to keep the corks moist so that they don't disintegrate (just turning the bottles upside down every month or so for a few seconds does wonders).
As the level in each bottle drops, consider transferring the contents to a smaller bottle. This prevents volatiles from leaving the liquid and also excludes oxygen from the bottle (though whether you're mixing in extra oxygen during the transfer is perhaps a worry). If you know beforehand that you will take your time on a certain bottle, I'd rebottle it at the outset.
If you already own it for wine (or are otherwise serious about keeping half-empty bottles for a long time), you could also use something like an inert gas wine preserver (e.g. PrivatE PreservE or Winesave PRO) to add a layer of what is basically Argon over the liquid. I haven't tried this.

Vermouths and other alcohols ~20% ABV don't keep well for long once opened. Treat them like wine: drink them faster or open fewer of them. They will lose their aromas, then oxidize, and finally turn to vinegar.

Liqueurs with low water activity (read: lots of sugar) will probably stay safe to consume for quite a long time (years), but they are still prone to oxidization leading to off flavors. Re-bottle at the outset if you must, or consume faster, or discard and buy new.

Consider storing your bitters in the fridge.


What are some affordable brands of good Scotch?

So, I am answering assuming you want to stick with single malts rather than go blended. Also because people live in different parts of the world, prices may vary.

I would recommend Glenfiddich 12-y as a standard go to single malt and usually a bit cheaper than the rest.

Other good brands include Dalwhinnie and Dalmore(this one being my personal favorite) but these prices will range around the same as your Aberlour.

Lastly, I've once thought about getting cheaper single malts but I have never tasted a good cheap single malt. Were they decent? A few, most were not the greatest and I would not buy again. This has been my personal experience.

Hope that helps.


Does a frosted glass cause any significant dilution of the beer it holds?

I would say that the condensate amounts to no more than 1ml for a 500ml glass, which is a 0.2% dilution.

No to be too coarse, but I imagine most people dilute the beer more after taking a sip!

Comparatively, I think the excessively cold temperature will contribute more to destroying the flavor than a small amount of condensate from the glass.

So, if you enjoy the beer in a frozen glass, then keep at it.


Is there a difference between normal Duvel and Duvel "Love"

It doesn't even show on the belgian (dutch/french) pages of the site, My best guess is that it's just an alternate cover.

DUVEL - mastery in beer

It seems they used these different covers as a marketing trick designed to generate publicity and hype as it clearly did here


Why is Frankfurt famous for Apple Cider?

Due to differing geographic and climatic conditions, different areas of Germany specialize on different kinds of agriculture. The area to the south and west of Frankfurt is one of the major fruit producing regions in Germany (red in the map below, source):

In this area apple trees start to bloom much earlier in the year than elsewhere (source, visit link to see the progression of apple blooming over Germany):

Since people like to turn everything they produce into alcoholic beverages, fruit wines – of which (grape) wine is a just a variety – are common and popular in fruit growing regions. Most popular with everyone I know is home-made strawberry wine, but plum wine is a favourite, too, and any berry or fruit is used, with every family that owns a garden making one or two bottles of these fruit wines each autumn.

Apples are different because we grow so much more of them than strawberries or plums, and they are regularly pressed into apple juice in large quantities by the fruit grower cooperatives that sell it to the beverage industry. If you don't pasteurize the juice (for long term stability), it turns alcoholic after a couple of days, and after the apple harvest everyone gets large cannisters of freshly pressed juice from the cooperative presses, bakes onion tarts ("Dinnele"), and eats and drinks this seasonal speciality, with more or less alcohol, depending on taste.

"Most" (must) or "Süßmost" (sweet must) is freshly pressed juice; once it has turned alcoholic (and sour) it has different names in different areas, such as "Sauermost" (sour must) and Apfelwein (apple wine).

Within southern Germany and Austria, Frankfurt is not specifically famous for apple wine, the drink, because it is drunk elsewhere, too. What the region around Frankfurt is somewhat well-known for are the festivities surrounding the end of the apple harvest and the pressing of apple juice, which have been the background theme for a musical tv show, Zum Blauen Bock (The Blue Goat Buck), that ran from 1957 to 1987. The tv studio for that show was styled like a Hessian apple wine folk fair, and the moderator gave each of the folksy musicians and other guests one "Bembel", the stoneware jug traditionally used to serve the apple wine in that region, for them to take home.

At that time there were only two national tv channels in Germany, and many kids grew up spending cosy weekend family tv evenings watching that show. I would guess that this is what makes Apple Wine "famous" (for us), but only in the special Hessian pronunciation "Ebbelwoi".


What's the difference between Vodka and Moonshine?

Generally, when people refer to "moonshine" and they are referring to what can be purchased legally, they are really referring to "white whiskey" (a.k.a. un-aged whiskey), or whiskey that has not been aged in an oak barrel.

Most whiskey is fermented from either all-corn, or corn and an other grain (like rye), but there are some boutique type whiskeys that use other grains like quinoa, spelt, flax, etc.  Technically any grain can be used to make whiskey, but it doesn't become "whiskey" until it has been placed in an oak barrel.  There are only a few other "rules" like the proof at which it is distilled. Whiskey has to come out of the still at 95% ABV (190 Proof) and then cut with water to nothing lower than 40% ABV (i.e. 80 Proof or higher).

Vodka can be made from corn, but unlike whiskey, it can be made from really anything that can be fermented.  Some of the most common starts for Vodka are potatoes, wheat, rye, and a few other grains, but Vodka can be made from virtually anything else that can ferment like grapes (Ciroc vodka), tomatoes, cucumbers, donuts, you name it. I have seen almond vodka and even milk vodka (as in vodka fermented from almonds and from milk respectively).  Vodka has to come out of the still at >95% ABV, but as long as it is cut with water to at the minimum of 80 poof (40% ABV) or higher, it's vodka. No matter what it started with.

The same exact corn "vodka" can be called whiskey it is comes out at the 95% ABV and then is placed in oak barrels. Note that I wrote "placed" and not "aged" in oak.  Whiskey has no age requirement, so the "white whiskeys" you see that do not read "moonshine" have at least touched oak.  If you see that the label reads "moonshine whiskey", it has touched oak too, if it just reads "moonshine" and has not ever touched an oak barrel, then technically is it strong grain vodka, but "moonshine" sounds more renegade I suppose. Corn "vodka" that comes out of the still at 96%ABV or higher, but doesn't touch oak is still Vodka, but technically could also be called "Moonshine".

Whiskey can be called "bourbon" if it is made in the USA, from 51% corn. It has to come out of the still at no more than 160 proof/80%ABV and it goes into the barrel at 125 Proof (62.5%ABV), and it has to be in the oak for at least 4 years in bonded warehouses under the U.S. government record. Thanks to the Bottle-in-bond Act of 1897.


Indian Army supply of Alcoholic beverages?
Are the supplying companies special for armies?
Regardless of which national forces (army) one is in, the main reason for suppling some for of booze is to boost troop moral.
Generally supplies will be obtained by local sources as best possibly done. There are no supplying companies special for armies? Local conditions and local economies will influence the army’s decision on what type of boozes to buy for the troops.
The Romans had wine rations for their troops. That became rations of beer in northern countries.
Wine was give to the French troops in World War I.

It was Arnold Zweig, German anti-fascist writer and WW1 volunteer, who said that it was possible for a man to fight a war “without women, without ammunition, even without strongpoints, but not without tobacco and not at all without alcohol.”
Forces on both sides of the war appreciated this fact: for the maintenance of troop moral, alcohol had an important part to play.
And beyond the tenches, the social and cultural impact of the war would sound the beginning of the 20th Century, and with that, the cocktail boom that would help to define the inter-war years in Europe.
So, from the trenches of three of the major protagonists and two cocktail innovations that are enjoyed to this day, we have assembled the top five drinks associated with the Great War.
When France went to war in 1914, troops were only issued water, but the army quickly began issuing a daily wine ration as early as September 1914.
This consisted of Pinard (a word whose english equivalent would be “plonk”), which was a low-quality red wine. Generally, soliders were issued with ½ liter of Pinard per day, but this could fluctuate depending on the logistical situation.
Soldiers were sometimes issued beer, cider, or brandy in lieu of Pinard, but it remained the most common alcoholic drink consumed at the front.
On special occasions, other drinks like spiced wine or sparkling wine would be issued. Pinard was sometimes mixed with brandy; some reports mention it even being mixed with ether.
Better quality wine, Cognac, and other brandies were also widely available behind the lines, particularly in cafés and brothels catering to soldiers. - Top Five World War One Drinks

Supply and demand for alcohol for troops will vary according to region and economic situations involved, this includes the Indian Army.

Why is liquor drinking encouraged in the Indian Armed Forces?

As others have pointed out only tax is not charged and limited supply is given.

Rationed liquor ie in small doses is good for health.

Liquor helps in relaxation and also frees mind from stress of daily hard routine.

Liquor high reduces self-censorship so that many times it allows the person to loosen up his feelings clamped up inside. This is like a release valve of pent-up stress. Within limits such regular dispersal of stress is a good thing. Though out of limits it can lead to creating situations which will actually lead to more stress. Given the strict discipline and obedience required in army it might help unwinding from stressful situations.

Why alcohol helps with stress : As per Ayurveda wine and alcohol are classified extra sweet (not in taste but in after-effect on mind and body). They bring sweet taste to life. Many times people get addicted to this sweet effect of alcohol. For example in Ayurveda alcohol addicts are advised to slowly reduce and replace alcohol with sweet smell, sweet taste, sweet music, sweet warmth, sweet emotions of love, comfort, safety and caring etc. This helps reduce the withdrawal symptoms and slowly wean away the dependence on alcohol.

It’s not very surprising that people who lead a hard and stressful life away from comforts of family and civilian life need a bit of sweetness in their life as well. It comes in a bottle and can be had in limited quantities on demand.

Not all postings are on border or troubled areas. Also not all army men are involved in military field operations as some may be in administration or teaching or other duties. Still the traditions of British times may have continued irrespective of type of work.

The Indian Army will acquire their provisions of alcohol, like all other armies, locally if possible and at the best price possible.
War is hell, and soldiers need a little lift from the misery of their life style. It is more a question of maintaining good troop moral!
The Russians love their vodka, the French their wine and the Indian troops love their rum.


Are Oktoberfest beers available in Germany before the official start of the festival?

I'm not sure if you will find any Oktoberfest beer at the airport but they are available several weeks before "official" start in big groceries or beer shops.  Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Märzen, Paulaner Oktoberfest and Löwenbräu Oktoberfestbier were already available three weeks  ago even in nothern Germany.


Do restaurants ever oak their wine glasses?

Smoked drinks are all the rage right now. I bet something like this happened. Scroll down a bit. Smoked whisky drink


Elder flower champagne best to use natural yeast or add a wine yeast?

I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

Your description of your earlier wine makes me question you:
Have you used a hydrometer to calculate the alcohol percentage of your earlier wines?

If your wine tasted sweet after fermentation, it means your wine wasn't finished fermenting. If you bottle the wine and let it stay in room temperature with unfermented wine, then you may create bottle bombs.

Comparison between wild yeast and adding wine yeast:

Duration of Fermentation: Naturally occurring wild yeast will use longer time than wine yeast. Adding Wine yeast is a lot faster, and will substantially reduce the fermentation time.
Taste: The taste is subjective, where wine yeast may create a safer and cleaner taste, meanwhile wild yeast and other bacteria may produce 'unwanted flavors' or 'wanted flavors'. Everything depends on what you want. I don't know enough about the specific tastes to tell you here.
Alcohol percentage: I recommend using a hydrometer before and after fermentation to calculate the alcohol percentage of your wine. Adding wine yeast will eat up all the sugar in your wine very fast. 1-2 weeks, while wild yeast may use several months. Everything depends on how much yeast is present in the fermentation, temperature and how much sugar is in the unfermented wine.

Wild yeast takes time to grow into a culture which can eat up all the sugar, where wine yeast usually already has ~1 billion cells in the package.


Are there any beer styles that are best enjoyed hot?

First, to clear up the myth.   European beer is not served warm.  Some beers, such as real ale (or cask ale) are served at cellar temperature, which while certainly above the temperature of a beer fresh out a refrigerator, at 12-14 degrees celsius (53-57F) is still much colder than room temperature.

To answer your question:  Mulled beer is heated beer.  As with wine, mulled beer is usually warmed over a low stove or in a crockpot with spices, often including cinnamon, nutmeg, citrus zest, and a sweetener like brown sugar, but it doesn't need to include any additional ingredients, particularly if it already has strong spice or fruit characteristics.  So, any beer style that you heat is, in fact, mulled beer.

As to styles of beer that would be suitable for mulling, Belgian Strong Dark ales would be good candidates, as would nice fruity lambics.   Barleywine ales, milk stouts, chocolate stouts, and oatmeal stouts I would imagine might also be nice.  The characteristics I'd look for would be a heavy body, more malty than hoppy, a bit of sweetness, and if present, dark fruit (plumbs, figs, raisins) or berries.


How can I determine whether infused spirits contain sugar (before buying)?

There is no way to determine if a particular flavored vodka has added sugar or glycerin!

Unless one can find a particular website of a certain vodka, which states that there is no added sugar or glycerin the chances are that you will have to taste the product yourself in order to know.

The following information is from Drink Skool:

  If you’re confused, don’t be angry. Clearly the U.S. government is struggling with the issue as much as you are. Today’s science is capable of measuring imperfections in a spirit. So rather than insisting that 190 proof is an adequate minimum to guarantee quality in vodka, other metrics might have been considered in the TTB’s rule-making. For instance, some successful brands add sugar or glycerin to their vodkas to “smooth” them out. Never mind that these spirits throw any standard cocktail recipe completely out of balance. The larger question is: why do they need to add these softeners? What are they covering up? If they focused upon good raw ingredients and clean distillation they could achieve the same result. But perhaps that’s asking too much; it always comes back to economics.

  Other countries are demanding that producers note upon the label any additions such as sugar or glycerin; the TTB hasn’t wised up yet. It will probably be a while before those additives are visible on the vodka labels, but until then, taste the stuff yourself. If it tastes sweet, it probably is, and you may want to alter any cocktail recipes that you’re working from.

Absolut Raspberri is just one example of a flavoured vodka that does not contain added sugar!

  Absolut Raspberri is made exclusively from natural ingredients, and unlike some other flavored vodkas, it doesn’t contain any added sugar. It’s rich and intense with the fresh and fruity character of ripened raspberries.


Why do Double IPAs (aka Imperial IPAs, IIPAs) tend to be sweeter than regular IPAs?

I would say some are sweeter, some aren't. Brewers do kick up the mount of malt in IIPA's to get the ABV up there. This could lead to a sweeter taste depending on the malt bill and fermentation.


Local beers to try at airports (major airports only)

This is a community wiki. Please be respectful while editing others' contributions.
Let's keep the list alphabetical by IATA code.
ATL — Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Int'l Airport

Concourse B. SweetWater Draft House & Grill.

BOS - Logan Int'l Airport

Terminal A / Gate A22. Harpoon Tap Room. (Highly rated!)

CLE - Cleveland Hopkins Airport

Main Terminal Great Lakes Brewery
https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/home
Full selection of beers on tap.
The Edmund Fitzgerald Porter is delicious and year-round, but the Spring 2014 seasonal is most likely the Chill Wave Double IPA, which is one of their best.
Sometimes, they have brewery-exclusive kegs, which are always very good!

JFK - John F. Kennedy Int'l Airport

Terminal 2 / Gate 67. (That's most popularly the Domestic US Delta terminal.) BRKLYN Beer Garden. As of 2014, they've got 6 Brooklyn / Bronx beers on draught, and a few from Long Island and upstate.

Source: acheong87

LHR - London Heathrow

Terminal 5 / near gate A7. The Crown Rivers always has some real ale on tap, from a hand pump.

MSP - Minneapolis / St. Paul Int'l Airport

Terminal 1 / Concourse G near gate 17. Taste of Mill City Tavern serving Surly Bender, Summit IPA, Fulton Sweet Child of Vine and Shell's Pilsner on tap.

ORD - Chicago O'Hare Int'l Airport

Terminal 3 / Gate L8. Goose Island Beer Company.

SAN - San Diego Int'l Airport

Terminal 2 / Gate 23. (Terminal 2 is the more popular of SAN's two terminals, by far.) Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens features 12 taps—10 Stone brews, 2 rotations from other craft brewing companies—and many bottled selections.

Source: http://blog.stonebrew.com/index.php/stoneairport/

TPA - Tampa Int'l Airport

Airside C Terminal. Cigar City Brewing. Advertised on website as "nation's only airport brewery" with airport exclusive beers and Tampa-style cuban food.

Source: http://cigarcitybrewing.com/cigar-city-brewing-airport-location/?age-verified=90aad2c053


How prominent were drinking (alcohol) establishments in the Middle Ages?

The question is very broad - A lot of the answer would depend on a more specific geographical location and/or a narrower time-window.

For example in France, Taverns and inns (not restaurants) were the only places for common people to eat-out all of the way up until the late 18th century, according to the wiki. This would seem to make them THE hot-spot in that region throughout that time...

It's certainly popular in medieval arts to make an omage to taverns and inns in creative works:

1.) Paintings

2.) Many poems of the time: The Archpoet wishes to die in a tavern in his "Confession". See also: Trafferth mewn Tafarn & Dafydd ap Gwilym

3.) There are likely more drinking songs from the Middle Ages than one could ever hope to discover and research in a lifetime...

Given the popularity of alcohol in general, all of this would suggest that drinking establishments have been happening places before, during, and after the Middle Ages... Prob in Europe, and everywhere else... ;P


Changes of gasification of beer in a long draw series

While I can't point you to a calculator on beer gas mixture I can point you to this Fact sheet from the Brewers Association.

The key to balance a tap system is figuring out the opposing pressures. The keg to tap resistance must be matched by the gas tank push pressure. The gas pressure puts in a little CO2, the liquid line squeezes a little out. However, in long draw setups where the draft line has a lot of resistance the push pressure would have be so high that a lot more CO2 would be dissolved into the beer.  The amount of CO2 squeezed out would cause very foamy beer. How to solve this?  Mix in some Nitrogen.

Basically, the Nitrogen will never blend into the beer.  It is used as an inert gas to maintain the pressure in long draw lines.  Any change in carbonation would come from the mix ratio.  If the mix is too low in CO2, as the keg empties the beer will go flat since not enough CO2 is being forced in.  If the mix is too high in CO2 then the beer would gain carbonation from the beer gas.

Your ratio of 30% CO2 / 70% N is more suited to a Nitro tap setup.  Traditional nitro beers have an original carbonation level of around 1-1.5 volumes of CO2.  The amount of CO2 needed to maintain this carbonation level is minimal PLUS the faucets that pour these beers have an extra plate that restricts the flow even more, forcing almost all gas out of the beer.  Without that specialized faucet, the beer coming out would just be flat with maybe a few sad bubbles of CO2 but no thick head of foam that you'd expect.


Things people put in bottles of liquor or liqueur and are sold commercially?

Habushu is a common Japanese liqueur, where they put snakes inside the bottles. There are two methods of inserting the snake into the alcohol. The maker may choose to simply submerge the snake in the alcohol and seal the bottle, thus drowning the snake. Alternatively, the snake may be put on ice until it passes out, at which point it is gutted, bled and sewn up. When the viper is thawed and awakens, it will quickly die in an aggressive striking manner, which is what most producers look for. The manufacturer will then put the habu in an ethanol bath for a month to preserve it.

Pit vipers immersed in a bottle of habushu.


What characteristics are used to distinguish styles of beer from each other?

The BJCP Style Guidelines specify a wide variety of variables.  These include:

Aroma (malt, hops, yeast, diacetyl, etc)
Appearance (color, clarity, head, etc)
Flavor (sweetness, bitterness, dryness, alcohol, carbonation acidity, diacetyl, fruitiness, etc)
Mouthfeel (body, carbonation, smoothness, astringency, etc.)
Ingredients (yeast, mash bill, hops, added ingredients, etc.)

These guidelines are from the Beer Judge Certification Program, so they are by necessity based on idealized judging, rather than the intent to taxonomize all of known beer.

The first four are subjective, coming from the standpoint of categorizing based on the drinking experience.  The last, Ingredients, is objective and is used for quite a bit of general categorization (ale vs lager yeasts, for example).

You could also argue that the source of many of the subjective factors is variation in the brewing process, such as fermentation temperature, addition or subtraction of various steps, etc.  However if you come at it from the angle of "how do I categorize an unknown beer?", then the first four subjective items are key.  Some of the question is whether you focus on what it is or on how it got that way.


What's the difference between a Triple IPA and a Double IPA?

A bit obvious, but it's just about more malt and hops (which results in higher ABV and IBU levels, off course).

Particularly, I don't see it becoming a new style, as our palate has a limit when it comes to tasting bitterness and even smelling hop oils. I think we have already reached this limit sometime ago when Imperial IPAs were conceived. So, anything beyond that seems like a silly obsession to me, and probably the best that one can get from a "triple IPA" is to come up with a good Imperial/Double IPA with (maybe) more alcohol, nothing more.

PS: Dogfish's 120 Minute IPA would be a quadruple IPA, then?


Aging wort in wine barrels before fermenting

While I have no experience with this, I am pretty confident that it is not practical to age wort prior to fermentation in any container that is not fully sterile (not just sanitized). I imagine it would be safe to age wort if you pressure can it.

When we make wort, we are creating the perfect conditions for growing yeast (and lots of other microbes). Something will grow in the wort and start fermentation in your barrel.

Bottle bombs are bad - can you imagine a barrel bomb?

I would also question what chemistry you are trying to achieve by aging wort. Compared to the chemical profile following fermentation, wort is relatively simple - it is the yeast during fermentation that makes beer really interesting. If you are looking to add the character of the wood in the barrels (or the prior occupant of the barrel), then this is safer to do following fermentation.

There are lots of examples of using wood/barrels, both new and used, in making some specialty beers. However, I believe that these all use the wood post-fermentation.

Lots of beer styles benefit from some aging. If you age it in something neutral (e.g., glass, plastic, stainless steel), then you are just letting the beer chemistry, with living yeast still present, do its thing. When you age in wood, you are aging as well as imparting additional chemicals from the wood.

Does aging in wood improve the taste of the beer? Some people seem to like it (or we would not see commercial examples), but this is a completely subjective question and really depends on what you are trying to achieve.


There is a drink called the Hangman's Blood that uses either porter or stout, which aren't too far off of a mild (well, the porter at least).  It also contains other things like rum and brandy so it might not be what you're thinking of, but it does have a history that goes back to around 1930 or so.


Can a beer like Tuborg or Budweiser be made at home?

It's possible to make almost any beer at home; this hobby is known as Home Brewing and even has a Stack Exchange Community around the topic.

Most beer falls into two major categories: ales and lagers. Ales are easier to make at home because the beer can ferment at temperatures that do not require special equipment.

Budweiser is a lager; lager beers require additional equipment to keep the beers fermenting at very specific low temperatures. So while it is certainly possible to make beers like Budweiser at home, few choose to do so because of the added expense and level of difficulty of doing so.


Safety

There is absolutely no need to worry about liquor, including tequila, ever freezing or exploding like a beer or wine would. To freeze liquor, temperatures of -100 to -170 degrees F are required. Your basic house hold freezer is set at about 0 degrees F, and an industrial deep freeze only gets to about -50 F;
It also does not matter what type of Tequila it is, as all tequila will be 40% alcohol by volume.

As far as personal safety, Tequila straight out of the freezer is not cold enough to worry about being harmful to drink as some have suggested; IMHO it is much better than other liquors that are traditionally kept frozen such as Sake.

Taste

Like Sake, Tequila does have a different flavor if kept at room temp vs in the freezer.
When the tequila is chilled, you may find that your mouth isn't bombarded with the chemical compound, ethanol (alcohol),  that can eviscerate your tongue and completely overpower one's olfactory receptors. Without these hindrances, one may taste a sweet nectar flavor not present in a room temperature drink.


What are the best paid wine database APIs? (most extensive and comprehensive)

Software Engineer here (with experience in the liquor industry)... So, this is a bit of a tricky question to answer and entirely depends on what kind of data you're looking to extract. There's a lot of different data that could be extracted from different resources.

Item name
Barcode
Price
Size
Description
Tasting notes
Region (it was created)
Alcohol percentage
Wine scores
Awards
Grape variety
Winery
User reviews (from whatever API you are using)
Etc. etc.

It should also be noted that the values are entirely different, based on the vintage of the wine that is selected. Simply going by barcode won't help, as many wineries use the same barcode across multiple vintages.
There then comes the question -- what price are you trying to display? Do you want to show which locations nearby you can buy the product and their prices? Or are you trying to display the wholesaler pricing? From my experience, wholesalers will generally withhold this kind of information.
As far as wine-searcher.com, their data seems pretty good for the most part but according to their API developers page, it doesn't include everything I mentioned above. Going through wine-searcher also means 2 different APIs (Price Check API & Marketplace API), and you'd have to pay for each.
A lot of the other so-called "open source wine databases" online aren't kept up-to-date and don't contain much information. You could try contacting those in charge of CellarTracker, but I'm not sure if they have an API for use to the public.

Your question is pretty open-ended, but I think the data you are looking for (in relation to wine-searcher) would be found here. But once again, you're going to have to pay based on the amount of queries you are doing per day.


How to homebrew legally in South Africa?

As a South African homebrewer I can happily report that it is legal to brew in South Africa. We have no legal limitation on what/how much we may brew. The only rule is: Do not sell your brewed product!

There are a few homebrew shops around, Beerguevera, brewmart, black kilt, etc. Google should help you find a good one close by.

Ask your questions on homebrew.stackexchange.com

For a active SA Brewing forum: wortsandall.co.za

There is a home brew club in most provinces. On wortandall you can find one close to you.

Better get brewing fast! The Nationals are starting soon! :D

Happy Brewing!


Sort of.

These stouts my also be known as "Blonde" or "White" in additional "Golden". Supposedly the idea first came about in 2007, when it was joked that Stone should brew a Golden Stout, it being a sort of oxymoron. However, it appears that now it exists. Stone Brewmaster Mitch Steele decided to create it, a light colored beer which had the flavors of a stout,

  “To achieve the qualities of a stout, we relied on our prior experience brewing with coffee to pull flavors from the beans without affecting the hue of the beer,” explains Steele. “As the beer warms and opens up, the chocolate adds another level of complexity and helps build the traditional flavors typically associated with dark beers. It’s been really fun to see a prank with questionable viability become a reality.”

While this isn't the only example, it's one of the more notorious ones that serves well to explain the idea as well as how the flavoring is achieved.


If Angove's are suggesting it may not be good, then its value as an investment is going to be low or zero, so if I were in your shoes I'd probably open it and try it. What's the worst that could happen?

That said, Vintage Ports are typically supposed to last a long time. As it mentions on the label, "extended bottle maturation" where the port is bottled with unfiltered sediment usually means they should be cellared for 20 or 30 years or even 40 years. So I'd suggest it will be coming into its own soon. Give it another few years and then open it.


I have done this with homebrew beer, but never commercially-bottled beer. The issues should be the same, though:

You will significantly shorten the beer's lifespan due to the oxygenation, but if you fill the keg as full as you can so there's little to no airspace at the top and you're drinking it all that day, you'll be fine.
When you force-carbonate after sealing the keg, I'd recommend 10-15 psi of pressure.
I have no experience with ciders, so I'll defer to someone else on that, although I can't see why it would be any different.


How do popular Polish beers fit into the "periodic table of beers"?

Piwo Jasne is, translated, "light beer". It's the common market name for all 'light' beers, and they are mostly pilsners.

Piwo Ciemne - this is "dark beer", so something like ale. They are dark, as the name suggests, and usually quite sweet.

Piwo Mocne - this is simply the beer that is more condensed, so it has more alcohol. That can be light beers or dark beers (for example, very good dark strong beer "Warka Strong").

Those names are the most popular market classifications in Poland, but usually you'll find more details on label or producer's page. For example, many beers have information, that they are pilsner-type beers.


Will a collection of 100 beers collectively be worth more 20 years from now than their value today?

No for the cans; maybe for the contents.

While it's hard to predict the future, we can infer from the past.  As it stands, beer cans as old as 40 years are pretty much worthless (with a few exceptions).  This is because right around the mid 70s, beer can collection as an activity exploded.  Beer cans before that point became valuable, but beer cans from after that point were heavily collected (up through the present day), and are therefore pretty low value.

TLDR: There exist too many well-preserved beer cans from the current era for them to be worth anything in the next 20 years at least (and probably well through the next 40-60 years).

That's just the cans, though.  Exceptions might be very specific beers known to be age-able for decades.  Unfortunately, most beers just don't age that long.  Even a hearty barely wine usually peaks, at most, after a couple years.  The Stone Vertical Epic 020202 series was meant to be aged 10 years, which is unusually long for a beer.

If you could find a beer you reasonably believed would improve over the course of several decades, you might be able to get some money out of it if it were stored properly.


What can be substituted for whiskey with Haggis?

Personally, I have never had haggis, but pairing it with wine is not all that uncommon. Some even pair it with beer as can be seen here, but I would go with a sweet fruity red wine. Pairing wine with haggis is very common on the web.

Here is a sample of how people wine with haggis:

  A dram of whisky works better after the meal, as its sheer strength means it doesn’t go with the food, so which wine to open first? Red, of course, and something with enough richness to take on haggis, which is sheep’s (occasionally pig’s) “pluck” – the heart, liver and lights (lungs) – mixed with oatmeal, spices and seasoning.

  If you’re still with me (Susy Atkins) and up for it, a bold European red with a little savouriness and black pepper is by far the best.

  Spanish tempranillo, aged in oak casks, and tasting of ripe red berries, wood spice and vanilla, is my favourite match. - Why I'll be drinking red wine - not whisky - with my haggis

Here is another:

  Haggis is quite a funky-tasting meat - a bit like a savoury, spicy sausage - so I think red wine is a better match than white. I’ve found big jammy reds such as Australian shiraz work well (there is appropriately enough one called Bobbie Burns shiraz (available for about £15-£16 from independents including Alexander Hadleigh and Old Butcher's Wine Cellar.

  Northern Rhône syrah and grenache/syrah/mourvèdre (GSM) blends from the southern Rhône, the Languedoc and Australia are also good matches, especially if they have a year or two’s bottle age. - The best wines to pair with haggis

And finally:

  Wine pairing with haggis – grape growing and winemaking techniques

  Grapes grown in hotter climates often have riper fruit which add to flavour intensity and texture of the wine; but also the sugar levels in the grapes are generally much higher adding further mouthfeel, so a sign is to look for wines that have perhaps 13.5% or above alcohol by volume.

  Oak fermentation and/or oak ageing adds flavour and texture too, so clues are sometimes on the label; be aware ‘oaked’ is not generally a style that adds texture, look for the word ‘aged’ to ensure it has seen the inside of an oak cask. This week on our WSET Level 2 Wine Course we had an outstanding Puligny-Montrachet and also a equally impressive Chateauneuf-du-Pape, both would have successfully met the haggis-pairing challenge. Burns Night – wine pairing with haggis

All said and done: Enjoy!


Where can you buy US craft beer in Europe that will ship to other EU countries?

Since I don't know which EU country you're referring to, here are some of my picks that ship to Sweden.

shop.mikkeller.dk
boxbeers.dk
www.bieresgourmet.be
www.bier-deluxe.de
www.biere-revolution.com
www.beergium.com


Does wine have a low 'diminishing return' threshold?

I can answer this... once you get above about $20 a bottle is not proportional to the value you get out of it. The flavors/tastes simply don't give you the value above that range. A $100 or $1000 bottle of wine starts to get into veblen goods territory. Production costs simply stop contributing to the price on the self above this point. I've tasted several 100 point rated wines and thought where is the emperors new clothes!?!? OK, have tasted one wine that was $10000 a bottle and 230 years old from Madeira that absolutely blew my socks off but those are rare.

Veblen Goods from Wikipedia:

  A price increase may increase that high status and perception of exclusivity, thereby making the good even more preferable. At the other end of the spectrum, with luxury items priced equal to non-luxury items of lower quality, all else being equal more people would buy the luxury items, even though a few Veblen-seekers would not. Thus, even a Veblen good is subject to the dictum that demand moves conversely to price, although the response of demand to price is not consistent at all points on the demand curve.


I'm not sure about Kentucky, but it seems to be legal here in NY. I've never ordered beer online as the shipping prices are astronomical and I've got a pretty decent beer distributor down the block with a large selection.

With that said, the way it seems to work is that the delivery person (whether it be UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, etc) ID's you at the door when you sign for the package. I've got a big dog (Neapolitan Mastiff) though, so my package carriers usually just sign for me and run for the hills when they have the displeasure of delivering something to my house haha. So I'm not sure if they'd bother checking my ID if I ever bought beer online. I'm perfectly legal drinking age though, so it doesn't matter.

With that said, you'd probably be best off looking through your local laws and maybe start a petition to have it legalized. I don't think its in the best interests of this community to be discussing loopholes in the law (despite how much I hate the government). I say start a petition, maybe it'll become a proposition and be placed on the ballot come election day. The only other option would be to have it shipped to another address in a border state if you live near the border. No online beer distributor is going to violate the law or tamper with it to make a buck, there's too much liability; they could lose their license and be put out of business.


What type of beer did the pilgrims have?

Also bear in mind that beers back then were made out of lots of ingredients that we'd think of as odd.  Cock ale was obviously a thing, which was beer that was fermented (or boiled) with a rooster in it.  Lots of beers would also have been strained through spruce post-boil which would've given them some wood or pine quality.  Lots of other flowers were often involved.

Check out George Washington's small beer recipe here.  Though this is a poor transcription and a lot of folks agree that it should read "Bran, Hops to taste", it's still clear that the grain is sort of a "for taste, whatever you can spare" thing while the molasses is the star of the show.  A lot of early drinks were like that, involving some sort of concentrated or burnt sugar in addition to grains, which generally weren't barley at the time.

However, in the most ideal case where you had access to the best beer you could find...it would be some form of brown ale or lighter porter.  Maybe an amber ale if you could find one that wasn't very hoppy.  The stable kilning process that enabled people to make pale malt wasn't really invented until the mid-1600's and wasn't very popular until the 1700s, so brewers in the 1600s would've used a sort of generic-y brown malt that might taste slightly burnt and premium beers may have been able to include some lighter malt that was much harder to make and find.  And it'd probably still have some molasses in it.


Were the Sam Adams seasonal beers actually developed to accommodate seasonal availability of ingredients or are they just a marketing construct?

A few notes on brewing and the seasons.  It isn't a question of availability today but there are other factors that likely have seasonal impact.

Traditionally (say, 1000 years ago), yes, brewing recipes would vary with the seasons.  Some ingredients like henbane seed or barley keep extremely well.  Others do better  fresh (herbs and such).  It is likely that gruit components varied with the seasons.  This is not an issue today.  Aside from some components of other beers (pumpkin ale, beers with seasonal fruit), most beers today do not involve ingredients that are problematic to preserve over a year.

There is a second issue though.  That is that beers traditionally have another factor which is starch content.  The starch contributes significantly to calorie count of the beer, and usually darker, richer beers have higher carbohydrate count.  It makes sense to consume more calories in cold weather than warm weather, and it makes sense that darker, heavier beers would be favored in winter while lighter beers would be favored in summer (although as one would note the heavier beers came out of traditions of using them as bread substitutes for fasting monks and so would have year-round applicability in monasteries).

I don't think it has to do with availability.  I think instead it has to do with seasonal expectations and reserving richer, heavier, higher starch beers for the winter (we have higher metabolism in winter, see http://www.mate.tue.nl/mate/pdfs/4319.pdf, and generally less availability of fresh foods before modern refrigeration and rapid transport).  I don't know when this became common though.  In general, when I look back a thousand years ago, I don't see anything in primary sources to suggest heavier malts in the winter.  So trying to date this would seem speculative.  There is a fairly obvious practical pattern though.

EDIT:  As I think about this, I would note that aside from lagers, it is very hard to brew in the winter in a colder climate.  There may also be a component where heavier, stronger beers keep better and therefore keep into the winter better.


Why is Sam Adam's high ABV beer illegal to sell in several US states?

States often have different laws for beer and spirits, including different licensing requirements, different requirements for sales, and so forth.  Because of that, some states have limits on the percentage of alcohol that is allowed in beer.  In North Carolina, where I live, all spirits sales are state-controlled, and retail sales are only allowed in state-owned Alcohol Beverage Commission stores.  Beer, however, can be sold by traditional private retailers such as grocery stores and convenience stores.  Because of this, North Carolina also limits how much alcohol beer can contain; the maximum here is 15% ABV. (alcohol by volume.)  So, Samuel Adams Utopias is indeed illegal here, as are a number of Dogfish Head beers, and a few others.


Yes, they are related. The pilsner beer style got its name from the city of Pilsen, in what is now the Czech Republic, where the beer was first brewed in 1842.

Reference: Pilsner


Long-term Storage of Vishniak in Corny Keg (Stainless Steel)

I would say try it with a small batch!
My only concern would be, if there was a pressure build up (temperature changes) in the keg, you might end up with fizzy vodka/Cherry Vishniak, now that may be interesting (I just googled it as I was typing and it is actually a thing)
You learn something every day, I may try it tomorrow (force carb) in a spare keg.


What uses do hops have outside of brewing?

In answer to part of your question, there are probably no other reasons for large-scale cultivation of hops in the 8th century other than for brewing.  While hops were used in medicine, the major national herbals of Anglo-Saxon England don't mention them.  That we have strong references in early 8th century England (see "Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink" by Ann Hagen) to comparatively large-scale cultivation of hops strongly suggests they were used in brewing.

Hops are used in medicine as well, but the amounts used there are very small in comparison to those used for brewing, and the two major Anglo-Saxon national herbals, Bald's Leechbook and The Lacnunga don't mention them (I think the Old English Herbarium does, but it is a translation into Old English of a continental Latin work).  Keep in mind most of my work with these has been in translation (Pollington's) and translating plants from the descriptions often poses interesting issues.  I could probably find standarized editions in Old English if needed however.

One of the interesting connections here is that two of the most important early brewing herbs, hops and henbane, both had strong connections to female medical concerns (this is also interesting because historically brewing was women's work, hence the obsolete term "alewife" not referring to a fish--- the woman's place in keeping a tavern was privileged but brewing was sort of like cooking, something every woman was supposed to know).  Hops to heavy periods, and henbane was used to address pain in childbirth.  Both of these may contribute to Bald's warning that pregnant women may drink ale safely but not beer, for beer would cause a risk of miscarriage.

In general for hops to be grown to an extent noteworthy, one is almost certainly talking about brewing, whether grains or honey, and whether alone or with other herbs.


What steps in the brewing process affect alcohol levels?

Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar. The starch and saccharification enzymes are often derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat.

It can be influinced and is often influenced during the brewing process, by adding sugar (which gets transformed into alcohol) at certain phases during the brewing process. Several beers first get brewn on a barrel and then after a few weeks put onto a bottle after which sugar may be added. Adding the sugar causes a seconds fermentation which will result in a higher alcohol level.

Often deeper tastes as experienced with for instance a La Trappe, Rocherfort 10 or Westvleteren are the effect of the higher alcohol level. While alcohol certainly plays a role in the beer's taste, spices and herbs are also important for the beer's taste body.


Are you sure it wasn't the Brahma Malzbier? I've had regular Brahma before and it taste like any other watery pale lager from MillBudCoors.

The Malzbier is a beer that is dark and they add caramel and it's low alcohol and sweet.

http://www.brahma.com.br/cervejas/malzbier

  Manufacture: American pale lager type beer in which, after filtration, caramel and sugar syrup are added, giving the dark coloration and sweet taste.


Check out BeerTrade.  It's not specifically limited to swapping between countries, but there is no reason you couldn't organize something there. There are about 10,000 people watching that subreddit currently.


How much of a spirit's flavour comes from the original fermentation?

The type of still used is significant. Vodka is distilled using a fractioning column or reflux still as described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractionating_column

With a fractioning column, the answer is: none of the flavour comes from the original fermentation. There is no flavour (sort of....)

Here's what a commercial one looks like:

Or a home use version:

I'm not very au fait with exactly how a reflux column works, but the end result is a pure flavourless liquid. Roughly the vapours travel up through a long column which contain elements that prevent all but the purest alcohol vapours to pass through.

In the case of Whisky, Rum, Brandy, then yes they do get their flavours from the original fermentation. They are distilled using a pot still (by law in the case of Scotch and Irish whisk(e)ys). This is a much older type of still, less efficient than a column (lower ABV and less yield); key thing is it retains flavor:

Or a home use version:

The nature of a pot still is that it is less efficient than a column, but it allows much more flavor to emerge.

It is possible to make vodka on a pot still, but great care has to be made to ensure the input alcoholic liquid (the "wash") is as clean and neutral as possible, no off flavours from the yeast for example. No commercial distiller would attempt this but some home distillers make do with what they have.

Note that even whisky, which is distilled from dark brown malt "beer", will come out of the still as clear as vodka. It derives its final color from the barrel ageing process.

Re the rums, I think techniques vary but I think usually white rum is similar to dark rum but it is carbon filtered after the oak aging process is complete, which removes the colour and also presumably some flavour.


I suppose this is obvious, but how about the Banana Daiquiri.


Beer kegged in the USA is usually stored cold and consumed quickly. Therefore, sterile filtration is all that's needed. To make it stable in a wider variety of temperatures, especially shipping it over an ocean, they pasteurize it.

From Pasteurized Kegged Beer:

  Non-Pasteurized

  For the most part keg beer brewed and packaged in kegs in the U.S. is
  not pasteurized. During the packaging process non-pasteurized draft
  beers are sterile filtered and chilled to the point that any surviving
  bacteria, which could ferment the beer, become dormant. Kegs are kept
  cold ( < 50° F ) from the brewery to the point of dispense. Draft beer
  dispensed from a keg should be fresh by storing as short as possible,
  and serving cold at 38° F.

  Temperatures above 38° F may promote non pasteurized draft beers to
  turn sour or cloudy. Should the temperature rise above 50° F, the
  dormant bacteria which ferments and spoils beer will once again become
  active and, subsequent growth will rapidly begin to spoil flavor and
  cloud the beer.

  Pasteurized

  Most of the keg beer brewed and packaged outside the U.S. (Import
  beers), are heat pasteurized during packaging. This process kills off
  the bacteria that ferment and spoils the beer.

  Pasteurized draft beer kegs can be transported and stored at room
  temperature. The beer in these kegs can be flash cooled at the point
  of dispense. However, most imported kegs are stored and dispensed at
  the same temperature (38° F) as domestic, non-pasteurized kegs.


Are there any maple syrup based spirits or other alcholic products?

There are some companies which  claim to make a maple sugar spirit. But at the same time, I can not verify if they use 100% maple sugar or not.

The really reason for people not using maple to make an alcohol spirit is the cost factor. Maple syrup is not cheap.

  Why isn't there a liquor distilled from maple syrup?

  Too expensive.

  To make a liquor out of maple syrup, firstly you have to ferment the maple syrup (turning it into a wort), then distill said wort.

  A 10kg pack of Maris Otter (common variety of malted barley used in fermentation/distillation) will cost you approximately $15 AUD; genuinely maple syrup, would cost you about $5/500mL. I don’t need to put that through a volume converter to know that it will be exponentially more expensive to source 10kg of maple syrup for the same purpose.

Nevertheless some companies seem to be distilling maple sugar into a drinkable item.

  Tree Spirits Knotted Maple is probably the world's first store-sold maple syrup brandy. Bruce Olson and Steve Buchsbaum are the masterminds behind this spirited maple treat. The two of them originally opened up a winery, but as time progressed, they decided to experiment with apple cider and sap from maple trees.

  Tree Spirits Knotted Maple provides a unique drinking experience and you're paying for it. A 375-milliliter bottle of Knotted Maple costs $35.99. - Alcoholic Maple Drinks

Another company is marking a new Maple Vodka, but I am unable to verify for sure if the base ingredient is in fact maple sugar.

  The 80 proof Vodka is maple on the nose, clean and crisp, traditional in flavor, and finishes with a soft and delicate maple sweetness. This exclusive distillation, just shy of 1,600 bottles, will be available for sale from their tasting room and at events they attend throughout Vermont. - Caledonia Spirits to release new Vodka distilled from maple syrup on Saturday

Maple Sugar has been used for a number of years as an additive to make Maple Liqueurs, especially in Canada.

  Maple liqueur refers to various alcoholic products made from maple syrup, primarily in the Northeast United States and Canada. It is most commonly made by mixing Canadian rye whiskey and Canadian maple syrup. Maple liqueur is considered an important cultural beverage in certain Canadian festivals.

  In Canadian French, such a product is known as eau de vie d'érable.

  Maple liqueur is not commonly found in liquor stores as it is easy to make at home. The production process is simple and does not require any special equipment. Homemade maple liqueur is both easy to make and inexpensive. It can be enjoyed on its own, in coffee, or in various different cocktails. - Maple liqueur

Tree Spirits Knotted Maple Spirit

  Knotted Maple Spirit is made from a base of Maine Maple syrup.

It seems that if you really want the real McCoy, you will have to do it in Quebec and through French websites.

La Gélinotte, un alcool 100% érable, élaborée exclusivement à partir de la sève d'érable, pure et authentique.
Fine sève est une eau de vie à l'érable. La fine sève est obtenue par une distillation de sirop d’érable fermenté, et ensuite vieillie en fût de chêne pendant deux ans.
L'Acerum, une eau-de-vie québécoise faite à partir de réduit d'érable


I find your question difficult to answer, because you mix up two things: consistency and overall quality.
"There seems to have been a consistent trend across many distilleries towards a poorer product over the last 2 decades. A case in point is Laphroaig 10yo. In the late 90s I was a regular drinker of this; recent bottlings are absolutely unrecognisable."
Rhetorical Question: Does a (in your opinion) different tasting Laphroaig make a poorer product?
When we talk about mere quality, there were huge positive steps in the scotch whisky industry over the past 20 to 30 years.

The wash (beer that is destilled)

In the past, the washbacks, often made of wood, were cleaned by hand. This lead to a fluctuating cleaning result, and especially in warm weather periods (which even occur in scotland), it happend for the wash to be infected by vinegar bacteria, which made the resulting New Make taste sour. Today a lot of washbacks are made of steel and even the remaining wooden ones are washed by automated cleaning systems for a much better and more consistent result.

The pot stills

In the past the pot stills where directly heated with coals. When you have a high temperature concentrated on a small point, solid parts get burnt on pot still and lead to bitter notes in the New Make. Today a rotating rummager is widely used, which heats much more evenly and prevents this effect.

Cask management

In the past the cask management was lacking details, or history, of a certain cask. How often was it used? Which destillery did it came from? This lead to casks being used to often and it made it difficult for the blend master to get a consistent batch for a certain bottling, since he has a recipie, but the casks where not labelled sufficient enough. Today a cask gets a barcode which contains all the information what a cask went through which makes trading easier and get more precise results over time.
One problem the scotch whisky industry is facing, is the huge growth in demand for Single Malt whisky. The the past, about 10% to 20% of the whisky production of a distillery went into Single Malts, the rest into the blending idustry. Today it is about 50% to 100%. This changes the cask selection for blends, since some destilleries don't provide them with casks anymore, and also for Single Malts. Because of the high demand, a lot of popular distilleries went out of longer matured casks and had to change their portfolio to younger bottlings, or create No Age Statement bottlings.
This had, of course, a huge impact on consistency in terms of taste.
So, to answer your question(s):
"Which single malt Scotches have improved over the last 20 years?": pretty much all
"Are there any single malts where there is a consensus that they have remained reasonably consistent": probably none


Plastic will melt really quickly. Glass might even shatter if it's not the proper type. You need something made out of Pyrex (or similar type glass). I couldn't find Pyrex shot glasses, but they do make 100ml beakers that might serve your purpose!


Red Lager Recomendations and what flavours make a beer a "Red Lager"

The red color usually comes from certain kinds of caramel malt, which comes in a range of colors but is usually used to make a sweeter, fuller-bodied beer than everyday pale ales and lagers. In this way, they're very similar to amber ale/lagers, and the difference can be very subtle and is very subjective. If you like one, you'll 99% of the time enjoy the other. Most of what you mentioned- like Dos Equis and Yuengling- are marketed as ambers.
That said, I looked up Honest Lager, and Walkerville markets it as Märzen (sometimes but not always the same as Oktoberfest) It's less hoppy and more full-bodied than a Pils or other pale lager, and tends to be reddish or amber in color. If you look a the German/import section of your local beer store or supermarket, you should be able to find an example of something similar, just look for the words "Märzen," "Oktoberfest," "Festbier," etc. A Munich-style Dunkel would also probably be right up your alley.
Key words I would use: sweetish, medium-bodied, balanced, caramelly, toasty. But just think about different foods and aromas while you're drinking, and see what your impression is. Everybody's different.
If you do want to use the BJCP guide, just remember that they're designed for judging homebrew competitions, and professional brewers don't have much reason to pay attention to them. So if you pick up a beer and it doesn't match up with its BJCP style, it's not a catastrophe, and the beer is still perfectly good!


Baileys and other Irish Cream manufacturers state that their liqueurs do not need to be refrigerated. As long as they are stored between recommended temperatures of 41ºF/5ºC and 70ºF/21ºC and kept out of direct sunlight, they have a shelf-life of around 2 years.
The alcohol in the product acts as the preservative on its own - so no need to look for anything containing artificial preservatives (in the cases where you can actually  find an ingredients label.)
As far as an "unrefrigerated-single-serve-coffee-creamer" version goes - as with almost all types of alcohol, there are plenty of companies that produce miniature versions of Irish Cream, Baileys included:

Considering that the shelf-life is going to be around 2 years whether the bottle is open or not, the miniature versions are manufactured more for consumer convenience than for shelf-life stability.


Why do you call some wines by region and other wines by grapes varietal?

This is a historical thing. In Europe in the ye olden days, there was no separation between where someone grew the grapes and what the wine was called, ie Burgundy, Chianti, Bordeaux, Rioja. In most of these regions, these grapes were selected over generations of growers to work perfectly in those regions.

Later on, maybe about 100 years ago, people started naming their wines similar names to these well known regions. Champagne is the classic example and probably the first to assert it's region name (aka appellation) around the world. Calling something Champagne in California did not make it Champagne. Champagne only comes from the Champagne region of France not Napa Valley in California.

It was intrinsically known what would grow where in Europe and mostly people didn't fiddle with it. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grew well in Burgundy and that's pretty much all they grew. Then along came the New World. Mostly after WWII, growing regions all over the world started growing grapes and didn't have the history that many of these old European regions had and they wanted to tell people what was in the bottle so the rise of grape names came into being.

In Europe they created governing bodies to protect their appellations and making laws about how and what people could grow grapes. Protecting place names became a big deal. Now it's spread to many other things like tea, cheese, tomatoes (San Marzano), etc.

In the new world, they have the freedom to pretty much grow whatever they want, how they want and wherever they can so an emphasis on cute names and grape names is emphasis and places where grapes are grown are de-emphasized (OK, there are excepts like Napa Valley and Barossa Valley) As new world areas really figure out what is best grown in their regions you will see more emphasis on regional names and less on grapes.


Which production methods make one whisky more palatable than another?

This question may end up being closed as too broad, as a full answer to this would include many lifetimes of experience by master distillers, and would have to incorporate opinions (some people find peaty, smoky whiskies absolutely foul and undrinkable while others would not ever want to drink a mild lowland whisky)

That said, I'll summarise my most critical ones, and the thoughts that guided me when distilling my own whisky:

Aging: the cask imparts the vast majority of the flavour, from the type of wood, the previous contents, how charred the cask is, length of time in the cask etc. The more desirable whiskies carefully choose casks and aging to deliver tastes that customers will like. This typically costs money (especially for storage costs) so a cheap whisky may not put so much effort into cask selection, quality control, age etc.
The Middle Cut: The foreshots start off with mostly methanol so would not taste good, and are mostly poisonous, but a small amount of methanol is useful in the process (and evaporates first after casting as part of the Angel's Share anyway) so the decision when to extract the middle cut is essential. Similarly, the feints, which contain propanol and heavier fusel oils are not wanted so are fed back into the spirit still. But there will be a small amount in the final product. Knowing how much of the foreshots and feints to include is part of the master distiller's craft.
Speed of heating / shape of still: Tall stills give a very smooth clear taste, especially when slowly heated. Short, squat stills combined with rapid heating allow many more fusel oils and other substances into the distillate, which will make the flavour more interesting, but can lead to a lack of smoothness.

Some cheaper spirits get around some of these issues by multiple distillations to remove some of the more complex substances - this can lead to an easier flavour for drinking, but also to something far more boring (from the perspective of a whisky afficionado) and bland.


At what point/percentage can beer properly "age"?

Aging, from my experience, involves the heavy proteins settling to the bottom of the bottle. Filtered beer typically doesn't need to be aged because all of that is already removed. You can consider this "pre aged" like a shirt may be "pre shrunk". Best not to buy with the assumption that it will get any smaller (or improve with time).

Much of the time, aging allows the beer to mellow out a bit. I find darker beers benefit from this the  most, but it really depends on the type of beer. Lagers, stouts, porters, have to age longer than pilsners and ales, as a general rule. But whether the brewer has begun or simulated this process is unknown. I guess it's best to follow the instructions on the bottle, or look up the bottler and see if they have recommendations.


Why is alcohol so expensive in Australia?

It is mostly due to taxation. But not all of it is.

  The World Health Organisation’s latest Global Alcohol Report put Australia in the second-highest band of alcohol consumption: total per capita consumption is between 10 and 12.4 litres of pure alcohol a year.

  According to the Australian Hotels Association, around 20 per cent of the cost of beer at the pub is made up of tax.

  INCOHERENT SYSTEM

  Regardless of whether you think we pay too much or too little, Australia’s current alcohol taxation system is, put simply, a complete mess.

  It’s a hodge podge cobbled together over 30 years of deals, dodges and industry favours.

  Case in point: commercially produced beer today is taxed at no fewer than eight different rates, depending on a range of factors including alcohol volume and the type of packaging.

  Meanwhile, wine is taxed not on alcohol content but sales value, meaning the cheaper the wine, the less it is taxed.

  At the moment, there are broadly three different federal taxes that apply to alcohol:

  • Excise, indexed twice annually in line with the Consumer Price Index

  • The Wine Equalisation Tax (WET), which is based on sales value

  • Customs duties — a combination of alcohol content and sales value

  There is also the flat 10 per cent GST on all retail alcohol sales.

  The automatic indexation was introduced by the Hawke Government 30 years ago as a way of avoiding negative headlines every budget.

  At current taxation levels, drinkers pay 45c for every 1 standard drink in a full-strength beer. For spirits, which are taxed the highest, it’s an extra $1 per standard drink — a mark it hit for the first time this August. - Why do we pay so much for alcohol?

To this one can add the production price, distribution prices, markup prices at alcohol outlet stores and import costs when applicable (transportation and import duties).


Local breweries and brewery supplies in Istanbul?

Try Bosphorus Brewing Company (Esentepe Mah) in Gayrettepe, or Taps Brewery (Cevdet Pasa Caddesi) in Bebek.


Should I get beer in bottles or in cans?

A modern canned beer should never taste like metal. If it does, you're probably drinking straight from the can, and while the folks at The Alchemist might recommend that, I can't say I share their view.

Modern beer cans are lined with a water-based chemical that essentially ensures that your beer never touches metal. This in turn means that strictly speaking, canned beers will keep longer without being skunked, and pressurized packing means there's less air in a can then a bottle, which adds further preservative benefits.

That said, very few beers that are good enough for this decision to matter are offered in a choice of containers - most small breweries just don't have the capacity to both can and bottle - especially of the sort of small-batch stuff that you'd actually be interested in trying to cellar and age. Furthermore, there are significant environmental and economic arguments in favor of both bottles and cans.

At the end of the day, choose the packaging that's more convenient for you to store, consume from, and recycle when you're done. The quality difference is essentially insignificant.


Why is it important to have foam on a beer?

Most importantly, a good head helps release the aromas of the beer, especially the hops. Aroma is everything for enjoyment of a good brew. When enjoying a super-hoppy IPA, you should always use a glass that provides a large surface area for aromatics to rise from.

It can also provide the a pleasant mouth feel. Stouts definitely benefit from a thick, silky head.

And lastly, it's eye candy.

As for the right amount of head, it varies. Generally in an average pint glass you want 1-2 finger-widths of head. Some hefeweizens and wit beers are best with a bit more.


What liqueurs can be paired with a particular movie?

I am going to make the following recommendation for the "Harry Potter" series.

Mandrágora Liqueur from the Basque region of Spain.

  This liqueur from Navarra (in Spain) contains mandrake extract – a plant whose medicinal properties are the subject of many myths and legends.  Alkaloid, an active component contained in the plant, can supposedly initiate hallucinatory experiences.

  The legend goes that a mandrake elixir was consumed by witches who were learning how to fly.  Mandrake is also a key ingredient in many of the magical elixirs present in the famous “Harry Potter” series.

  In Harry Potter, as well as in other more traditional myths, mandrake root is portrayed with human characteristics since the root itself is said to resemble a human body.

Liquor Mandrake "Mandrágora"


Is there a wide variation amongst specific styles?

When you're designing a recipe in software like Beersmith or Brewtoad they give you ranges for each style, so when you select a style you can tailor your recipe to be in the "acceptable range" for that style.  Obviously just hitting the numbers isn't going to make the correct beer, but these are quantitative numeric measures of variation over a style.

These dimensions are:

Original/Final Gravity (Sugar in the beer before and after fermentation)
SRM (Measure of Color)
ABV
IBU (International Bitterness Units)

These don't describe a ton about the actual flavor of the beer, just things like color, strength, body/sweetness, bitterness.  Note that while the ABV is tied to the difference between gravities, final gravity is and independent measure of the "dryness" of the beer.  Color and Bitterness are also totally independent of the others so you can have beers at the light color and bitter end but sweet, or dry and dark.

You can also check the BJCP guides which are for competitions to see what the "ideal" qualities of a given style are and then numerically grade a beer based on how well it meets those descriptions.  But they do describe what's allowed as variance for being considered "on style".

Of course plenty of brewers just don't care about that sort of thing and make beers how they like.

It's obviously opinion at this point but I think there's value in trying many different beers even though they may be in a style you've had a ton of before.  Each beer is different and those subtle differences may be the differences that really make you like one beer over another.  Maybe not a ton of the same thing in the same session...

According to untapp'd I've tried 85 IPAs, though the actual number is much higher than that.  Some have tasted like feet and onions, some have tasted amazing.  But as many as I've had if I see some IPAs on a menu and kind of want to drink an IPA, I've got nothing to lose by trying the one I've never had before...it might be really good.


Bottle conditioning: What good things can aging to do a wine?

Red wines generally benefit from aging. In the right conditions, dark and cool, tannins can smooth out removing some of their bite. Flavors can mellow and blend into something very interesting to the palette.  Whites usually can follow suit, but their life span sans a few specific varieties, usually aren’t meant for aging and should be drunk young.  IMO few wines are really geared for long aging, notably ports, with their high alcohol levels age well into several decades, giving the drinker unique flavors as the years go by.  However, if a wine is flawed at conception, aging won’t make a purse out of a sow’s ear.


Why would some prefer to put salt in their beer?

The same reason people put salt on their food. It enhances the flavor of the beer.

  The extra salt has other effects as well though, outside of simply
  making things more salty. Particularly, adding salt to foods helps
  certain molecules in those foods more easily release into the air,
  thus helping the aroma of the food, which is important in our
  perception of taste.

Putting Salt on Food


What is the official way to drink a boilermaker?

What is the official way to drink a Boilermaker?

First of all there are two types of boilermakers.

  A boilermaker can refer to two types of beer cocktail. In American terminology, the drink consists of a glass of beer and a shot of whiskey.1 The beer is either served as a chaser or mixed with the whiskey. When the beer is served as a chaser, the drink is often called simply a shot and a beer. In Philadelphia, it is commonly referred to as a Citywide Special. In Texas, it is known as a Two-Step. In parts of Florida, it is often referred to as a Git-Right.

Apparently there are also two ways to drink a Boilermaker. Neither one is official or wrong. It is up to the individual's choice.

  There’s a large debate concerning how the boilermaker is supposed to be consumed. While the shot and beer combo might seem straightforward, there are actually several different methods for drinking it, and each one is readily accepted as the best way by those who do it – the only thing that most people agree on is that the shot must be whiskey.

  The first method is your most basic, and the purists would have you believe it’s the classic: you drink the entire shot and then chase it with the beer. It’s that simple. However, as more high-end cocktail bars have also embraced the boilermaker, and thought more about the pairing of whiskey and beer, drinkers have taken to going back and forth between the two drinks, taking a sip of the shot and then a gulp of the beer, until each drink is finished.

  But the most exciting way to drink a boilermaker has to be how it often goes down in London – a practice that is gaining popularity in the States as well – dropping the shot directly into the beer. A modification of this is pouring the shot into a beer can or bottle. Fans of this method say it’s the best way to see how the beer and whiskey interplay. Plus, who doesn’t love the sound of a shot glass full of whiskey dunking into a cold glass of beer? - The History Of The Boilermaker – Otherwise Known As A Shot And A Beer

The most traditional way to drink a boilermaker is as follows: The liquor is drunk in a single gulp and is then "chased" by the beer, which is sipped. Although no official way of drinking it exists The most traditional way would, in my mind, be more closer to an official manner of drinking it.

Here how the boilermaker possibly got its' name:

  Stories are murky at best as to how the boilermaker first came into existence, but it’s pretty clear that the drink was originally consumed by blue collar workers at the end of a long shift – which is why it’s now become the shift drink of choice among bartenders. It’s believed the drink takes its name from the workers who built and maintained steam locomotives in the 1800s. These workers were known to head to the bar at the end of the shift, and a shot of whiskey with a beer became a staple for quickly easing the pain that came from a hard day of back-breaking labor. As it was the drink consumed by boilermakers, it took on the name as well. - The History Of The Boilermaker

The ingredients of the American version of a boilermaker: Whiskey and beer.


When are beers better "hard" poured rather than "soft" poured?

Beers served on nitro have only about 25-40% of the dissolved carbon dioxide compared to regular beers served only on CO2.  For stouts, the figure is usually closer to 25% - 40% is for lagers served on nitro.

With only 25% of the carbon dioxide, there is less concern of creating too large a foam. Plus the nitrogen causes the foam to be made of very very small bubbles, which readily turn back into beer. You can see this as the cascade (video) after the beer has been poured hard into the glass.

If the beer served on nitro has more than 35% CO2 then it's a good idea to reduce how hard you pour - as the percentage of CO2 increases, so does the size of the foam with a hard pour.


What is the evolution of brewing beer in Japan?

Beer in Japan seems to have had its start in the 17th century during the Edo period when Dutch traders stationed at Dejima in Nagasaki opened a beer hall for sailors working the trade route between Japan and the Dutch Empire.

  The Dutch started brewing beer for their own use in Nagasaki during the Edo Period. The first brewery to serve the Japanese market was founded in 1869 in the international port town of Yokohama by a foreign businessman. After changes in ownership, it started producing Kirin-branded beer in 1888. Meanwhile in Sapporo, the government built a beer brewery and established the Sapporo Beer brand in 1876 as part of its efforts to develop the island of Hokkaido. Accordingly, Yokohama and Sapporo vie for the title of birthplace of Japanese beer.

  The popularity of beer increased sharply in the second half of the 20th century, and beer has long since overtaken sake as the nation's favorite tipple. In recent decades, some Japanese beers have also gained popularity overseas.

  Variations of beer

  Because the alcohol laws in Japan dictate that beer be taxed according to its malt content, other beer-like drinks have been created by the Japanese brewers that contain less malt and thus are cheaper to sell. The current three ranks of beer are as follows:

  Beer

  Regular beer with regular malt content. Because of higher taxation, it costs more than the two ranks below.

  Happoshu

  Happoshu (lit. "sparkling alcohol", also known as low-malt beer) is a relatively recent invention by Japanese brewing companies. It has a similar flavor and alcohol content as beer, but it is made with less malt, which gives it a different, lighter taste. Due to the lower malt content, happoshu is taxed differently than beer and costs less.

  New Genre (Shin Janru)

  New genre beer (also known as "third beer" or "daisan no bīru") is the most recent development in the Japanese beer industry. In order to counter tax changes that reclassified the malt content of beer and subsequently raised the price of happoshu, this beer-like beverage contains no malt, instead using pea, soy or wheat spirits. As a result, it can be sold at an even lower price.

  Over the coming years, the alcohol tax rate will be incrementally adjusted to be unified into a single one for all beer and beer-like beverages by 2026. This means that the price difference between beer and its less-malt-containing alternatives will narrow.

  Craft beer

  The craft beer (地ビール, ji-bīru, literally "local beer") scene emerged in the mid-1990s. Up until then, stringent brewing laws granted licenses only to large-scale brewers. This all changed in 1994 when the government drastically relaxed the law, enabling small-scale breweries to thrive. Since then, craft beer has become increasingly popular, with hundreds of microbreweries around the country now selling high-quality regional beer domestically and abroad.

  There is a particularly vibrant craft beer scene in the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, where various dedicated bars sell beer from a particular brewery they are linked to, if not from a selection of breweries. There are also an increasing number of brewpubs that brew and sell their own beer on premises. Many onsen towns also contribute to the national craft beer presence with celebrated local breweries that take advantage of local pure waters. - Beer in Japan

Other informative sources:

History of the Japanese Beer Industry

Brewed in Japan: The Evolution of the Japanese Beer Industry

Hitachino Nest Beer Brewery


What is so special about Guinness DRAUGHT?

Guinness Draft is an Irish Dry Stout, a session beer, with alcohol by volume at 4.2%. It is intended that you can sit and drink several pints without becoming overly intoxicated. Compare that with Bud Light, which is 4.3%. Guinness has much more flavor than Bud Light, or any other similar American Light Lager beers.

If you compare it with Guinness Extra Stout (5.6% abv) or Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (7.5% abv) or any Russian Imperial Stout like Victory Storm King (9.1%) or Stone RIS (10.6% abv), then, yes, it will taste "watered down" by comparison. But you would be comparing apples with watermelons.


Is there a BeerAdvocate-like ranking of beers commonly found in supermarkets?

You can check out the top rated beers at the user ratings site Untappd.

You can filter by style and country, and the app is very easy to use. I'll bring it up on my phone when I'm at a restaurant or grocery store and I want more info about a beer I haven't seen before or to check out the ratings.


Putting a bottle Jack Daniels into the freezer for a couple of hours or so should be okay.

  The average home freezer is about -17 C (-1 F). This is cold enough to freeze your food and ice, but not cold enough to freeze the average bottle of 80-proof liquor.

  Water freezes at 0 C (32 F) and the freezing point of pure ethanol alcohol is -114 C (-173.2 F). Alcoholic beverages are a mixture of both alcohol and water (in some cases, sugars and other additives as well) so the freezing point of your alcoholic beverages is somewhere in between.

  The exact freezing point of vodka, tequila, rum, whiskey and liqueurs (as well as wine and beer) is dependent on its alcohol by volume (or its proof).

  The Freezing Temperatures of Alcohol

  40 Proof Liquor
  20%: -7 C (22 F) Includes many low-proof liqueurs like Irish cream. If left in a really cold freezer too long, these may get slushy, but this is rare.

  64 Proof Liquor
  32%: -23 C (-10 F) A liqueur like amaretto and a flavored whiskey like Fireball would fall in this range. These should be okay in the freezer.

  80 Proof Liquor
  40%: -27 C (-17 F) Includes most standard base liquors like gin, vodka, whiskey, etc. You're clear for the freezer! - Is Your Beer, Wine, and Liquor Safe in the Freezer?

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Martini the brand is an Italian vermouth made by Martini & Rossi.

Traditionally, martini the drink is a concoction made with gin and vermouth, and a strong (but unproven) theory as to its etymology is that martini the drink was originally named after Martini the brand.


A brand of scotch that routinely prints the release year on the bottle?

I think there are two ways to look at this. Some distilleries do put the date when they bottled the whisky/scotch it will just take some leg work. Even cheap Old Turkey has a bottled date stamped on the label

Then the other way is to do some reverse math. There is such a thing as vintage whisky. Distilled and put into barrels in say 1990 and aged 25 years. So it would be bottled in the year 2015. Obviously you might have to wait until they bottle it the year someone is born. You can see some of this at the Glenfiddich website (unfortunately they have an "are you old enough question" to get past).

The last option is to just buy a bottle of 20 year old whisky the year someone turns 20 (or whatever year you want) and just give it to them then when it's released by the distillery. Holding on to a bottle for 20 years or so can leave it vulnerable to all types of accidents. Don't risk it and just buy the bottle when they turn 21 or whatever age you want to bestow it upon them.


What drinks can be paired to a particular legend or myth?

Judaeo-Christian, Greek and Roman mythologies have links to wine.
Pastafarians have a goat that gives beer from it's udder.
Norsk myhtology references mead.

And then you can always read articles from the Lords of the Drinks.


Bad spirits experience - cannot drink that specific type anymore

This isn't specific to alcohol, and is instead a general mechanism of neural association. When you consume anything and then become sick afterward your brain associates sickness with what you consumed to stop you from consuming it again.

From an evolutionary standpoint this makes sense, because it would keep you safe from continuing to eat or drink the toxic substance. In the case of vodka, this is your body's way of saying don't do that again.

There is no cure but time - the time it takes for your brain's association with the substance to fade. For instance, the same thing happened to me with vodka about 16 years ago, but it's been so long that it's no longer a problem (bear in mind it didn't take that long to rectify itself, this just illustrates that the problem will eventually resolve itself).


Is it possible to invest (long-term) in beer?

You can't. At least not like wine or whisky.

It is different from wine because:
The price increase of wine is based on the vintage. If you a bottle of wine of a high-priced vintage, it increases in market value because over the years the number of available bottles decreases. The value does not increase because it tastes better. The chance of finding a 30 year old bottle of red wine that tastes good are as astronomical as the expenses that come with it. Investing in wine is, as someone put it, speculating in human snobbery.

It is different from whisky different because:
Whisky is basically an infusion of grain alcohol with oak accompanied by a decrease in alcohol. Unlike wine, you will never get an exponential increase by simply storing it longer because the result can be reproduced repeatedly. Whisky, however, does not benefit from bottle-ageing as the alcohol content cannot evaporate and bottles are not made of oak. In other words, unless you plan on opening a distillery, it is unlikely profitable to invest in whisky. Still, even with a highly durable beverage like whisky, there is a tipping point after which its quality starts decreasing.

Beer is more comparable to blue cheese because:
An aged beer is more expensive than a freshly brewed one simply because it is more expensive to produce. Like blue cheese, it is an acquired taste. To most, it would not even taste like beer. Aged beers suffer from the same short-comings as wine but much sooner as there is still active yeast in it (unless they are as strong as wines of course or you store them at very low temperatures).

Beers that benefit from ageing are usually beers that are not fermented well and have too many off-flavours that they tend to lose after time. That is true for many Belgian beers as they are made with a bunch of wild yeast strains that manifested themselves in the brewing vessels. The taste of hops is completely gone after a few years and the ongoing fermentation eventually converts the remaining sugars into a little more alcohol and --more dominantly-- into acid.

In order to make a significant amount of money from storing beer, you would probably require a speculative bubble. Otherwise, the increase in value will merely reflect your expenses (ie. the cost of storing it), inflation patters and of course the actual demand.

I should add that speculative bubbles can of course appear at any time anywhere, and the current craft beer craze does in fact somewhat bear resemblance with things like cryptocurrencies though not anywhere near that territory. Such a comparison does, however, hint at the inherent risks involved.


What are the predominant styles of Whisky coming out of Asia?

Suntory and Kavalan whiskey have really put Asian Whiskey on "the map." The Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask, by Suntory even won Jim Murray's Whiskey of the Year in 2015.

The styles are the same as other distiller's, though I am sure there are a few exceptions. Nikka Coffee Grain Whiskey comes to mind. The difference - it seems - is in the craftsmanship. Whatever the Asian distillers are doing... people agree they are doing well.

As a Yamazaki 12 owner - I highly recommend you purchase a bottle. Everyone I've ever let try it (I don't tell people when I hand it to them to avoid the "oh I heard this is great so let me rave about it" effect) absolutely raves about it. Even my wife, who normally hates the smell of my spirits, will sip on this neat. If the price tag scares you away, find a friend willing to share a sip or two.


There are specific steps to restarting a stuck wine/mead/high gravity beer. You can read the whole procedure here. You'll need some champagne yeast or some other special yeast used to restart stuck fermentations. But it starts with this:

  For restarting 5 or 6 gallons, take a quart jar and fill it half way
  with the wine in question. Add to that, water until the jar is 2/3
  full. Put in the mix a 1/4 teaspoon of yeast nutrient, and 3
  tablespoons of sugar. Be sure that the sugar becomes completely
  dissolve. Now you can add a whole packet of the Champagne yeast. Cover
  the jar with a paper towel and secure with a rubber band.


How to chill a 30cl bottle to "cellar" temperature?

Cellar temperature is generally anywhere between 7-18 degrees Celsius (45-65F) though people don't often go above 13C (55F), so there's a decent range to be in.

You can use your fridge.  For comparison you can fill a glass with the same volume of liquid and set it next to the bottle, leaving a thermometer in it.  As long as they start off near the same temperature, that'll give you a pretty close approximation of the current temperature of the beer.  It might be easier to chill to the fridge temperature then let them warm back up.  It's not going to damage the beer and most fridges are close to the bottom end of "cellar" anyway so it won't take too long to warm up to where you want it.  Evaporation and glass thickness are going to create a difference, but given the range of temperatures, it should be close enough.

If you wanted to get really fancy, water is a much better conductor of thermal energy than air.  You could get a large jug and fill it with 13C water, then put one of the Westy bottles in it for maybe 10-20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Though all that said, when trying expensive and multifaceted beers like this, I really enjoy chilling them to my fridge temperature then nursing the beer for a good while to compare the flavors as it warms up.


What do people mean when they ask for "A strong one"?

Generally this means the customer wants more liquor and less soda/mixer/ice/whatever than is called for in the recipe.


As for butter

Many white wines undergo a process that causes them to take on buttery flavors (which sometimes come across as buttered popcorn or even butterscotch).  That process is called malo-lactic fermentation, and here's the quick take on how it works.  Just after the grapes are made into wine, a special type of beneficial bacteria is added to the wine.  That bacteria converts one of the acids in wine (malic) to another type of acid (lactic).  The two acids feel different on the tongue.  Malic acid is very sharp (it's the acid in a Granny Smith apple); lactic acid is fairly soft (it's the acid in milk).  Most Chardonnay's go through malo-lactic fermentation and are therefore soft and buttery. (Taken from Why Do Wines Taste Buttery?).


Seeking images of Devenish brewery labels

Came across this, am i barking up the right tree?


How to select a wine based on production quality?

how can I choose between two bottles in a non-arbitrary, and objective way?

You can't. It's purely a subjective exercise. It is a dark art that takes a lot of tasting and learning what regions you like and winemakers you like. Even high points from a well known critic aren't a sure bet. If I were you, I would start reading Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate and whatever online wine resources you can find to get an education about what you like.

Things are easier in Europe where they more tightly control the wine making/grape growing process and some regions like Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy you can assume a certain high quality from a certain appellation. In the "New" world (USA, Australia, South Africa, etc) it's more of a crap shoot. Napa Valley wine is not a sure bet. It involves a lot of research and personal preference.

People spend many years and tons of money trying to figure this out and it's a never ending process. The journey is long and paved with many bad bottles. Good luck!


Why do France and Italy have so much lower beer consumption than their neighbors?

You are correct that in countries like France and Italy, beer consumption is replaced by much higher wine consumption.

Why?  Because they can.

It's a cultural difference that has been developed and ingrained over many centuries, back to when trade was more limited and more difficult, and Northern Europe was colder than it is today.   For much of that time, the climate in Southern Europe was ideal for growing grapes and producing wine, while it was simply too cold further north. So, Southern Europe produced and drank wine, Northern Europe produced and drank beer, thus creating regional preferences that persist even to this day.