Here we are again with another wonderful edition of your favorite newsletter! This week is dedicated to news, idle gossip, controversy, and maybe even some puns. We have a little bit of everything for you so take a scroll and stay a while.

Tequila Matchmaker has Some Big News

After last week’s incredible tequila experience I’ve come to know that the tequila community is tight-knit and yet very welcoming. For all those who enthusiastically follow tequila, mezcal, and other agave spirit content this announcement may even come with job opportunities:

Tequila Matchmaker (TMM), designed to deliver the best additive-free tequila options to its users, is broadening their included spirits range. This is great news for the many agave spirits brands that adhere to the same high standards that Tequila Matchmaker seeks to promote. This shift is also incredible because the audience that would want this content is already right there waiting for the updates to drop. If you haven’t already you should check out their website and consider downloading the app. (App Store, Google Play)

Many people, especially in the US, are refining their palates as tequila becomes more and more popular. Tequila drinkers are now akin to whiskey drinkers in that they seek out unique expressions and appreciate the spirit as a standalone sip instead of just a cocktail base or a shot on a wild night. Tequila has actually outranked vodka and whiskey in on-premise sales for bars and restaurants, seeing growth where other spirits are seeing decline. This growth is also largely in part to the growing awareness around quality in the consumer market, driven by health-minded imbibers looking to refine what caliber and how much alcohol they consume.

Reddit has Decided What the Worst Value Bourbon is, And it Wasn’t What I Expected

So to be fair, when I read the headline to this article I honestly thought of an American whiskey - not a bourbon - at first instinct but even so I don’t think I was expecting the verdict that I was handed. A family member sent me this (hi, Dad!) and at first glance I wasn’t sure it was something worth diving into. When I had a moment I took another look and honestly it was a nice exercise in taste memory.

I’ve had the privilege of tasting a wide variety of bourbon, rye, and American whiskey that I wouldn’t have been able to afford on my own thanks to the restaurant that Lui and I worked together at years ago. I have been able to taste some very exclusive bottles (including all three Van Winkle offerings) so when I saw that the bourbon condemned by Reddit was W.L. Weller I was intrigued.

W.L. Weller is a wheated bourbon that comes out of the Buffalo Trace distillery, the same distillery that is responsible for the ever-coveted Van Winkle Bourbon line (Old Rip Van Winkle, Van Winkle Special Reserve, and Pappy Van Winkle). This is maybe why Weller became so popular. It is technically the same recipe, just aged for different lengths of times in different spots in the rickhouse. I have personally never been drawn to wheated bourbon, but for those who love it Weller has always been on my mental list of solid recommendations that won’t entirely break the bank. Reddit, however, begs to differ.

The main take-away from the Reddit community was that there are so many other bourbons for much less money that seemed to be a much better value. The part that lost me though was when the recommendations in Weller’s stead were not wheated bourbons at all. The Buffalo Trace brand offered up was actually Eagle Rare (which is a wonderful bourbon but contains no wheat in the mash bill) and the other was Russell’s Reserve 10 (also no wheat). I love a good controversy but I think this whole thread was just wheated bourbon haters, at least to an extent. There was a list of top rated wheated bourbons under $50 added to the end of the article, so at least there’s that to make up for it I guess.

All in all, I think that W.L. Weller was a great alternative for wheated bourbon enthusiasts that can’t afford (or simply can’t win the lottery to purchase) any of the Van Winkle expressions. That is of course when you could actually find Weller in stores. It seems like part of the gripe online is also because Weller is hard to come by these days. Resale values are high in the collector community so maybe that’s what soured the experience for so many people.

How a Variation of a Classic Became a Classic of its Own

It’s been a hard week in the world of scientific literacy. Horrible news headings aside, sipping a painkiller might actually be the best medicine right now. The original recipe for the well known Piña Colada variation comes from the Soggy Dollar bar on the islands of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. The drink is credited to Daphne Henderson in 1970 by most sources. It seems however that our first controversy is some articles claim Daphne was the bar owner, some claim her to be the bartender, and the Soggy Dollar website itself claims an entirely different creator and owner(s). After its creation it was trademarked and popularized by the founder of Pusser Rum, Charles Tobias. This was not without its own small controversy; Tobias had asked Henderson for her recipe for over two years to no avail. He then smuggled the drink out of the restaurant and attempted to reverse-engineer it. Once he settled on the ratio that seemed the best and closest to the one he sought to emulate he locked it down with a trademark.

There are a number of ways to make this iconic beverage, many different makers add or subtract small elements to make it their own, but at its core the recipe consists of: cream of coconut, pineapple juice, orange juice, and (preferably) navy rum (about 54.5% alcohol). This is all topped with freshly grated nutmeg to create a wonderful tiki drink that is suitable for warm and cold weather alike. Although most of the ingredients suggest a tropical and summery drink, the nutmeg always makes me feel like this one can last through the winter. Baking spice always helps with the versatility and seasonality of a recipe and here I think it gives the painkiller just the right edge to carry into at least the fall.

A video combining two passions of mine: beekeeping and foraging. Neither of which I have been keeping up with as well as I’d like lately, but I digress. Mead is essentially honey-wine (fermented honey beer might be more accurate) and sumac is a little-known edible plant that grows in a large portion of the eastern American states. Staghorn sumac is native to the eastern United States, as far south as Georgia, and north into southeastern Canada. It is often assumed poisonous or at least highly allergenic, being confused with poison sumac, so is not often used in food or drink recipes in the US. It is very popular in a lot of Middle Eastern dishes and cuisine for its tangy and lemon-y flavor. It grows in abundance out where I live and I keep meaning to harvest some to use for recipes like this but it seems I might have missed peak harvest this year. Ideal time to harvest (in the northeastern US) is usually late July to mid-September.

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