Sake fizz isn’t just big in Japan: Here’s all you need to know July 1, 2021 Bottle-fermented sparkling sake – “Awasake” or foam sake – is seeing a surge in popularity outside of Japan. To underline the point, French masterchef Alain Ducasse has partnered with Japanese brewery Shichiken in Yamanashi to launch a new sparkling variety that offers an international taste journey in which “Japanese elegance meets French art of living”. [...]
It’s still Champagne, just without the bubbles June 30, 2021 Still or sparkling? This question, normally asked when you order mineral water, could soon apply to Champagne. “Bollinger avec gaz ou sans gaz?” According to the latest figures from the Comité Champagne, despite – or perhaps because of – the Covid situation in the US and Europe, Champagne is fizzing again. Lanson chairman François Van Aal [...]
Yorkshire is taking on France and Scotland in the booze battle June 28, 2021 Yorkshire has just opened its first wine road and a whisky road may be next. The county now has 16 commercial vineyards and nine wineries, producing 100,000 bottles a year. The area had pedigree as a wine-producing region: the Cistercians of Kirkstall Abbey were early winemakers there, as were the Benedictine monks at Askham Richard. [...]
Renegade wine made in Bethnal Green – with YOUR face on it June 24, 2021 Warwick Smith is Bethnal Green’s first and so far only winemaker, and probably the only one that puts his customers’ faces on the bottle. “We ask people to put themselves forward every year and we pick a selection. The idea is that the wines stay with the people. If we make the same wine in [...]
Thrills, spills and belly laughs: Inside the only vineyard with a helter-skelter June 23, 2021 If we can’t get to the beach or find the sun to get some colour in our faces, perhaps a vineyard will do. According to GB Wine, organizers of English Wine Week, booming sales of English and Welsh wines show our ever-growing thirst for home-grown pleasures. Lockdown has led to a spike in domestic wine [...]
Make mine a shandy: The pub favourite is making a comeback June 22, 2021 A new company is set on taking the shame out of shandy and making it trendy again. A shandy, or its close cousin the lager top, were once mainstays of the British pub scene but became increasingly rare over the last few decades, which instead saw an influx of craft beers and strong continental lagers. [...]
Meet the youngest professional winemaker in the UK June 21, 2021 At 25, Tommy Grimshaw is perhaps the youngest professional winemaker in the UK. His office is at Crawthorne Farm, part of the 1,000 hectare Langham Agricultural Estate around the Grade 1 listed Melcombe Manor House in Dorset. “We take a low intervention approach to both grape growing and wine production, meaning that all of our [...]
Marco Pierre White joins the ranks of celebrity gin distillers June 21, 2021 Marco Pierre White has been a trailblazer in many respects, but he recently became perhaps the best-known chef to produce a gin bearing his own name. The restaurateur has launched his £54.95 Mr White’s London Dry gin, made by Dai Wakely of Wales’s Cygnet Distillery. “I distinctly remember the captivating smell of the juniper berries [...]
Lindores Abbey is about to release its first whisky in… 527 years June 18, 2021 In September Gordon & MacPhail will release an 80-year-old whisky which will be the world’s oldest single malt Scotch. But for Lindores Abbey, 80 years is a mere blink of an eye. Now world’s first recorded distillery is set to release its first expression in 527 years. “To be able to bring Scotch whisky back [...]
Meet Dhavall Gandhi, the Willy Wonka of the spirits world June 15, 2021 Now you can have your whisky and drink it. With cake-loving, sweet-toothed malt lovers in mind, Lakes Distillery has added a patisserie-influenced single malt to its Whiskymaker’s Editions series, created exclusively for Harvey Nichols. Inspired by the sensory experience of a Parisian cake shop, the new expression is called Le Goûter, meaning “taste it”. Lakes [...]
