I’ve been remiss in linking out to this, but my friend Andrew Wheeler, an English food and drinks writer, is blogging, with his writing partner Jill, at Very Good Taste.

Among the foody posts at Very Good Taste are a couple of great boozy entries–one on the Sazerac and another on gin.

I feel like I should [...]

If you think Repeal Day, 74 years ago, was the end of the story, think again. Check out this great, exhaustive site by David J. Hanson, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York in Potsdam:

Alcohol: Problems and Solutions

The gist of the site is to explore, even-handedly, the effects of alcohol use [...]

Happy Repeal Day! I’m going to have a couple or three posts today, but I’ll start briefly.

The Times, this morning, continues to trip merrily through the spirits world with a piece on absinthe. The piece, by Pete Wells, opens with a bit of surprise, at least to me–the first American-produced absinthe of the revival. St. [...]

I don’t normally just link out to other articles, but a couple of things in this morning’s Times caught my eye, and I thought they were worth sharing–the first is a tasting panel on bourbons, and the second, a feature on Tiki drinks.

…I’ve been invited to contribute pieces to How to Do Things, and my first article went live today. I’ve been working on it for a month, alas, and it shows how busy I’ve been that such a relatively simple piece should take a month.

Anyway, my first piece is about buying bar tools. I think next [...]

Food & Wine’s Mouthing Off reports today that Plymouth plans to introduce its sloe gin to US shores next year.

Look right and scroll down just a bit. Finally managed to update my blogroll.

Don’t feel bad if you weren’t on there. My wife, a.k.a. Mrs. Bitters, a.k.a. Jennifer Hess, started her site Last Night’s Dinner, back in February, and I only just now added her.

Sigh. Blogrolls are just too damn easy to neglect.

I can’t [...]

I’m working with Darcy O’Neil to test a new ad system, so things are going to shift around a just bit here.

I’m also considering going with Feedburner or adopting some sort of WordPress plugin to better manage my RSS feed. I want to drive eyes to the blog to read the full content, but at [...]

To anyone clicking through from Salon.com, welcome. Snoop through the cabinets and make yourselves comfortable.

On Tuesday, I had the honor of joining Salon’s witty New York editorial team for its summer-cocktail contest. You’d search long to find a finer group of raconteurs and bon vivants. Sarah Karnasiewicz and her colleagues welcomed me not just to [...]

At pretty much the same moment that Mouthing Off, the Food & Wine blog, honors me by linking here, I have to announce that my presence will likely become more sporadic for a few weeks as I enter a heavy-overtime period at the day job. This will run well into October.

I will participate in MxMo [...]