Bars & Breweries

The Spot: ZuZu at Hotel Valley Ho 6850 East Main Street, Scottsdale 480-248-2000 www.cafe-zuzu.com…

In the previous decade, brewers pushed the envelope farther than it had ever gone in terms of alcohol content, barrel-aging and experimental yeast strains — and beer geeks loved them for it. To peruse a list of the top-rated beers in the world was to see a list of the…

For some reason, the misuse of the term “martini” really gets my hackles up. A martini has two or three ingredients: Gin, vermouth, and possibly a drop of orange bitters. Back in the late 1990s, people realized that cocktails were fun to drink, and all of a sudden anything served…

We all like to pat ourselves on the back for shopping at farmers markets, buying organic produce, finding purveyors who care about how their farming practices affect the Earth, etc. I’m one of those people: I buy stuff from farmers markets and celebrate those producers who care about what they…

As a mother and Phoenix’s U.S. Bartenders’ Guild president, Kim Haasarud is used to wrangling and organizing. Her experience in cocktail bars began as a way to supplement her income in the ’90s. Since then, she’s become a well-known player in cocktail scenes from New York to L.A., putting her…

The Spot: American TapHouse 1026 South Gilbert Road, Gilbert 480-214-3440 www.americanth.com…

Beer: Señorita Brewery: Elevation Beer Co. Style: Imperial Porter ABV: 8.4 percent In a speech delivered to thousands of attendees at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference, Paul Gatza told a story about bad beer. It was at a beer festival a few months earlier, the director of the Brewers Association…

The name of the Ward Eight cocktail has some interesting possible connotations. What could the history of the drink entail? Was there a sanitarium wing that treated heavy tipplers who tended to enjoy this particular drink? Did a church ward make a non-alcoholic drink that was later tainted with demon…

I don’t know about you, but I was not ready to see triple digits this past weekend. ‘Tis the season for Phoenicians to bemoan to arrival of the hot summer. The spring here in the Valley was glorious as usual, made even more so by watching the Midwest and Northeast…

I might get hate mail for this one, but I’m just going to say it: Vodka is a waste of my time and a waste of your time. If I’m looking for flavor from a spirit, I’ll look to gin for crisp botanical notes or mezcal for roasted, smoky notes…

The Spot: Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. 721 North Arizona Avenue, Suite 103, Gilbert 480-284-9863 www.azwbeer.com…

Beer: Snapshot Brewery: New Belgium Brewing Co. Style: Berliner Weisse ABV: 5 percent If we’re ranking sour beer styles by “intensity of flavor” and “likelihood of making an inexperienced craft beer drinker puke,” the Berliner Weisse would be right near the bottom. Its tartness is generally mild; its carbonation high;…

This weekend is one of the more popular drinking holidays of the year, the Kentucky Derby. On Saturday, folks everywhere will hoist mint juleps, preferably in silver cups. See Also: How to Make the Best Mint Julep, Ever Of course, it seems like there’s always someone who’s not too keen…

It is de rigueur these days to talk about terroir driven wines, wines that evoke a sense of place based on the geographical sites that give certain characteristics based on microclimate and soil type. It’s also trendy to talk about “non-interventionist” winemaking, letting the wine make itself with as little…

The Spot: Notorious Burgers 8777 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale 480-94703180 www.notoriousburgers.com…

Beer: IPA Brewery: Odell Brewing Co. Style: American IPA ABV: 7 percent Near the top of the list of things that make me sad — along with starving puppies and the fact that Tobey Maguire is still making movies — are missed opportunities to educate someone about beer. Recently, this…

With Arizona Cocktail Week and now Chandler Craft Spirits Festival celebrating the world of all things liquor-based, it seems the liquor scene in Phoenix is really taking off. Local vendors like Arizona Distilling Co., AZ Bitters Lab, and Desert Diamond Distillery of Kingman mixed in with national distilleries like Aviation…

As summer descends once more upon the Valley, my mind shifts to tropical drinks. Well, it’s never really shifted away from tropical drinks. I guess the better thing to say is that my tropical drink instinct is getting into high gear. It’s not quite time for me to break out…

After learning all about the types of bitters on the market and the history of the non-potable tincture last week with Bill and Lill Buitenhuys of AZ Bitters Lab, Travis Nass of the Last Drop Bar at the Hermosa Inn shows us this week how to use bitters in a…

The Spot: St. Francis 111 East Camelback Road 602-200-8111 www.stfrancisaz.com…

Beers: Saison and IPA Brewery: Bad Water Brewing Style: Saison, IPA ABV: 6 percent, 5.5 percent Imagine, for a minute, that you’ve traveled back to the first time you tried craft beer. You’ve spent most of your legal drinking age years (and maybe a few before) throwing back cans of…

Sometimes behind the bar, you have your own personal trends. Take, for example, this week’s cocktail. A year or two ago, I got on a streak of making this drink for almost everyone I knew. I sang its praises far and wide. But somehow, it never made it into Chow…