On the House

New Rules, according to Miller

Miller Beer has declared that it's time for some new rules. Why?

Why do we need new rules? Because beer has lost three points of market share to wine and spirits since 2000. That means it's time to understand what's changing in the industry and what that means to brewers, distributors and retailers alike.

Among their new rules: retailers now call the shots. That's not the kind of thing I've heard from retailers lately, but maybe Miller's onto something if Big Beer is to turn around (though I think things like the introduction by A-B of a new gluten-free beer, Redbridge, will make a bigger difference then new "rules"). Anyway, here they are. Let me know what you think.

Drinks of the week

Green Zebra is Chicago's best vegetarian-focused restaurant, in my opinion, and I'm looking forward to trying a few of their nine new non-alcoholic cocktails, created by Spring Restaurant Group beverage director Tim Lacey.

"I was looking to create different flavor combinations for our guests. With some of the cocktails, I'd like them to experience a non-alcoholic drink that pairs as seamlessly with food as it does with wine," says Lacey. "With others, I just wanted people to enjoy a good, unique drink without the alcohol."

I have my own house non-alcoholic drinks, and am usually underwhelmed when trying those available at most restaurants. It seems such a lay-up - pure profit for little effort - but few places really manage to get beyond the old Shirley Temple/Roy Rogers non-alcohol mentality. But knowing how good the food is at green Zebra, I'm sure the cocktails are just as carefully constructed.

Root beer:
1 oz. sarsaparilla
1 oz. sassafras
1/2 oz. licorice root
3/4 oz. mint
5 cups brown sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
4 inch piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

Add all ingredients to 1/2 gallon of hot water, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Let steep for 20 minutes.  Strain and cool. To serve mix equal parts root beer syrup and soda water over ice.  Alternately, use a full gallon of water and add mixture 1 pint at a time to a seltzer bottle.

Mint Lime Ade:
1/4 cup loosely packed mint leaves
2 oz. simple syrup
1 1/2 oz. lime juice
soda water to fill

In a sturdy glass muddle mint with simple syrup.  Add ice, lime juice and soda water.  Stir well.

Iced Hibiscus Tea:
1/2 cup dried hibiscus flowers
2 cups hot water
1/3 cup sugar (or more to taste)

In a French press steep hibiscus with hot water for 15 to 20 minutes.  Pour off tea and add sugar, stirring to dissolve.  Let cool.  Serve over ice.

Introducing Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk

The Wine Library in Springfiled, NJ, has changed quite a bit from the small liquor store Sasha Vaynerchuk built in 1989. Vaynerchuk's son, Gary Vaynerchuk, is the director of operations, and has built a small following on the internet for his taped wine tastings. Starting today, we'll feature some of Gary's lively (to say the least) tastings. Gary, it's all yours:

Beverage Dynamic Advertising and Promotion awards 2006

The results of the coveted annual Beverage Dynamics Advertising and Promotion awards are in - check them out in three parts:here here and here.

Dump those lesser products!

What would happen to your bar if you stopped buying triple sec altogether? I’ll tell you what would happen—your Margaritas, Cosmopolitans, Long Islands and Kamikazes would improve significantly. They’d be more vibrant and delicious, guaranteed. Why? Because you’d start making the cocktails with Cointreau, which ounce for ounce is the definitive triple liqueur.

Go on, prove it to yourself. Pour your triple sec in a glass and taste it next to the Cointreau. Which product has a more defined bouquet and luscious orange flavor? Any perceptible differences in their finishes? Last, which product do you think would contribute the most positive attributes to, say, a Margarita, the most frequently requested cocktail in the country?

I contend that triple sec’s days in this generation of bar chefs and artisan mixology are numbered. The stuff is inexpensive for a reason. Unless something tragic has happened to your taste buds, the first sniff, sip and swallow will confirm that it is a “lesser product.”

Along the same lines, why stock crème de cacao when something so delectable as Godiva Chocolate Liqueur is within reach? Is it really fair to compare the two? The Godiva is delectable without being cloying. It is, by far, abetter choice for drink making, which makes the lesser crème de cacao obsolete.

In a nation fueled by coffee, why wouldn’t you want to explore your drink making options when it comes to coffee-infused products? A few years back Kahlúa extended its range with the introduction of Kahlúa Especial, a liqueur made entirely from high grade, Arabica coffee beans from South America. It’s remarkable how much better the Especial is than the base brand, and yet its price is within a few dollars of the old stand by. So, why stay with Kahlúa?

Or why not make a significant shift in taste profiles and go with Starbucks Coffee Liqueur? It has a light body and a drier, more authentic coffee flavor, one derived entirely from Starbucks’ coffee beans. Feeling more exotic? Consider switching bar brands to Patrón’s XO Coffee Liqueur or Jamaican Tia Maria.

With the new year looming minutes away, wouldn’t this make a marvelous time to reevaluate your back bar? “Out with the old and in with the new” is a time proven business tactic. Once you start, you’ll be amazed at how liberating the process is. And ultimately, your drinks will be greatly improved and I won’t have to look at the same tired line-up of back bar products.

Thanks in advance.

Poll results

In our most recent poll, we asked what would be the main effect of Anheuser-Busch's takeover of marketing and importing many of InBev's brews. Overwhelmingly (57 percent), poll takers responded that the move would be good for A-B's distributors. Seventeen percent each said that it would be bad for the InBev brews and would create more problems than it solves, while 9 percent said the move would mainly help retailers.

Grand tasting

In an effort to keep abreast of the latest news, I read wine publications of all ilks, pretty much all the time. It seems as if I always have something wine-related in front of me. Believe me, there’s plenty to read about. I liken the wine business to computer software, i.e., yesterday’s information is always being superseded by something new and exciting (or at least that’s what the wineries like to tell us).

I remember reading about a grand tasting that featured Classed-Growth Bordeaux vs. American cabernet sauvignon. Many of the wines from the top Chateaux and famous Napa wineries were included, and wines from the 1985 vintage were the focus. The event was held in the home of a famous collector, in the presence of a small gathering of the well connected and affluent. In a moment, I’ll explain to you why the results of this elite tasting were worthless.

Comparisons are often made between the wines of France and those of California. The French wines generally prove inferior in these get-togethers, owing to a number of factors, not the least of which is where these two areas are located on Planet Earth. Get a map of the world and check it out for yourself. If you draw a line from Bordeaux across the Atlantic Ocean, you’ll arrive somewhere around Quebec. Taking weather patterns and latitudes into consideration, it stands to reason that grapes grown in Napa Valley will be riper than those grown in Bordeaux. Ripe wines from warm climates often show better in structured, foodless tastings than those from cooler climates.

Now, let’s return to that 1985 tasting. Why was this vintage chosen? Without doubt, it’s a year of quality in both locations, but this season is known for wines that exhibited atypical characteristics in both Bordeaux and California. The wines from Napa in 1985 were abnormally slender and showed rough tannins in their youth, while those from Bordeaux were surprisingly soft, lush and fruity upon release. Another factor to consider is that back in ’85 many of cabs made in California were 90-100% varietal.

Bordeaux always blends it cabernets with merlot and cabernet franc. Consequently, I view this as an apple vs. orange type of situation. If the participants were truly attempting to point out the differences between Bordeaux and Napa, I would have thought 1986 a more suitable vintage. In this year, Bordeaux offered gruff wines with hard and unyielding tannins (some are still mean today) while the Napa wines featured bright fruit with great balance.

But the ultimate question in my mind is why put together this type of comparative tasting at all? What will have been gained? Fluff knowledge. Everyone seated at the table that evening knew beforehand that those wines would be outstanding, and I’m sure they were. When you drink Chateau Margaux or BV Georges de Latour Reserve, it’s virtually a sure thing they’ll taste pretty good.
 
This gathering was just a chance for some wine honchos to get together and taste another group of great wines. Happens all the time. Fun? Yes. Pertinent and newsworthy? Hardly.

What would really ring my bell is reading about (or better yet, participating in) a tasting emphasizing the differences and/or similarities between the major rieslings from Alsace, Austria, Australia and Germany. Or tempranillo grown in the Spanish regions of Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorato and Toro. Or a mixed bag of zinfandels from Paso Robles, Mendocino, Amador, Napa and Sonoma. Maybe syrah from France and the United States vs. shiraz from Australia and South Africa. Wouldn’t these seem more like apples getting together with apples? And how about keeping the prices of these wines $35 and under, so average consumers could reap the benefits of the results? At least it’s a nice dream.

 

 

Wine promotions work!

Wondering, like I often do, whether promotions work? So did Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, and now he and his colleagues have released a  study that says that table tent promotions recommending wine, food-wine pairings, or wine tastings, increased wine sales by 12%, 8%, and 48% respectively.

The twelve week study was conducted at a mid-level restaurant chain in Houston, Texas. “We were interested not only in wine sales, but on whether these sales cannibalized or contributed to the sales of other drinks,” said coauthor Glenn Cordua, director of the Wine and Spirits Institute at the University of Houston.The study, published in the current issue of Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administrative Quarterly, had four primary conclusions:

 1. More wine recommendations equal more wine sales: Promoting five wines increased sales of the promoted wines by 39 %, but did not cannibalize other wine sales.

 2. Wine and food pairings are effective in small doses: Making one to three pairings increased wine sales by 44% and total restaurant sales by 21%. “This only works up to a point,” cautioned Collin Payne, a Cornell University coauthor, “more than three recommendations and people give up.”

 3. Tasting portions sell: Two ounce tasting portions increased sales by 18-47%.

4. Promotions can Cannibalize. From where do these increased wine sales come? Between 69-87% came from other wines. To avoid cannibalizing other wine sales, promote higher-margin wines (mid-priced or above), and avoid margin cutting-price promotions.

Read more about the report or get a full copy, complete with graphs and charts.

Last minute shopping

Looking for the perfect holiday present for your cocktail friends?

Check out Janet Torelli's Martini Pics, fashionable sterling silver beauties ready for skewering olives, fruit or whatever garnish you choose. Torelli also crafts  ice tongs and other stylish serving items sold from her site.

Could this be a great idea?

A skeptic by nature, I'm wondering what to think about the latest wine gadget, the Wine Fall:

Said to provide a fast way to aerate wines, the press release arrived with some impressive supporters:

The WineFall is functional art that accelerates the aeration process exponentially by organically simulating a stage of development that might normally be acquired after years of aging or hours of breathing. The process brings forward aromas, flavors and characteristics of the finest wines, and makes all wines, young or old, ready to drink immediately.

“The WineFall is a visual treat, a purely unique process in which to enhance the flavor of any wine, a valuable investment for the wine affectionate,” says John Bambury, owner of Bonneau Wines, LLC.

“Just about all wines, white and red, can benefit from some form of aeration,” said syndicated wine columnist Dan Berger. “Not long ago I witnessed a fascinating and seemingly superb device that helps the aeration process in a delightfully dramatic way. The WineFall is a glass decanting apparatus that aerates wine more efficiently than can be done by splashing the wine back and forth between two decanters for a half hour. The wine is poured into the top of the WineFall, and the liquid sluices layer-to-layer through the hand-blown glass into the waiting decanter below,” says Berger. “The effect is not only stimulating to the taste buds, but aerates the wine in a way I haven’t see any other device achieve.”

“I see the WineFall as a way to open up young wines and demonstrate what the future of the wine will bring, thus helping us sell wine that would normally need to sit in the storage room for months,” said Tim McIntosh, owner of M Winery. “To be able to instantly re-create two hours of decanting right after the cork is pulled is awesome! It helps us promote our early releases of Meritage/Bordeaux blends to our customers.”

Practical for restaurants? Really useful for the average wine? Don't know, since I haven't tried one. But I'll see Dan Berger in January at the Cheers Beverage Conference, and will be sure to ask him then.