Drink Recipes & Drink Spots: Cocktails, Beer, & Wine!
Winter Kraftbrew will be in the Landmark Ballroom at the San Jose Women’s Club. We will be pouring some fantastic Winter Spiced Ales, Porters and Stouts. Delicious menu to be provided by Naglee Park Garage. Come by for some excellent brew…s, live music, and good food.
Address: 75 S 11th Street, San Jose CA, 95112
Event Date: January 28th, 2012
Hours: 3pm-9pm
FREE admission – just pay to taste!
On Blame it on the Food we’ve basically gotten to the point where we just write about the places we like. Enoteca is no exception here, we like it. One of the reasons we’ve become fond of it is because as our cousin who works in the food industry says, when the management is good in a restaurant and there is a positive vibe in the work environment, the place shines all around. This is exactly how the environment is at Enoteca La Storia because the owners have created this and are so nice and professional and therefore so is their staff. They always seem to welcome customers and they feel bad if you have to wait for a seat. They feel so bad that they often give you a complimentary glass of Prosecco to sip on as you wait. Enoteca has only gotten more and more popular since the first time we visited.
I’ve actually been meaning to write about Enoteca La Storia in Los Gatos so many times in the last year but it is very dim inside in the evening and it makes it really hard to get decent photographs of the food and space. So I finally accumulated enough photographs to give you a feel for the interior and a bit of the food. It is a wine bar that serves some food and you can sit at the bar or at tables. The backroom has some larger tables that seem like they could be reserved for larger parties. When people come into the wine bar they typically talk, eat, drink, eat a bit more and drink and hang out for extended periods. This is actually something I really like about it, you can meet friends at 8pm and hang out from there on out ordering snacks, wine, and to end, one of their really tasty desserts.
The food ranges from cheese to salumi boards (domestic and imported salumi) and crostini as well as paninis, salads and great desserts (carrot cake bites and chocolate cake with bacon bits). The majority of the food is nicely displayed and served on cutting boards. For wine you can order half glasses, glasses, and bottles to share or flights. We typically get a glass of wine each (or a Pliny de Elder, they often have that too), a cheese and salumi selection (Are Salumi & Charcuterie the Same Thing?) and then an awesome dessert like the chocolate cake with bacon bits on top! If you come with at least four people the better deal is to buy a bottle (it is something like after the first bottle corkage fee, you don’t have to pay quite as much for each additional bottle). Check it out on an upscale date night or plan to meet a couple of friends for chatting and good times. It is kind of a bar for when you want to keep it classy, not really a hip spot so to speak but definitely not hipster – trendy maybe for the older crowd (40’s and up in age and not a kid or family spot). On Fridays and Saturdays it can get fairly busy so keep that in mind.
416 N. Santa Cruz Ave.
Los Gatos, CA 95030
Phone: 408-625-7272
Email: info@enotecalastoria.com
Beer Snob? 41st Avenue Liquor is the place to buy beer in Santa Cruz.
41st Avenue Liquor has Belgian sour beers like rodenbach, a large variety of Ciders, IPA’s, German Beers, and large selection of microbrews. In addition they have quite a good liquor selection including all types of whiskey, vodka, liquours, tequilas and so on. The wine selection is not as large as BevMo but they do have a pretty good selection (the beer prices and liquor prices are usually a bit lower or similar to Bevmo).
Also, I like to randomly pick up unique drinking glasses and bar knickknacks here like the metal deer head shot glass and margarita glasses too.
2155 41st Avenue(831) 475-5117
One of my favorite things is to ask people about their own personal favorite foods and drinks. So I decided to poll friends all over the country about their favorite Summer Drinks, or Dranks as we call em’ if they are in Big Gulps. Well, unfortunately for summer drinks(ing), the older we get, the more we have to do (not referring to drinking of course, but real stuff), tomorrow! BUT it’s summer time and we all need to kick back a bit and as my friend Ryan would say, “What do you have to do tomorrow?”
When we were out to dinner recently, a friend asked me, “So do you ever order anything without asking the server a question about their favorite?” Well, no, I typically like to find out the house specialties, it backfires occasionally and more often than not, lands me a great meal or something I wouldn’t have normally tried. It is the same thing for traveling to new territories and finding the good spots to eat. You have to talk to people. It’s part of the adventure of travel and food too. I learned that one from my Dad, so I guess I’m proud of talkin’ to peeps about their favorites!
Here, we are talking (or emailing) our way to the best summer drink favorites, thanks guys!
Favorite Summer Drinks, From East to the West:
Ryan, New Hampshire
Chad, Ohio
Kirk & Suzy, Texas
Kelly, Washington
Sangria from Cook’s Illustrated with Kelly’s Suggestions
Let your Sangria sit for 1 day for best results (at least two hours). Use juicy fruit.
Grace, California
Strawberry Basil Vodka Lemonade
Makes 2 quarts – 8 Servings
Squeeze a cup of lemon juice and mix well with Countrytime lemonade mixture or your own lemonade concoction. Add 1 cup of Strawberry or Citrus flavored Smirnoff Vodka, strawberry-mash blend.
Anne, California
Al, California
Jessica, California
There is apparently a tradition of giving newlyweds Mead as a wedding gift for them to drink on their honeymoon. This is a Northern European tradition where newlyweds drink a daily cup of honey wine during the first month of their marriage (I guess the honeymoon was traditionally a month, nice!). This daily cup of Mead would assure the couple the birth of sons while also symbolizing the sweetness of the first month of marriage (I mean, it better be sweet the first month!).
Mead is actually honey wine or drinkable honey made by fermenting honey and water. It can be still, carbonated, or sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet and is between 8%-18% alcohol. There are about 36 different mead varieties (my brother said, that’s it, are you sure). Mead ranges from being made with honey and maple syrup to chili peppers and varieties can be found all over the world from Europe to Africa.
Combined with the fact that my father-in-law now raises bees and talks a lot about Mead and that we are attending many weddings this summer and need unique local gift ideas, I had to finally taste some local Mead. Down in Soquel in Santa Cruz, CA there is a winery called Bargetto that makes Mead (in the spirit of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). Bargetto has Chaucer’s Mead (as well as other wines and other fruit wines). Chaucer’s Mead (92 Points – Wine Enthusiast – $13-15 a bottle) comes with tea bag filled with spices on the side. You can place the spice bag in the chilled Mead bottle and drink it with the spice addition. It is a great dessert or sweet wine and a great local wedding gift for friends. It can be served chilled or heated in the winter. Stop by the Bargetto Winery tasting room in Soquel on Main Street to sample their Mead!
Which one of these two main wine philosophies (or wine tasting marketing talking points) best woo you:
I’m not sure what it is about wine + food that throws me off or just doesn’t interest me. After six years in California, I can finally taste wine and know fairly well what I like. However, when you add food to the equation or use the idea of a wine being perfect with a particular food, I lose interest. Or, to be honest, is it that I lose discernment and my palate becomes prejudice? Or is it something else entirely? Don’t get me wrong, the proper wine paired with food is important and tasty but why do I just not care about wine with food?
Wine lovers, sippers, and gulpers, CA visitors and residents … think back on recent wine tastings. And yes, I know this conversation is laced in pretension and pretension seems to be the main marketing bent for wines. The pretension is one aspect that would seem to hold the marketing of wine back in my book (along with the grogginess of the day after one has “tasted” too much of a good thing). Because Americans have become the biggest consumers of wine in the world, maybe the pretension thing really does woo Americans. BUT … have you heard some winemakers, *think serious indoor sophisticated voice*, discuss their wines as pairing with food and being low in alcohol as a marketing talking point? I have heard this quite often in wine tasting opening statements and we’ve had a lot guests this spring which equals a lot of wine tasting. After hearing this the first few times, I started thinking, just to myself of course, “I don’t care about wine with food.” Strongly recognizing that this thought was a no-no statement, because I know an attribute of French wines (or Old World wines in general) is that they are known for being very food friendly, made me keep this thought to myself. However, I secretly wondered if I was alone in not caring much about wine with food?
The bigger isn’t always better concept in wines (bigger in flavor and alcohol) was partially described to me at Hillcrest Vineyards in Santa Cruz. One of the partners in the business told us that big California Cabernet was popular in the 1980’s and the oaky, buttery Chardonnay was the big thing in the 1990’s in the US. I then read in an SF Gate article entitled “Ten food-friendly wines you can bring home to dinner,” that “Highly alcoholic, overly fruit-driven wines with an abundance of new oak are generally thought of as the antithesis of “food friendly“ (http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-06-15/wine/17297972_1_viura-caceres-spain-rioja-world-wines).” Ah dang it, those are the wines I like! I’ve considered that my taste for the big and bold may have to do with dropping a decent amount of money on a good bottle of wine and wanting it to pack a punch (without being to tannin heavy). This could also explain why I’m a wine saver/hoarder and don’t drink my stock until we have a justifiable special occasion (my brother claims we’ll have a great wine collection in the future or a hole in our closet floor, one of the two) so this also puts the pressure on wine to be extra bold and enjoyed on its own before or after a meal, I suppose you could even call IT a meal. Then I found out, I’m not alone … on our Aunt and Uncle’s dining room table I spotted a recent article from the San Jose Mercury News entitled, “On Wine: With or without Food?” In the article it states that, “Recent research shows that nearly 60 percent of the wine consumed by avid U.S. wine drinkers does not accompany a meal. About one-quarter of the wine they drink is consumed on its own, in situations where food of any kind is a no-show. One-third of the wine is consumed with snacks or appetizers, or while the consumer is preparing a meal (http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_17901771?nclick_check=1).”
The author from the San Jose Mercury article claims that the research of this new wine trend of wine being consumed without food may show that Americans are developing a wine culture of our own and that being a very good thing. See US winemakers … I’m not alone. With this in mind, we are apparently defying wines main purpose, to accompany food. It sounds kind of dangerous for wine not to accompany food but maybe wines of our very own will be cultivated in the name creativity and new possibility. You can pack a punch wine, go for it!
Copious Winery in Santa Cruz is a fun-loving tasting room near the Swift Street Wine Tasting complex in Santa Cruz (Swift Street: Bonny Doon Vineyard, Odanata Cellars, Trout Gulch Vineyard and Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard). We became a member of Copious after a day of tasting at a variety of spots because we have to admit, we really liked the winemaker Lance Campbell. He was very down to earth and unpretentious, and that is refreshing in the wine world. Tasting after tasting, one’s taste buds can give out so we knew the wine was good but we had no idea just how good by that time. Then we got our bottles home (hadn’t opened the bottles yet) and got news that Copious had won some major awards this year for their wine. They not only won the Best in Class at the 2010 State Fair with their 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, Monterey ($18) but they also won the Best in Class from the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle with their 2009 Pinot Noir, California ($32). BUT the Pinot Noir that we just loved was the 2009 Pinot Noir – Sonoma ($35) which won a Gold Medal in the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle. When you become a member you can use their hot tub on the premises too.
Copious Winery: 427 Swift Street Santa Cruz, CA 95060 – Friday 12-5 pm – Saturday -Sunday 12- 6 pm
To Find Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Events:
Upcoming Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Events:
Okay, friend Vishal Dave brought this cocktail to a post-wedding-party for friends at our house. This is a drink that you don’t have to nurse, so everyone really liked that about it, in addition to its tasty drink-ability. I even had to buy a punch bowl that day to accommodate this drink (and you can see above that I haven’t found a nice punch bowl ladle yet – check out Goodwill for cheap punch bowls galore). Pimm’s Cup No. 1, although it would be great to call it ‘Pimp’s cup,’ is even more perfect for your grandmother’s ladies luncheon or afternoon gathering because it is very low in alcohol (50 Proof – 25% alcohol by volume and you don’t want your pimps or Grandma’s pimps to be too under the influence). It is really tasty but doesn’t taste too much like gin, but has a clean, subtle fruit flavor with just a slight spice-taste!
Have you heard about Pimm’s and always wondered what it was? We had. Pimm’s Cup No. 1 is a gin-based drink with quinine (quinine has medicinal qualities) and herbs that was first produced in 1893 originally as a digestif in England. Pimm’s is even one of the staple drinks at Wimbledon and at many polo matches (kind a’ high class I guess).
Pimm’s Cocktail Variations:
Pimm’s Cup No.1-6 Variations:
Pimm’s Cup Cocktail Recipe
Freeze an ice block for your punch bowl in advance. You could even add lemon slices to it for beauty.
Slice up cucumbers and lemons for the punch bowl. Then pour in the seltzer, lemonade and Pimm’s. Stir to combine. Double the recipe for larger punch bowls.
