Liquor and Spirits

Scotch Chef's Table at Cafe ZuZu in Scottsdale on May 20

A Mr. Ron Burgundy once said, "I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly." And if, like Mr. Burgundy, you're a fan of the stuff, then you might just be thrilled to know that Cafe ZuZu at the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale will be having a scotch-filled chef's table ... More >>

The Secret to the Perfect Margarita (Hint: It Does Not Include Agave Nectar)

I just took a look at the calendar, and realized that Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner. Never mind that it's barely a blip on the radar in Mexico; around here, it's become Cinco de Drinko, where it's socially acceptable to get wasted on crummy margaritas and horrible Mexican beer. If you're ... More >>

Corpse Reviver: Bringing a Cocktail Back from the Dead

Ring the bell -- it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. Names are a funny thing. Names get even funnier when it comes to cock ... More >>

How To Make (and Pronounce!) Great Caipirinhas

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. The folks who come in to the bar lately have been all abuzz over the wa ... More >>

Aviation Cocktail: Your Taste Buds Are Cleared for Takeoff

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, in which JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. Every now and again, a movie comes along where the supporting actors ... More >>

Blood and Sand Cocktail Is a Perfect Intro to Scotch

This week for Last Call, I'm venturing into sacred ground. To be specific, I'm sharing my favorite cocktail that involves scotch. I know, I just sent a bunch of scotch purists running for the smelling salts. For those folks, the only adornment that scotch ever needs is a couple of ice cubes. For eve ... More >>

Quick PHX 2013 Party: Dwayne Allen

The Vieux Carré is Perfect for Your Sophisticated Mardi Gras

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. New Orleans is a town with a storied past. Most tourists' tales are of ... More >>

Get Ready for Mardi Gras with the Perfect Sazerac

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. Mardi Gras is coming up quick. The fuel of Fat Tuesday's debauchery is, ... More >>

The 5 Best Shots for Your New Year's Eve Party

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. When we Chow Bella folks were discussing our New Year's Eve plans, I wa ... More >>

Three Holiday Liqueurs You Can Make at Home

See also: Chow Bella's Gift Guide for the Aspiring Bartender See also: Make Puerto Rican Egg Nog Now, Enjoy It Later I'm officially committed to making all of my gifts this year. I blame Pinterest. And while I don't expect you to make everything yourself too, I do urge you to explore a little. ... More >>

Kahlúa Gingerbread: How to Make It Tolerable

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. A simultaneous perk and hazard of the bar industry is learning about ne ... More >>

How to Make the Perfect Sidecar

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. One of my favorite parts of writing Last Call is getting to answer peop ... More >>

Five Tips for Making the Best Sangria Ever

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. See Also: Want Something With Beer? Have a Shandy. See Also: Want a Sum ... More >>

The Tale of Two Suffering Bastards

Ring the bell, it's time for Last Call, where JK Grence, bartender at Shady's, serves up booze advice and recipes. Got a burning question for your bartender? Leave it in the comments and it might be answered in a future column. See Also: Trader Vic's original Mai Tai, from yours truly. This coming ... More >>

National Pecan Pie Day: A Cocktail Recipe for Boozehounds

It's time for another cocktail! Today's recipe comes from Mabel's on Main in Scottsdale. For National Pecan Pie Day, local bartender Clint Spotleson whipped up a cocktail that he decided to name the "Pecan Flip". His recipe is slightly more advanced than usual, because of the use of a certain elem ... More >>

My Favorite Drink: The Pegu Club Cocktail

My pets know what they're doing these days. The dog is currently laying spread-eagle on the tile floor, right in the fan's path. The cat has all but taken up residence in the bathroom sink. And about all I want to do come 2 PM is lay on the floor and watch the ceiling fan spin. It's time to pull out ... More >>

Bourdain's Favorite "Satanic, Delicious Hell Broth" -- The Negroni

This time of year is perfect to pull out the big guns for refreshing cocktails. You can keep your frozen Daiquiris and Margaritas, I'm reaching for Negronis right now. You might remember a few months ago when we discussed the classic Americano. Think of the Negroni as the advanced version of the Ame ... More >>

Rum Bar Launches A-RUM-a-Therapy Social Hour: $5 Rum Punch to Cure All Y'all's Ills

Dwayne Allen and Danielle Leoni bring a taste of the Caribbean to downtown Phoenix via The Breadfruit and Rum Bar -- the one a cheery Jamaican restaurant and the other a cozy hideaway featuring more than 100 brands of premium rum. Now that summer is in full swing, the two have decided customers need ... More >>

Beyond Margaritas: More Great Tequila Drinks

This week, the mailbag fell open to reveal a message/question in a bottle: "Help! We stocked up on tequila for margarita season. Now we're already tired of margaritas and still have lots of tequila, what should I do with it?" Simple: Send it to your favorite booze blogger. Oh, you mean you want to ... More >>

Glenfiddich's Cask of Dreams

We all have dreams, though some might be more easily attainable than others. Is your dream to travel to a foreign country? Easy. Is your dream to be CEO of a company? Tough, but not impossible. Is your dream is to taste a Scotch aged in casks inscribed with the hopes of thousands of American dreamer ... More >>

Your New Summer Cocktail: The Americano (No, Not the Espresso Drink)

Summer is upon the Phoenix area once again. Sure, the official start of summer is a couple of months away, but hearing people start every conversation with "Damn, it's hot!" is our equivalent of the first robin of spring. It means different things to different people. For me, it means it's time to f ... More >>

Getting Shaken & Stirred at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival

The 34th Annual Scottsdale Culinary Festival began on Tuesday, and we chose to kick the weeklong celebration off the same way we would any soirée -- with a few drinks. Not your simple liquor-plus-mixer drinks, mind you. There was a time when the cocktail was as essential to living as food, and wa ... More >>

Pisco Porton: The Other Grape Drink

It would seem from looking around the shelves of bars or liquor stores that Europe holds a monopoly on the production of spirits made with grapes. France gives us Cognac and Armagnac; Spain produces a fair amount of brandy; Italy has its grappa. But drinkers do themselves a disservice if they ignore ... More >>

Last Call Goes On Spring Break: Adios Motherfucker!

It's that time again, time for the students at ASU to be on spring break, heading off to Puerto Peñasco or Lake Havasu or goodness knows where. And with spring break comes a time-honored tradition for college students everywhere: Binge drinking. One of the most popular mixed drinks for copious cons ... More >>

Irish Whiskey: A St. Patrick's Day Primer

It's been said that God created whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world. If it's true, he didn't do a great job of it -- the Irish take over the world every day on March 17. But while everyone may be from the land of the clover on St. Patrick's Day, before you go around pinching everyon ... More >>

Gin: How to Drink It, and Like It

Really, they're better than you think!​In my years of bartending, one of the things I've heard the most is this: "I don't like gin." When I press for details, the story is always the same: They had a bad experience with it years ago (inevitably in college) and haven't been able to touch the ... More >>

New in CenPho: Rum Bar at The Breadfruit

​Dwayne Allen and Danielle Leoni, the folks behind cheerful Jamaican restaurant The Breadfruit, just opened Rum Bar in the space next door to the restaurant, serving nearly 70 kinds of premium rum, from smooth, young spirits to exquisite aged reserve varieties. There are also several kin ... More >>

Top 5 Valentine's Day Cocktails for The Hopeless Romantic

​Nothing says "I love you" quite like an inappropriate public drunken make-out session at your local bar. It's also a good way to scare off your friends and the fastest way for the entire place to suggest the two of you get a room. Save yourself the embarrassment and keep your friends by shaki ... More >>

The 10 Best Cocktails for Your Holiday Party

​Party season is full swing and the best way to make your holiday party a hit is to serve the best drinks in town. We have compiled a list of our favorite cocktails based on holiday desserts. Pick one to serve as a signature drink or stock up and try them all! ​1. Sugar Cookie Martini - ... More >>

5 Ways to Drink Your Halloween Candy

mixthatdrink.comA rainbow of vodka flavors.​Candy is dandy, liquor is quicker, so combining candy AND liquor must be a jovial jaunt to inebriation.If you've  got a bowl full of Halloween candy and some alcohol in your cabinet, why not get creative and really trick-or-treat.Here are 5 ideas to ... More >>

Urine Whiskey, Wine Dinner at Bravo Bistro, and Bacon Ice Cream in Today's Eater's Digest

susikochenundbacken.blogspot.com​ Hungry for your early morning serving of food news, with no preservatives or additives?Italian Wine DinnerForget cooking tonight, make your reservations for Bravo Bistro's Italian Wine Dinner happening tonight from 6:30 till close. The five-course meal will ... More >>

Simon Alam's Caipirinha

The Caipirinha ​Yesterday we met Simon Alam, the man handling the bottles at Merc Bar. Today he treats us the Caipirinha, a drink he was kind enough to share some history on: "The Caipirinha is Brazil's national cocktail. It's made with cachaca, the most common distilled alcoholic beverage. ... More >>

Behind the Bar: The Thai Basil Margarita at Malee's Thai Bistro

​ Tyler Christensen, the 31-year-old bar manager at Malee's Thai Bistro, thinks of bartending as alchemy. In Christensen's modern-day apothecary, he likes to create a new cocktail list each season. Christensen never used to like margaritas, so he decided to come up with a new recipe that ke ... More >>

New Twists on the Old Fashioned

deoveritas.comThe classic Old Fashioned cocktail.​Traditional cocktails are back in a major way, and there's no drink that embodies old fashioned imbibing quite like the—um, well, like the Old Fashioned. Over the last few years, the drink has surged in popularity as Mad Men bad-boy ad- ... More >>

Top 5 Cocktails For Easter

http://www.alcademics.com/2009/04/easter-drinks-for-my-peeps.htmlDown the hatch ... er, rabbit hole.​Church. Hiding plastic eggs for unappreciative children. Cooking a huge dinner. Putting up with painfully unlikable family members. Whatever your Easter entails this Sunday, there's a good cha ... More >>

Infuse Your Booze : Easy, Cheap, Fancy Drinkin'

Adriane GoetzCherry-infused Woodford Reserve bourbon and pineapple-strawberry-infused gin at the Phoenician's Grape & Grain boutique.​Even with top shelf alcohol, a mixed drink is only as good as its mixer. A cheap, artificially flavored juice can totally ruin the taste; and the usual "soda, j ... More >>

Behind the Bar: Steve Howard of Murphy's Law

Nicki Escudero Ready to serve you​It's easy to see why Steve Howard of Murphy's Law in Chandler is a popular bartender. The handsome 25-year-old is extremely charming, doing tricks behind the bar and letting customers name drinks he makes for them. And he's had plenty of time to build up a ... More >>

St-Germain: Patron Saint of Modern Cocktails?

Even the bottle suggests a "refined" new liqueur.​With the recent resurgence of "classic" drinks, it's nice to see a relative newbie that combines tradition with innovation like St-Germain, an artisanal French liqueur made from handpicked elderflower blossoms found in the foothills of the Alps ... More >>

Happy Hour Cocktails at Spotted Donkey Cantina

​This winter season, the specialty cocktails offered on the happy hour menu of Spotted Donkey Cantina in north Scottsdale will have you feeling like it's a lot warmer, as the chic southwest Mexican restaurant presents sweet, brightly colored drinks more suited for the beach than for cold mo ... More >>

Red Brazilian at Olive & Ivy

Benjamin LeathermanChaz Anderson gabs with a Scottsdale socialite while whipping out a Red Brazilian at Olive & Ivy.Chaz Anderson is deeply involved with preparing a Red Brazilian behind the bar at Scottsdale's Olive & Ivy, muddling and mashing raspberries and fresh lime slices into a fragra ... More >>

Recipe: Rhythm & Blues From Rhythm Room

Benjamin LeathermanThe Rhythm and Blues, as created by Mona Watkins.​The Rhythm Room has built a reputation over the past two decades as the Valley's premier destination to hear the best in rootsy, down-home music like the blues, Americana, and rockabilly. But what about its drinks? Not so much. ... More >>

Three Valley BBQs Compete in Jack Daniel's Competition

Jack Daniel's​Three Valley-area barbecue teams have been selected to compete in the "prestigious" 21st Annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue.Barbecue pros from Blake's BBQ in Gilbert, Otis and the Bird in Mesa and Rhythm 'n QUE in Phoenix will duke it out against sixt ... More >>

Summer Guide: Shaking it Up with Valley Mixologists

Digestif in Scottsdale serves up absinthe and "Cal-ital food for the soul"

BEST MARTINI

Devil's Martini

BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT

La Casa del Mariachi

Haunted by Spirits

John McCain derived his wealth from his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, whose father started his road to riches as a bootlegger. As a politician, the senator has remained beholden to the liquor industry and the family business

Sense of Humidor

Second Helpings