RIP Brooklyn Monster

This week our friends at Brooklyn Brewery announced the discontinuation of Monster Ale. They posted this on their website:

"Today it is with a heavy heart that we announce Brooklyn Brewery’s barley wine Monster Ale has reached the end of its run. But although this beer will no longer be produced, its spirit will live on… no, like literally: Monster Ale will age nicely for many years, so for those holding on to a bottle (or keg) there’s still some Monster out there left to enjoy.

After the passing of Monster the Cat, things were just not the same with Monster Ale. The Monsters had come up in Brooklyn together, enjoying an incalculable tally of beer fans assembled in the Tasting Room basking in the duo’s respective glow, and witnessing the birth of new arrivals such as Local 1, BLAST! and Sorachi Ace, now all on course toward legacies of their own. When Monster was laid to rest, the spirituous, malty libation could be seen aimlessly meandering through the fermentation hall, lazing about the brewhouse, and listlessly watching bottles fill up with beer in the packaging room, giving the sense to those close with this classic Winter Seasonal that perhaps the end was near."

Fortunately, Joe Canal's in Woodbridge and Lawrenceville both still have a limited stock of Monster, so if you're a fan you should come in and grab it while you can!

By popular demand... Blue Chair Rums!

We've had a lot of customer requests for Kenny Chesney's Blue Chair Bay rum, and we're happy to bring it to you! We have two varieties available: White and Coconut!

Each flavor of Blue Chair Bay Rum begins in white oak barrels a hundred meters from the high water line. Kick back with Blue Chair Bay Coconut, mix a classic cocktail with Blue Chair Bay White, or see where Sixth Gear takes you with Blue Chair Bay Coconut Spiced. They’re all genuine, beach made rums inspired by the spirit of the islands.

Blue Chair Bay Coconut is coconut rum the way it should be - robust, yet easy as an afternoon with nowhere to go and nowhere to be. It’s inspired by the places where you sail up, swim ashore, and pay for a round with wet money. Now being served in places where shoes are not an option. Here’s a not-so-secret secret: the cup in Kenny’s hand? It’s probably a Pirate Flag, made with Blue Chair Bay Coconut and diet.

Blue Chair Bay White is distilled steps from the beach and mellowed in white oak casks right on the Caribbean coast. There’s something about the sunlight, the waves, and the breeze across the bay that changes the nature of time. Mix up a Wet Money, show your colors with Sumthin’ Blue, or take an afternoon and lollygag with a Scallywag. Lift your glass and check your troubles at the shore.

Try one, or both of these great new rums for only $19.49 per bottle!

Joe Canal's Presents Buffalo Trace Single Oak!

New to our shelves this week is the very special, and very limited Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project!

For over two centuries Buffalo Trace Distillery has been a pioneering leader in quality and innovation. The Single Oak Project is its most inventive and comprehensive experiment yet. It all started with 96 individually selected American oak trees that differed according to the number of growth rings per inch and growing location. Each tree was then cut into two parts - top and bottom - yielding 192 unique tree sections. A single barrel was constructed from each section. Prior to construction, the stave seasoning was varied. The 192 barrels were then charred differently. These single oak barrels were then filled with different recipe whiskeys, at various entry proofs and aged in a variety of different warehouse styles. This experiment allows whiskey connoisseurs to directly compare the impact of seven different critical variables across 192 bottles for a total of 1,396 taste combinations. None of the 192 bottles in the complete set are exactly alike. The Single Oak Project is undoubtedly the most extensive bourbon experiment ever undertaken.

Tasting Notes: The tasting profile of each Single Oak Project bourbon is truly unique, depending on the recipe, barrel seasoning and char level, tree cut, wood grain, entry proof and aging warehouse.

We have VERY limited quantities of this special whiskey in our Woodbridge and Lawrenceville stores. It's a must-have for any whiskey connoisseur, and a perfect Father's Day gift! Pick up a bottle today for only $49.99!

Memorial Day

Three Cheers for Red, White and Blue!

There's only a few more days of work left before the long weekend and unofficial kick-off of summer, Memorial Day!   Time for firing up the grill and spending some time outside enjoying the weather with friends and family!

Here's a delicious, easy, festive and FUN drink you can make for your guests to cool them off and keep them smiling!

Miami Vice

You're going to want to use nice tall clear plastic tumblers. Pint glasses might work in a pinch, but if you're outside, and especially if you're entertaining around a pool, actual glass is probably a bad idea, for safety's sake!

Start by whipping up a batch of strawberry daiquiris in your blender, using a pre-made mix or with the following recipe:

-Ice
-Small can frozen lemonade
-Light rum
-10 oz. package of frozen strawberries (or fresh strawberries, if you prefer)

Fill blender to 2/3 full of ice. Add strawberries and lemonade, and then fill the lemonade can with rum and add that. Blend it up!

Fill the plastic tumblers halfway with the prepared strawberry daiquiris. Rinse out your blender, and then make a batch of pina coladas. There are plenty of pre-made mixes for this as well, or you could make up your own:

-Ice
-1/2 cup canned pineapple chunks
-1/2 cup cream of coconut
-1/2 cup Light rum

Fill blender 2/3 with ice. Add the remaining ingredients and a splash of the juice from the canned pineapple and blend!

Pour this into the tumblers so that it sits on top of the strawberry daiquiries. Float some Blue Curacao on top to give the drink a patriotic flair, and garnish with pineapple slices or strawberries! Enjoy!

Bitters-sweet

This week we'll talk about one of the tools of the trade, Angostura Bitters. This ingredient is widely available but not often used, especially by the at-home bartender.

Angostura Bitters are named after the town of Angostura in Venezuela, originally formulated in 1824 by a doctor who was looking for a concoction to bring relief to military patients who would suffer from fever and stomach ailments. It wasn't until 1862 that a man named Don Carlos thought to mix the bitters with gin, the monotony of which would be forever altered. Bitters became the "magic ingredient," to be used in exotic cocktails.

Bitters are an intensely concentrated alcohol that is flavored with herbs and spices and is used not only in drinks, but also has uses in cooking as well. In fact, bitters have been known to temper the acidity of citrus ingredients, so adding a few drops to a citric cocktail may make the drink more palatable to people who are sensitive to acid. You may have noticed the odd bottle on the shelf, with the label that sticks over the top of the bottle. A little research found this gem from the Angostura website:

"Many stories surround why the label ended up being too large for the bottle but probably the most well known is that it was simply a result of the laid back Caribbean attitude. When someone ordered the wrong size of label and the mistake was spotted, everyone thought someone else would correct it. When no one did, they decided to stick with the oversized label rather than change it and so it became the trade mark of the brand."

When I think of Bitters, the only drink that comes to mind is the Old Fashioned.

-2 oz bourbon whiskey
-2 dashes Angostura® bitters
-1 splash water
-1 tsp sugar
-1 maraschino cherry
-1 orange wedge

Mix sugar, water and angostura bitters in an old-fashioned glass. Drop in a cherry and an orange wedge. Muddle into a paste using a muddler or the back end of a spoon. Pour in bourbon, fill with ice cubes, and stir.

However, that's not the only cocktail that uses this interesting and flavorful ingredient. With a bottle of Angostura on hand, your cocktail options multiply!

Angostura Royale

2 oz rum
1 oz Cointreau
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
2 oz. Pineapple Juice
3-4 dashes Angostura® aromatic bitters

Shake with ice and serve in a snifter glass. Garnish with a wedge of lime.


* * * Planters Punch
2 oz dark rum
2 oz orange juice
3/4 shot lime juice
1 teaspoon caster sugar
4 dashes Angostura® aromatic bitters

Shake first four ingredients and strain over cubed ice into a tumbler. Add Angostura® aromatic bitters and squeeze a wedge of lime into the drink.

* * * Napoleon
2 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin
1/2 oz Grand Marnier
1/2 oz Red Wine
3 dashes of Angostura® aromatic bitters

Shake all the ingredients in a shaker with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

* * *
Bitters can even enhance your frozen, frosty beverages:
Angostura Connection
1.5 oz vodka
1.5 oz Amaretto
2 oz. coconut cream
1 oz heavy cream
3-4 dashes Angostura® aromatic bitters

Blend with ice and serve in a snifter with chocolate coated bottom.

Wine 101: Aroma

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare shares her experiences as a beginner in the World of Wine.

Welcome to part 2 of my Wine 101 Blog: Aroma. As I said in my first installment on color, my name is Shannon and I manage the website content and blog here at Joe Canal's. While I've drunk wine, and liked wine, for many years, I never really had the opportunity to get to know a whole lot about it. Now, I'm getting paid to learn, and I'm happy to share my experiences with you!

The first time I ever really noticed the aroma of a wine was a few years ago, long before my tenure with Joe Canal's began. I was six months pregnant, attending a business dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. To celebrate, my co-workers picked up a couple bottles of wine to share. Of course, due to my condition I couldn't partake of the wine, but the people to either side of me were both enjoying very large, very full, very fragrant glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. The smell was so fine, and so strong, I found myself salivating. At the time, I just chalked it up to A.) being pregnant and having a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, and B.) not having had wine for over 6 months and just really wanting a glass. I got through the evening without a sip, but that smell stuck with me for months. I couldn't stop thinking about it! Even the first glass of wine I had after my daughter was born didn't live up to the memory of the exquisite aroma from that evening.

Fast forward 11 months, to my first week at here at Joe Canal's. Every Friday and Saturday we have free wine tastings, and on my way out the door, I stopped to taste the weekend wines. Being a newbie, I tried to emulate all of my more educated workmates, swirling the wine, watching for "legs," and sticking my nose deep into the glass. I didn't expect much, since most wines still smell the same to me. When I came to the last wine, however, I was blown away! It was the Rodney Strong Cabernet Sauvignon, and arguably the most expensive wine I'd ever tasted (or smelled). And there it was again - that smell, that awesome delicious smell! It was the first time I realized that I wasn't just having a super duper pregnant craving at the Italian restaurant, it was probably that the wine was super duper aromatic.

When tasting wine, it's especially important to pay attention to how the wine smells. In a lot of ways, the way the wine smells is more important than it tastes. Have you ever noticed that when you have a bad head cold, most foods taste a lot more bland than usual? That's because 80% of what we taste is attributable to our sense of smell.

Before I became a Wine-Enthusiast-in-Training, I would make jokes about "oaky undertones" to my friends and family when drinking wine. The truth of the matter is that, with wine, certain flavors can be brought out by how the wine is made. While it's true that wine is made from grapes, if it's aged in oak you might be able to taste clove or vanilla, or the actual oak itself. (My "oaky undertones" joke has become a lot less funny since I've actually been able to notice them.) "Malolactic fermentation" (a process in which bacteria is added to fermenting wine) might produce a butterscotch or popcorn smell.

I have had the opportunity to attend a couple wine festivals and tastings. I've gone to many wine festivals in the past, but it's a much different experience for me now that I have this new mindset. For the first time, I've actually been able to notice different scents. I still find that a lot of wines taste the same to me after a while (especially reds) but paying attention to the aroma has been really fun for me. At a tasting, I tasted a variety of seven dry red wines, the last two of which were "oaked". When we got to the sixth wine, I was amazed at how strong I could actually smell the oakiness. It totally smelled like wood! It's a slow going process, but I've also been able to pick out pineapple and chocolate in the wines that I have tasted (and smelled).

Reading tasting notes has been an interesting experience for me as well: Did you know that there are wines out there that actually smell like lead pencil shavings, slate or chalk? And, believe it or not, tobacco is an aroma that comes up fairly often.

Did you know that just about every Friday and Saturday, the Joe Canal's stores in Woodbridge and Lawrenceville have free wine tastings? I definitely urge you to stop in and taste for yourself, especially if you're a newbie like me! Just check the events page on jcanals.com to see what we're pouring, and stop in!

Next time I'll talk more in depth about the tastings I've gone to recently. Until then, I'd love to hear your stories and experiences of learning about wine, just leave me a comment!

Against the Wall

Have you noticed the tall, tapered bottle of yellow liqueur hanging out at the bar? It's not just there to look good, it's actually Liquore Galliano L'Autentico, or just Galliano for short. This curious spirit is actually very versatile and a delicious addition to many cocktails.

Galliano was created in 1896 by brandy producer Arturo Vaccari of Tuscany, Italy. Galliano's namesake is Giuseppe Galliano, a hero of the First Italo-Ethiopian war at the end of the 19th century. The bright yellow color of the spirit represents the Gold Rushes of the 1890s.

Galliano is a blend of a whole bunch of different herbs and plants, both local to Italy as well as imported from around the world. Among the ingredients are anise, lavendar, ginger, peppermint and juniper, but when it comes right down to it, it's all about the vanilla.

Vanilla is the most important ingredient in Galliano. To make Galliano, alcohol is infused with all of the herbs, except the vanilla. After distillation, it is then infused with pressed vanilla. The sweet vanilla flavor balances the flavors of all the other ingredients.

The most famous drink made with Galliano is called the Harvey Wallbanger.

-1 oz. Vodka
-1/2 oz. Galliano
-4 oz. Orange juice

Pour the vodka and OJ into a collins glass over ice and stir. Float Galliano on top.

Because of the popularity of the Harvey Wallbanger, the word "wall" became almost synonymous with Galliano. When you order a drink "against the wall," you're asking for a shot of Galliano to be added.

Other drinks made with Galliano include...

Golden Cadillac
-1 oz. Galliano
-2 oz. white creme de cacao
-1 oz. light cream
Blend all ingredients with ice. Pour into a champagne flute and serve.

Yellow Bird
-1 oz. Bacardi 151 Rum
-1/2 oz. Galliano
-1/2 oz. Vodka
-4 oz. sweet and sour mix
Stir ingredients and serve in a highball glass over ice.

Golden Dream
-2 oz. Galliano
-1 oz. white creme de cacao
-1/2 oz. triple sec
-3 oz. orange juice
-3 oz. light cream

Fill shakes 1/3 full of ice cubes.

Brad and Angie's Wine

Today Debbie Miller Nelson, Wine Manager of our Woodbridge Location, tells us about a new rose from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie!

I wanted to hate this wine. After all the owners of Miraval Estate, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, aka Brangelina, seem to have everything. Except, the Miraval Rose 2012 is a lovely rose from Provence, France made with a blend of Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah, and Vermentino and I simply adore it.

It has a beautiful salmon color with fresh floral aromas and white peaches. It is dry, light, and tangy with faint cranberry and pomegranate flavors. The wine is well made with a soft finish and I simply can't get enough of this wine in the adorable, Cognac style bottle. It's only $20.99 in the bottle club and it’s sure to grace your table this summer for all your backyard get-togethers. It's sold out most everywhere else, so hurry up and get this wine before we sell out!

Mixology Mondays; Classic Cocktails - Tom Collins

The original Collins was a John Collins and can be traced back to the head waiter at Limmer's, a popular hotel and coffee house in Conduit Street, London around 1790 - 1817. He composed a drink composed of dry Dutch gin, sugar, lemon and soda water. Experimenters soon expanded on the idea. When one bartender used Old Tom Gin (a London gin with a sweet flavor), the Collins became much more popular and henceforth it was known as the Tom Collins. It quickly proved more popular than the original John Collins, and its fame spread.

While the original recipe is gin, sugar, lemon juice and soda, the recipe is an irresistible invitation to experiment, and its ingredients go well with a variety of liquors. As a result, we have an entire Collins family to choose from, and it's worthwhile to know each of these tasty clan members by name.

Tom Collins

-1 tsp. sugar
-Juice of 1 lemon, strained of seeds
-1 1/2 oz. gin
-Club Soda

Place three or more ice cubes in a tall glass. Add sugar and lemon juice. pour in gin, then fill yo the top with club soda and stir.

To make these members of the Collins clan, follow the recipe above, replacing gin with the liquor specified:
Brandy Collins: Brandy
Jack Collins: Applejack
Sandy Collins: Scotch
Pedro Collins: Rum
Mike Collins: Irish Whiskey
John Collins: Bourbon