Author: Richard Murff

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Hard Water: Seltzer With a Kick

I had one of those fine summer head colds the other week, which caused me to drink enough La Croix sparkling water to float an Adams class destroyer. So, imagine my surprise when I learned of something called Hard Seltzer. Like La Croix but at 5 percent ABV, it must work wonders for an infection. Probably not too good for the liver, but the Ying and Yang are both part of life.

So down to Joe’s I went, where I understand the stuff is flying off the shelves, and in this blessed heat, I can see why. I picked out a White Claw Black Cherry and two flavors from Truly — lime and pomegranate.

How were they? The short answer is that they were all delicious.

After that, a review gets tricky for the simple reason that they are exactly what they say they are — alcoholic, lightly flavored fizzy water. And they taste like it. Even saying, “seltzer with a kick” is wide of the mark, because this stuff has absolutely no kick. As we sampled, Mrs. M. was reminded of that Clearly Canadian water which was everywhere a few years ago.

The specs are simple: At 5 percent ABV, they have more alcohol than a light beer; they’re more in the neighborhood of a craft summer brew. Both the White Claw and the Truly have only 100 calories per 12 ounce can. White Claw has a little more obvious flavor, but also has two grams of sugar to Truly’s one.

In the Pro column: They are perfect for the summer, light, refreshing, and they go down easy. In the Con column: They go down way too easy.

As I mentioned, the ABV is similar to light craft beer, so imagine drinking 12 of those. This is where you scoff and say “I won’t drink 12 of those things!” Well, you say that, but try sitting through a Live at the Garden show while Boy George sweats his glitter off. If I’d had known these things existed then, I’d have put away half a case without turning around.

I’m about to pack a daughter off to college, and I just gave her the “If it’s got booze in it and doesn’t taste like booze, don’t drink it” lecture. With a spirit such as bourbon or gin, you know what you are getting into, because they have a kick. With hard seltzer you’re likely to forget that crucial fact — until you stand up and your equilibrium feels like it’s been synced to a Doors song.

My dad lecture aside, the hard seltzers really are great, light, and refreshing. At $1.69 a can, they won’t break the bank. We poured them over ice, and I picked some mint out of the yard and put it in the lime flavor, which worked beautifully.

Of course, the question remains: What, exactly, is it? Go to the Truly website and you get a picture of two pretty ladies and the feeling that one of them just worked out. But no answers. The White Claw website has a product video that shows three outdoorsy sorts diving beneath a big wave. Then, I guess, they go back to the beach to get gassed. Which is neat, but equally useless. The website did say that White Claw employs a proprietary technique using yeast to turn sugars into alcohol.

Being formally trained as an historian, I don’t know how proprietary that is as that is literally the way all booze has been made since the dawn of drunken history.

How to drink it is an easier question. I did a quick poll of friends who’d tried it: Some mixed it with water, others drank it straight from the can. I even heard one person say they used it as cocktail mixer, which seems like a great way to make a weapons-grade gin and soda.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The World Cup of Beer at Celtic Crossing

We were sitting on the patio of the Celtic Crossing in Cooper-Young watching the second game of the FIFA World Cup, when Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo pulled a hat trick, tying a much-favored Spain. The two tables next to us exploded with the cheers of a dozen Portuguese Elvis fans in Memphis for a bachelor party. Which isn’t something you see every day.

Every couple of years during the Olympics, we suddenly get interested in sports like gymnastics or curling, so why not jump head-first into soccer every four years? The U.S. didn’t make it to the World Cup, but that’s no reason not to get involved, especially now that we’re in the high-stakes knockout round that Americans actually understand. Or when DJ’s hosting the party.

DJ Naylor, owner of the Celtic Crossing, opens the bar for every game — every single one. When I showed up at 5 a.m. for France vs. Australia, the doors were open, about 10 fans were there, and coffee was on. So was the “World Cup of Beer” — a bucket featuring beers from the World Cup countries: Carlsberg from Denmark, Estrella from Spain, Asahi from Japan, Hoegaarden from Belgium, and Einstock White Ale from upstart Iceland. Also available in the bucket is Sol from Mexico, which pulled off an amazing upset of the German producers of Schöfferhofer. While a few of these teams are no longer in the tournament, their beers are still available for a little buzzed geo-political diplomacy.

These are all sports fan beers, drinkable lagers, except Einstock — a light ale. In Schöfferhoffer — which looks like an orange Fanta in the bottle — the Germans aren’t playing to type, but this was a weird year for them. It’s made with grapefruit, and given how picky the Germans are about beer production, it’s real grapefruit and not flavoring. It’s basically a shandy. Yes, I know, some of us need to tread carefully when ordering a beer that looks like Tang, but in the sticky heat this thing is really refreshing.

Celtic Crossing’s World Cup food menu is more a homage to the tournament hosts, Russia. While DJ knows Irish food, he said he had to call some Russians working for FedEx for help with the menu, which included Smoked Salmon Blini, a sort of pancake topped with smoked salmon and sour cream; Crepes, another sort of thinner pancake filled with minced beef, onions and mushrooms; and Butterbrot, a buttered marble rye topped with ham and egg salad.

By about 8:30 a.m., there is less coffee and more beer. The place was filled with 100 or so people, not crowded but full, and not the sort of crowd that normally eats breakfast in a bar. All were focused on the game, cheering full-bore. And this lasts throughout the day. Go for the beer, go for the food, go for the social experiment of watching Americans watch the World Cup.

Even when our men’s team does make the tournament, we tend to get knocked out by some third world powerhouse like Ghana. The U.S. Women’s team, it should be pointed out, is a global contender that will actually win the World Cup on occasion. So this is as good a time as any for us to embrace our immigrant roots and cheer for the place from which we originally came. And that’s the beautiful thing about a good beer and sports: No one minded my hollering “Laissez le bon temps rouler” at a French goal. And I promise you that I was the only one in the place rooting for France. I’ll root for England for the enchanting Mrs. M, and Serbia in honor of some surgeons from Belgrade who completely outdrank me one night in the Ukraine. Good people.

Grab a beer, embrace a team you know nothing about, have a blini. In the words of DJ, your Irish-born, soccer fanatic host, “I think soccer could ease a lot of the world’s problems.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Off to Cuba!

CREDIT: Richard Murff

I’ve always liked the idea of a fine Cuban cigar better than actually smoking one. So, when Michelle Laverty, “Lav” to one and all, over at Babalu, slid a creation called a Cuba Cigar across the bar, I was intrigued. A single massive square of ice swimming in Bacardi Gran Reserva Rum with Havana, hyde and smoked bitters, with an orange slice. It is a solid drink, with the bitters supporting, not hiding the rum. And here it was, that smoky, leathery ideal of a cigar without the reality of it. Which is good, because in reality I’m allergic to tobacco.

This is just one of the five new cocktails rolled out by Babalu Tapas and Tacos in Overton Square this summer. The new drinks were created under the direction of Lisamarie Joyce, a bar consultant you’ve probably never heard of and frequent guest of Bar Rescue, which you probably have. She became a bartender at 15, and has been one ever since, worked for TGI Fridays and created training programs and films for bartenders. “I don’t do anything over email,” Joyce says. “It’s all ‘human touch’ training.”

Babalu wasn’t in any real need of rescue; they just wanted to shake up the cocktail list. “I don’t just come up with a new menu,” Joyce says. “I like to make a partnership with the company, talk to the employees, the guests. I do secret shopping. See what works — I collaborate with the staff to come up with a new menu.”

Richard Murff

Lisamarie Joyce

The Cuban Cigar was one of those collaborations — the brainchild of Joyce and Lav, who likes to work with spirit-forward cocktails. Some of the new choices are more a celebration of fruit than booze, though. The Lemon-Berry Sour tastes like a delicious booze-free sorbet. Mrs. M’s review was simple and straightforward: “Wow.” Be warned, there is Grey Goose vodka in there, with that swirl of blackberry, raspberry, and fresh squeezed sour, all lightened up with a good splash of soda. Others at the bar were eyeballing the colorful drink, and Mrs. M., being more delightful than myself, was making friends.

Next on the list, and tied for my personal favorite with the Cuban, was the Baba-Breeze: Bombay Sapphire Gin, cucumber, mint ginger, lemon, and soda. My summer go-to is a gin and soda (and yes soda, not tonic — long story), and because I can’t leave well enough alone, I will substitute lemon, or mint or cucumber, for the traditional lime. It had never occurred to me to simply drag my cocktail through the garden and stick it all in there. Which explains why Joyce makes her living as a bar consultant and I don’t.

Babalu is famous for its tacos and tapas — it says so right on the sign — so Mrs. M and I thought it prudent to get into the shrimp tacos at this point. In a place also known for super-fresh guacamole, it seems obvious that at least one cocktail would involve the creamy avocado. To wit, the Straw-vacado, which Lav described as an “adult smoothie.” Made with Grey Goose Le Citron Vodka, avocado, strawberry, and fresh squeezed sour, this is the Guinness beer of tropical cocktails.

The last of the new menu was more fruity goodness with the La Paloma. It wasn’t nearly as spirit-forward as the Cuban Cigar or the Baba-breeze, but the booze wasn’t entirely in stealth mode, like the Lemon-Berry sour. This is because it is made with Cazadores Reposada Tequila — which is tasty but next to impossible to entirely hide — along with grapefruit, blood orange, and agave to soften the whole thing up.

The menu isn’t entirely new. The classics remain, and after still another round of shrimp tacos, we finished off with an old-fashioned daiquiri — shaken, not frozen. Babalu is big and loud and takes all kinds — the new roll-out reflects that with something for those who’d rather be in a leather chair with a cigar, and those who’d rather think they were drinking a smoothie.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Thai One On

CREDIT: Richard Murff

When thinking of beer cultures, the mind tends toward Europeans in the cold or undergraduates at the lake. Rarely does the mind leap to Southeast Asia. Yet, last year alone, for example, Vietnam’s 92 million citizens kicked backed roughly a billion gallons of beer. Mostly lagers, designed to go with the food. And, oh yes, the food!

Fortunately, Memphis has a diverse enough population to support some great restaurants serving authentic fare from places such as Thailand and Vietnam. Like a lot of Memphians, I was traumatized by the fall of the late great Saigon Le, but it was there that I was first reminded of the old adage for pairing food and drink that “what grows together, goes together.”

Admittedly, the region was a little late to the beer-brewing game. The French introduced the first brewery to Vietnam in the late 19th century. Probably knowing their real strength was in wine, they introduced German-style pale lagers, because wouldn’t you? Lagers, brewed using a cold-fermentation process, are lighter on the palate and just taste better cold than more flavor-forward ale varieties. That’s no small matter when its 85 degrees at midnight. Nearby Thailand was never colonized by a western power, but also began to pick up a taste for the stuff.

Richard Murff

Singha

The locals, doing what locals always do, began to tweak the original product to local tastes and environments. Consider what the Japanese did when introduced to Scottish whisky: They produced a lighter, more delicate version of the same. Or what the Americans did to Japanese sushi with the California roll.

In the incipient sweltering heat and humidity, Asian brewers lightened the German lagers up somewhat but, in the best cases, kept a flavor that would play well with the variety of spices that they most certainly did not get from Europeans. Few of these beers are as readily available stateside as European imports, but there are a couple of exceptions. One of the best examples available locally is Singha (pronounced “Sing”), brewed since 1933 at the oldest brewery in Thailand. It is certainly the best-known Thai beer in the U.S. Head to Bhan Thai restaurant on Peabody; if you eat inside or on the patio, it’s suitable for even the dreaded first date. Or have a drink at the back bar, an open-air wooden structure that looks like something you actually might find in the home country. One of my favorite dishes is the green curry. The pad thai is also excellent, and the menu is extensive and as spicy as you want it. This is where a Singha plays well — it’s light, but not watered down, with a malty taste that compliments bold flavors and dries quickly on the palate.

Bhan Thai is actually one of the first places I took the future Mrs. M, and it’s been a favorite of ours ever since. The last time we went, we got battered by sheets of driving rain, forcing us to take cover in the back bar. Personally, I thought that the monsoon-like conditions added a nice touch of authenticity to the evening, like being hurled bodily into a Graham Greene novel.

If you are attempting these flavors at home — or reading your Graham Greene — and want a beer literally brewed with oppressive humidity in mind, Tiger beer is available at the Cash Saver’s mighty Hall of Beer. It lacks the malty finish of Singha, but it’s fun and a little different without being too different.

Tiger has been brewed in Singapore since 1932 when, the company claims, it pioneered an innovative process called “tropical lagering.” Management is pretty vague on what this process entails, exactly, but my semi-educated guess is that it’s a fancy way of saying they employ refrigeration somewhere in the process.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Crosstown Brewing’s Brake Czech is a Winner

I clearly remember when Czechoslovakia voted itself out of existence. There was a lot of geo-political tittering to be had back in 1993. As well as the fact that the groovy global wall map I’d bought four days earlier was now out of date. Which makes the Czech Republic a relatively new country with a very old culture.

The first Czech state was formed in the 9th century, before being absorbed into the Kingdom of Bohemia — which was not, despite the name, a hipster domain — under the Holy Roman Empire. Then came the Hapsburgs, then the Austrians, then 15 to 20 minutes of self-rule between the world wars, and then, finally, the Soviets. The last bunch was thrown out in the wonderfully named “Velvet Revolution,” which, despite its name, was not led by Mel Tormé.

Eastern Europe has been called a place with too much history. Fortunately, that history is soaked in great beer — legendary lagers in fact, even iconic. When Adolphus Busch, a German immigrant, started making beer in the United States, he didn’t name it after a town in Germany. He cited the Czech city of České Budêjovice (Budweis, in German), best known for a pale lager it had been brewing since it was licensed under the Bohemian King Ottokar II in 1265.

Busch copied the Bohemian beer-making style as well: golden lagers laid up in icy caves for cold storage. Busch was a pioneer in the use of refrigeration. While the American Budweiser and the Czech Beer are both pilsner-style lagers, to say that they are the same thing is to stretch the metaphor so thin that it tastes like an Anheuser-Busch product.

Fortunately, the good fellows down at Crosstown Brewing Company have gone a long way to easing the inebriated diplomatic tensions between our two beer-swilling countries. Well, maybe not a long way, but a delicious one. And why not? The Czech Republic has done very well since its independence, and more recently, they have done a swell job of resisting ole Vlad Putin’s attempts to put the band back together again. So why not raise a glass?

In a nod to Memphis in May’s shout-out to the Czech Republic this month, Crosstown Brewing has whipped up a limited-release, Czech-style pilsner: Brake Czech. Honoring the long and proud Czech brewing tradition, as well as using authentic Czech hops — they’ve produced a golden, flavorful pilsner at a quaffable 4.8 percent ABV. It’s a light, bready, malty brew with a slight floral hop quality, and it dries to a clean finish.

But enough of mouth-feel and all that foolishness. CBC’s Crosstown taproom is a great place to pop in and try a glass. When asked at the bar “what I tasted,” I took a long sip and considered. I could only come up with one all-encompassing descriptor: Brake Czech is the cosmic ideal of Budweiser. It is what the advertising people at Anheuser-Busch spend millions trying to make you think America’s beer actually tastes like. I don’t want to be too hard on Bud; reportedly, the even Czech beer suffered under the Soviets. But Brake Czech is something to make King Ottokar II proud. More practically, while we’re hip-deep in barbecue this month, this pilsner pairs well with those smoky, sweet sauces and meats. It’s light and refreshing, but you know it’s there.

If you are downtown, Brake Czech is also available at Silky O’Sullivan’s and The Peabody Corner Bar for a limited time. If you’re out east, well, Uber. If you’re in Midtown, this stuff hails from Crosstown Brewing Company.

As for the century-old copyright slap-fight between Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser Budvar, after several failed legal attempts to wrest the name from the Czechs, in 2014, Anheuser-Busch InBev did the most American thing of all. They bought the old Czech brewery.

And that was that.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Viva L’Italia! And Roero Arneis.

It was less than 40 hours after filing my last column — detailing the existential dangers of three-dollar wine — that I found myself in New York’s famed Union Square Café, having lunch with my agent/producer/social better. We were talking about beer and mescal and vino, and he settled on an Italian wine he’d discovered while mooning around northern Italy with a more profitable client — because that’s the sort of life he leads. What he’s doing with me, I have no idea.

He says, “It’s an $80 bottle of wine, but it drinks like a $120 bottle.”

Well, I’ve certainly moved up in the world. What he ordered was a Roero Arneis — one of the stars of Italian white wines. You might want to write that down, because you likely won’t see a lot of it. But it is well worth remembering.

I’m generally pretty hard on Italian reds, mostly because of the sangiovese grape, which requires a big loud bolognaise with lots of acidic tomatoes to bring whatever gets kick-started on the palate back into balance. Historically, Italian wine-making regions have not been subject to regulation with as much pedantic gusto as their Gallic cousins in France. And it showed. Italian wines have long suffered a reputation for being harsh and raw.

The whites, however, are another story. Enter the arneis — a grape varietal that is commonly found in the hills of the Roero — that was all but extinct when it was rediscovered in the 1980s, following the Judgment of Paris. Not the one in Greek mythology that started the Trojan War, but a blind wine-tasting in 1976 wherein the Francophile wine establishment inadvertently ranked California wines higher than French ones. They’re still mad about it. The aftershock was that if great wine could be made in California, then where else?

Certainly in Italy’s historic Piedmont region. It is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, what my sister-in-law calls “maybe France, maybe Italy.” It is famous for its bold reds like the Barbera or Nebbiolo.

The arneis is a dry subtle grape with a fantastic aroma. It has become one of the stars of the region over the last 30 or so years, but because it is a low-yielding vine, it’s not likely to unseat the high-volume (and often excellent) pinot grigio. Roero Arneis is a wine with hints of those famous Peidmont white peaches, as well as crisp green apple and almond.

The last generation or so of Italian winemakers has stepped up its game with massive overhauls in both technique and equipment. Not the least of which is modern temperature control and stainless steel vats. The reason your grandparents avoided Italian wines probably had something to do with the use of concrete vats. They are hard to clean.

Ironically, it is the stainless steel that preserves some of the minerality of the Roero Arneis. That’s wine-speak for “tastes like a rock.” But picture the sort of stone God might have as a pet rock. I mention the minerality because it is so much a part of the profile that some winemakers, like Giovanni Almando, label theirs “vigne sparse” in reference to the dry, sandy soil in which it’s grown in the foothills of the Alps.

Due to its popularity, though, production has expanded beyond the patch of northern Italy with a few experiments with the grape in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. You can get a lovely Vietti Roero Arneis around town at about $24.99, and it’s worth checking out. It’s one of those really perfect summer wines — used as an aperitivo wine in Tuscany.

Or at least that’s what I was told at lunch. And being a Southerner, I tend to believe anything I’m told in lower Manhattan.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

No-No Noir: That $2.99 Bottle of Red is Probably Over-priced

Since I started writing this column, I’ve been told that no wine is too cheap for me to drink. Invariably, this comment is punctuated with theatrically rolling eyeballs. This makes me blue. Until the other week, I generally answered the jab with something along the lines of, “Well. Now, you really can’t judge a wine by its price.” Or, depending how much tasting there was of said Bacchus, “You probably haven’t bought as much sophistication as you think you have with that over-priced Pinot, you half-wit.”

Wine sales in super-markets has increased wine distribution in Tennessee, which has brought on a sudden availability of really cheap wine — vino at bottled-water prices, and not the reverse-osmosis stuff with electrolytes either. There was a certain profane integrity with the old Night Train and Thunderbird rotgut; you knew what they were for. These nouveau-cheaps, are masquerading as something else, altogether.

Yet, I’m a professional, so I felt compelled to dive in. If we don’t learn from our experiences, what good are they? What I’ve learned recently is that there is an end to exactly how deep I’ll go down the cheap-wine rabbit hole. Evidently my breaking point is somewhere above $2.99, which even a cheap bastard like myself have to admit is a comically low price point. I won’t mention where I got it, because the retailer didn’t make the stuff, so it isn’t their fault. Not entirely, at any rate. The RICO statutes of this country make it clear that anyone taking part in any element of a crime is potentially guilty of the entire crime. Whatever it is that Burlwood Cellars is churning out is something of a crime.

This wine did to my soul what the villainous Le Chiffre did to James Bond in that infamous cane-chair-and-knotted-rope scene. You know what I mean — right in the pills! According to the label, it was a Pinot Noir, and I doubt they were technically lying. It is perfectly legal to call a wine a single varietal, even if it’s only 75 percent of said variety. Still, my sophisticated wine-writer palette also detected hints of Jungle Juice, unwashed hair, and shame. The only terroir — earth — I could detect was Tom Lee asphalt after Musicfest.

When I was in the Middle East, I once drank bootleg whiskey that had been smuggled into the country in a heavy plastic IV bags. The plastic did exactly what you expect it to do to the bourbon. I’ve had brandy made in Serbia and moonshine made in Union County, Mississippi. This was worse.

Standard wine-speak simply fails to convey a complete picture, because to say that “it lacked subtlety” isn’t quite right. There was a very vague feeling that some hag from an early Disney movie had just given me some draught to make me sleep for 100 years, or possibly turn me into a fearsome goat-man. So, in that regard, I suppose we could call it “enchanting.”

The vintners recommend pairing this enchanting number with a “spicy meat dish,” and this is good advice. The operative word here, though, is spicy, not meat. I’d recommend a spoonful of that Sambol Oelek Chili Paste or some other condiment that the Vietnamese invented to stick it to the French colonists.

Still, I try to find the silver lining in these things. If you have children in the house and you’d like to throw them off the road to under-age drinking, stock the liquor cabinet with Burlwood — at this price get as many bottles as you need! When the little knee-biters inevitably raid the cellar to experiment, they’ll probably develop a lifelong fear of booze. Either that or they’ll turn to the harder stuff. You never can tell with children.

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Chicago Brews: When is Local Local?

One unintended consequence of the craft beer boom is to make travel, even business travel, more interesting. Granted that’s not saying much, but every little bit helps. Your corporate handlers may not allow you enough time to take in all the sights wherever you go, but they pretty much have to let you eat. I think it’s in the Constitution — somewhere in the back.

I found myself in Chicago the other week, wandering out of my hotel room in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and into a place called The Hidden Shamrock. The place looked — words fail me — exactly like a bar called The Hidden Shamrock in Chicago ought to look: a narrow, dark room with cheesy ’80s music on the playlist, and a friendly but inattentive barman focused on a group of Midwestern woo-girls. Which I couldn’t hold against him.

I asked my usual travel bar question: “Can you recommend a local beer?” This always gets locals excited. True, in Chicago, the townies always get excited about the home team — they might talk funny, but they are loyal to a fault. They will have opinions on “their” beer; they’ll ask you what you like, what are your go-to’s. If they know your hometown brew, then the fun really starts. Only one time did this question ever end up with a lousy beer being set before me. It was in Georgia, and someone had been getting clever with peaches. It tasted like the IHOP of beer.

Of Memphis’ craft breweries, only one, Wiseacre, is available much beyond Shelby County. What tends to throw you in a place like Chicago is that some of their heavy-hitting locals are available nationally. It was cold and raining, and the barman pointed me to a Lagunitas Imperial Stout. In truth, Lagunitas is headquartered in sunny Petaluna, California, but that didn’t seem to matter, as he pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the company’s Chicago brewing facility. All the bartender knew — other than he’d rather be talking to the girl in the pink cowboy hat — was that the brew coming out of that tap was made in town by some people who rooted for the Cubs even in the lean years. Ergo, said the barman, it’s local.

And why not? You really don’t want to be too pedantic about these things. Lagunitas Imperial Stout is rich, like a Guinness milkshake, with a big, toasty malt finish and chocolate notes. The ABV is a whopping 9.9 percent and is described by the people who make it as “dark, thick, and scary.”

But Lagunitas, while a great beer and available in Memphis, wasn’t as local as I’d had in mind. And despite the weather at the time, stouts and porters are like the tweed of the beer wardrobe — I just feel silly putting them on after Easter. The next one I tried was a Tuna Extra Pale Ale from a brewery calling itself Half Acre. It has two breweries, both in Chicago, and one nearby in Lincoln Park. Why do they call it Tuna? According to the website: “We don’t know. Just say it, ‘I’ll take a tuna.’ It feels good. The ocean is a magical place.” I can’t argue; I’ve read my Hemingway. Although that sounds like something the Key West/Havana Papa would say, not the kid from Chicago.

At any rate, the Tuna Extra Pale Ale is a great, light quaffer. At 4.7 percent ABV, it won’t knock your melon if you drink it at summer (or Hemingway) speed. It is easy on the hops, so it won’t get bitter in the heat. The citrus zest lightens things up with an almost sweet finish. It would be a winner on a hot day — or whatever these people call summer up here — while watching the Cubs not quite make it.

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Doc 52 Bourbon: Searching for a Niche

The recent debate over wine sales in grocery stores sparked heated discussion across the city and state. We talked about it — a lot. Now that the issue of Sunday alcohol sales has reared its head in Tennessee, the whole thing seems like a foregone conclusion, hardly worth mentioning. Regardless of which side of the debates you fall, both are game-changers for Memphis’ wine and liquor shops — and not necessarily to their advantage.

Like bookstores and other small retailers facing Amazon and Big Box outlets — local toddy shops have had to hustle to keep and grow loyal customers. It hasn’t been easy. I caught up with Ryan Gill, the General Manager over at Doc’s Wines, Spirits & More in the Carrefour, to talk about the new normal for the liquor business — and found the clever angle of the entrepreneur still alive and well. Part of this strategy isn’t trying to beat the grocery stores at their game, but to beat them at his.

Gill is a man on a mission to make Doc’s the face of bourbon in Memphis. “Thinking outside the box and creating products exclusive to our store are ways that we can continue to fight losing customers to grocery stores,” he says.

That thinking includes being the first liquor store in the area with a Certified Bourbon Steward on staff. The training and certification is done by the Stave & Thief Society of Louisville and endorsed by the Kentucky Distillers Association. It is, more or less, a certification similar to Sommelier training with wines. With plans to add nearly a hundred new bottles of bourbon to the store’s selection in the coming weeks, it may not be a bad investment.

Gill says he isn’t content with all the good bourbon that is “out there.” He also has his eye on an inside bottle or two. Long used to picking single-barrel bourbons, and earlier at Southwind Wine & Spirits, Gill, and Doc’s bourbon aficionado, Mike Jones — have put their 10 years of experience in curated whiskey sipping to a novel use: Doc’s is partnering with Big River Distilling to bring Memphis’ first private label bourbon to its shelves under the name Doc 52 Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It’s nine years old, uncut, unfiltered, and cask strength at 110 proof. Those nine years were spent the old-fashioned way, without heat cycling. The first batch is limited to 162 bottles, which will retail for around $50. After this run, there are plans for expanded availability for a Doc’s single barrel. “We just wanted to do something special for the first one,” says Gill.

The private label isn’t new for Doc’s, which has long had store-exclusive wine — also under the label Doc 52. The “Doc” in question, by the way, is the original store’s owner, a surgical oncologist named Roy Page. The original store had the slogan, “The Home of the 52 Week sale.”

The real question, though, is how does Doc 52 taste? It’s been pegged by some early samplers as in the same profile as Woodford Reserve Double Oak, which is pretty good company. Without any Woodford handy, I couldn’t do a side by side, but I did have a sample of Doc 52. There is some vanilla and caramel in the deep amber. What jumped out at me, however, wasn’t what Doc 52 was like, but what it wasn’t: It’s not a wheated bourbon, like Weller. Doc 52 has a subtle sweetness that comes through from a mash built on the high side with corn. There is a little heat to it, but there generally is with a cask-strength selection. With a little bit of water added, everything opens up and what you have is a bourbon with a big mouth to it that isn’t harsh or overwhelming.

“Our private label bourbon is just the beginning of Doc’s becoming the face of bourbon in Memphis,” says Gill.

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Mood Swings For Wine Lovers

When asked about what makes a good wine, Irish-born Canadian wine guru Billy Munnelly of Billy’s Best Bottles always replies, “A wine that works for the moment.” This isn’t an exercise in short-sighted transience but a pairing of wine with a mood, more or less. As Munnelly says, “There is no ‘best’ — only ‘best for.'”

That’ll turn the role of the restaurant sommelier on its head — but I’m not sure that I can picture myself ordering chargrilled oysters and a big, mouthy Cabernet because it pairs well with my indignant malaise. The other side of the coin isn’t much better. Imagine being queried by the waiter, “I see that you’ve ordered the lamb, so tell me, are you suffering soul-crushing depression? Are you unusually horny, perhaps?”

Actually, the point to Munnelly’s approach isn’t so much about the wine drinker’s mood, but more the context of where he or she happens to be. Personal taste is very, well, personal; it is also maddeningly dependent on context. It is the same as having a music playlist for working out, which you’d never play during a candlelight dinner. So, if you pick a wine for the mood you are trying to establish, everyone will be happy. “The trick,” Munnelly writes, “is to stop looking at all the choices and start thinking about what you need.”

Granted, if you answer “I need to get drunk! And somewhat consistently!” then you ought to stick with vodka. Or an AA meeting.

Munnelly has decided that there are three different “moods” for whites and, symmetrically, three for reds — and that almost every type of wine falls into one of these categories. It’s sort of a periodic table for winos, and it’s kind of brilliant.

“Ne” for Nice & Easy is a white wine category that includes Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Chenin Blanc — to name a few. Or, if you’re enjoying a rustic vibe, look under “Ru” to find suggestions like Côtes du Rhône, Syrah (some), and Merlot.

It’s an intriguing idea that isn’t as off the wall as it sounds. A recent study by Michigan State University assessed pairing certain wine categories (called “vinotypes,” because academics can’t leave well enough alone), not by food, but by certain innate characteristics of the drinker.

In Toronto, an “unwine bar” has opened up called Mad Crush, where the staff of aspiring sommeliers makes recommendations based on mood. And why not? To celebrate a victory there is a good reason to blow open some Champagne, as opposed to dousing one another in Barolo — no matter how “rich” it feels.

While wine as mood-enhancer is not a new concept, it does make you think twice about which moods you actually want to enhance. The danger here is not for the drinker, but the poor clod behind the bar and everyone within flanking earshot. After polishing off a couple of glasses “unaccountably chagrinned,” or “I just have sooooo much love to give,” the customer will almost certainly feel compelled to explain their particular mood to someone.

And you, gentle reader, simply do not care.