Mark and Lynn love Mike's Hot Honey...

Lynn and I something on a local station about Miie's Hot Honey which is chili infused honey.  The taste is influenced by Mike's travels where he was exposed to the versatility of chili resulting in this concoction.  It is really hot and we love it over pears, almost any cheese and are looking forward to figuring how to use it in cocktails.  A great stocking stuffer...

Mark and Lynn discover three great Thanksgiving whites...

In recent years, Thanksgiving has become more and more a great holiday for wine lovers.  Picking a great wine can really transform the traditional holiday meal into something special and memorable.   Mark and Lynn have come across a couple of great last minute Thanksgiving wine selections that should help add variety to a pleasant though often predictable holiday. 

One, the Naked Grape Pinot Grigio has great fruit flavor and is an idiosyncratice, though very appropriate choice with the traditional turkey of Thanksgiving. 

Another great choice is the Argentinian Alamos Torrontés whose floral and jasmine hints pair well with typically savory offerings like spicy cornbread.

 Finally, the Spanish Martín Códax Albariño has nice notes of pear, passion fruit and apple which pairs well with seafood and shellfish offerings like Oysters and Oyster Dressing.  Very sophisticated stuff for turkey, cranberry and stuffing...

Bellport Liquors bring the fine wines of Raphael Vineyards to Mark and Lynn's backyard...

When Lynn and I moved to Long Island the local liquor store Bellport Liquors was a reliable and nearby place to get basic, Waspy spirits like Gordon's Gin, Smirnoff and so on; good stuff to be sure but nothing to get too excited about.  Flash forward 10 year later and Bellport Liquors  has slowly become a favorite of ours due to their increasingly interesting and thoughtful selections of wine and spirits, cordial, familiar service (with great and friendly proprietors Maura and Mike Kuehl);  but most of all for the fact that they have consistently interesting wine tastings.  Most recently, we were able to attend a tasting of wines from the Raphael Vineyards on the North Fork of Long Island in Peconic, NY.  We had visited the vineyard years ago and quite frankly had no particular remembrance of the place or the wines.  However, the wines we sampled last Saturday at Bellport Liquors were quite impressive.  The reds in particular were solid (impressive since our experience with LI reds is a mixed bag) with the Cabarnet Franc (great finish, confident feeling and juicy) being a particularly impressive offering.  We feel lucky to have such an interesting liquor store in our midst where we can sample interesting spirits and wine just around the corner...

Bellport Liquors

P: 631.286.3106

129 Main St
Bellport, NY 11713

Mark and Lynn turn to Snap liqueur to ward of the creep of old man winter...

Of late, Lynn and I have been working on transitioning into fall cocktail/wine mode.  This typically means circling back to bourbons, heavier reds, some port and maybe some experimentation with scotch.  As always, we remain on the lookout for something new to add some snap to our concoctions.  Ironically, what we found was Snap liqueur.  Snap is the result of the distillation of a traditional lebkuchen (a homemade ginger snap made with black strap molasses and fresh ginger-far superior to the grocery store variety).  The result of this is that not only does Snap reject some of the over processing of it's core ingredients it actually contains elements that are essential to good health like iron, potassium and calcium (mainly found in the traditional black strap molasses) as well as a good, earthy flavor. Snap is surely not the first ginger infused spirit on the market; however, it sets the bar quite high as it is both organic and made with pure ingredients.


What about the cocktails then?  Well, with some online guidance and our own interest in experimentation we have managed to come up with some interesting ways to pair Snap with spirits that we find both palpable and difficult to like.  Most of all, we find that Snap helps smooth out some of the rougher, some would say backwoods type spirits like the corn whiskey offerings that have popped up in New York state in the last few years.  We look forward to  pairing it with some of the scotches that taste rugged to our palette as well as some of the bourbons that are smooth but could use some tweaking.  Mainly, it will help keep our spirits up during the onset of the frosty Northeast winter that is back yet again...