Have you ever noticed that there are two different spellings for whiskey? To be honest I didn't think much about it until I began working on a book about all the whiskey distilleries in the world. As I researched distilleries across Africa, Asia, Australia, and continental Europe I noticed that none of them spelled whisky with an e. I began searching for an answer to why some producers of aged grain spirits spell its name with and e and some spell it without and why this difference is largely bound by geography.
What I found instead was an internet controversy about what spelling was “correct” and when each should or shouldn't be used.
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Drink.Think
is a popular event in New York City that has brought together some of
the best food and drink writers to celebrate what we drink. New York
based spirits and cocktail writer Kara Newman, developed the event
to be a reading series for both new and established writers.
For
the first time Drink.Think will be held in San Francisco and I'm
excited to attend. There are ten featured writers including: Camper
English, contributor to the San
Francisco Chronicle and
author of Alcademics.com; Virginia Miller, head food
and drink writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian;
and Daniel Yaffe, Editor-in-Chief for Drink Me Magazine.
If you
enjoy good writing about beverages like I do, you should consider
coming. The event starts at 6pm with the first reading beginning at
7. It'll be held on Tuesday, February 5th
at Cantina, 580 Sutter St.
I want to acknowledge upfront that the tastings of spirits, beer, wine and coffee that I write about will be skewed by my own judgments and biases about different beverages. Like anyone else, these judgments and biases are formed out out my own life experiences and the physical limits of my ability to taste and smell. For example, I tend to enjoy drinking rye based whiskeys over wheated whiskeys, or I tend to like coffee made from lightly roasted beans more than dark roasted coffee. While drink writers very rarely write about their own biases, my hope is that by reflecting on them from time to time I may be able to improve my ability to think objectively about what I'm drinking and allow the reader to think critically about my or any other drink writer's work.
One of the primary judgments I make about beverages is that, if it isn't good on its own it's not worth drinking. While I do enjoy a good cocktail or cappuccino from time to time my first instinct is to drink the spirit or coffee on its own without adulteration. Which often means, given the choice between drinking something with a poor tasting base, gussied up to become palatable, and water, I'll chose water. One caveat to this is that, during graduate school I became willing to drink bad coffee with cream and or sugar, simply as a caffeine delivery device.
Growing up, my first exposure to people drinking alcohol was with my family in the context of a meal. Whether it was an aperitif before the meal, wine with dinner, or a snifter of finely aged spirits afterwards, alcohol was enjoyed in moderation and for what it added to the dining experience. I am certain that this early experience has helped shaped my own attitudes and practices around alcohol consumption. While I had some knowledge of wine and beer, once I was legally able to buy alcohol I wanted to figure out what kinds of distilled spirits people my own age were drinking. Spirits were at that time an undiscovered country with a bewildering number of options. I naively thought that people who drank spirits did so because they liked the way they tasted. What I discovered, was a lot of young people drinking for the effect and adding juices or other flavorings to mask the taste of the alcohol. To me this did not make a lot of sense.
The first alcoholic beverage I really enjoyed drinking, was a glass of Macallan's 12 years old Single Malt Scotch. It was an amazing sensory experience that captivated my imagination and my intellect. I began comparing it to the small number of other whiskies I had tasted and a question began to stir in my mind: Why did this whisky surpass all the others I had tried up to this point? This question compelled me to learn more; specifically why that glass of Scotch tasted the way it did, and generally about how Scotch was made. Since then the question, “what makes a drink stand out from the rest?” has fueled my passion for spirits, sustained my interest in craft beer and has piqued my interest in wine, and specialty coffee.
I decided to name my site EZdrinking for a couple of reasons. First,
my intent for this project is to focus on spirits, beer, wine, and
coffee that are of such quality that they are easy to drink on their
own. Second, I hope to promote a temperate approach to alcohol that
extols its variety, craft and creativity with out overindulgence.
Third, since this a site of my own musings about things I like to
drink and my initials are E.Z. the choice was obvious.
