How to Stock Your Bar

Aside from booze blogs, web comics, regular comics, and as many books as we can get our hands on, we (specifically Matt) like to read certain menswear blogs. In particular we recommend An Affordable Wardrobe and Put This On, which inspired our video segments. One of the common questions addressed on menswear blogs is how to build a wardrobe and not surprisingly, the process is very similar to stocking your bar.

This is our collection a year ago. Much like a child, it has only gotten larger and more expensive since then.

Homemade Grenadine

One of the disadvantages of living and drinking under the thumb of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is that if the PLCB doesn’t carry it – short of taking up amateur rum running – you can’t get it. In this case, we’re talking about grenadine. Now it’s not that you can’t get grenadine, you’d actually be hard-pressed to find a PA liquor store that doesn’t stock it, but rather that every PA liquor store has the same grenadine.

Jacquin’s Cordials is a Philadelphia-based producer of bottom-shelf liquors and liqueurs, and the only brand the PLCB carries of several cocktail essentials, not least of which is grenadine. Theoretically, grenadine should be made from pomegranate juice (grenade is French for pomegranate) though even outside of Pennsylvania it can be tough to find a commercial grenadine that still is. These days most grenadine is like Jacquin’s: artificially flavored and over-sugared with so much corn syrup you could probably distill it into bourbon. Much like maraschino liqueur, grenadine is overdue for an artisanal back-to-basics overhaul.

Homemade Grenadine

Booze Review: Shine XXX White Whiskey

Like any other industry, booze is subject to the whim of popular fads; and while the turnover isn’t so rapid or radical as it is in – say – the fashion industry, certain trends do tend to come and go. One trend that is currently on the rise is the popularity of un-aged white whiskey. (Local distillery Wigle Whiskey is currently producing their first batch.) There are a number of different brands out there, and the first one we picked up is Shine XXX from Philadelphia Distilling (they also produce Bluecoat Gin).

Shine XXX Old Fashioned

Ideology, Common Sense, & the Liquor Control Board: A Look at the PA Liquor Privatization Debate

Here in Pennsylvania, state run liquor stores and restrictions on beer sales are familiar gripes. While nearly anywhere else in the country consumers are able to pick up a six-pack or bottle of wine at any grocery or convenience store, Pennsylvanians can only buy wine and liquor from state-run stores and beer has to be purchased by the case at a distributor, or by the six-pack at a bar or restaurant. Recently though, privatization of the state’s booze monopoly (hint hint, Parker Brothers) has become a hot issue in the state legislature and the blogosphere. As a conscientious and patriotic inebriate, I took it upon myself to learn more about the debate and the potential advantages/consequences of privatization.

PA Wine & Spirits Store photo by Ian Turton (www.flickr.com/people/ianturton)