A few months ago there was a tasting in one of London’s top Indian restaurants. For someone brought up on drinking lager with a curry, the thought of sherry as an accompaniment to spicy food was intriguing to say the least. The lunch and tasting at the Cinnamon Club, close to London’s Houses of Parliament, was in honour of the new president of…

You don’t have to whisper. It’s safe now – cachaça is a legal term in the US. When it finally came in April, the US government decree was the biggest news to hit cachaça in years. It meant after hard times and hard lobbying, there was finally recognition from the world’s largest spirits market. It meant cachaça could be cachaça and not just another…

Like the plot of transatlantic TV show Homeland, sugar syrup started off as a fairly simple affair. It was sugar, dissolved in water to make the addition of sugar to cocktails easier. Then, like Carrie and Brody and the ever-twisting plot of Homeland, simple syrup became very, very complicated. From grapefruit and Earl Grey tea infusions to basil syrup, both bartenders and producers…

Alcoholic strength of wine is an issue that consumers take seriously across the world. There has been widespread criticism of 15.5% abv blockbusters and calls for winemakers to aim lower, according to Richard Halstead, CEO of global market researcher Wine Intelligence. Clare Griffiths, European marketing director of Accolade Wines, says: “Our Wine Nation Report 2012, which combines a study of 50,000 UK wine…

If you had to pick one overwhelming success story in the first decade of the new millennium, you’d struggle to look far beyond Japanese whisky. Its surge of success started a little earlier, at the back end of the ’90s, but it went stellar as the new millennium arrived, converting initial scepticism to its favour, taking full advantage of the surprise factor and…

Domestic consumption is down, harvest yields across Europe have slumped and financial reports in November suggest both Spain and Italy’s economies are shrinking faster than Alice on her way to Wonderland. Add to that reports that cava producers are losing confidence in the appellation and the prospects for cava and prosecco don’t look good.  In fact, if the Mad Hatter was to throw…

I have often wondered what it must be like to be in the presence of greatness. I met Neil McGuigan, the World’s Best Winemaker recently in London. How did it feel? Well, OK. He may be wine deity but he is really nice guy, a bonzer bloke as his Australian compatriots would say. There was no discernable aura. No scrolls or head dresses made…