Posts Written OnNovember 2007

Southampton Brewery Partners with Pabst: Will Quality Suffer?

Southampton Bottling and Pabst Brewing Company have announced a strategic alliance that will expand the marketing and distributing of Southamptons ales and lagers. This isn’t surprising as anyone familiar with Southampton has wondered when they’d try to "go national." Kevin Kotecki, CEO of Pabst Brewing has said about the alliance, "Success in the craft industry today requires three key components: high-quality beers, a strong distribution network, and excellent marketing capabilities. This alliance combines all of these necessary elements. We are excited and energized by the prospect of working with a partner whose standards for quality and excellence are consistently recognized…

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Long Island Restaurant Week: Share Your Stories

Long Island Restaurant Week is going on right now and continues through Sunday night. Participating restaurants across the Island are offering special 3-course dinners for the terrific price of $21.95. I know what you might be thinking, because I think the same way. Yes, some of the menus are pretty boring and lame. You know, house salad for an appetizer, roast half chicken for the entree and chocolate lava cake for dessert, but there are also some really interesting and unique items being offered as well. Not every restaurant has their menu posted on their websites, but some of the…

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WTN: Wolffer Estate 2004 Cabernet Franc (The Hamptons, Long Island)

Wolffer Estate, one of two quality-focused producers in the Hamptons, focuses mainly on two varieties: Merlot and Chardonnay. They make no fewer than four different bottlings of each — including Long Island’s most expensive wine the Premier Cru Merlot, which retails for $125 and a succulent, lively late harvest chardonnay. Some of those wines are good for everyday drinking. Some are stunningly delicious and complex. But still, who can live on only merlot and chardonnay? I know that I can’t and, as you probably know, I’m a big fan of Long Island cabernet franc. Wolffer’s winemaker, Roman Roth, makes a…

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Tomorrow: Show Us Your Rack!

Don’t forget, tomorrow is your chance to flash the blogosphere by showing us your rack…your wine rack that is. Take a picture of your wine rack/fridge/boxes and post them both on your blog and to the Flickr group I created for the event. I’ll be taking three pictures tonight: One of our cellar (which is actually in the basement) where we store the bulk of our wine. Our little wine fridge where most of the best stuff is stored. Our dining room rack where my upcoming samples and daily-drinking bottles reside. This should be fun, so show us your rack…

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Bourbon Red Heritage Turkeys from Garden of Eve Organic Farm

I’ve just finished ordering my Bourbon Red turkey from Garden of Eve Organic Farm for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. As you can read on their website, they are raising 200 of this heritage breed. They are slow growing, taking up to 6 months to mature, rather than the 3 months or less needed to raise standard turkeys. These free-range birds (they can actually fly and do escape from the enclosure) are fed an all-vegetarian grain feed with no hormones or antibiotics, which was developed specially for Garden of Eve by a local feed mill, much of which is grown here…

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Back Home…and Digging Out

We got back last night and I didn’t check email at all until this morning. That means that I actually survived 4 days without the Internet. I only had the shakes for about 4 hours on the third day. Our weekend in Montauk was great. The weather was either beautiful (Thursday, Friday and Sunday) or fun to watch (Hurricane Noel moved north past the island on Saturday). There was plenty of good food (and bad) and also lots of good wine to be had with our friends and family. Yes, family. Nena didn’t know they were coming, but her family…

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