The perfect margarita recipe may be up for discussion, but other things aren’t.

Bottled Margarita Mix Is the Devil: Bottled mixes are full of corn syrup and artificial flavors that mask the delicate taste of the liquor. To ensure your margaritas don’t end up reminiscent of oversweetened Gatorade, take the time to squeeze fresh limes and make your own Rich Simple Syrup.

Just Say No to Mixto: We’ve already declared that mixto is for losers, and we stand by that statement. Make sure to buy 100 percent agave tequila. The result is a margarita that has better aroma, flavor, and finish.

To Blend or Not to Blend: The CHOW office may be a little divided over this one, but tequila aficionados we spoke to advise against putting your margarita and ice in a blender. Julio Ferreira, general manager at Karu&Y in Miami, says it’s the biggest mistake someone can make. Ferreira suggests serving margaritas up instead, “so the tequila doesn’t get watered down and is in its purest form.” If you still want a frozen margarita, blend everything together except the tequila, and when finished, pour the tequila on top. This technique ensures that the alcohol will not get as diluted.

Among the grapevine neckties and “Life Is a Cabernet” T-shirts, wine-accessories catalogs are selling more and more miracle devices to make wine taste older, smoother, brighter … instantly!! Ludicrous, of course. We know that. But still, if it were true …

So we tested: three different devices, tasting blind, using identical glassware. For each product, we compared two versions of the same wine—one “enhanced” by a gadget, the other left in its original state—to see if we could tell the difference. Both the wines and the gizmos used on them were kept secret until the results were in.

Wino Magnetism: The BevWizard Wine Smoother

What It Is: A pouring spout equipped with powerful magnets and a hole in its side that exposes the wine to oxygen. Retail price: $29.95.

What It Claims: Young, oaky wines become smoother-tasting when exposed to the BevWizard’s “powerful magnetic field,” which chemically changes the tannins in the wine from “hard” to “softer.” (Bonus feature: picks up paper clips.)

What It Did: We tested the BevWizard on a heavily oaked barrel sample of Washington state Cabernet Franc, and found that it did have a subtle effect on the wine. The enhanced sample tasted a bit softer and smoother, with less mochalike oak character, but the change wasn’t exactly mind-blowing. Why not use your $30 to buy a less oaky wine?

Crystals and Unicorn Power: The Catania Wine Enhancer

What It Is: A CD-size metallic disk that acts as a wine-transforming trivet for a standard wine bottle or stemless wineglass. The price ranges from $45 for the “mini” version to $150 for a psychedelic “grande” model.

What It Claims: The Wine Enhancer can “turn a good beverage into a great one” in about 10 minutes—just set the bottle or glass on the Enhancer and let it do its thing. It contains “very specific metals, minerals and crystals” that are “known for their specific vibrational frequencies,” which soften wine’s tannins. It also gives wine a brighter flavor, a longer finish, less burn, and less astringency, as well as reducing or eliminating red wine headaches.

What It Did: After placing a 2003 Bordeaux-style red from New York’s Finger Lakes region on the Wine Enhancer for 10 minutes, we found little to no difference between it and the unenhanced sample. Both were thin, astringent, and sour. If anything, the unenhanced wine seemed a little softer than the enhanced version. We retested the device on a different bottle of wine. Same result.

Metallic Time Machine: The Clef du Vin

What It Is: A small metal doodad made of stainless steel, gold, silver, and copper. Retail price: $99.95.

What It Claims: Dip the copper tip into a glass of wine, and the Clef du Vin replicates the wine’s natural aging process at the rate of one year per second, with 95 percent accuracy. It gradually modifies the wine’s properties by accelerating oxidation and “acts on the aromatic components” to “[reorganize] certain of the wine’s molecules.” Use it to make a young wine drinkable now, or to figure out when to drink that case of Bordeaux in your cellar.

What It Did: We dipped the Clef du Vin in a glass of 2004 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for three seconds to “age” it by three years. Guess what? Dramatic difference! The original wine was harsh, tannic, and acidic, but the enhanced version was softer, more balanced, and lots more enjoyable. Eureka! But like the good scientists we are, we needed to replicate our results. We tested the device on two more wines. And … nothing. Well, not exactly nothing; the Clef du Vin had some effect on aroma, softening the sharp edges. But there was no discernible difference in flavor between the enhanced and unenhanced wines at various levels of “aging.” Darn. Another cold-fusion-style case of irreproducible miracle results.

Why Miracles Might Happen

It is possible for certain metals to bring about chemical changes in wine, according to winemaker Greg La Follette, who studied oenology at UC Davis and makes wine for De Loach Vineyards and Tandem Winery.

“Anything that contains copper or silver will help to remove sulfides and mercaptans, which are stinky sulfur-compound-derived aromas in wines,” he explains. “Silver goes a bit further and can also remove sulfur-containing compounds, including disulfides, which are also quite odiferous and can’t be removed by copper. Call it a double whammy in funk control. The chemical reactions associated with these metals also are oxidative, so it is possible to get a bit of ‘aged’ experience.”

This process is not an instantaneous one, which may account for the Clef du Vin’s inconsistent results. “These reactions are a little more complex than just adding the metals, and can take a little bit of time, more than just a minute or two,” La Follette says.

Copper may be added to barrels when making wine, in the form of copper sulfate (usually .5 parts per million or less, since it can be poisonous), a powder that bonds with yeast and other molecules in the wine and is racked off after fermentation. (Home winemakers will sometimes drop a few copper pennies into a wine tank to achieve the same effect.) Distillers use metal in the form of copper stills to remove sulfur-based compounds.

As for magnets, minerals, and crystals, the science is somewhat murkier. While winemakers do use copper to tame funky wines, we have yet to hear of any who employ the use of magnets—unless it’s for holding up to-do lists on the winery refrigerator.

Ultimately, the best ways to avoid getting stuck with an out-of-balance, tannic wine are to read wine reviews (descriptions, not scores), taste before buying, or rely on a good wine seller for recommendations. And if a wine needs time to age, drink something else while you wait.

Glasses come in all shapes and sizes.

By Rob Chirico

A fine cocktail is as much a pleasure to behold as it is to drink. It is said that the champagne goblet was modeled on Marie Antoinette’s breast. Glasses, like breasts, come in all shapes and sizes. Lead crystal, which possesses an almost lofty musical tone—and a price to match—should be your glass of choice. The best glasses are thin lipped yet have a substantial feel. Always choose a long-stemmed glass for cold drinks served without ice. As tempting as it may be to grab the bowl of a cocktail or other stemmed glass—or as necessary as it may be after imbibing several—the purpose of the stem is to keep body heat away from the beverage. Do not be seduced by colossal goblets just because they are fashionable: Keep in mind the effect of two martinis and stick to the more traditional 4- or 5-ounce glass, which will ensure visual elegance and a clearer head.

Which glasses and how many should you buy? If you like to entertain but are on a budget, there are kitchenware stores to accommodate you. Always buy more than you need, because it is easier to go to your closet when one breaks than it is to head back to the store. Also, glasses go out of fashion, and your favorite may no longer be available. You should also have a special cache of glasses just for special occasions.

Reprinted with permission from Field Guide to Cocktails (Quirk Books, 2005).

Icing

Ice was a precious commodity, available only to the rich, prior to the second half of the twentieth century. Even when it became widely available, there were no ice machines, and bartenders hacked at large ice blocks, breaking them into small chunks—hence the name “rocks.” Home freezers were previously small or nonexistent, and ice simply was not as cold as it is today. We may take ice for granted, but it is an essential building block of almost every cocktail and must be regarded with the same care as the spirits. It is paramount that ice must always be clean and be kept away from any contaminating odors. The size of the ice also makes a big difference. Because there is more chilled surface to many little cubes than to one very large one, a drink will chill faster with small cubes. Unfortunately, the ice will also dilute the drink more quickly. Apart from cocktails that call for cracked or crushed ice, opt for medium-sized cubes.

For the coldest cocktails, chill the glasses in the refrigerator for several hours before using them, and store Martini glasses in the freezer. In a pinch, you can always add ice and water to an empty glass to quickly chill it. To frost a glass, dip it in water and put it in the coldest part of the freezer.

Shaking, Stirring, and Rolling

The debate over shaking versus stirring was around long before James Bond uttered his immortal line. In all honesty, it really does not matter as long as the drink is well mixed and ice-cold (as expressed by Lowell Edmunds in this classic book Martini, Straight Up). Although a consensus may never be reached on how to best serve a Martini or a Manhattan, some simple guidelines may be applied. Generally, any drink made with fruit juices, sugar, eggs, or cream should be shaken. Use a Boston shaker for this, and always add ice before the other ingredients. Hold the shaker well in front of you, then shake it vigorously in a diagonal motion. Most drinks need no more than ten seconds; after that, the shaking may dilute them. A small amount of melted ice, however, is a vital part of a shaken cocktail. Strain with a coil-rimmed strainer. If you have room, store the shaker in the freezer.

Those who favor stirring do so because they believe stirred drinks maintain their clarity. Even if shaking imparts a cloudiness to the cocktail, it soon dissipates and will not adversely alter the taste. When mixing cocktails in a pitcher, fill the pitcher halfway with ice and stir at least 20 times with a glass stirrer or bar spoon. Stir longer if you prefer a colder drink. Carbonated drinks, such as a Gin and Tonic, need only be stirred twice, in their glasses.

Rolling, a milder form of shaking, is used with tomato juice-based cocktails. Holding a Boston shaker at a slight angle, gently rotate the ingredients until incorporated. Shaking tomato juice too hard produces a curiously foamy concoction recalling low-budget horror flicks.

Muddling

Muddling is the mashing or grinding together of such ingredients as mint or limes in the bottom of the glass. This releases all the flavors and allows them to meld before you add the rest of the ingredients. You can purchase a wooden muddler from a specialty store, but the back of a large wooden spoon will do in a pinch.

Pouring

It is a capital mistake to shake or stir a cocktail then let it sit. Pour the drink immediately, and place any leftovers in a separate container to avoid dilution. Some people enjoy the “dividend” left in the shaker, but it is always best to mix a fresh batch rather than drink a diluted cocktail.

Rimming

For Margaritas, gingerly dab the top outer edge of a glass with a piece of lime. Then turn the glass on its side, lightly sprinkle coarse salt over it while rotating the glass, and shake off any excess that may have fallen into the glass. Follow this procedure for all rimmed drinks.

Garnishing

Fruit
For lemons and limes, wash and dry the fruit as you normally would, and slice the nubs off each end. Cut the fruit in half lengthwise; then cut each half lengthwise into three or four equal wedges, depending on the size of the fruit. Remove any seeds. Quarter the wedges crosswise for muddling. If you prefer wheels or slices to wedges, cut off the ends and thinly slice the fruit crosswise for whole wheels. Cut them in half for slices. You may refrigerate the fruit, covered, up to one day.

To make twists, start by cutting the ends off the fruit as described above. Using a sharp paring knife, carefully slice from top to bottom, creating 1/2-inch wide strips of zest. Avoid cutting too much of the pith with the peel. Bear in mind that it is called a “twist” for a reason: Always twist the peel over the drink to release the essential oils directly into the drink. Do not smear the peel along the rim unless a recipe specifically calls for this. After a little bit of practice, you will also be able to dazzle your guests with a bit of pyrotechnics by using the combustible oil in the peel to flame it. Cut the peel into 1 1/2-inch by 3/4-inch ovals. Light a match and pick up the peel, holding it by the shorter side between thumb and forefinger a few inches above the glass. Place the match between the peel and the drink, and snap the peel sharply backward so that the oil jettisons across the flame and into the drink.

You can vary the size of the peels depending on the effect you want. There is also a garnish called a “horse’s neck.” For this garnish, remove ends of the fruit. Starting at the top, use a channel knife of paring knife to cut one continuous ½-inch swath around the fruit.

Olives
The Martini is the exclusive province of the olive, and since the Martini is the paragon of cocktails, the olive is as vital to the bar as any ingredient. The goddess Athena is said to have presented the olive to ancient Greece, and it is difficult to imagine life—or the Martini—without it. But which olive? For sheer aesthetic appeal, some favor the pimiento–stuffed olive, while others shudder at the thought and advise using only a pitted green olive. Unlike a lemon peel, which imparts a particular flavor to the Martini, green olives are brined differently throughout the world and each type has its own flavor. For plain, whole green olives, French Picholine and Lucques are excellent, meaty choices. Greek Peloponnesian, Ionian, and cracked olives are also exceptional, as are any number of Californian varieties. Black olives are a definite no-no. Whether you prefer your olives soaked in brine or vermouth or stuffed with capers, jalapeno peppers, anchovies, or blue cheese is a matter of personal taste. But at all costs, avoid olives packed in olive oil. You don’t want an offshore oil slick floating atop your Martini.

Juicing

Always look for the juiciest of fruit. Size is not an indicator, but texture is. The fruit should have some give when squeezed. Lemons or limes that feel like baseballs will be mealy or pulpy. A good electric juicer or a metal hand juicer is an ideal, and essential, tool. Fruit that is pliable and thin-skinned is best for juicing. Roll it on a flat surface with the palm of your hand prior to cutting to make juicing easier. Do not refrigerate the fruit, but keep the juice in the refrigerator until ready to use it later the same day.

Simple Syrup

Although superfine sugar can be substituted, simple syrup is an easy, convenient way to sweeten drinks without the granularity that may linger from sugar. Combine 2 cups each of sugar and water in a small saucepan (the CHOW version is a sweeter 2:1 ratio), and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Let the mixture cool, place it in a bottle with a drink pourer, and refrigerate it. Simple syrup may be used wherever superfine sugar is mentioned in the recipes in this book, but I have also indicated a substitution of simple syrup when a truly smooth drink is desirable.

While your corner store is not the ideal place to pick up a bottle of wine, sometimes the need strikes at an inopportune moment. The wine store is not always open when you need it to be, but the packy is there, round the clock. You may not find the ideal bottle, but you can certainly find a drinkable bottle. Here are some tips.

Go for the horizontal. Unless it’s sealed with one of those synthetic corks or the increasingly popular screw cap (called a Stelvin closure), the bottle should not be standing. Real cork needs to stay in contact with the wine in the bottle in order to keep from drying out. Try to buy wines that are in bottles lying flat, and hope they’ve been that way since they arrived at the store.

Go for what’s cool. If wines aren’t stored in a cool, dark place (60°F or so), they age more quickly, if not spoil altogether. If the local shop is 72°F all year, pay close attention to the vintage printed on the label, and buy the youngest. At least then you’ll know you’ve got one of the more recent arrivals.

Go ahead and punt. This one is less reliable, but it’s worth a shot: Check the punt. Come again? Pick up the bottle and turn it over. If there’s an indentation, or punt, in the bottom (the name is derived from the wooden stick, or pontil, once used to hold the bottom of a bottle while a glassblower blew the neck), you’re probably in good shape. Sometimes, though not always, the deeper the punt, the more expensive the production of the bottle and, by extension, the better its contents. (Reislings are the exception; they always have a nearly flat bottom.)

Look for these names. Finally, when in doubt, consult this list, courtesy of Joshua Wesson, founder of Best Cellars wine stores. Not only will these bottles not offend, but they’ll go with just about anything.

• Mionetto Il Prosecco, Italy—Lighthearted, shamelessly mouth-watering fizz ($12).
• Roederer Brut Premier, France—Rich champy for the not-so-rich ($35).
• Hugel Pinot Blanc Les Amours, France—A round, pear-scented alternative to Chardonnay ($13).
• Hogue Fumé Blanc, Washington State—A clean, citrusy Sauvignon Blanc ($9).
• King Estate Pinot Gris, Oregon—Melons, pears, and apples mingle in the glass ($15).
• Guigal Côtes du Rhône, France—A spicy, consistently satisfying Rhône red ($12).
• Antinori Santa Cristina, Italy—This Sangiovese pairs well with pizza and pasta ($11).
• Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir, California—A suave, silky, cherry-kissed take on this insanely popular grape ($16).
• Blackstone Merlot, California—A medium-bodied Merlot chock-full of plump, plummy flavors ($9).
• Rosemount Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon, Australia—A delicious fruit bomb ($8).

Information provided by The Wine Institute.
To learn about state-specific restrictions, contact your local government.

VIEW THE STATE SHIPPING LAWS

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Attention online shoppers: While the Supreme Court ruling on interstate wine sales (Granholm v. Heald, May 2005), didn’t exactly open the floodgates, more people can now purchase wine online. The best wine-buying sites offer reviews, are easy to navigate, have good search engines, and offer prompt shipping. Here are some of CHOW’s favorites.

Note: If you are looking for bargains or a specific wine, be sure to check out price-comparison sites like Wine-Searcher.com and WineZap. Avoid the “wine clubs” offered by retailers and mail-order vendors. These are often just used to dump marked-up, undesirable wines.

Finally, a word about shipping. The Supreme Court ruling deemed it illegal for states to prohibit consumers from having wine shipped to them across state lines while still allowing in-state shipment. However, this is not as simple and straightforward as it sounds. Not only do laws and regulations on interstate wine shipment vary from state to state, but they can also be quite confusing. Here is a simple guide to reference before ordering wine from an online site. For more details about the variances from state to state, check out the Wine Institute, a thorough and informative reference.

Bargains

PJ Wine—Known for screaming deals on premium and hard-to-find bottles, this site lists the best wines to buy under $10, $20, and $30. It also has an exceptional clearance section.

Geerlings & Wade—This site deals directly with hundreds of wineries, so its prices are sometimes 30 to 50 percent below those of other retailers. It also suggests food pairings for the wines it sells.

Auctions

WineBid.com—Some older vintages and rare bottlings are most readily available at auction, and online auction sites charge lower commissions than their traditional counterparts. WineBid.com is the best of the bunch, with some unbelievable deals on older wines and a good selection of fine, rare wines. The staff appraises each bottle that’s up for auction, and includes ratings and comments from respected critics.

Domestics

K&L Wine Merchants—This Northern California–based retailer has a notable list of international wines, but its domestic selection has few rivals. Known for small production and rare California bottlings, K&L has reasonable prices too. It’s a great site if you need buying suggestions; the site offers a list of the most popular wines and a monthly “Top 10 Wine List” chosen by its knowledgeable staff.

High-End

FinestWine.com—As its name implies, this site targets the serious connoisseur, specializing in both fine and rare wines (with many offerings from the 19th century). The advanced-search feature allows you to shop by producer, region, country, bottle size, varietal, price, and/or vintage.

Variety

Sherry-Lehmann—East Coast shoppers have been enjoying the wide range of wines available at Sherry-Lehmann’s Manhattan store since 1935. Now buyers nationwide can get their hands on the store’s more than 7,000 different wines from 20 countries. With wines ranging from $6 to $3,000, shoppers will be able to find obvious and not-so-obvious wine picks.

Wine.com—The site has 10 warehouses across the country, allowing for shipment to 26 states. Specializing in wines with vintages younger than 1995, this site is one of the better places to find both well-known and popular labels at affordable prices.

At the three-martini lunch of the ‘50s through the ‘70s, high-rolling businessmen got together over steaks and knocked back a few cocktails to close a deal, expensing every last drop. In those days, companies were allowed to write off 100 percent of the booze-besotted lunches as business expenses, so everybody won. But a 1986 change in the tax code meant that suddenly businesses could deduct only 80 percent of expense-account expenses; in the ‘90s the rate was reduced again to just half, and suddenly corporate budgets didn’t have room for martinis.

At the same time, the War on Drugs got under way, and the public paid more attention to alcoholism and drunk driving, which lent a new stigma to on-the-clock inebriation. Conferences and after-work networking functions became the last places where it was still acceptable to knock back a few; otherwise, the party was over, and workplace drinking waned, even in party environments like winning locker rooms. “When I played in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, we had beer in the locker room after the games and beer on the bus,” says a baseball scout for the major leagues. “But now players are a lot more conscious of what they put in their bodies, and teams are protecting themselves—if a guy has three or four beers in the locker room and then goes out and gets in a car wreck, the team is liable.”

Last Call

Today, about 15 percent of employed people nationwide still drink during lunch, on coffee breaks, or before work, according to a study published last January by SUNY Buffalo researchers. Among the likeliest workers to imbibe on the clock are folks in sales, management, food preparation and service, building maintenance, construction and mining, trucking and transportation, sports, and a range of creative fields, including the arts, design, entertainment, and the media.

“Christopher Hitchens used to come in for meetings at 11a.m. drinking some kind of brown liquor and smoking a cigarette,” says a former editorial assistant at Vanity Fair. In publishing, lunchtime drinks are sometimes a job requirement. “One way to get on an author’s good side is to go boozing with him, if that’s his thing,” explains book editor John Rauschenberg. “So every once in a while, you’ll go to a lunch with a writer and end up having several mixed drinks, really tying one on, and not going back to work that day.”

An Image to Uphold

The last strongholds of daytime drinking may be some high-tech, consulting, and advertising firms, judging by reports. “I actually feel self-conscious if I order a Diet Pepsi,” says Rudy Geronimo, an event planner who works in San Francisco’s video-game industry, “because the only things I ever see people get are water, beer, and wine.”

There are tales of companies setting up bars in the office around 5 p.m., even with three-plus hours of work left to go; beer- and wine-stocked fridges that regularly get depleted throughout the day; off-site meetings and company retreats with open bars. “One time we had this competition between different departments to see which one could invent the best cocktail, and the winner would have its drink served at all of the agency-wide meetings from then on,” says Amanda MacLaren, who works at an ad agency in San Francisco. MacLaren speculates that the youth of her coworkers (under 40) has something to do with it, as well as the nature of the industry itself: “The people on the media side get schmoozed by sales reps when they go out to lunch, and on the creative side it’s kind of this idea that, ‘We’re artists, so we should be partiers.’”

And then there’s the food-service industry. “Oh yeah. In the places where I’ve worked, everyone in the kitchen drinks on the job—sous chefs, line cooks, everyone,” says a server at a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York who formerly worked at Chez Panisse. “It’s the only way to get through it. Servers do it too, though it’s more just drinking small amounts steadily throughout the night, as opposed to taking shots. When you’re waiting tables, you want to get a nice buzz going and become more personable.” When I asked him if that was why, on my recent visit to his workplace for an early dinner, our server (his coworker) had seemed a little spaced out, I got set straight: “That was too early for him to have been drunk—he was probably stoned. It’s ‘Come in stoned, leave drunk.’”

Blame it on the body’s urge to consume more calories in the colder months, or maybe we just don’t want to drink something that’s chilled. Whatever the reason, in the winter, strong, dark ales, porters, and the like taste better than refreshing, icy lagers. Our favorite recent discovery is smoked beer—a style of brown ales, porters, and stouts that are infused with the flavor of smoke, and lovely to drink next to a roaring fire.

The style, made by smoking sprouted barley (malt) before brewing, dates back to 16th-century Germany, where it’s known as rauchbier (German for “smoke beer”) if it’s smoked with wood, or steinbier if it’s smoked by dropping extremely hot stones into the beer during the brewing process. Many of the traditional German versions overwhelm your nasal passages with smoke and taste as if you’re sucking down a glass of liquid bacon. (Not a bad thing, in our opinion.) Recent offerings from American brewers are subtler. Here are our top picks, in order of smokiness.

Extreme Smoke

• Schlenkerla Rauchbier: This German beer is malty, toasty, and rich, with a dry finish.
• Short’s Smoked Apple Ale: Made in Bellaire, Michigan, this ale is fermented with the addition of apples that have been smoked with applewood. Its almost overpoweringly smoky aroma is like that of meat being grilled over a campfire; its flavors include apple and bacon. It’s like barbeque sauce in a beer bottle.

Moderate Smoke

• Alaskan Smoked Porter: The Alaskan Brewing Co., based in Juneau, was one of the first American breweries to begin making rauchbier, in 1988. The malt in this ale is “cold-smoked” over alderwood, meaning that it is slowly smoked at low temperatures (topping out at 100°F). The result is an award-winning beer with hints of raisin, coffee, and chocolate.
• Rogue Smoke Ale: Created to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, this amber-colored ale from venerable Rogue Brewery, in Newport, Oregon, is smoked over alderwood. It has notes of espresso, caramel, apricots, and, of course, wood smoke.

Subtle Smoke

• Stone Smoked Porter: Malt is peat-smoked in this porter from the Stone Brewing Co., based in Escondido, California, and delivers only the suggestion of smoke. It’s more like a traditional-but-tasty porter with flavors of coffee, chocolate, and toasty malt.

Puglia (the Italian name for Apulia, in Italy’s southeast) gets no respect, wine-wise. Or it didn’t, until recently, because while it produces more wine than any other region in Italy, the stuff was mostly bulk, rough-and-tumble tannic fruit bombs. In the panorama of Italian winemaking, Puglian wine hovered in the background as a slightly disreputable ingredient, the liquid equivalent of MSG, discreetly added to some well-known blends from the north in thin years to boost tannins and depth.

While there are still many farmers and wineries going for high yield and bulk wine—it’s not easy to persuade farmers traditionally paid by the ton to go for quality instead of quantity—some have made the transition to lower production and better wines. Wineries like Taurino and Botromagno have introduced different styles of vine training, mercilessly pruned over-hearty vines, and cleaned up winemaking practices. They’ve also embraced the farming-cooperative models popular in the south, gathering small farmers to the cause. And Puglian winemakers are learning to market to Americans by listing grapes on the front label the way New World wineries do.

Puglia makes interesting whites, especially in the Gravina DOC, but mostly produces reds. Here’s a crib sheet of the most common grapes out of Puglia.

Primitivo

Related to Zinfandel, these grapes share the same intense fruit character but come off a little more feral, with hints of savory and funk. Wineries sometimes take advantage of the grape’s California connection and put “Zinfandel” somewhere on the label along with “Primitivo.” The only official wine area for the grape is the Primitivo di Manduria DOC, in the very south.

The producer Luccarelli makes some fine examples; its A Mano and Prima represent the fresh fruit side of Primitivo. Botromagno, which is located in the northern part of the region, shows a more elegant, balanced Primitivo, in which the fruit stops being the frontman. Earthy, herbal, and complex, these Primitivo wines hit different notes as you drink, with acidity much like that of Chianti.

Negroamaro

Negroamaro means “black bitter,” and this grape makes a very Goth wine—dark fruit, dark spice, heavy in body, with a bitter finish. Cosimo Taurino, former patriarch of the Taurino winery, was the first to note that Negroamaro could produce wine every bit as fine as the north’s better-known Valpolicella and Amarone, and the Taurino wines from this grape, especially the Notarpanaro, are benchmarks.

Negroamaro shows best when blended with the highly aromatic Malvasia Nera, as in Salice Salentino DOC, probably the best known of Puglia’s wines. Salice Salentino rates as one of Italy’s best buys, medium to light bodied with a vivid dried-cherry flavor and a hearty edge. Many great, small producers exist; look for a recommendation from your local wine shop, or try the offerings from Taurino or Cantele. Li Veli’s fancier version of Negroamaro, Pezzo Morgana, shows even deeper and more complex flavors. Wine from the Squinzano DOC features similar reds. And check out the rosés too: With their vibrant fruit, big flavors, and refreshing acidity, they’re some of Italy’s best.

Uva de Troia

This grape, grown only in the Rosso Canosa DOC, deserves mention for a unique quality: Wines made from this grape always smell of violets. The example easiest to find is La Violetta, imported by California winery Bonny Doon and offered under its DEWN label.

Two years ago, Allagash Brewing Company’s Rob Tod was bottling his Belgian Tripel ale, when he faced a brewer’s darkest nightmare: He was short on bottles, which meant he’d—the horror!—need to dump his beer.

To prevent this catastrophe, the Portland, Maine brewer poured the Tripel, a sweet-tasting, golden-yellow brew, into a couple of empty Jim Beam oak casks hanging around the brewery. When he tasted the Tripel a couple of days later, “it was totally transformed,” Tod says. “We made a new beer.”

The serendipitous brew became Allagash’s bourbon-barrel-aged Curieux, one of the suds spearheading a resurgence of limited-edition, cask-aged beer. From the chardonnay-barreled Temptation blond ale at Santa Rosa, California’s Russian River Brewing Company, which won a gold medal at this year’s World Beer Cup, an international competition for commercial breweries, to the burgundy-barreled La Folie sour ale from Fort Collins, Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing Company, mad-scientist American microbrewers—and even Anheuser-Busch, with its barrel-aged Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak reinventing a European tradition.

Barrel aging mellows and transforms beer, providing lush, woodsy notes and the flavor of the cask’s previous contents, which range from red wine to bourbon to port. Until the late 19th century, beers in both America and Europe were seasoned in oak casks. Their earthy flavors leached into the mixture, creating unique concoctions. It was—and remains—a time- and labor-intensive process. When brewers began mass production, using stainless steel vats, it ushered in a dark century of “getting beers cleaned up,” says Greg Hall, head brewer of Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company, which hosts the annual Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer. “And now we’re seeing the beer world go full circle.”

While the brewing methods of lambics (a pleasingly sour, low-fizz brew aged in barrels) have been unchanged for centuries, “the boundaries of what brewers can create with barrel-aged beers are limitless,” says Ray Daniels, author and director of craft-beer marketing for the Brewers Association. American brewers have used aging as a way to experiment. “It’s pretty easy to throw something in a barrel and see what happens six months later,” says Daniels.

Smuttynose Brewing Company, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, recently released the S’Muttonator Doppelbock lager, which spent two years in Jack Daniels barrels (by law, bourbon and whiskey distillers can use casks only once). The result was a belly-warming potion with whiskey notes, with a smoothness belying its nearly double-digit alcohol content. “I can make an ale in two weeks, but there’s something special about waiting years for the finished product,” says Dave Yarrington, Smuttynose’s head brewer.

Barrel aging often makes potent beers more palatable, though brewers are often more interested in unusual flavors. Barrel seasoning works for lager, pilsners, and stouts alike, though it’s sometimes tricky marrying beer styles to barrels. While thick, dark stout would work with bourbon-infused oak, a thin pilsner would be overpowered, says Jason Alström. He’s cofounder (with brother Todd) of the influential website BeerAdvocate, as well as organizer of the Extreme Beer Fest, which often features barreled brews.

Alström recommends Paso Robles, California’s Firestone Walker 10, a rich blend of ten beers seasoned in oak casks. He also suggests trying Dexter, Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, which exclusively barrel-ages. Standouts include the Oro de Calabaza golden ale (gold-medal winner at 2004’s Great American Beer Festival) and the Perseguidor sour, which is cellared in bottles for six months before it’s sold.

Battles, though, are being waged over Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout, which received a gold medal at 2006’s World Beer Cup. “The demand for our barrel beer is out of control; we’ve got distributors fighting over cases,” Hall says. “I guess we just have to make more next year.”

To buy these beers, visit the brewers’ websites, or BeerGeek.biz and Liquid Solutions. Note: Beers are subject to availability.

Thirty-two Christmases ago, Anchor Brewing Company owner Fritz Maytag made 300 cases of a limited-edition beer and gave the bottles away as gifts. “I knew of the ancient tradition of little brewers in various villages creating a special holiday ale and giving it to friends and family,” says Maytag. “I thought it was just such a lovely idea.” Since then, Anchor has put out one-of-a-kind Christmas beer with a different tree on the label every year—beech, birch, redwood, Douglas fir, even palm—but the spices and formula for the beer itself remain a secret.

Outside America, centuries-old traditions still dictate styles of holiday ale. In Belgium, Christmas beers are generally dark, high gravity (strong), and somewhat spicy, though most of the time the flavor comes from malts and hops rather than actual spices, like cinnamon or cloves. Norway produces more Christmas beer than any other country, with the oldest brewery, Ringnes, churning out over half a million liters a day. The typical Norwegian Christmas beer is a nutty, coppery lager that’s light to medium bodied and unspiced, but Scandinavia also produces winter ales brewed with actual spruce tips. As expected, they inflect a slightly pine tree–like flavor. Spruce has been used throughout the Northern Hemisphere (it was historically favored by seamen, who believed it could cure scurvy), but these days finding a spruce beer is harder than you’d think. Oregon’s Siletz Brewing Company Spruce Ale and Alaskan Brewing Company’s Winter Ale are among the few that make it stateside.

Spruce was historically favored by seamen, who believed it could cure scurvy.

There’s no one way to make holiday beer. Some brewers (like Maytag) spice them. Some (like Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman and Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall) believe that beer is no place for spices and instead create spicy flavors that taste more like what you’d expect from beer, by dry-hopping (adding hops to the maturation tank to increase pleasantly bitter, citrusy, and piney flavors and aroma) and by using caramelized and/or chocolate malts. (Caramelized malts result when barley malts’ starches are converted to sugars and caramelized by a specific dry-roasting technique. Chocolate malts have been roasted to a very dark stage, where chocolate-like flavors come through.)

Anchor’s Fritz Maytag does the same. “At any given moment, I’ll have four or five different years from my private stock stashed in the refrigerator, and each night before bed, my wife and I share one,” he says.

Just don’t forget to brush your teeth, Fritz.

Redemption, for me, began on a late-summer afternoon in a posh, oak-paneled tasting room at the BV winery in the Napa Valley. Two years after my first attempt at wine blending—which ended in tragedy—I’d signed up for a three-day extravaganza called Crush Camp for Weekend Winemakers, offered by Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, corporate parents of BV, Sterling, and numerous other wineries. After a morning of hands-on grape harvesting and grape eating, and of pretending to run the crusher-stemmer machines, it was 3 p.m. and I was finally seated at one of several round tables with the two dozen other participants—wine enthusiasts all, from around the country.

Eight huge Riedel wineglasses covered the paper placemats before each of us. Six of the glasses each held the six main components of BV’s wonderful Tapestry blend, an intensely pleasurable Bordeaux-style red I’d been drinking for years, and a seventh glass held a sample of BV Tapestry itself. An eighth glass was empty, awaiting our own tapestries—our own custom blends, to be bottled, custom labeled, and sent home with us, for later enjoyment or regret.

A lot of Old World wines are blends by definition, like champagne, Bordeaux, certain Rhône reds, Chianti, and rioja, but in a market dominated by California, Australia, and South America, it’s easy to forget that almost every wine we drink, including those labeled as single-grape wines, is a complex jumble with multiple components. Even pinot noir, chardonnay, and Riesling, which don’t benefit from blending with other varietals, are almost never produced with grapes from a single lot on a single vineyard—there’s simply too much to be gained, in terms of balancing flavor, acidity, sweetness, and alcohol level, by blending different batches aged in different kinds of oak barrels.

And when it comes to grapes like cabernet sauvignon, which do shine brighter with the help of other wines, the pre-bottle blending is the only way to create a complex flavor set. A fruity merlot, for example, can sand off the rough edges of a burly cabernet; a cabernet franc can help build up the floral nose and toss in a few background flavors that cabernet rarely has on its own; and Malbec can add texture and what people sometimes call “grip,” or mouthfeel, by contributing a number of tannins that cabernet sauvignon lacks. (If you think of tannins as those dry, tart elements in cabernet that light up particular parts of your mouth, then you can think of Malbec as a way of helping a cabernet to brighten even more mouth regions, making the wine a more interesting sensuous experience.)

Delicate Sensibilities

Now consider how little garlic it takes to change a soup, and that a single varietal wine only has to be 80 percent composed of that variety, and you can easily see why this is such a big deal, and why some varietals are akin to cooking spices, to be used only in judicious dabs. For example, Petit Verdot, which punches up the color and intensity of a wine, is so intense that Tom Rinaldi, winemaker at Provenance Vineyards, feels “armed and dangerous with that stuff. It can really alter a blend dangerously, almost unpredictably.” Rinaldi also recalls a particular blending session in which his cabernet tasted perfect at about 7 percent Petit Verdot and suddenly turned awful when he pushed it to 8 percent.

To make things even more complicated, a cabernet blending might draw on as many as 100 different versions of the five basic varietals, and a blending team might spend a whole week just mixing up sub-blends before they start blending the final wine. Working only in the mornings, when their palates are fresh, the team will typically quit by noon: “If you’ve already had lunch,” Rinaldi says, “you’re not tasting anymore. You’re partying.” He also considers the job such a serious physical challenge that he mountain bikes all over Napa to stay fit, and he keeps his palate as pure and sensitive as possible. “Even if somebody’s just wearing a skin lotion with a perfume in it,” he says, “and they hand me a wineglass, it can wreck a session. I just can’t get past it.”

And if Rinaldi’s had garlic with breakfast? He might just write off the whole morning. In fact, he once stopped using a particular brand of tooth-whitening toothpaste (essential equipment for winemakers, who would otherwise have hideously dark smiles), just because the peroxide tweaked his taste buds. Throw in the use of so-called fining agents—electrically charged materials that draw certain particles out of solution, either to clarify a wine or to tweak its flavor—and you’re talking about something a civilian really shouldn’t try at home. Fining agents are never left in a wine—they settle out before bottling—but would you really want to be responsible for the impact of, say, milk protein in wine? Or how about egg whites? Or volcanic gelatin drawn from animal bones or isinglass from the air bladders of sturgeon?

A Rough First Time

Still, my first outing didn’t have to go as badly as it did. This was back in 2004, during a Diageo winemaking seminar at Sterling Vineyards. Along with a dozen professional wine writers and wine buyers, I’d been seated at a long metal table among Sterling’s cold steel vats, under bright fluorescent lights, on a cold concrete floor in a cold air-conditioned room at the painful hour of 9:30 a.m. Pros apparently prefer stark surroundings to ensure that they don’t get distracted by nice light or the emotional pleasure of an evening cocktail. Sterling’s 2002 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon was the control wine, and the other participants launched right into tasting its five different components. Then, with no apparent struggle, they all read aloud the freakishly nuanced percentages of their own blends: 76.5 percent cabernet sauvignon, 13 percent merlot, 5.5 percent cabernet franc, 5 percent Petit Verdot, and so forth.

Sterling’s then-winemaker Rob Hunter, trying to coax me into revealing my own numbers, kept saying things like, “Hey, really, it’s OK. There’s no right answer here. All we’re trying to do is please our own palates.”

I knew this was baloney, because he’d responded to one guy’s blend by saying, “Right on! That’s very close to the Reserve.” But I couldn’t hold out forever, so I spilled the beans: 80 percent cabernet sauvignon, 8 percent merlot, 12 percent Malbec, and none of the other two grapes.

“Wow,” Hunter said, his jaw falling open in confusion. I wanted to crawl under the table.

“But hey, that’s great,” he continued, being a good guy and trying to smooth over my gaffe. “I mean, if that’s what tastes good to you … but that’s quite a hit of Malbec. It’ll be interesting to see how that tastes in a couple years.”

Back to the Table

By the time I made it to that lovely oak-paneled room at BV, on that glorious afternoon a few months ago, I’d been stewing in this Sterling humiliation for more than two years—and not just because I hated being exposed as a rube. Hunter had been right: My bottle turned out to be perfectly drinkable, because he gave me such top-drawer Sterling wines to work with, but it was also astringent, lacking in complexity, and clearly in violation of one of Rinaldi’s basic blending principles—that a wine have what he calls a “good memory,” by which he means that the flavor goes on and on at the end of a sip, and that it trails off toward positive notes. While Hunter’s 2002 Sterling Reserve, composed of precisely the same grape juice, drawn from precisely the same harvest, trailed off into a rich, fruity daydream, my own stumbled awkwardly toward acrid bitterness—a flaw that several winemakers have since told me could well have been due to excess Malbec. (And what about all those wonderful Argentine Malbecs? Apparently the different climate makes it almost a different grape down there.)

So I had a lot at stake as I took glass #1 from that round table, among all the other Crush Campers. Swirling the wine as one does, I carefully read its vitals: The grapes came from cabernet sauvignon Clone 6 vines grown in Block 1-A of Lot 1 (whatever that meant), at a vineyard on the Rutherford Bench (which would account for its dusty-dry-in-a-good-way flavor), and had been barrel aged in new French oak to an alcohol level of 13.3 percent. The wine tasted absolutely spectacular to me, with huge, sumptuous tannins that weren’t at all off-putting, so I resolved to make it my centerpiece. I moved on to glass #2, a cabernet from the southern end of the Silverado Trail—aged this time in once-used French oak and showing less power but more fruit than the first. Glass #3 held a St. Helena cab aged in new American oak, smelling like turpentine but tasting of sweet Santa Rosa plums. The merlot in glass #4 smelled like blueberries and tasted like roasted pimientos, the merlot in glass #5 struck me as surprisingly tannic, and the Calistoga cabernet franc in glass #6 hit you in the nose with spice and black pepper.

In no time at all I had a blend I liked, and although it’ll be another two years before I open the bottle, an early indicator has already come up positive: Wayne Ryan, the Diageo staffer who organized Crush Camp, tells me my blend percentages are almost identical to the BV Tapestry control. Not exactly a sign of freewheeling creativity, I’ll admit, but young writers are often told to mimic their idols before articulating a voice of their own. Who knows? Maybe it works the same way with wine.

New Orleans bar d.b.a. offers unusual craft beers, tequilas, gins, and vodkas. But the real draw is its 100 whiskies.

“Many people you wouldn’t think would order whiskey are ordering it,” says Michael Garran, manager of d.b.a., which also has a Manhattan location. “A couple attractive women come in, and you think cosmo, but they want a peaty single-malt.”

With a number of countries distilling it (see also our Japanese Whisky Primer) and a name that’s spelled two different ways, trying whiskey can be daunting. Let our primer be your cheat sheet, and get tasting. There’s a lot out there to try.

Note on Spelling

Scotch whisky is never spelled with an e, while Irish whiskey almost always is. Bourbon is usually whisky, though it doesn’t have to be, while rye is often whiskey. Canadian is mostly whisky, while Tennessee swings both ways equally. The word itself comes from the Gaelic uisge, a shortened form of uisge beatha, which is a translation of the Latin aqua vitae (“water of life”), a term used in ancient and medieval times to describe distilled spirits.

How Whiskey Is Made

Whiskey requires only four ingredients: water, grain, yeast, and time. It can be made from any kind of grain, but barley, corn, and rye are the most common. Barley and rye are usually malted before fermentation, meaning that they are allowed to germinate in order to release their sugars, then are dried to stop the growing process.

The grain is mashed up with water and mixed with yeast, then allowed to ferment, creating a frothy mixture similar to beer called wash, which is distilled.

Out of the still, the whiskey-to-be is essentially moonshine—clear and 60 to 80 percent alcohol. At this point it is placed in oak barrels and aged. (American law allows for two years, but almost no producers do less than three). The whiskey gets its color from the barrel, and many distilleries reuse wine, port, sherry, or bourbon barrels for distinctive flavor. Whiskeys aren’t aged more than around 30 years, because they take on so much wood flavor that they lose their individuality. After aging, the whiskey is diluted with water to 40 or 43 percent alcohol and bottled, though some whiskeys are bottled at “cask strength.”

Scotch Whisky

The first known reference to distilling in Scotland dates to 1494, and many Scotch distilleries have been in continuous operation for well over a century. The oldest that is still in production, Oban, was founded in 1794.

A single-malt whisky is required by law to be made from 100 percent malted barley in a single distillery. To be called Scotch, it also has to be distilled and aged for at least three years, entirely within Scotland.

There are multiple Scotch regions, but the most important thing to know is whether the whisky is from the highlands or the islands. The most prolific of the islands is Islay (ee-luh), 25 miles long and home to seven operating distilleries. Because of the cold, rainy climate of the islands, malted barley used in their whisky is dried with the smoke from burning peat, the layer of partially decomposed vegetation found in bogs and swamps in rainy areas. This gives island Scotches smoky flavors and aromas that can include seaweed, pepper, and bacon. Highland whiskies, like those from Speyside, Scotland’s largest whisky region, do not use peat, so they are sweeter and softer.

Beside single-malts, there are also blended Scotch whiskies, such as Johnnie Walker. These are made from a blend of single-malts plus Scotch whiskies made from other grains. Their taste is less intense than single-malts, without the smokiness of an Islay.

Recommendations

Islay

Bowmore 12-Year-Old: Chocolate and pear notes without too much smoke. A good beginner’s Islay. About $40 a bottle.

Laphroaig 10 year old: When you’re ready to try maximum smokiness, this delivers with a strong woody nose and a salty-sweet balance. About $30 a bottle.

Speyside

Balvenie Doublewood 12 Year Old: Sweet, nutty, and smooth. About $35 a bottle.

Irish Whiskey

The majority of Irish distilleries make blended whiskeys, in which Irish single-malts are mixed with whiskey made from barley, wheat, or rye. They also never use peat and thus are very smooth but somewhat less distinctive than Scotches. Irish blends are a little rougher and coarser. There are also some single-malt Irish whiskeys, but they’re expensive and rare.

Recommendations

Jameson: A classic blended Irish whiskey that’s smooth, mellow, and sweet, with some floral notes. About $20 a bottle.

Bushmills 10 Year Old Single Malt: Notes of nougat, chocolate, oak, and vanilla. About $40 a bottle.

American Whiskey

After the American Revolution, Congress passed a tax on whiskey, sparking the Whiskey Rebellion. The result was that homesteaders in Kentucky and Tennessee were allowed to make their whiskey tax-free. That’s why most American whiskeys come from those two states.

Bourbon Whiskey

According to lore, in the 18th or early 19th century, a Baptist preacher and distiller named Elijah Craig charred the inside of some old fish barrels so that he could age whiskey in them. His liquor, stamped with the Bourbon County location of his distillery, became so popular that people began asking for Bourbon whiskey. A true American liquor was born.

To legally be called bourbon, a whiskey must be made from at least 51 percent corn. The rest is usually a combination of rye, wheat, and malted barley. It also must be aged a minimum of 2 years in charred, new white oak barrels. The charring process opens tiny cracks in the wood, creating a larger surface area for the bourbon to react with, and thus accelerates the aging process. Therefore, bourbon is best aged 4 to 8 years instead of the 10 to 16 typical of Scotches. The layer of charcoal in the barrel also filters out some impurities as the whiskey moves in and out. Most bourbons are made in Kentucky, but there is no legal requirement that they must be.

The best bourbons have high proportions of corn and rye content along with some barley. The rye adds a cherry-wood flavor and deep, fruity richness with a long finish that characterizes great bourbon. Wheat makes for a softer, mellower product. Bourbon cognoscenti seek out rare and expensive small-batch and even single-barrel bourbons.

Recommendations

Maker’s Mark: An inexpensive, well-balanced bourbon with notes of vanilla, honey, oranges, and spice. About $20 a bottle.

Old Forester Birthday Bourbon: A small-batch, rare, and expensive bourbon with a vanilla and caramel nose, and notes of tea, mint, and apple. About $45 a bottle.

Rye Whiskey

Like bourbon, rye whiskey must be aged for at least two years in charred, new white oak barrels, but it must contain at least 51 percent rye instead of corn, with corn and malted barley usually making up the rest. It’s the oldest form of American whiskey—George Washington distilled rye at Mount Vernon, and it forms the basis of the famous Sazerac cocktail. Prohibition nearly erased it from existence. It’s now enjoying something of a renaissance.

Recommendations

Old Overholt 4 Year Old Straight Rye Whiskey: Smooth, with flavors of ginger and spice. About $19 a bottle.

Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old: Intense spice notes balanced with toffee, oak, and molasses flavors. About $45 a bottle.

Tennessee Whiskey

Tennessee whiskey is made in exactly the same way as bourbon, except that it must come from Tennessee and must be charcoal filtered before aging, a flavor-mellowing process that some purists say ruins the whiskey. There are only two producers: Jack Daniel’s and George A. Dickel & Co.. The George Dickel distillery closed in the mid-’90s and reopened in 2003, bringing renewed interest to it.

Canadian Whisky

Canadians don’t have any special rules about whisky. Some is made from corn and some from rye, and there is even one Canadian single-malt, Glen Breton Rare. Most of the well-known Canadian whiskies, like Canadian Club and Canadian Mist, are blended. As a result, there is no unique flavor profile.

Recommendation

Crown Royal Extra Rare: A blend of the last whiskies made at Crown Royal’s old Waterloo, Ontario, plant, which was closed in 1992. They’re not kidding about the “extra rare.” About $150 a bottle.

Photographs by Jen Siska.

With 1,371 microbreweries in the United States making premium, handmade, and exotic brews, beer is moving up the social ladder. Creative bartenders are coming up with new ways to mix it with liquor, liqueurs, and fruit juices to create beer cocktails—or beertails.

The beertail isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. For instance, the shandy, a mix of beer and lemonade, dates back to the 1600s and has remained popular in British Commonwealth countries. In Germany a shandy is known as a Radler and in Spain as a Clara. In the Caribbean islands, shandies are made with fiery ginger beer.

The French version of shandy is called panaché, made with two-thirds beer and one-third lemon-flavored soda, called limonade. “A dash of grenadine makes it a Tongo panaché,” says Olivier Calmant, a Parisian bartender who makes them at the Vespaio restaurant and bar in Austin, Texas. “In France they give this to little kids at parties, but with more limonade than beer,” Calmant explains. “It can also be made with mint syrup instead of grenadine.”

Beertails inspired by British pubs include the black and tan, a mix of ale and stout, and the snakebite, a mix of hard apple cider and stout. The bloody bull (also known as a red eye or tomato beer) is half beer and half tomato juice, best enjoyed as a hair-of-the-dog remedy. Special occasions call for a black velvet stout and half champagne.

In Mexico, adding a squeeze of fresh lime—and perhaps a dash of salt—to Mexican lagers is a longstanding tradition; the same taste for salty-sour flavors has spawned a more elaborate beertail, the michelada. Usually it’s a lager seasoned with a healthy dose of fresh lime juice, served over ice in a salt-rimmed tall glass. Variations are common: Mexico City bars feature Cubanas, micheladas spiced up with Tabasco and Worcestershire.

The same taste for salty-sour flavors has spawned a more elaborate beertail, the michelada.

Another Mexican cantina staple—not yet quite as popular in the United States—is the Clamato con cerveza, a tall glass rimmed with spicy salt; half filled with spiced clam-and-tomato juice, lime juice, and ice; and topped with beer. It can be enjoyed with a shot of quality tequila—on the side, or added directly to the beertail.

Cafe d’Alsace in New York caters to beer connoisseurs, and has an in-house beer sommelier for food pairing and recommendations. Its signature beertail is the Griotte et Citron, made with kirsch, Heering cherry liqueur, fresh lemon, brandied cherries, and Lindemans Kriek, a Belgian lambic beer flavored with cherries.

And there’s plenty of room for experimentation. A mix of lager with a shot of fruit liqueur or fruit-flavored lambic would make for great summer quaffing. A shot of tawny port in a pint of coffee stout would be a lovely drink in the fall. And there’s always room for experimentation. Tamir Ben-Shalom, bar manager at Fonda Solana in Albany, California, which features six beer cocktails on its menu, recommends beginning with a lighter beer, like a lager, then adding something acidic, as in the classic michelada. Don’t shy away from the hard stuff, either. Fonda Solana’s jugador includes half a shot of Bombay gin.

While Oktoberfest is a fest, it’s also a specific style of beer. The tradition of Oktoberfest beers can be traced to the beginning of the festival, which was supposedly inaugurated in 1810, when Prince Ludwig of Bavaria took the unusual step of celebrating his marriage in a public festival with the plebeians—instead of a private royal one. The goodwill associated with this feel-good move gained momentum and still exists today.

The irony of the Oktoberfest beer is that it often carries the name of another month—in German, Märzen—March. This owes to the fact that before refrigeration, it was not possible to brew reliable beer in the summer. Because of the heat, fermentations would often go awry, resulting in bacterial infections and spoiled beer. The last feasible time to brew was in March, hence the name Märzen. The beers were brewed to higher strength, as alcohol is a preservative, to further guard against spoilage. Brewed in large quantities in the spring and then sequestered deep in cool caves throughout the summer, these Märzen/Oktoberfest beers would make their long-awaited debut during the fall festival season. Technically, they must be brewed in Munich, though Oktoberfest-styled beers are now made all over.

Appearing in color anywhere from a burnished gold hue to a deep brown with shades of red and orange, the beers are characterized by sweet, almost humid maltiness that’s balanced by a slight bitter note from the hops, though not enough for the beer ever to be considered bitter. Alcohol levels generally hover between 5 and 6 percent.