In an attempt to preserve the look and feel of a classic cocktail (martini) glass, but cut back on spills related to the long stem and wide lip, inventor Renee Williams has inadvertently created an enhancement for clumsy drinkers which makes the otherwise-elegant martini glass look almost like a UFO (click here to see image).

“Sipatiniz maintain the standard shape of a martini glass but feature a curved rim and a straw to prevent spills,” noted the Dallas, Texas based Star community newspaper. “With Sipatiniz, party goers may walk across the room at ease without fear of sloshing their favorite drink out of the glass.”

After designing the initial concept for a sort of “spill-guard”  combined with a martini glass, Williams found a manufacturer to produce the “Sipatiniz” for her, and entered her invention into a Dallas-area “Next Big Thing” contest. In December, Williams’ design was one of three finalists selected by judges in the event, landing her a $10,000 prize package. Presently, the Sipatiniz are available at a variety of gift stores and other retail locations in and around Dallas.
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The general consensus among true drink connoisseurs is (and always has been) that a fine cocktail beverage is a proper blend of a few flavors, not a muddling mixture of too many. Thus, according to such lore from the annals of fine mixology, many weekend barflies may be surprised to learn that one of today’s most popular beverages certainly wouldn’t be considered a “fine cocktail”; the drink in question is none other than the Long Island Iced Tea.

This beverage, since its creation in 1976, has grown to a position of immense popularity, especially among college-age drinkers traditionally around the time of spring break. Modern Drunkard magazine cites it as a beverage which “no matter how old you are, at some level, you’re still afraid your parents are going to catch you drinking,” due to its ability to mask that a cocktail is being consumed at all with its convenient resemblance to non-alcoholic iced tea. But be warned; however much it may look like iced tea, be reminded that it surely isn’t. Sporting a recipe that includes equal parts vodka, gin, tequila, rum and triple sec, the drink is typically higher in alcohol concentration that most beverages (around 28%), and thus has the effect of ridding one of their sobriety more quickly.

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It’s Friday… and many Americans will be going out to enjoy a few beverages this evening. Of this massive number of socialites who will be hitting the bars, at least a good portion of them may be hitting the floor also… that’s right, not everyone can be convinced that excess isn’t always best! This being the case, the unpleasant after effects of drinking too much can rear their ugly heads in the form of a hangover.

A hangover (the technical name for which is veisalgia) is the combination of ailments that follow the heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. Most commonly reported characteristics of hangovers include nausea, headaches, sensitivity to light and noise, thirst resulting from dehydration, and even mood swings that often favor sadness and displeasure. No doubt, since man first discovered spirits and their uplifting, intoxicating effects, he has similarly sought to find a remedy for the unpleasant mornings that follow any such evening of drunken euphoria.

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PROHIBITION ALERT: And you’ll never guess where…

…Wrong again. It’s UTAH, the great state of fear-mongering.

Monkey See, Monkey Do (just look at this poor guy, made to dress like a peanut after watching Planters Peanuts commercials).

Apparently, Utah state legislators are pressing for laws that will restrict restaurants from making mixed drinks in view of minors seated in their establishment. According to senate president Michael Waddoups, such legislation is necessary to protect the “safety and mental future of our children.” As we all know by now, “monkey see… monkey do.” Lord help us, we can’t have our children driven to insanity by watching bartenders pour up drinks… shield their virgin eyes, and presumably wait until the drinks arrive safely at the table, where they may be consumed in full-view of youngsters far and wide.

Indeed, restaurants falling under this new proposed category of restriction will be forced to remodel if their bar is visible from main dining areas. Hey, while we’re at it, we might as well go ahead and ban people from being allowed to light cigarettes in front of minors as well, eh? Apparently the problem with mixed drinks, according to legislators, is the act of making them in front of youngsters instead of the far less harmful act of drinking them; therefore, if we continue to follow this logic, a ban on lighting cigarettes in view of minors should likely be passed as well. Granted, the act of smoking in front of kiddies ought to be fine and dandy, right?

Hell, let’s take no chances… why not go ahead and just kill two birds with one stone? Why not say all smokers have to sit at the bar from now on as well (which will already be shielded from the highly impressionable young eyes of our children, of course). After all, this is America the free, baby.

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In a report issued by the Associated Press earlier this week, the state of New Hampshire “is taking advantage of the bad economy by aggressively marketing less-expensive liquor to out-of-state customers.”

Drink to our Economy?

According to the report, liquor sales in the state are already roughly 4 percent higher than they were this time last year. Mark Bodi, chairman of the New Hampshire State Liquor Commission, shares that this most likely has a good bit to do with bargain-hunters coming from neighboring states. “Though wines priced above $25 a bottle are off, the state is seeing strong sales of cheaper boxed wine and larger sized bottles,” he says, also discussing Beer sales which have risen after being “flat” for half a decade. Oh wait, I get it. Beer sales had gone flat… heh heh…

This is only a small example of alcohol sales rising on a localized statewide level; New Hampshire in this instance. However, one must ask if the same sort of thing couldn’t happen much the same way in other states (or is it already occurring)? Is this further evidence of the notion that alcohol sales may indeed be a “recession-proof” industry of sorts?

Vodka. It’s the Russian national beverage, and today many Americans would gladly claim it to be theirs just as well. Though virtually tasteless by design, this most neutral of all neutral spirits is not only a beverage worthy of drinking by itself neat (straight) or on the rocks, but is widely becoming the spirit of choice to use as a mixer in its infinite flavored varieties available at your local liquor store (though many would admit that the best flavored vodkas are actually made at home using peppers, vanilla beans, or anything else you’d like to use to add a hint of flavor to your vodka).

Cheers, Comrades!

In 60′s it was cited by Patrick Gavin Duffy as a spirit which “was quickly gaining popularity” in America, andin the few decades that have lapsed between then and now, vodka is arguably the most popular drink in the country. Cocktails once calling for gin default instead to use the watery stuff, and amazingly it has won its following off of what the government officially describes as “neutral spirits, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.”

So how is it, exactly, that a spirit lacking such definitive characteristics manages to elevate itself to what may be the world’s most popular liquor?
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When asked to give the best example of a great American mixed-drink, no doubt many a spirit-purist would cite the Old Fashioned as the definitive classic cocktail. According to frontier legend, the first use of the name “Old Fashioned” was with a kind of Bourbon whiskey cocktail served at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen’s club in Louisville, Kentucky, back in the 1880s. The recipe, supposedly invented by a bartender at the Pendennis, was also popularized by Colonel James E. Pepper, a regular there at the club who is later was said to have brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar in New York City. On the other hand, historians would argue that the term “Old Fashioned” was already in use around the same time Pendennis Club was established (Editor’s Note: Indeed it was, and according to mixologist Robert Hess, the beverage is actually a traditional “Whiskey Cocktail, served old fashioned” and was likely stated as such, hence the origin of its popular name today. This title dates back to at least a year prior to the opening of the Pendennis). But all theories regarding its origin put aside, the heart of the debate that rages over the Old Fashioned today has the most to do with what goes in the damned thing.

The basic ingredients in the recipe appear to have been immortalized in print three-quarters of a century earlier than beverages were served at the Pendennis, in response to a letter asking to define the word “cocktail” in the May 6, 1806 issue of the New York Balance and Columbia Repository. The May 13 issue that would follow featured a note from the editor, who described it as a potent concoction of “spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.”

With all due respect to the years lapsing between, at this point we’ll fast forward to 1948, and the release of David A. Embury’s seminal testament on the art of crafting classy mixed beverages The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. The reason for this was perhaps best summed up in the author’s views regarding the creation of any good cocktail beverage, which stated that the ideal mixed drink “should be made from good-quality, high-proof liquors”, and “should whet rather than dull the appetite. Thus, it should never be sweet or syrupy, or contain too much fruit juice, egg or cream.” Following Embury’s guidelines goes directly against practices maintained during the prohibition period, which involved heavy use of sugars, syrups, and fruits to hide the flavor of poor-quality liquors. This being said, we’ll skip straight to Embury’s notion that the over-use of sugar or fruity elements (both of which are called for in most Old Fashioned recipes) will need to be something to avoid when mixing this concoction correctly.

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