Posts Tagged ‘ingredients’
Keep Spirits Nutty
I have not spent a lot of time in Austin, Texas, but I like the slogan: Keep Austin Weird. I am thinking about this today because, quite often, it occurs to me that the alcohol beverage industry, similarly, seems to draw more than its fair share of eccentrics. In my view, that’s a good thing and helps make it a fun place to spend a career.
I am thinking about the distiller who lit his finger on fire in the office, to make sure we understand that his product is the real deal. I am thinking about the client who owns a small island in the Caribbean, and once ditched his Rolls-Royce by the side of the road to sail around the world with a monkey. I am thinking about the Tequila importer who said 20 minutes was more than enough time to get across town, to our front section seats at Madison Square Garden, for Elton John’s 60th birthday concert. (Little did I know that he’d park his big Mercedes at the adjacent curb and scurry up a back-alley entrance, midway through President Clinton’s introduction.) I am also thinking about the beer executive who wore a green leisure suit, all day, on St. Patrick’s Day a while back.
It would not be better, if everything were plain like a Safeway-brand Vodka. In this spirit, I look forward to raising up a glass of Dumante Pistachio Liqueur — a nutty spirit indeed. A Louisville publication explains that David Dafoe, a “beverage architect” is one of the forces behind this unconventional product, along with lawyer-and-pistachio-devotee Howard Sturm. The Louisville article further explains:
Dafoe apparently is creating Epicenter, a center/distillery/entertainment complex where you can watch booze being made and bottled, then buy the first products made in downtown Louisville since Prohibition started 93 years ago. … For more than 20 years, Flavorman has been proud to be the beverage development partner for premier companies across the United States,” said Dafoe. … The Epicenter is part of a growing national trend toward artisan distilleries. While there were 143 distilled spirits plant licensees in the United States in 2006, there are now over 700.
We look forward to meeting the next fun and eccentric clients, and working with them to keep beer, wine and spirits off-centered — or nutty — or anything but boring.
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business strategy, ingredients
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Honeydew Wine
This post will start short but is likely to grow long over time. Very long. We will try to show the enormous range of foodstuffs from which wine is produced. With each post we will add to the list, and I predict it will grow way past 50 60 70. Today we add Honeydew wine to the list.
- Agave wine
- Apple wine
- Apricot wine
- Aronia berry wine
- Avocado wine
- Banana wine
- Blackberry wine
- Blueberry wine
- Buffaloberry wine
- Cantaloupe wine
- Cherry wine
- Cranberry wine
- Dandelion wine
- Elderberry wine
- Elder flower wine
- Fig wine
- Garlic wine
- Gooseberry wine
- Grape wine
- Hibiscus wine
- Honeydew wine. Made by Long Trout Winery of Auburn, Pennsylvania.
- Huckleberry wine
- Jasmine fruit wine
- Kiwi wine
- Linden flower wine
- Lingonberry
- Lychee wine
- Maple Wine
- Mango wine
- Mangosteen wine
- Marionberry wine
- Onion wine
- Peach wine
- Pear wine
- Pepper wine
- Persimmon wine
- Pineapple wine
- Pomegranate wine
- Rhubarb wine
- Strawberry wine
- Tomato wine
- Watermelon wine
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Bacon Brown Ale
As this blog enters its fifth (gulp, yes, fifth) calendar year, it has covered many bacon-related concoctions. There was of course this bacon flavored vodka in 2009 and this bacon flavored beer in 2010.
Although it’s not clear that any of the earlier-featured bacon-related products contained actual bacon, it was only a matter of time until something like Bacon Brown Ale came along. It is Ale Brewed with Buckwheat and Bacon, made by Uncommon Brewers, of Santa Cruz, California. The brewer explains:
We’re not faking our flavor with smoked malts, Bac-O Bits or other tricks that some breweries are using to create their bacon beers … . There’s real cured pork in that beer.
Even though the government would probably not allow anything resembling a health claim regarding normal beer, wine or spirits — whether tongue in cheek or not — everyone seems to have a soft spot for bacon. The TTB-approved label does indeed proclaim that “bacon makes everything better.”
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ingredients, therapeutic, unlikely combinations
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Old Bay Beer
I do believe this Olde Bay Saison label raises at least a few legal issues. First of all, I sure hope the brewer had permission to use this famous branding. McCormick owns the Old Bay seasoning brand and probably would not have a sense of humor about any unauthorized uses. Even if the beer is loaded up with the same seasoning, and even if the reference tends to be flattering. I can not imagine that changing one letter (from Old to Olde) is likely to help any more. The total production for this ale with spices seems to have been tiny, so that may help somewhat more to avoid problems.
A second legal issue is that, such a beer needs formula approval, before label approval and production. To get formula approval, it is usually necessary to provide a detailed ingredient list to TTB. It can be very difficult for anyone to get ingredient details (beyond what FDA typically requires on a food label’s ingredient list) about famous and protected products like Coca-Cola, Angostura Bitters, or Old Bay. TTB typically needs to check for artificial flavors, allergens, colors, and use-rate limitations, and this can be very difficult to do without a complete ingredient list of the sort that McCormick would be unlikely to provide to the brewer here (The D.O.G. Beverage Co. of Westminster, Maryland). So this raises the question of whether this beer actually contains Old Bay seasoning, or TTB did not require details about all 18 ingredients, or D.O.G. somehow got hold of the ingredient list.
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fda, ingredients, policy, trademark, unlikely combinations
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Pawpaws in Beer, on NPR, etc.
I was driving along and heard perhaps the perfect confluence of beer, TTB, fruit, and a multimedia extravaganza (plus history, my sister in law, etc.).
NPR ran a story about The Pawpaw: Foraging For America’s Forgotten Fruit on September 29, 2011. The pawpaw is a creamy, mango-like fruit that grows along the banks of the Potomac River. Experts say the pawpaw is “every bit the rival of a perfect peach or apple. And these fruits have had thousands of years of breeding to make them taste good.” So good that a pawpaw newbie exclaims (at about 3:50): “Mmm, very good. Wonderful flavor. On my tongue, it says this is something new and wonderful and that I should continue it.”
It did not take long for a beer company to grab onto the pawpaw fervor. In discussing how the fruit plays into locavore trends and does not travel well, NPR’s Allison Aubrey talks with Garin Wright of Buckeye Brewing (at about 6:10):
AUBREY: But at a pawpaw festival earlier this month in Ohio, people were showing off, at least one way of extending the pawpaw season. They make pulp from the fruit that can be canned and frozen. And even use it to make beer. Garin Wright of the Buckeye Brewing Company in Cleveland wasn’t convinced the taste of the pawpaw would come through in his brew, but it did.
GARIN WRIGHT: I really think that I got freshness out of that pulp that you can really smell and taste in the beer I made, so it’s awesome.
Garin’s label is here. I say extravaganza because the blog post is here, the audio is here, the video is here, 163 comments are here, recipes are here, the transcript is here, and so on. I say sister in law because my kids started calling Aunt Paula “pawpaw” from their earliest months. I say TTB because NPR’s street interviews (on the video) are 100 feet from the old TTB building (across the street from the current NPR building). Finally, I say history because Lewis & Clark, and Thomas Jefferson, were apparently big pawpaw fans according to NPR.
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