A weblog detailing cocktails, spirits, liqueurs, barware, bars, and bitters. Maintained by Michael Dietsch, a hobbyist mixer in Providence, R.I.

A Note to My Unborn Son

May 30, 2011

Dear Son: One of the things you’ll learn pretty early is that Daddy likes his whiskey. (Mommy’s a fan, too, but while you’re still incubating, she’s abstaining.) One of Daddy’s favorite families of whiskey is the group of bourbons and ryes made by the Wild Turkey group (although please steer clear of the 80º, k [...]

Read the full article →

Drink of the Week/Month/Year/Whatever: XYZ

May 17, 2011

Near the end of his Savoy project, Erik Ellestad featured the XYZ cocktail, a daisy/daiquiri/sidecar variant using rum. The drink sounded great to me, and while browsing through the comments, I saw that someone suggested using Banks 5 Island rum as the base. The original, from the Savoy, calls for lemon juice, Cointreau, and Bacardi. [...]

Read the full article →

Review: Chasing the White Dog

April 14, 2011

My brother Bill runs a still on the hill Where he turns out a gallon or two And the buzzards in the sky get so drunk they can not fly Just from sniffing that good old mountain dew. In popular conception, moonshine is a hillbilly thing. Imagine a bearded, overall-clad, avuncular fellow manning his still. [...]

Read the full article →

Drink of the Week: Martinez

March 31, 2011

Rhode Island recently started (finally) getting in bottles of Ransom Old Tom Gin; having heard so much about it over the last two years or so, I had to buy a bottle and try it. The only other Old Tom I’ve had is Hayman’s, and I have to say, these are very different products. Both [...]

Read the full article →

Drink of the Week: Oude Plein

March 24, 2011

One evening, a few weeks ago, I was contemplating a new bottle of Bols Genever, trying to find a new use for it in a cocktail. I started thinking of a New Orleans favorite, the Vieux Carré, a blend of rye whiskey, cognac, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, and two types of bitters. Now, depending on the [...]

Read the full article →

He Lives!

March 10, 2011

How sad. I log in to my blog’s dashboard so infrequently these days that it doesn’t even remember who I am anymore. But! That doesn’t mean nothing’s going on. Oh, there’s plenty going on. Happy Anniversary, Baby I completely missed the fact that A Dash of Bitters turned five last month. I normally spend some [...]

Read the full article →

Review: Dalmore

February 15, 2011

For reasons that may become clear soon, it’s been a busy time around here and this site has suffered. But sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. Onward to Dalmore. Back in, oh, December, I received a package with various samples of Jura and Dalmore for review purposes. Dalmore’s a Highland malt, and [...]

Read the full article →