Is this ugly or what? However, I'm going to give you the recipe that came with this photo because I love sangria. And what with the weather and all, maybe you need something to cheer yourself up. I know I do. I've just found out that the Wimbledon men's semifinals, which are going on right now, have been embargoed on ESPN2 so they can be shown not live on NBC later. Excellent move, NBC. I'm sure there are many exciting features and lots of important news on the Today Show today.

Note: even on a holiday it's not good to start drinking before 11 a.m.

I hadn't heard of the book the recipe is from, and I never thought of the concept of "pitcher drinks" before, although I like it. Let's see how many we can name.

Well, sangria, of course, and martinis. Mmmm. I think I'm stuck. I guess there are 99 others, though. ... 

Continue reading "We are not amused" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
                    

John McIntyre, who knows everything there is to know about gerunds, also knows how to make a mean martini. Do not miss the video demonstrating his talent, currently playing on his blog, "You Don't Say."

As one of his fans described it in an e-mail, "It's like food porn for Harper's readers." 

(Colby Ware/Sun photographer) 

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
                    

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)
                    

I'm curious if people try to keep a bottle of white wine cold when they're transporting it to a restaurant that doesn't have a liquor license -- especially this time of year when you can walk outside your front door and a bottle of wine that was chilled instantly isn't anymore.

Places that are BYOB are often casual ones that serve the kind of food that doesn't need a serious wine. If it's a not-serious white you're bringing, it probably tastes better cold. Twenty minutes in a restaurant's ice bucket would chill a room-temperature bottle, but who wants to wait 20 minutes?

Does anybody bother taking a picnic cooler with ice in the car? Or is that overkill? 

If I go to a BYOB place I usually either just drink something nonalcoholic or drop into a nearby liquor store and get a bottle from its refrigerated case. But it would make more sense to bring something from home.

It feels like I've been reviewing a lot of restaurants this summer that don't have liquor licenses, which is what got me thinking about this.

Also, I interviewed the owner of the Gin Mill recently, who is very proud of...

Continue reading "Keeping a BYO bottle cold" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
                    

This comment by Carey Hughes under the Wine in a Box entry got me thinking some more about how I feel about boxed wine:

I'm not a wine snob either, but I am a design snob and ritual snob. These aren't qualities I'm proud of because given a slightly better wine in a box and one slightly less good in a bottle with a beautiful label and a cork, ... 

Continue reading "More thoughts on boxed wine and other things" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (35)
                    

So people won't miss an entertaining discussion going on under another post, I'm going to make the subject of wine in a box a separate entry. Feel free to repeat yourself here.

I have nothing against boxed wine in theory, except the boxes are too big for me to ever try it as a house wine.  Now if it were sold in pint boxes...

Anyway, to get the discussion going, here are five reasons from Sunset magazine to buy boxed wine: ... 

Continue reading "Wine in a box" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (40)
                    

I got an e-mail recently about the unusual wine list at LJ’s & the Kat Lounge in Hagerstown. What's really unusual is that it wasn't describing the wines, but how they were presented. The owner wanted to think outside the box so he literally turned the list into a wine card box. Get it?

Here's how the PR person described it: "With creatively indexed cards, categorized from light to dark wines and divided by cork separators, this miniature-sized treasure chest is allowing patrons to flip through wines, pull out their wine selections, pass the card around their table and discuss wine choices; turning a wine choice into a wine conversation." ...

Continue reading "Wine lists: thinking outside the box" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

I can't keep up with all the info and good ideas for blog entries that people have been e-mailing me. Here's one that Baltamour blogger Miss J forwarded. It's the Zork, a "patented, alternative wine closure" -- in other words, an anti-cork. Here's a look at it and a glass stopper in "The International Review of Wine Packaging and Aesthetics, Vol. 15: Stopper edition."

On a distantly related note, there's an interesting discussion going on across the way at Consuming Interests about beer in cans vs. beer in glass bottles. I guess it all falls vaguely under the heading of Technology vs. Tradition.

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

According to the March/April issue of the magazine Imbibe (maybe "Drink" was already taken), on newstands now, a hot new trend is restaurants' pairing food with cocktails. I'd certainly be willing to try it, but I'm not sure I could taste the meal after awhile.

Sometimes a multi-course dinner is prepared to complement a particular spirit, and sometimes a cocktail is created to pair with a particular dish, such as a rye whiskey sour that goes with teriyaki pork belly and something called the …Fields Forever cocktail served with goat cheese crostini drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Both of these are from an Atlanta restaurant, Eugene, and the drink recipes are including in the article (although I'm more interested in the recipes for the pork belly and the crostini).

This "trend," if that's what it is, has had at least some representation in Baltimore. Taste in the Belvedere Square area has done scotch dinners, and the Wine Market in Locust Point sometimes features cocktail pairings.

Here's the recipe for the ...Fields Forever cocktail (those three dots are part of the name) that goes with the goat cheese crostini: ... 

Continue reading "Cocktail and food pairings" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)
                    

Let's all give Hal a big hand. Wine and Spirits. Brilliant. And it worked. However, now I have to go back through 985 entries to add the appropriate ones to the category, which probably won't happen any time soon. Couldn't you have thought of this earlier, Eric (P.O.G.)?

As for the rest of the suggestions, they were excellent, just not broad enough. I'm keeping them to rip off when I need a headline for entries about wine.

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

OK, I've blown it. It's been awhile since I've tried to create a category at home, and I forgot that our crack blogware doesn't like my Mac browser. Once you try and fail, as I did with "Wine" at Eric (P.O.G.)'s suggestion, that word seems to be corrupted for good, even if you kill it out and start again with Internet Explorer. That is, I was able to create a Wine category, I just couldn't put any entries in it, which doesn't seem very  helpful.

The same thing happened a couple of times early on. That's why...

Continue reading "Wine: the empty category" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
                    

The other night my husband and I were eating at a nice restaurant, and he ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc. When he got it, there just didn't seem to be enough of it in its beautiful stemware.

I'm not naming the restaurant because this was the only time it happened, and his second glass, a cab, was fine.  But it annoyed him a little, and I got to wondering if there's anything to be done about this.

If an expensive restaurant serves small portions of food, at least it's consistent. But a...

Continue reading "The skimpy pour" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)
                    

Frankly I was surprised at the amount of interest in today's Top Ten when I asked for suggestions last week. I guess the inconvenience of schlepping your own bottle is outweighed by the money saved when you BYO.

I don't know this for a fact, but it feels as if corkage fees at restaurants that don't have a liquor license are a relatively new thing. After all, these places are at something of a disadvantage when it comes to luring in customers. I always assumed they were more than happy to be obliging about providing glasses and such.

I had a particularly tough time with the sushi restaurants, several of which could have gone on this list; but none that I had been to was head and shoulders above the others.

Here's my list, and the response I got about corkage fees when I called. Be sure to check other suggestions under last week's post: 

Continue reading "Top Ten BYOB Restaurants" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)
                    

Amazingly, Douglas Paige, the spokesman for the Board of Liquor License Commissioners for Baltimore City, is still taking my calls. (See previous post.) Just to make sure you didn't miss his comment under the post yesterday, it is illegal to bring your own bottle of wine to drink into an establishment that sells liquor.

when I talked to him yesterday, I asked him whether it's OK for BYOB restaurants to charge a corkage fee. He said yes, but if it's a place that's going to keep the unfinished bottle of wine for your next visit (not very likely with this crew), the restaurant has to register as a bottle club. Again, he's speaking for Baltimore City.

As for liquor in the CVS... 

Continue reading "The Liquor Board comes up with more answers" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)
                    

A couple of discussions about alcohol have been going on under other posts. Under one on Restaurant Week, Dahlink introduced the question of corkage fees. A server said that the restaurant owners he worked for had been telling customers it's now illegal to bring your own bottle of wine if the place has a liquor license.

Under another post, someone asked why supermarkets in Baltimore can't sell beer or wine, and wondered if it had something to do with only being allowed one license. ... 

Continue reading "The Liquor Board answers our questions" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)
                    

I was thinking this morning that some subjects for Top Ten Tuesday lead to lots of controversy (Top Ten Italian Restaurants) and some don't (Top Ten Wine Bars) and I was trying to figure out why.

The most obvious reason is ...

Continue reading " Top Ten Worst Wine Bars" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

 
I have to admit finding ten wine bars in the Baltimore area wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. (Where are Vespa and Spike & Charlie's when I need them?)

I wanted to include places that weren't primarily restaurants, or if they were primarily restaurants, also had a separate wine bar. Obviously my list varies wildly in how many wines are offered and what else is on tap (flights, tastings, knowledgeable bartenders), but the idea is that the focus is wine at all of these.

Here's my list; please feel free to disagree or let me know about ones I missed: ...

Continue reading "Top Ten Wine Bars" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (27)
                    

I was interested in Darlene's observation (actually her husband's) about wine pricing, that he thought Baltimore restaurants marked up bottles more than other places. He travels a lot, she said, so he has a chance to observe.

The whole topic of wine pricing interests me, especially after spending time in Italy where it was cheaper than water (sigh). I expect...

(Monica Lopossay/Sun Photographer)

Continue reading "Pricing of wine in restaurants" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
                    

It's been more than a year now that the state law known as "the wine doggie bag bill" was passed that allows us to cork and take home a bottle of wine if we don't finish it at a restaurant.

But as much as I eat out, I don't think I've seen anyone do this. I wonder if it's really changed things as much as restaurateurs thought it would.

Do people now order a more expensive bottle knowing the choice is no longer either finish it or leave it behind? Are they embarrassed to ask when there's just a few inches left, while they wouldn't hesitate to take home a couple of ounces of steak "for the dog"? Or have diners just forgotten that this is a possibility?

Maybe if so many restaurants didn't have lots of good wines by the glass these days, people would be more likely to order a bottle and plan to drink what's left later.

By the way, if you do decide to take a half-finished bottle home, don't forget to either lock it in your glove compartment or put it in the trunk of your car.

(Christopher T. Assaf/Sun Photographer)

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
                    

A reader e-mailed me asking if he had to tip more for a very expensive bottle of wine when the waiter was basically doing the same work as he would be if he were opening a bottle of two-buck Chuck. (He didn't phrase it exactly that way.)

The short answer is yes. If you're going to be extravagant about your wine choice, you might as well be extravagant with your tipping. And I hate to tell you this, but if the sommelier has spent some time with you and been helpful, you should tip him or her separately. I've heard  both 15 to 20 percent of the wine bill and $10 as suggested tips; but in any case, give it to him or her in cash (the better choice) or as a separate credit card charge.

(Monica Lopossay/Sun Photographer)

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)