Whiskey Like Sweet Days of Old
Prior to the dark years of Prohibition, distillers often added sherry to their whiskey. History is repeating itself. Kansas City distillery J. Rieger & Co. has revived the ages-old practice by adding 15-year oloroso sherry to a blend of malt, corn and straight rye whiskeys. The result, Rieger’s Kansas City Whiskey, offers a sweet nuttiness perfect on the rocks or in an Old-Fashioned. Northern neighbor Alberta Distillers adds a splash of sherry to its Alberta Rye Whisky Dark Batch, whose smooth notes of honey and oak and long, spicy finish we’ve enjoyed since it launched in the U.S. this spring. Also hailing from Canada is new-ish arrival Tap 8 Rye, an 8-year-old rye whisky blended with Spanish amontillado sherry for a velvety, nutty pour.
Far Out Wines
Trendsetting somms have opened our eyes to great wines from unexpected locales. Around town, you can find Lebanese reds from Chateau Ksara and Turkish wines by Kavakl?dere. Eye-opening Ethiopian wines and those made by Serragghia on Pantelleria (a tiny island off the coast of Sicily) have yet to trek to St. Louis, but the wild juice of Jura, France’s small wine département located in the mountains between Burgundy and Switzerland, are here for the taking. The Wine & Cheese Place in Clayton is your local Jurassic park, keeping a range of whites, sparklings and classic vin jaune (yellow). Among producers, snatch sought-after labels of Jacques Puffeney and Domaine de Montbourgeau.
Grapefruit Brewgeist
This could be the year of the grapefruit. Early warnings surfaced in 2014 with the popular rise of Steigl’s grapefruit-inflected Radler. Not far behind, Leinenkugel and Illusive Traveler debuted sweet-tart grapefruit shandies as an alternative to the traditional lemon. Ballast Point added grapefruit peel to its IPA recipe, creating the Grapefruit Sculpin, and Magic Hat threw parties across the country this summer to celebrate its grapefruit Electric Peel IPA. Pink purée recently found its way into Schlafly’s fermentation tanks, where it was dry-hopped with Citra to create the Dry-Hopped Grapefruit IPA. This powerful fruit even brought together Side Project Brewing’s Cory King with Vermont-based Hill Farmstead Brewery and other breweries to collaborate on an Austrian-inspired citrus beer.
Barrels of Fun
You can find just about anything aged in a bourbon barrel these days. But finding the actual bourbon barrels? That’s trickier. Local breweries are now experimenting with different spirit barrels to coax new flavors from their brews. 2nd Shift‘s Steve Crider just bottled his second batch of Hibiscus Wit, aged in neighbor Pinckney Bend’s gin barrels, and has plans to pop some Gose into a tequila barrel soon. Halloween comes early at Excel Brewing, with Bruja, a seasonal Imperial pumpkin ale aged in tequila barrels for up to a year. Side Project Brewing has an Imperial milk stout napping in a barrel that housed rum, and the crew at 4 Hands plans to celebrate the brewery’s fourth anniversary in January 2016 with a wheat wine that’s been aged five months in Caribbean rum barrels.
Lady Gin Takes a Long Soak
Gin distillers have joined the barrel-aging bonanza with local and national distilleries getting in on the action. Letting gin recline in oak barrels for anywhere from a few months to more than a year, it often turns golden and complex while staying true to its lively, juniper-happy self. Check out vanilla-nuanced Citadelle Reserve, caramel-kissed Bluecoat Barrel Finished Gin, toasty Knickerbocker Barrel Gin and, for a local option, the subtly sweet and spicy Pinckney Bend Cask Finished Gin, released this past June.
Missouri Wineries Press On
Since 2005, the number of wineries in the Show Me State climbed to nearly 130, an increase of almost 150 percent, and the rate at which new Missouri wineries are pressing grapes continues to impress. This year has seen tasting rooms debut in every corner of the state. There’s LaChance Vineyards in DeSoto, Tipple Hill Winery & Vineyard in Easton, Lambs and Vines Winery in Seymour, Mallinson Vineyard and Hall in Independence, Grindstone Valley Winery in Osborn, Red Moose Vineyard in Salem, Florida Resort and Winery in Florida, Vox Vineyards in Kansas City and coming soon, Wild Sun Winery in Hillsboro. Headed to KC this fall? Look for KC Wineworks to unlock doors in the Crossroads district.
Pints on the House
Local breweries have long partnered with area restaurants to create custom beers. Now some entrepreneurial restaurants are taking house beers in-house. Last December, Peel Wood Fired Pizza opened its second location in O’Fallon, Illinois with a brewery and a tight portfolio of house brews. Death in the Afternoon will soon pull pints from Upper 90 Brewing, located in DITA’s basement, which is brewing exclusively for the Citygarden eatery. Meanwhile, former brewmaster of Six Rox Brewing Co., Evan Hiatt, will take up the mantle of house brewmaster when Pappo’s Pizzeria opens its third location in the former Six Row home this October.
Straight Up Sherry
St. Louisans are still flirting with Spain’s famed fortified wine, testing it in cocktails rather than sipping it straight like they do at sherry bars in London and at NYC’s Dovetail and Pata Negra. And while oeno hangouts here such as Olio and 33 Wine Bar have everything from nutty amontillado to sweet oloroso to briny fino, the trendiest sherry of all – raw – is stashed among the amazing collection at Starrs. Called sherry en rama in Spanish, it’s bottled straight from the cask and doesn’t undergo heavy filtering or clarifying. It’s as pure a form as you can get. Grab a bottle of 2006 Alvear Fino en Rama and taste a treat once only available to bodega tourists.
You say Loire Valley. We say 2014.
Last year marked the best vintage for France’s Loire Valley wines since 2010. “We are definitely on board with this vintage,” said Jason Main, co-owner of The Wine Merchant. Stock up now at his newly relocated shop in Clayton on solid 2014 Loire lip-smackers – Saumur red and white from Domaine des Hauts de Sanziers, any sauvignon blanc bearing the Pouilly-Fumé appelation and rosé from Domaine Pascal et Nicolas Reverdy in Sancerre. Then return in the spring when the serious stuff worth cellaring arrives from famed appellations Chinon and Bourgueil.
Mad Science
Bartenders are taking an increasingly scientific approach to crafting the perfect cocktail. For a next-gen cocktail course, ask the BC’s Kitchen bar team about the sonicator they use to speed-infuse their liquid stash. Watch Matt Osmoe of Blood & Sand use artichoke-laden liqueur Cynar in his Until the Morning cocktail to balance its bitter qualities. (An acid in artichoke causes the brain to perceive sweetness.) Head to Frazer’s to see Terry Oliver, inspired by avante-garde culinary science guy Dave Arnold, forgo traditional muddling for nitro-muddling. Liquid nitrogen gets splashed directly over herbs in a cocktail shaker and, with one whack of a muddler, Oliver shatters them. The tiny shards retain freshness better than hand-muddled herbs.
This article appears in September 2015.