Catching my breath in Paris
The trip ended with oysters, scallops and steak tartare at Le Stella, a cozy neighborhood bistro, and a peaceful train ride home
Drink
Thursday
Cocktails for a merry, tipsy Christmas
Yule regret it in the morning
Monday
A sip of the Vieux Carré
The cocktail is a love letter to the tangled, intoxicating spirit of New Orleans
The objectively, subjectively, best vineyards in the world
Isn’t one’s taste in wine a classic instance of de gustibus non disputandum est? Well, yes and no
Thursday
Prosecco goes posh
The perfect marriage of fun and chic hails from Italy
Shaking up the mojito
It’s decadent, spicy and boozy as hell; what’s not to love?
Portuguese wines are back
The wines of Portugal have entered, or reentered, public consciousness in a stately manner
Monday
Trying the best coffee in the world
Sometimes we need to remember what coffee can be, how great it can taste, the ritual around it and how much we owe to it
Thursday
What’s behind all the buzz about non-alcoholic beer?
I tend to agree with the sentiment that if we drank alcohol for the taste, we’d be pouring non-alcoholic Maker’s Mark on our cereal
Margarita magnificence: a consummately customizable cocktail
Once you have this classic recipe down, it’s easy to modify to make flavored margaritas, and the sky’s the limit
Outdoor wines for the summer
We don’t do drink and appreciate wine for any practical advantage. We do it for its own sake
Monday
The boozed-up beers of summer
Beer cocktails needn’t be so crass and uninteresting
The secrets of South African wine
The country makes wines that are not only great bargains, but also are delicious in their own right
Wednesday
Loving and tweaking the Long Island Iced Tea
It’s not so much a drink as a chemical formula designed to make an enormous percentage of alcohol consumable in a single glass
The thoroughly underrated Pessac-Léognan
What makes the relative neglect regrettable as well as odd is the high quality of the wines from the region
Tuesday
Bar-hopping, Venetian style
The wine and spritzes flow all day in Venice’s bàcari — traditional, low-key taverns — while bitesize, freshly — made cicchetti provide sustenance
The grapes of wealth
The world of wine collecting is deliberately opaque
The espresso martini is the best cocktail template
How to customize a classic
The blessing of a good wine shop
There is a world of wine out there
Sunday
The classic charm of Exiles
There’s always a friendly smile and a big hello from behind the bar
