What We’ll Be Drinking in 2011

Published on Wednesday, January 5, 2011, by Jordan Mackay / Edit Post

Paul Blow

Last year I had a drinking agenda. And I achieved most of my goals. Beaujolais, check: took a trip there in June and brought cases of it home. Madeira, check: drank it often and turned a lot of my friends onto it too. Beer, check: learned a lot and got more into dark beer than ever. Washington state and rum are still works in progress. So what's in my sights for this year?

Cider—Or cidre, as the French put it. The stuff is great, and recently a bottle of Bordelet pear cider I had with Vietnamese food at San Francisco's Slanted Door proved to me how fantastic a dry cider can be with food.

Calvados—OK, I'm just going to double down on apples. I love them in any form, but particularly juiced, fermented, and/or distilled. So cider and Calvados? Clearly a trip to Normandy is in the cards for this year.

Lesser-Known French and Italian Wines—I just ordered my first case of the year, Pouilly-Fuissé from Château des Rontets. It drinks far above its $30 price tag. So I'm going to go deep into some of the places that most of us tend to know less about: France's Mâcon, Loire, Savoie, and Languedoc; Italy's Campania, Sardinia, Abruzzo, Lombardy, and Sicily. Great wine deals abound from these places, not to mention distinctive, terroir-driven wines.

Belgian Beer—I'm no expert, but I'd like to be. A couple of sour ales and witbiers I had recently were so mind-blowingly good that I need to get to know them better. These beers are so complex, diverse, and delicious, and there are so many of them, that it's a bit of an intimidating subject to approach.

Now, some trends I see beginning, continuing, or blowing up in 2011:

Wine on Tap—This is already getting started, but it's going to surge in 2011 as people figure out how to do it better. That means restaurants sorting out their tap configurations, and producers sorting out how to distribute kegged wine efficiently to the restaurants. But this is a big deal, and I love it.

Home-Brew—Brewing beer at home has long been the hobby of beer geeks and college students, but I think it's going to go more mainstream starting in 2011. As DIY culture continues to spread and recession economics continues to pound people, nothing's more attractive than good, cheap beer—and brewing it yourself is a good way to get it.

Cocktails of the 1950s and Simple Drinking—I think everyone's a bit worn out by the cocktail supernova of the last several years. Bartenders are tired of the grind of making five different kinds of simple syrups twice a week on top of working long hours at their bars. Drinkers, too, are fatigued by waiting 10 minutes for a complicated, overwrought cocktail. The outcome? A return to the rightfully maligned humdrum drinks of the post–World War II era: Cape Cods, Whiskey Sodas, Gin Rickeys, etc. Mad Men was praised for bringing the classic cocktail to the screen, but really the show is depicting an era that prized efficient, no-frills alcohol intake. I think we're going back in that direction.

We shall see. In the meantime, stay hydrated!

Jordan Mackay is a San Francisco–based wine and spirits specialist whose work has appeared in publications such as Gourmet, the Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, and Decanter. Follow him on Twitter. Follow CHOW too, and become a fan on Facebook.

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POST A COMMENT |14 Comments

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  • Lagatta, when reading about 'poiré', it brings me back several years when I tasted Poire Williams in a Geneva restaurant. I have been addicted since then.

  • Interesting to hear about wines on tap! Will be on the look out for that.
    I'd love to see more aperitifs on menus. I can't recall seeing kir royale on a menu in the US more than a couple of times.

  • Jordan, I'm sure you know the drink akin to cider made from pears is called perry, (poiré in French).

    Culinaria, I'm not really fond of cocktails or hard liquor in general, except a few very expensive old brandies (from Cognac and elsewhere) and single-malt Scotches. Drink those very rarely. I'd rather try to spring for a more expensive bottle of fine from time to time (though I have no shame...+READ

    Jordan, I'm sure you know the drink akin to cider made from pears is called perry, (poiré in French).

    Culinaria, I'm not really fond of cocktails or hard liquor in general, except a few very expensive old brandies (from Cognac and elsewhere) and single-malt Scotches. Drink those very rarely. I'd rather try to spring for a more expensive bottle of fine from time to time (though I have no shame at all about drinking more ordinary stuff with ordinary meals).-COLLAPSE

  • Agreed. Can you imagine character in Mad Men ordering an apple-tini???? What the hell is an apple-tini? Stop. I don't want to know.

    My wish and hope for the new year is this, that

    1. People who don't like the taste of alcohol order ginger ale.
    2. People who don't like the taste of coffee or espresso order hot chocolate or tea.

  • typing too fast: "Malvasia"

  • @IEFoodie - Sardinia makes some absolutely fantastic wines. Look for Mavasia - especially from Lanzarote (vines grown in pure lava). Los Bermejos is one of my favorite producers, just picked up two bottles of their 09 at the Jug Shop (San Francisco), just terrific. Chock full of both minerality and terroir. Cheers.

  • ed1066: I think the story was referring to the "craft cocktail" movement. This would not tend to include "whatever-tinis" nor anything overly sweet. The goal has been creating great and balanced drinks. Unfortunately, often with quite a bit of unnecessary complexity and gilding of the proverbial lily.

    rockfish42: Agreed. Speaking as an experienced homebrewer, most of my batches have been far...+READ

    ed1066: I think the story was referring to the "craft cocktail" movement. This would not tend to include "whatever-tinis" nor anything overly sweet. The goal has been creating great and balanced drinks. Unfortunately, often with quite a bit of unnecessary complexity and gilding of the proverbial lily.

    rockfish42: Agreed. Speaking as an experienced homebrewer, most of my batches have been far more expensive than had I gone out an bought an equivalent amount of a middle of the range micro. Homebrewing has never, for me at least, been about money savings. And a lot of batches weren't that good -- but some were.

    A homebrewing exception that falls in line with another section of the article? Cider. It's dead-simple to make homemade hard cider, and unless you're really trying to fail the results will be at least passable. And it's much cheaper to make your own than it is to buy quality cider (Woodchuck, Hardcore, etc, do not fall into this category).-COLLAPSE

  • All the French and Italian regions mentioned make beautiful old world wines full of minerality, terroir, and the occasional barnyard. Given that, I'd be interested to see if anything good comes out of Sardinia, since most of the experiences I've had with Sardinian wine involve being able to taste very little beyond the agriculture.

  • 2004 called, it wants it's Belgian beer back. I see the future of beer being the continuing improvement of American microbreweries, and microbrews from places like Italy and England.

  • Great mention about Belgian beer. Belgium has more kinds of beer than the rest of the world combined. There is a remarkably palate-boggling assortment of Belgian beers waiting to be tried. Interestingly, many U.S. microbreweries are now trying their hands at these styles.

  • Speaking as a homebrew store employee, homebrew 90% of the time isn't cheap or goood.

  • I think some folk will try the new...but I still see too many sticking to the standards of beer and inexpensive wines.

    I actually recently got into Vesper Martinis. Watched every James Bond movie over the course of a month and just had to try the Vesper. Love it.

  • ed1066, totally. You left out real martinis (with gin and enough vermouth to make a difference) and a classic daquiri (not a frozen monstrosity but good rum, fresh lime juice and simple syrup).

  • I like the idea of the return to simple, classic cocktails. I'm sick of seeing "everything-tinis" on the menu, not to mention overly complicated, toothache-sweet "cocktails" with 500 calories. I have long followed a simple rule of thumb for cocktails - if there are more than three ingredients (not including ice), and the first one isn't a good quality spirit, something is wrong. Old fashioned,...+READ

    I like the idea of the return to simple, classic cocktails. I'm sick of seeing "everything-tinis" on the menu, not to mention overly complicated, toothache-sweet "cocktails" with 500 calories. I have long followed a simple rule of thumb for cocktails - if there are more than three ingredients (not including ice), and the first one isn't a good quality spirit, something is wrong. Old fashioned, Manhattan, gin and tonic, sazerac, Tom Collins, Cape Cod, Cuba Libre, real Margarita (tequila, lime juice and Cointreau), that's what I'm talking about. I'll make an exception for a well-prepared Bloody Mary, but in general, my three-ingredient rule seems to work for me.-COLLAPSE