Barware
I’ve come across a few wine chilling products that might be useful as summer approaches. Maybe you have forgotten to chill a bottle and want a quick cold glass of vino or you just need to keep your drink cool. Regardless, there are plenty of products out there, but these struck me as stylish and innovative.
The first is the Vacu Vin Cooling Carafe
Unfortunately, the chilling base does not accommodate wine bottles, and the beverages must be used with the carafe provided. That is a bit annoying, but on the other hand it is more flexible for other drinks. If you want one for just wine, there is the elegant Vacu Vin Prestige Stainless-Steel Wine Cooler
Vacu Vin also has a Rapid Ice Wine Cooler
As for chilling from room temperature, I don’t know if the claim that these wine sleeves can chill bottles in five minutes is accurate. After reading Amazon reviews, it looks as if it takes closer to 10 minutes and even then it doesn’t really get the bottle that cold. These packs are probably better for keeping pre-chilled bottles cold or to just slightly chill a red wine. Yes, red wines should also be served slightly chilled (55 to 65 degrees) depending upon the wine.
The next wine chilling product is the Wine Sceptre out of Germany. This device keeps a pre-chilled wine at the perfect temperature for drinking, but like other products also does not chill from room temperature. To use, you simply insert the chilled stainless steel rod into your wine bottle and it provides a cool core of metal to maintain the wine’s temperature. The product also has a flip-off top so you can pour the wine through the metal tube. It would be rather annoying if you had to take the rod out each time you wanted to pour a glass.
I like the idea of this a lot, as the rod is actually in the wine and doesn’t rely upon chilling from the outside, which means you are chilling the bottle too. Both the Vacu Vin chiller packs and the Wine Sceptre are also nice in that they eliminate the wet bottle. You’ll no longer have to use up your ice before a party for chilling wine, have soggy labels, or have to deal with a dripping bottle while pouring.
With that said, the price is really steep at $135, and a six-pack will run you $600. Ouch. At that price, maybe it is best just to finish the bottle before it gets warm. You can buy the wine sceptres through Mistral Imports.
If you want a cheaper option than the Wine Sceptre, Skybar has a Wine Cool Cover for $40 that will also maintain the temperature of your wine with a hip looking aluminum-finished cover that slips over your bottle. I would probably try this before the sceptre.
And the last product is also from Skybar. The Skybar Wine Chill Drops cost $50 and are made to chill individual glasses of room-temperature wine. They are very stylish and come in a set of two, so while you wait for the rest of your bottle to chill, you and another person can enjoy some cold wine using these individual chillers. You simply put the stainless steel bulbs in your glass, pour the wine, and let the cold metal chill your drink. The Skybar site claims that these chill drops cool a glass in as little as 90 seconds. Once the wine is to the desired temperature, you place the used chiller drops in the convenient stands. It’s a nice set-up if you ask me, and out of all the products, I think this one appeals to me the most.
If you want to chill wine the low-budget way, you can still use ice buckets or the freezer. When using an ice bucket, make sure to use water and ice and also add salt. This will cool the bottle in about 15 minutes.
If you just want to keep a glass of wine cool on a hot day, don’t use ice cubes, but instead freeze grapes and drop a few in your glass. This method won’t dilute the wine, but yet it will give some added cooling.
As for the desired temperature of different wines, Food & Wine has a nice cheat sheet on how long to refrigerate, freeze, or use and ice bucket for different wines. Just keep in mind that it takes over 2 hours in the refrigerator and at least 25 minutes in the freezer to achieve the desired temperature for whites — and sparkling wines will take even longer.
Shot glasses can often be cheesy with logos slapped on them or just plain bland, but this set of four sold at Haus Interior are a departure from the common shot glass.
I like the four different etching patterns on each glass. Not only do the varying designs make the glass set more interesting, but you can tell which glass is yours.
You can purchase the set of four from Haus Interior for $75. I know it is kind of expensive when you consider that every gas station and truck stop has shot glasses for just a few bucks, but you must admit that they look great.
Gourmet has a very interesting cocktail history called ‘Favorite Cocktails 1941-2009‘. Unfortunately, Gourmet is closing down operations, but their website will remain active for a ‘transitional’ period. What that means, I am not sure, but I will be mining the site in coming months in anticipation of its closure.
Not only is the cocktail summary of each decade informational (and short), but the descriptions of each drink are also worthy of reading as they contain interesting drink history. But what I love most about this web production is threefold: (1) the photography is beautiful (2) the glassware is stunning and (3) it makes browsing cocktails fun. Lists of cocktail recipes in books and magazines are fine but can be rather overwhelming; however, the design of this site alleviates that problem and invites one to enter and explore.
There is one problem though, the last decade (the 2000s) will probably never be finished. It says on the site that it will be up on 13 October and still has not surfaced, but with the closure of the magazine, I somehow doubt it will be completed. Too bad.
Now back to the glassware. The glasses they have on display are amazing. Yes, a lot of what they show is very pricey crystal, but some items are affordable. Just take a look at the Alessi glass above. The ‘Mami’ Martini Glass is simple and elegant. It sells for $126 for a set of six. Not cheap — I know — but not that expensive either. The measured mixing glass is from Mister Mojito and costs $45. You can find dozens of example of great barware and stemware at this site.
I know absinthe isn’t exactly kitchen related, but after reading an article in the most recent issue of Gourmet, and then watching a video on gourmet.com on how to prepare absinthe, I decided to finally relieve my ignorance in this area of the beverage world.
The video on gourmet.com is basic but informative, and instructs how to make an absinthe drip cocktail. Mixologist, Jim Meehan, shows how this is done, what equipment you need and gives other useful tips. Here are some interesting points from the video:
- Choose absinthe that has a natural green color and not that fake bright green hue, and look for bottles between 60-68 percent alcohol.
- Absinthe glasses are often designed to pour the proper amount of absinthe, so there will possibly be a rim or design difference in the lower portion of the glass to mark the proper level to pour.
- Pour the absinthe, place a lump of sugar on an absinthe spoon, and drip ice-cold water over the sugar. A drip cocktail should take about 3 – 10 minutes depending upon how fast you drip the water.
That video whet my appetite a bit, so I searched for more in-depth information and found a 30+ minute episode on Wine Library TV with a representative from the Wormwood Society and GaryVaynerchuk. They present a lot of information and have a tasting of three domestic brands. Just watching these two videos will get you half way to a functional knowledge on how to make the cocktail and simply know about this drink’s history.
If you are inspired at this point, the next step is buying some absinthe. The Wormwood Society has a pretty good article on buying absinthe, but because of the society’s desire to be neutral, they don’t really recommend any absinthe brands. Too bad. But the article will break down some additional myths and make it seem like you should at least pay attention to which brand you buy.
If you want to buy a bottle, however, a good place to start is on the Wormwood Society Review Directory. Just skip the pre-ban vintage ratings unless you have $2,000-7,000 to spend on a bottle of spirits, and simply sort the reviews for ‘traditional absinthe’ instead. This site is very user friendly. As a back-up resource, you can go to La Fée Verte’s buyers’ guide. This guide is more extensive than the Wormwood Society’s, but it is not as user friendly. The complete list, however, allows you to click on each brand to see reviews and ratings if you have already narrowed down your search.
Ok, so now you can make a drip cocktail, you may know some basic history and what not to do with absinthe, and you just may have bought a bottle. At this point, everyone at your party is going to be asking you about absinthe, and you will either take that final educational step or just start making cocktails until no one cares.
If you are the former, there are two heavy weight sites out there. One I have mentioned already is the Wormwood Society. This site is very well organized and though it has a lot of information, it is not too overwhelming in that you can focus on certain areas of interest. It has 15 pages of FAQs, complete instructions if you want to taste and review absinthe, a list of suppliers, 150+ cocktail recipes, a forum for nerd talk, and a lot more.
The second heavy weight site is Oxygénée. One writer properly said that oxygenee.com probably has the most information about absinthe on the planet. I personally believe that claim, BUT this site is very frustrating. There are numerous sister sites with redundant information, the website design does not flow well for finding what you want, and the layering of information and web structure drags you into anise-scented green vortex of absinthe detail. Go straight for the FAQs or the vintage absenthe section if you have a boat load of money to spend.
If you want the CliffsNote approach, I would recommend the website of Tempus Fugit Spirits, which is a company that imports absinthe from traditional areas of France and Switzerland. The FAQ section on Tempus Fugit is much shorter but has the most crucial information. You will get 80% of the information in a fraction of the time, and the narrative is written better. Here are some interesting facts from the website:
- Absinthe was first a cure-all medicine and that is one reason for its high alcohol content.
- During the French-Algerian War, the French prescribed absinthe as a disease preventative and to cleanse water. The returning soldiers to France helped popularize the drink.
- Absinthe gets it name from the French word for ‘wormwood’ which is ‘grande absinthe’.
- Wormwood grows best in the mountainous area between Switzerland and France, hence those areas were the historical production centers.
- The green color of absinthe comes from chlorophyll, though lower quality absinthe uses green dye. Again, choose a natural green and not a fake green absinthe.
- The bad reputation from absinthe came mainly from poor distillers that sold inferior and sometimes dangerous products and the negative media hype that focused on drug effects and even ‘absinthe murders’.
- The Temperance Movement also played a large part in getting the spirit banned, and the movement teamed up with wine producers to help ban it. Wine makers were suffering after the spread of the phylloxera louse destroyed much of Europe’s vineyards, so wine prices were high. Wine was losing market share, and absinthe was gaining in popularity and cheap.
- By 1912 it was banned in the US and in 1915 it was banned in France. It was never banned in the UK, Spain, and Portugal. Absinthe was only re-legalized in its home of Switzerland in 2005 and in the US in 2007.
The history of absinthe is a case study of misunderstanding at the wrong time in history. Phylloxera, wine politics, the scourge of WWI, and prohibition all created a climate for a popular drink to disappear for decades. And challenges still exits even after legalization. A lot of the distilling knowledge, techniques, and equipment have been lost, and the herbal raw materials are more scarce. Much of today’s absinthe does not resemble the drink of the past, and there is a reason the highest rated absinthe comes from pre-ban bottles.
The irony is that subsequent testing of old bottles of absinthe have proven that these spirits were chemically harmless in terms of secondary drug effects. It turns out, the reason people ‘lost their mind’ was that they drank too much and absinthe was really strong. Makes sense to me.
With that said, there are 50+ legally available brands of absinthe in the US, and the suspect chemical compound from wormwood called thujone has to be under 10 parts per million for it to be legal. And those old bottles tested, well, the level of thujone in them was was around 1 part per million.
Nowadays, absinthe is making a comeback as classic cocktails are back in style and it is again legal. The licorice scented aperitif spirit will be surprising to many. For years the drink was taboo, subject to misinformation, and illegal but when you first smell licorice you think of candy and your childhood and not images of psychedelic drugs or an illegal substance. But if you don’t like licorice, you won’t like absinthe. Find something else.
If you want to purchase absinthe domestically, DrinkUpNY has an excellent selection and they ship all over, and you can also find a few other brands if you have it shipped from the UK at absintheonline.com.You can buy absinthe barware at Amazon
This Alessi corkscrew designed by Alessandro Mendini is a great way to extract a cork. Forget about those cheap winged corkscrews that you may have bought at the supermarket, using a good sommelier corkscrew is a pleasure and this one has good design to boot.
Admittedly, this parrot corkscrew is more expensive than most wine openers at $57, but it is still less than a Chateau Laguiole corkscrew, which will run you more than $100. There are also different colors if you don’t like blue, and I also think the unique multi-colored pattern is worth a look.
This Lady Absinthe Fountain
The four-spout version to the right will cost $245.
About a year ago Gourmet magazine listed as one of its ‘obsessions’ the old-school aluminum ice cube trays. The store they referenced no longer carries them, but I saw on Etsy today a couple of vintage ice cube trays up for sale. As classic cocktails come back in style, there is no better way to serve ice than with one of these vintage ice trays. You can usually find these trays for sale on eBay.
But there is also something appealing about perfectly square ice cubes. I have these Perfect-Cube Ice Trays 
The Tovolo trays admittedly are not that functional in that filling them and getting them into the freeze often leads to spills. Also, getting the cubes out is a bit different and — some say — difficult. I personally didn’t mind getting the cubes out of the silicon tray and found it quite easy. Sometimes I even preferred it. Basically, you would just push on the back of the rubber where a cube was and pop out the number of cubes you wanted, and returned the rest to the freezer.
The reviewers on Amazon also noted that the Tovolo ice cubes tended to smell odd and had a white film on them, that when melted remained in the glass. I can’t say this ever happened to me or maybe I just didn’t notice it, but it may be a water issue too. I have sometimes noticed plastic trays having a white residue in them when using tap water, but for these trays I only used purified water.
Regardless, a perfectly square cube can be impressive in cocktails, especially if you use distilled water so it is crystal clear. Regular tap water tends to produce cloudy cubes.
In Gourmet and Food & Wine this last summer, ice balls (instead of cubes) were featured. The idea behind this is that a sphere has less surface area so it melts slower than a cube. The Japanese have a long tradition of hand carving ice balls and using them in cocktails, but I’ve rarely seen them in the United States. The MoMA Store has a 2-inch orb ice mold for sale (above) and you can also find on the internet cheaper plastic trays that make smaller spheres. These would be interesting to try especially if you could add a garnish to ice as in the photo to the right.
But now here is where it gets interesting. The Japan Trend Shop sells a Taisin ice ball mold that despite its staggering price tag is truly fun to watch. Some bars are using the larger versions for high-end drinks and with an ice novelty added for impact. The mini version on sale at the Japan Trend Shop would be an excellent conversation piece, but it will take some coin to get it. It is priced at $185 plus $30 shipping and handling. Gasp.
Ok, now take a look at this video.
Then there are the soapstone cubes that I have seen a couple of times in food magazines. The concept behind this is that it won’t dilute as it doesn’t melt at all. You just freeze the stone cubes and add a couple to a glass of whiskey, or you can even heat them and add them to drinks to keep them warm.
While on the face of it this concept seemed intriguing, once I thought about it more I had my doubts. Then I read some reviews of people who confirmed that this idea is probably not a good one. The list of complaints are: hard on glasses, hard on teeth, need to be rounded more, don’t really chill a drink very much, and you keep worrying about rocks when you should be drinking and having fun.
You can buy a set at ThinkGeek. Maybe they would be useful if you just wanted to slightly chill whiskey without the dilution, so I will give the stones that benefit of the doubt, but for any drink that needs more serious cooling, I would stick to ice and not worry about rocks.
And the heating option for these stones seems even more ridiculous. I am not sure how hot these rocks get, but you would need to put them in when the temperature of the drink was lower than the rock temperature (good luck) or else the rocks would actually draw the heat away from the drink. But if you are in a position to heat up rocks and time it exactly right, why not just reheat whatever it is that you are drinking? This just seems like a bad idea.
So here is my verdict on ice (four ways):
- Spheres and cubes would be worth it for cocktail impact if you are interested in that.
- Vintage trays are cheap, so why not have one if you like making cocktails.
- Stay away from soapstone.
- And start saving for the Japanese ice mold contraption.
Oh yeah, and here is one last ice option for those too rich to make their own ice, or if you want it for some fancy event where cost is not an issue. The Glace Luxury Ice Co. will send via FedEx ice spheres directly to your door. A small bag of five spheres will cost $40 plus $30 shipping.
I recently purchased the Hinckley Cellars wine label remover (’The Note’) and overall I am pretty satisfied. There is a YouTube video that shows you how it works on their website if you are interested in buying one, but essentially it uses a process of soaking the label along with a sharp-edged scrapper to take the label off.
Before buying this product, however, I researched other methods for removing labels such as the adhesive removers, but I didn’t want to be bound to using tape and having to replenish adhesive strips. In the end I chose ‘The Note’ instead.
Regardless, here are my initial impressions of the product.
- It does a good job taking off labels, but you need to practice a little bit.
- Even though the blade comes with a leather protector, the edge is not that sharp and in fact it seemed to be too dull to effectively scrape off the label. My solution was to use a knife honer to improve the edge and it was then easier to get the scraping started evenly.
- The longer you soak the label under the faucet the more delicate the label becomes and it is more likely that you will end up ripping the label. What I found was that by filling the bottle up with really hot water and letting it sit for 15 minutes, I was able to get the adhesive to loosen without over soaking the label. Sometimes I wouldn’t even need to run the label under water at all, but usually a short soaking helped.
- After taking about ten labels off, I was pretty good at it. But with that said, some labels are just plain tough and will be challenging regardless. Not every label will make it, but practice first on labels you care less about.
All in all I would recommend this product, but I would try sharpening the edge to make the scrapping more effective and you may also want to try the hot-water technique too. Also, when I bought mine, they had a restaurant edition for $39 and a scratched/discontinued product for $29, so I would consider buying those if it is not a gift. Otherwise it will cost you $49 with the gift box.
