The Texas Micro-Distillation Market
Since my return to Houston a couple of years ago, I have anxiously monitored the Texas spirits market. In Chicago, I had the great small-batch spirits from North Shore Distillers, including Distiller’s Gin No.6 and their Aquavit. But, despite the boom of Tito’s Vodka years before, the Texas market remained relatively quiet, adding only Paula’s Texas Spirits until 2007. I was always puzzled by these circumstances because if there is anything that Texans are fanatical about, it is products made in Texas. Nevertheless, over the last year, several new brands have been released – a clear sign that Texas interest in spirits and cocktails is on the rise. Read the story »
The Making of Anvil Bar & Refuge
To say that my life has changed over the last three weeks would be an extreme understatement. Anvil’s dramatic transformation from a vacant construction site to a functioning bar has similarly changed me from a dusty, unshaven, demolishing, drywalling, painting, quasi-electrician to the clean, fresh juicing, firm shaking, vodka abolitionist that thrives behind the bar. For a long time, I didn’t feel like myself; funny how stirring a martini can change all of that. Read the story »
Old Overholt Rye & The Thirty Second Staredown
Old Overholt is arguably the most enduring staple of the American whiskey landscape. Read the story »
Cocktails & Spirits
Drink Dogma and Anvil Bar & Refuge are now on Twitter. Keep...
With construction work on Anvil moving ahead at a feverish pace,...
American conceptions of mezcal generally involve drunken college...
Beer & Wine
The smell of fresh cut grass, baseball on TV, the sound of kids...
Several weeks ago, I received emails from two people directly...
Great news! Houston (Conroe) has another micro-brewery and they...
More Dogma
Anvil Bar & Refuge - Poison Girl Classic American Cocktail GatheringThere are five American whiskey cocktails that you must try at least once in your lifetime. And no, making any of them with spoiled...
The Champagne Cocktail & Houston Wine Bar 13 CelsiusI just wanted to let everyone know that, Houston wine bar 13 Celsius is going to feature champagne cocktails with an Anvil Bar &...
Jim Beam New (ri)1 Rye ReviewAfter spending most of the last decade of my life surrounded by shelves of liquor, I have come to the definitive conclusion that different...
The Corpse Reviver #2I really wanted to throw this drink up for the recent New Orleans Mixology Monday, but the Corpse Reviver #2 isn’t necessarily a...
San Francisco TreatsSo obviously I’m not quite as on-the-ball as our San Franciscan friends, Anita and Cameron, from Married with Dinner fame, but you...
The Expansion of the CocktailSomeone asked me today how my trip to New Orleans went. After describing the hazy evenings and all of the wonderful people I met,...
Macgyver CocktailsLast week, two of my colleagues and I found ourselves for a week at a work-related convention in the city of Austin. One might assume...
Air Infusions: Smoked RyeI’ve got two obsessive hobbies: cocktails and large South American tropical fish. The .0005% of the world’s people who appreciate...
Sex and the City’s #@%^ing CosmopolitansThat damn movie has everybody asking for cosmopolitans. I love turning people into cocktail enthusiasts, but man, I might not be able...
Tales of the Cocktail
