“Brown sugar, chocolate, raisins, and cinnamon – Big, bold, packed with flavor” – Bourbon Podcast announces 2023 Whiskey of the Year
“Big, bold, packed with flavor” – Bourbon Podcast announces 2023 Whiskey of the Year
After sampling over 100 whiskeys in 2023, Bourbon Podcast announced its 2023 Whiskey of the Year: Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon®.
The highly anticipated 2023 release of Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon® was limited to 9,600 bottles coming in at 140.9 proof.
Cowboy Bourbon® is bottled at cask strength, uncut and unfiltered, providing a unique flavor that is distinctly Garrison Brothers and unapologetically Texas.
“The 2023 release of Cowboy Bourbon® really stood out to us,”
Joe Nassif
co-host of Bourbon Podcast
“It is a big, bold, hazmat bourbon that is packed with flavor. It tastes like a dessert in a glass, with notes of brown sugar, chocolate, raisins, and cinnamon.”
Each barrel of Cowboy Bourbon® was hand-selected by Master Distiller Donnis Todd and stashed away in Garrison Brothers’ barrel barns for at least six years.
The process and high heat in Texas allows the bourbon to soak in even more flavor and texture, resulting in an incredible product. “Cowboy 2013, the first Cowboy ever released, put Garrison Brothers and Texas on the bourbon map,” said Donnis Todd, Master Distiller, Garrison Brothers Distillery. “It’s an honor a decade after the first release having the 2023 Cowboy named as the 2023 Whiskey of the Year,” Todd said.
Founded in 2005, Garrison Brothers Distillery is located in Hye, Texas. In 2006, the distillery was granted the first stiller’s permit for bourbon outside of Kentucky and Tennessee, which makes it the oldest legal bourbon distillery in Texas.
In addition to 2023 Whiskey of the Year, Bourbon Podcast announced the following 2023 Honorable Mention Whiskeys:
2XO Gem of Kentucky, 108 Proof, MSRP $199
Old Forester The President’s Choice, Barrel #30, 117 Proof, MSRP $189
Russell Reserve 13, Batch 4, 114.8 Proof, MSRP $150
Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond 10 year (Spring 2023), 100 Proof, MSRP $140
Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Rye, 114.4 Proof, MSRP $270
Elijah Craig Barrel Strength (C923), 133 Proof, MSRP $70
Elijah Craig Barrel Strength (B523), 124.2 Proof, MSRP $70
Garrison Brothers Balmorhea, 115 Proof, MSRP $180
Michter’s 10 Year Single Barrel Bourbon, Barrel #23G2651, 94.4 Proof, $185 MSRP
George T. Stagg, 135 Proof, MSRP: $125
Bourbon Podcast is the premier podcast for whiskey enthusiasts, consistently ranking in the Top 10 of Apple Podcasts in the United States in the hobbies category. Bourbon Podcast has thousands of weekly subscribers made up of whiskey enthusiasts and industry insiders. With over 60,000 followers on social media, Bourbon Podcast has distinguished itself as one of the top sources for news and reviews of whiskey in the United States.
For more information: www.bourbonpodcast.com
Instagram: @bourbonpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/bourbonpodcast
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Thanksgiving in NYC: the perfect stuffing bread DOES exist – and it’s… [Recipe here]
This Thanksgiving in NYC, the perfect stuffing bread DOES exist – and it’s brioche. As in St Pierre Brioche Thanksgiving Stuffing
No Thanksgiving spread is complete without a hearty stuffing. While add-ins are a matter of preference, choosing the right bread is crucial. One underrated choice is eggy, rich brioche – and with St Pierre Bakery, you don’t need to go to France to get it.
Thanks to its butter and egg content, St Pierre’s Brioche Loaf provides the perfect balance of crisp toastiness while remaining soft and creamy inside, while its lightly sweet flavor adds a decadent quality that can still lean savory. Attached below is an approachable recipe for stuffing allowing for all the craveable crunch for the whole family with minimal effort required.
St Pierre Brioche Thanksgiving Stuffing
By @BrandiMilloy
Ingredients
1 loaf St. Pierre Brioche Bread
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 cup celery, diced
3/4 cup carrots, diced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme, just the leaves
1 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped
1 small apple (granny smith works well), peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut brioche bread into 1” cubes and bake for about 10-15 minutes until toasted.
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Meanwhile, into a pot over medium high heat add butter until melted. Add onion, celery and carrots and cook until everything starts to soften, about 7 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat and set aside.
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Into a bowl whisk together the eggs, herbs, apples, mushrooms, and salt and pepper. Add your cooked vegetables and mix to combine.
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Pour mixture on top of toasted bread and stir to combine. Bake stuffing for about 45 minutes. If your stuffing starts to get too brown, cover until finished baking. Enjoy!
As America’s favorite brioche brand, St Pierre’s products are widely available via grocery stores nationwide as well as Walmart.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee: A New Era in Health-Conscious Brewing
In today’s health-focused culture, where wellness transcends mere goals to become a lifestyle, mushroom coffee is emerging as a leading trend. This innovative beverage combines the classic energizing effects of coffee with components often linked to the reputed benefits of medicinal mushrooms. Such a blend makes mushroom coffee a more mindful, health-oriented option for daily consumption, resonating especially with those who weave wellness into their daily routines.
Image courtesy of Freepik
The uniqueness of mushroom coffee lies in its ability to enhance the usual coffee experience by potentially offering additional benefits. For those who find regular coffee too acidic, mushroom coffee presents a more stomach-friendly option. Additionally, it incorporates adaptogenic mushrooms, which are believed to help the body better manage stress. This attribute makes mushroom coffee especially enticing to wellness enthusiasts and those seeking a natural way to support their body’s stress response.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee, Image Courtesy of Freepik
Finding a coffee that delivers on both taste and health promises can be a daunting task. Leading the initiative is More.Longevity & Wellbeing with its Coffee Superfood Blends. These products are meticulously developed, selecting each ingredient for its quality and scientific backing, ensuring they contribute effectively to the blend. Flavors such as Salted Caramel Vanilla and Mocha are designed to mask the natural earthiness of mushroom, making the beverage more enjoyable while enhancing its appeal. The addition of adaptogens and essential vitamins in the blends aims to support overall health by boosting immunity, enhancing energy, and improving mental clarity.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee, Image Courtesy of More.Longevity & Wellbeing
The company’s commitment to radical transparency ensures that consumers receive a product free from unnecessary fillers and additives, affirming a respect for consumer health and environmental sustainability. This level of honesty and ecological consideration is becoming increasingly important to consumers who prefer products that are both healthy and environmentally conscious.
As the trend continues to carve a niche within the beverage market, consumers are presented with expanding choices. It’s no longer just about picking a brand; it involves selecting a philosophy and a level of quality that resonates with personal health values and taste preferences. The coffee not only invites coffee lovers to rethink their daily mug but also serves as a gateway to a more mindful and intentional morning routine.
Image Courtesy of Freepik
Are NYers falling in love with New Wine? Dancing Wines from Cynthia Russell, Lauren Russell
Are NYers falling in love with New Wine? Dancing Wines from Cynthia Russell, Lauren Russell in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County.
The team at Dancing Wines is developing a collection of sensory brands that celebrate life through taste, touch and aroma – inspiring you to find your inner dance and show the world what truly moves you.
Dancing Wines’ red wine trio includes Old Vine, Duo and Estate — three limited-release wines made from hand-picked grapes that showcase the full breadth of the Dancing estate.
Lauren Russell (L) and Cynthia Russell (R) from Dancing Wines Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Today’s conversation with the dynamic Mother / Daughter team Cynthia and Lauren Russell from Dancing Wines ha been edited for length and clarity.
For the full, un-edited conversation, visit our YouTube channel here.
Joe Winger: What is the most important message you’d like to share today?
Lauren Russell: I think one of them is dancing is art and art is life.
Another is love needs no explanation. I think really the thread between those is we’re trying to create a product and an experience that brings people together and invites them to find their inner dance, which is something we say a lot.
So we want to encourage people to find their unique rhythms. And wine is also really lovely because it is a vehicle that brings people together to enjoy a moment and diverse people together.
I think my Mom [Cynthia] can speak to this as well, but one of the things we thought about when first exploring wine was just how daunting the whole atmosphere is around the consumption of it and the buying and using all the right adjectives.
Especially for my generation I feel like there’s a bit of a learning curve. So I think one thing we really want people to take away from the brand is just like, just enjoy it. Love needs no explanation and you can’t drink wine when your mouth is full of adjectives. We’ve created a great wine just for you to be able to enjoy and to describe however you want and enjoy whenever you want.
Source: WeAreDancing.com
Cynthia: Yeah, I think the measures we created we have a beautiful heritage property that the soil and the climate create this great wine. And me being of an older generation where wine was very intimidating, even though I know a lot about it.
And drinking it for a very long time. I’ve lived in France. I’ve lived in California. It’s still when you order in a restaurant, you’re scared. Do I know enough? I’m going to be embarrassed. Is this the right pairing? And what the good news is that wine making in the world has become so sophisticated that if you are buying wine from a place that is special, including all.
Sonoma or France or Italy, the wines are good, they’re really good and all you have to do is be comfortable with yourself and enjoying it. And so that’s what we’re trying to do is take a product that has thousands of years of history as being a part of our culture and make you comfortable with just having fun, enjoying it and celebrating what wine can do to bring people together.
Source: WeAreDancing.com
Joe Winger: You have a really unique story that you restored a vineyard up in Dry Creek. Can you talk about experience and what you learned from the restoration?
Cynthia: We lucked out. It was a Covid purchase. We spent a lot of time as a family together in very small confined spaces drinking a lot of wine.
We [thought we] might end up needing a place where we have more outdoor space and can be together. So we bought this property more as a farm and then discovered that it was a unique part of the world.
Zinfandel grapes have been growing in this small region for over 150 years.
It was called America’s grape back in the time I think [the] 1850s. Okay, we have these vineyards. They’re really old.
There was one owner at this property for 60 years, an older Italian gentleman. And a lot of the area is multi generation, fourth generation Italian families who came over and cultivated this grape.
We never intended to make wine and yet we were scared to let this history and heritage die.
So we took classes and tried to figure out, can we make wine?
It’d be such a shame to let this history go in this special place.
We made a great discovery, which was that you don’t have to be an expert on wine. You just have to have great soil and a great climate.
Then we launched from there.
Source: WeAreDancing.com
Lauren: We’re always towing the line between the respective tradition and traditional winemaking and the land and all of the old vines and creating something new.
She [Mom, Cynthia] always brings a lens of respect for the older generation and ways of life and what wine has meant to her throughout her life.
I’m always pushing the other direction. We always land somewhere in the middle.
You’ll see that in the brands, it has really playful branding and packaging. But, our winemaking is a bit more traditional. We’re a sustainable vineyard but we have old vines and we respect what the land has to offer and what it’s been offering in that region for a long time.
It creates a better product and brand for us because we get to cater to both audiences.
Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Joe Winger: You have a collection of sensory brands. Can you talk about what that collection is, what inspired the idea, and what we should be looking for?
Lauren: All of the products have been and will be inspired by the backdrop of the vineyard.
When we talk about wine, we talk about this kind of multi sensory experience, whether that’s aroma or where you’re having it, who you’re enjoying it with.
We came into wine knowing that it was going to be not just about taste or smell, but about the holistic experience of what wine could do for someone.
Sort of the thread between all of our products are taste, touch and smell. Again, like finding your inner dance and allowing you to express your personality.
We’re launching a trio of fragrances, which are loosely inspired by the terroir and the vineyard.
Cynthia: We have a fresh perspective on Sonoma. Every time we arrive, we have this nose full of these incredible senses:, the smell of moss, crushed grapes, barrel, fire and oak.
Yeah. So we’re like, wow. Every time we arrive, we’re like, wow, this is really cool.
This is so distinct and unique and just elevates your experience of being there.
We are going to bring more experiences to the brand when we can, like having an artist in residence, creating visually beautiful contributions.
We have an art collection there that inspired us to bring art to the brand. It’s largely from a diverse group of artists from the West Coast who are very colorful and young and also push boundaries. So our idea with the senses is like we’re trying to This is a brand that you enter into our world and you get to experience people and life in a way that’s very unique and bold and
Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Joe Winger: What are both of your backgrounds outside of wine?
Lauren: I was raised in Connecticut and went to Dartmouth for undergrad, was a creative non-fiction writer, so always had that storytelling bent.
After school, I worked at a lot of businesses in marketing. Uber Eats, Refinery29, right before the pandemic, I worked for AB and Bev that was my first kind of foray into alcohol.
Then during COVID, I got my MBA at Columbia. We all got this massive reset of our priorities. I come from an entrepreneurial family. This opportunity arose
Cynthia: We’re a family who really believes in experiences. I have dabbled in many different areas. I went to Scripps college. I actually was a dance major until I was not. I became an international relations major. I lived in France for a while. Then moved to New York City and worked for JP Morgan trading stock, money market securities.
I didn’t find that was my passion, so I went to Harvard Business School and I got a master’s in business. Then I worked for American Express where I started a weekend travel program. It was a little startup within the travel segment of American Express. I got my “sea legs” of starting a business.
I quit that business because I had kids, then I started my own mail order company then I decided again, that maybe I needed a little more education.
I went back and got a doctorate at Columbia in organizational leadership.
I have a consulting firm on the side where I consult leaders and organizations about how to handle complex challenges in a complex world.
So my daughter [Lauren] gets through business school and we decide to marry all these wonderful experiences together and create something really new and unique.
Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Joe Winger: Let’s talk about your wines.
Lauren: We launched with our rosé which is really beautiful. It’s an intentional rosé. From our Primitivo grapes and we harvested them early and intentionally for rosé.
It has this really beautiful distinct, watermelon, almost Jolly Rancher aroma, and it’s really playful and full, but also dry. And it’s been a really big hit so that was a fun debut for us.
We just launched our trio of reds, and what makes them unique goes into the story about the restoration of the vineyard.
We’re still learning our land and learning from it.
We chose to harvest from different blocks and treat the wines in a similar fashion and bottle them separately to see what personalities they expressed.
One is the Old Vine Zinfandel, which is from our oldest head trained vines which is the deepest, moodiest, richest wine. It’s really lovely.
Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Then we have an estate wine, which is actually from Primitivo, a different word for Zinfandel. That one is a bit lighter.
Then we have a third, a duo which is a blend of both. And so it’s really helped us to understand. And they are quite different.
They’re obviously all Zinfandels in their expressions, but they’re all quite different.
People say Zinfandel is like a map of the land and I think that’s really true here. Which is super cool.
But we have two forthcoming sparkling wines because I think it really speaks to our ethos about being playful and to my generation.
Cynthia: It’s really fun for us because being on the East coast, Zinfandel is a really unknown varietal and we think it’s underrated. Californians know it’s been around for a long time. It has a lot of possibilities with food. And so what we’re trying to do is bring to light this really good wine and do it in a slightly different way.
We pick ours earlier, trying to have it be less jammy, juicy, heavy; lighter, less alcoholic than some of the more traditional Zinfandels that are on our street.
That’s really trying to address the changes consumer changes.
Our wines are chillable, super easy to eat with most any food, especially ethnic food, spicy food.
2022 was our first vintage. 2023 is already in barrels and we’ll be bottling that in probably in March. But it’s going to be a little different because the climate was different that year.
The rosé was just a fluke. Our winemaker wanted to try a Zinfandel rosé. Most people love it. It’s so distinct and unique.
Our 24 Rosé will come out in March. The reds will come out in the early summer. We’re going to bottle the sparkling in January, but that will be at least a year until you’ll see that. The pétillant naturel will probably be launching at about the same time as the rosé
Credit: https://instagram.com/DancingSonoma
Lauren: What’s fun about having both an early release sparkling and a [second, additional] later release [sparkling wine] one is going to be lighter, more effervescent, maybe geared towards the younger generation and the other will have that toastier champagne flavor.
Joe Winger: Do you have a favorite wine and food pairing?
Lauren: This one’s so hard. Rosé and oysters or any seafood is just awesome. Sparkling wine and a burger is one of my favorites.
In terms of red, when I think of Zinfandel, it’s Thanksgiving foods. It speaks to the hominess in our story. Bringing everyone around the table. Kind of experiential pairing.
Cynthia: Yeah, that resonates with me.
We have a lot of ethnic food, so it holds up really well to spice, to sweet and sour, salty and sweet. So it’s great with Indian food, Mexican food. Apples in your pork chops.
A burgundy is usually killed instantly by those kinds of flavors. It’s too fragile.
[Ours] is not fragile, but it still has so many nice aromas and flavors to enhance whatever you’re eating.
Lauren: It’s great with pizza. Pizza and a nice glass of Zinfandel
Source: WeAreDancing.com
Joe Winger: What’s something magical about Sonoma that you learned through this journey?
Lauren: True of both Zinfandel and Sonoma it always has this underdog energy to Napa. One of the hidden gems, we wake up really early and drive to the Redwood forest to watch the sun rise through the trees.
We eat a burrito because we have terrible burritos in New York.
There’s an amazing food community, 3 Michelin star restaurant, chefs, farm to table.
Cynthia: The distinct part of Sonoma is how important nature is to everyone there. It’s not just about wine. It’s incredible nature.
We both traveled a lot, lived in a lot of places. I’ve never seen such natural beauty in such a small area.
Lauren: That’s what the idea of our products is too. We have to bring people here in some way, differently than just having them taste the wine.
So as many dimensions as we can bring people into that realm to experience [00:29:00] that it’s like definitely the dream.
Joe Winger: Whether it’s social media, website, or other ways, what are the best ways for our audience to find and follow Dancing Wine?
Lauren: We have our website, which is wearedancing.com. We also are on Instagram, which is at DancingSonoma.
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Pennsylvania Spirit Co KLYR Rum Reinvents Cocktail Rules, Creating Flavor, Body and Clean Taste, Adam Lehrhaupt shares
Pennsylvania Spirit Co KLYR Rum Reinvents Cocktail Rules, Creating Flavor, Body and Clean Taste, Adam Lehrhaupt shares
Adam Lehrhaupt, Amish Patel, and Neil Kahrim started a Pennsylvania-based spirits company with the simple goal of creating a better-tasting American rum.
As they started adjusting their recipe for flavor, they soon found health benefits and great cocktail and food pairings. The result? A purer, cleaner rum, with a flavor they claim creates its own genre.
One thing’s for sure, Pennsylvania cocktail lovers are ordering more and more.
The following is a conversation (via zoom) with Adam Lehrhaupt. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, un-edited talk at our Youtube channel.
Let’s start by saying you’re in a car right now and can you tell us why you’re in a car right now?
Adam: Yeah, so I’m in a car right now because today’s a big day for any sports people, but especially in the Philadelphia area.
KLYR Rum being poured at a Phillies game
We’ve got a 1 o’clock Phillies game. And as a rum company, we like to go down to those games when we can and just hang out at the ballpark and buy rum for people. Introduce them [to our KLYR Rum brand]. Either something they’ve never had before or if they are already a fan, getting them another one. So I’m heading down to the ballpark today to catch a ballgame and hang out with some Phillies fans. And then tonight, we’ve got the draft, so the ballgame will roll over into some fun at Xfinity Live. So we’ve got our products in Xfinity Live now.
So we’ll pop over there and roll into a little bit of draft night. See who everybody’s favorite football teams draft.
I love your guerrilla marketing style. You’re out there meeting the people.
Adam: [Points to his shirt] This is my Phillies KLYR shirt. It’s our KLYR K, but it’s in the Phillies pin stripes. I don’t know if you can see it’s got the Philly pin stripes on it.
Tell us about the KLYR brand itself and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Adam: Basically the idea for creating KLYR rum and I’ll start back at the beginning. One of my two main business partners, his name’s Amish Patel. He is a dentist. He grew up as a dentist. His dad is a dentist. His brother’s a dentist. Thirteen cousins are dentists. There’s nine more in dental school. He has another group of cousins who all work in dental laboratories.
So they make dentures and things like that. So he comes from a dental family in Pennsylvania. I think they’re around 93 offices now in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the mid-Atlantic region.
He came to me over Covid and said he was done being a dentist and he wanted to do something different. And he had a friend who had been in the spirits industry, somebody he went to high school with, who created Whistle Pig and he said, I wanna create spirits.
And I said, first of all I’m in for anything spirits related, I’m a big fan and I went back and did a little bit of research to see what the market needed. So everything that we do is market driven, so we do research and figure out not what we think it needs.
What the market did have was a big kind of opening a gap in the Silver Rum area for something that was just very well made, but had flexibility. So a really good clean tasting silver rum didn’t really exist. So we set about trying to create it and that’s where KLYR Rum came from.
Now tell me a little bit about your background and the team itself. How the three of you got together.
Adam: So my current day job, when I’m not helping run this run business, is I write children’s books. So I’m a children’s book author.
Before that I was a senior art director for a company called Siemens Healthcare. Before that I was a roadie, but currently I’m a children’s book author and in my spare time I play hockey. That’s my little outlet for my extra energy. It’s my cardio when I’m working out.
And that’s where I met Amish. We all played against each other for years. And then finally a couple years ago, we ended up getting him onto my hockey team and we became pretty good friends. And when he presented this idea, I came back to him with rum as an idea.
He said, I have this guy I went to high school with. His name is Neil Kareem who’s from Trinidad. Let me get him on the phone. So we’re at lunch and he calls Neil and gets Neil on the phone and he goes, Neil, what do you think about, rum?
And Neil goes yeah, I like rum. Rum’s great. He goes, what about making rum? And Neil’s okay let’s figure it out. So really Neil and I were the ones who kinda went away for about five or six months and figured out how the whole distilling process worked, figured out how to build a distillery, put together all the numbers, and then Neil went out to try to find us a master distiller.
KLYR Rum Distiller Lexi Close
And he found somebody that we both really liked. And she agreed to meet us and we did this meeting and we just clicked right away. As it turned out, she was working for her family’s distillery, so we couldn’t hire her away at that time. But we did start working with her – her name’s Lexi Close and Lexi took my ideas and the flavor profiles I was talking about and the way that I described it to her, because it didn’t exist.
So I described it through other spirits. I wanted something with the clean taste of vodka or tequila, right? So I needed to keep that body that you get, but with the sugar of rum. You needed to have the mouthfeel of rum. What I wanted to lose was that harshness. There’s a harshness to rum that most people hide behind sugar.
It used to happen a lot with tequila as well. Luckily, Lexi’s a big tequila person, so she saw the change in tequila [from years ago, it’s much better now].
But she understood when I was talking about harsh tequila and she went about trying to [fix it]. She and I worked together. My work was just tasting it and making suggestions. She worked really hard.
She managed to create this whole new category of product that we are calling American Rum. To differentiate it from Caribbean style rum. We wanted to really delineate that this was something unique and different and it wasn’t like something you’d had before.
So let’s talk a little bit about flavors and the cans themselves, the process of making them?
Adam: Let’s start with how we got there first. Because when I started thinking of what drinks I would make with this great rum I was thinking summertime. A little sugar-free lemonade.
Then I came up with this idea for a drink at the ballpark. I called it “Clear sky”, so it had a little blue curacao in the lemonade, it was like a light blue kind of color.
We had that all last summer (2022) at Citizens Bank Park. Then we’re also up at the Iron Pigs Coca-Cola park where the Iron Pigs play in Bethlehem.
It was really light for a lemonade. It didn’t have a lot of sugar in it. I wanted to create that as one of our first cans. Then we were gonna do the traditional Orange Crush. Orange Crush is the big flavor down at the Jersey Shore towards the middle of last summer.
I expect it to be even bigger this year with all the peach crushes and everything that is happening. There’s a whole crush bar live now that’s how popular these are.
So we go in and we’ve got our flavor guy, Mike. He was concocting the mixes for us, and I wanted to keep them below 99 calories. That was very important to me, to go after the seltzer market, ready to drink’s or the White Claws. They’re basically made with cheap alcohol, hidden behind bubbles.
So we sat down and we started trying these lemonades, [testing for the] right amount of flavor. I tried the low flavor lemonade and I went, hold on, can you do this, but 20% less flavor?
I’m thinking we can get it to taste like water and it will be KLYR water. With the partnership with the Phillies, we’ve got Clearwater in Clearwater, right? Because that’s where they hold spring training.
He really took a lot of the flavoring out and basically something that tastes like ice cold water with a twist of lemon in it. So that was how we came up with that first flavor.
Then we had to create Crush. We did; and I thought it was good, but it was 99 calories. It had a lot of flavor to it, like an orange crush. As we’re going through and I’m drinking them, I’m [always] throwing in another shot of KLYR.
So when we decided to expand the water line to four flavors: the original OG water that has light, lemon flavor.
We have a tangerine water, which is really subtle, but it’s got sweeter, tangerine flavor to it. Still less than 99 calories.
Passion fruit which has got a little bit of that sour pop that passion fruit has.
Then the last one I really wanted to do a spa water, so we did cucumber mint. Which is my new go-to. I drink it all the time.
I knew that we wanted the flavors to be unique and different.
I didn’t want it to be sweet. When you get more full flavored, it ends up being more than 99 calories.
So the crush line became 6.5% [alcohol]. Because as I said, I kept adding an extra shot of KLYR to it. We could lower the sugar that we put in to give the flavor body so that we would get that kind of Crush body when you’re drinking it.
So they’re 6.5 %, they’re only 190 calories. We’ve got Orange Crush, Pineapple Smash Berry Lemonade Blast and Fruit Punch, which is like a tropical fruit punch. This is the juice bag of my youth. So I created those for people who like a little more pop, a little more flavor, and for anybody who goes into a bar and orders that double or triple IPA.
Is that why you didn’t want it sweet, for the calories?
Adam: No, I didn’t want it sweet because I don’t wanna hide the rum. I want you to be able to taste the rum. The flavorings might be great, but the rum is what we’re showcasing. So whatever we made, I wanted you to be able to still get those hints of the rum and enjoy that flavor as you’re drinking it.
For foodies, food pairing wise, what have been some great food combinations?
Adam: Let me go through the flavors of the crush line, because it splits, I think about them as like red wine and white wine.
So the water line is like a white wine. So you can have the waters with pizza, pasta, fish.
The Orange Crush and even the Pineapple Smash with Indian food or Mexican food where you have that spice but a little of that sweetness cuts through it and you have the body of the rum on the finish. Those things come out really well together.
[Now Adam has parked and is walking through their KLYR Rum office]
How much of your office is Pennsylvania based? Where’s your distiller?
Adam: Our distillery is in Lewisberry, so that’s in Pennsylvania out by Harrisburg.
Our headquarters is in Westchester. I am here in Bluebell. Keith is based in Quakertown.
Where can we find you? Where can we buy, where can we shop? Where can we follow?
Adam: In Pennsylvania we’re available through the PLCB (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board).
We’re in 30 different stores right now, but we’re in the distribution centers, so anybody who doesn’t have it in their PLCB store order it to have it delivered to them.
If you are in the greater Philadelphia, Eastern PA area, as far as Bethlehem and out towards Harrisburg we do home delivery.
We have a whole thing on our website everywhere that you can find it. So you can put in your zip code and it’ll tell you where you can get it near you.
In Eastern and Central Pennsylvania use the code: Adam2023 at checkout and get up to 35% off you order.
Tell us which social media channels you’re on and how to find you on there?
Adam: It’s KLYRRum on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and find us at KLYRRum.com
We support local first. So we’re a Pennsylvania company. That includes South Jersey.
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Warhol-Basquiat Play ‘The Collaboration’ Sets Winter Broadway Opening; with Paul Bettany & Jeremy Pope Starring
Warhol-Basquiat Play ‘The Collaboration’ Sets Winter Broadway Opening; with Paul Bettany & Jeremy Pope Starring
The Collaboration, Anthony McCarten’s hit London play about artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, will make its American premiere on Broadway this winter, with Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope as the two painters.
The Manhattan Theatre Club production will begin previews at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Tuesday, November 29, with an opening night set for Tuesday, December 20. Kwame Kwei-Armah directs.
The production will be the second Broadway production of MTC’s 2022-2023 season, following the fall premiere of Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living.
The Collaboration, which made its world premiere in a critically acclaimed production by London’s Young Vic Theatre in January, is set in the summer of 1984, when longtime superstar Warhol and wunderkind Basquiat agreed to work together on what would become one of the most famous exhibitions in the modern art history. As the official synopsis puts it, “But can these two creative giants co-exist, or even thrive?”
Bettany (The Avengers, WandaVision) and Pope (Broadway’s Choir Boy and Ain’t Too Proud) reprise their roles from the London staging.
The announcement was made today by Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) and the Young Vic Theatre, Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director) and Lucy Davies (Executive Director) by special arrangement with Eleanor Lloyd Productions, Anthology Theatre, Stanley Buchthal, and Denis O’Sullivan
Additional cast members and the creative team for The Collaboration will be announced at a later date. Two additional productions for MTC’s 2022-2023 season, including one at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway and one at MTC at New York City Center – Stage I, will be announced soon.
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NYC Wine: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano’s “The History Teller” led by Antonio Galloni, hosted by the Consorzio and Marina Nordic of IEEM USA – Wine Review
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Master Class & Guided Tasting “The History Teller” led by Antonio Galloni, hosted by the Consorzio and Marina Nordic of IEEM USA.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano has a long history and tradition of producing memorable bottles, so today should be a phenomenal event..
As expected, the room was crowded with curious and distinguished palettes. Sommeliers, wine educators, wine critics, wine journalists, importers.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Region
The event featured Andrea Rossi, President of the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulcino and Antonio Galloni, Wine Critic & Founder of Vinous, who led the tasting.
Andrea Rossi, President of the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulcino
Rossi spoke about the Consorzio and Montepulciano while Galloni explained the Vino Noble di Montepulciano region with intrigue and excitement
The Vino Nobile production zone is positioned between Val di Chiana and Val d’Orcia at altitudes from 820 and 1900 feet.
Antonio Galloni, Wine Critic & Founder of Vinous, led the tasting.
The climate is influenced by nearby Trasimeno Lake, its soils composed of marine fossils, sandstone, salt rich clay and precious silt deposits.
The Sangiovese grape is locally called Prugnolo Gentile. Within their local Producer community, it’s name is mostly interchangeable.
Montepulciano in Tuscany is the center for Vino Nobile’s vinification efforts where both vinification and aging takes place and are supervised in the municipal area.
Vino Nobile is aged for a minimum of two years, including one year in oak barrels; and three years total in order to earn the title Riserva.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Tasting
There were 11 wines tasted in total.
“Alboreto” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2020
“Alboreto” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2020
From Fattoria della Talosa made from 100% Sangiovese.
The vineyard is at 350-400 meters above sea level. After a careful selection of grapes, from the last week of September to the first week of October, the fermentation time is about 15-20 days.
Then malolactic fermentation is in stainless steel. The maturation is for 2 years in big barrels and stainless steel for another 2 months. The finished wine continues to be aged in bottle before release. An easy drinking win, hints of plum, blackberries, a kiss of strawberry and pepper. An excellent start to the day.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2020 docg from Dei
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2020 docg from Dei
Made from 90% Sangiovese and 10% Canaiolo.
The soil is mostly clay with sand (tuff) and the vineyard is at 300 meters above sea level. Soft pressing of the grapes followed by spontaneous fermentation with the use of indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks at a controlled temperature. Maturation on the skins for 15 – 25 days with pump over’s. Aging for at least 24 months of which a minimum of 18 months is in wood. The wine remains in-bottle for some time before release.
On the nose, hints of cherry, plum and violets with a hint of coffee and a touch of vanilla. Pair it with braised beef cheek with mashed potatoes.
“Asinone” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Selezione 2020
“Asinone” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Selezione 2020
Made from 100% Sangiovese.
The vineyard is at 380 – 400 meters. The soil is clay and silt with embedded fossils. Fermentation is in stainless steel vats for 20 to 25 days with cultured yeasts from the vineyard. Malolactic fermentation in 6,000 to 8,000 French oak vats.
A vibrant wine with hints of red currant, cherry, strawberry, plum, violet. Pair it with ribeye
“La Braccesca” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2020
Made from 90% Sangiovese and 10% Merlot.
The vineyard is at 290 meters. The soil is sandy loam. Each grape variety was harvested separately, de-stemmed and delicately crushed. Then transferred into stainless steel vats where alcoholic fermentation took place at a controlled temperature to preserve the fruit’s aromatic profile. Maceration on the skins for 10 days. Malolactic fermentation. Then the following spring, the bottles were aged approximately 12 months. Then bottled in spring 2020 and aged for one additional year in the bottle.
Red currant, strawberries, cherries and a subtle hint of spice and vanilla.
“Vigna d’Afiero” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg Selezione 2020 from Tenuta Valdipiatta
“Vigna d’Alfiero” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg Selezione 2020 from Tenuta Valdipiatta
Made from 100% Sangiovese.
Vinification is in steel tanks at controlled temperatures. Maceration on the skins for 20-25 days. Daily pump over and délestage at the beginning and in the middle of fermentation. Spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Fermentation in stainless steel tanks for 20 days. Malolactic fermentation in stainless steel. The wine is aged in French barrels at 20% new oak for 18 months, then aged in bottle before release.
A delicious and complex flavor. Black cherry, dark chocolate, balsamic notes and a touch of vanilla Pair this with duck, roasted and grilled meats.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2020 Boscarelli
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2020 Boscarelli
Made from 85% Sangiovese and 15% Canaiolo.
Alluvial and sandy lime soil with silt, clay and stony structure. The grapes are picked manually. After de-stemming and soft pressing, they are fermented in oak vats. Indigenous yeast is used in the fermentation process that lasts about a week. Aged in Slavonian oak casks, where malolactic fermentation occurs. Maturation takes from 18 to 24 months, then aged in the bottle for several more months before the release.
Strawberry, blueberry and sage notes. Medium body, medium tannin. Suggested pairing: grilled, roasted or braised meat and manchego or other seasoned cheese.
Luca de Ferrari of Boscarelli
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2019 Avignonesi
100% Sangiovese.
This bottle is even more special, as it employs Pied de Cuve, a process used by winemakers wanting to use wild yeast from the vineyard to ferment their wines. The process aims to build a population of viable (alive yeast) and vital (strong) in the wild yeast culture in a small volume of wine.
20-25 days of maceration. Pied de cuve used for the first bath of grapes in advance, select yeasts which are naturally present on the skins. Then these grapes become the basic yeast used for the fermentation. At least 18 months in Slavonian oak barrels and then at least 6 months aged in bottle.
On the nose, strawberry and red currant with subtle vanilla and spices. Well-balanced, medium body, ripe cherries and plum. Elegant tannin that creates a nice balance against the flavor and mouthfeel. Surprisingly long finish.
Would pair well with traditional Italian dishes, prosciutto, pecorino.
“Tenuta Calimaia” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2020 Marchesi Frescobaldi
90% Sangiovese (Prugnolo Gentile) and 10% red grape varieties.
Maturation in oak barrels for 24 months. Bottle aged for 4 additional months.
Intense ruby red in the glass. Nose is vibrant with cherry, sage, cardamom. Dark chocolate. Body is bold and velvety. Heavy tannin. Long dry finish.
“Silineo” Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2020 from Tenute del Cerro
Fermentation and maceration at controlled temperature with daily pump overs.
Goes through malolactic conversion then 18 months of aging.
Cherry and red currant on the nose. Earthy, cedar, vegetal.
Pairs well with roasted chicken, and sharp cheddar.
“Messaggero” Vino Nobile de Montepulciano docg 2018
“Messaggero” Vino Nobile de Montepulciano docg 2018
95% Sangiovese and 5% Canaiolo Nero.
The grapes are handpicked, fermented in small containers to facilitate extraction of the skins. Fermentation is made with natural yeast, in full respect of the area, when the wine is still in contact with the skin, for 18-20 days. Then transferred to Slovenian oak casks for 18 months, then 6 more months in oak. During this period, they decant to make the wine clear and prepare for bottling.
The nose is pronounced with black currant, blackberry, blueberries, spice and leather. Full body, medium tannin, long finish.
Would pair well with aged pecorino, ribeye and game
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2018 from Villa S. Anna
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano docg 2018 from Villa S. Anna
85% Sangiovese, Mammolo Canaiolo, 8% Colorino, 7% Merlot.
Fermented with a 20 day maceration. Then 24 months in Slavonian oak barrels, French Oak, barriques. After bottling, kept in bottle for another year.
Ruby in the glass, Dark cherry on the nose with tobacco and licorice. Light body, medium tannin, dried cherry, raspberry, crushed herb, medium finish.
Pairs well with game meats, venison, seasoned cheese.
I but lots of bourbon. Gotta track this one down!