Photo: uhltank/Flickr

On this day in…

1886
Coca-Cola is first sold to the public at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, GA.

(© 2011 Michael V. Hynes)

The Backstory

Perhaps this fact is less surprising than it appears on the face of it, but the history of Coca-Cola, the beverage, intersects with the history of Prohibition and that of soda fountains. But this needs explaining. More…

Photo: CraftSuds/Flickr

From our neighbors at Here & Now, today we hear that American beer drinkers are turning more and more to craft beers.

Been to your local liquor store lately? Have you seen the assortment of beer available? According to the Brewers Association, Americans’ consumption of beer actually  dropped a little more than a percent last year. But you wouldn’t know that looking at all the choices.

Turns out that while Americans may be drinking less beer, in general, they are drinking more beer from small, independent brewers. There are now more than 2,000 in the country, and they employ more than 100,000 people. Retail sales were up 15%. This week beer makers from across the country are gathering in San Diego for the annual Craft Brewers Conference, and to get ready for American Craft Beer Week later this month.

Julia Herz, craft beer program director at the Brewers Association and a certified cicerone, tells Here & Now host Robin Young:

There are now more than 140 beer styles and 13,000 plus beer labels in the marketplace. I think you’ve got a localization in our culture going on, people getting back to being more informed about what they consume and enjoy. Look on the restaurant level, the same thing is happening with beer. And supporting your local brewery is becoming very important to many beer lovers.

Listen to the report with guest Julia Herz, craft beer program director at the Brewers Association.

Photo: walknboston/Flickr

Lovers of micro-brews and history buffs will equally dig the two newest historical ales being turned out by Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project of Cambridge.

Annie Ropeik
Radio Boston

The latest offerings from Somerville-based brewery Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project will take you back – way back. Specifically, to 1838 and 1945.

The two “X Ales” – one like an IPA, the other a mild brown – were released in March and are the fourth and fifth installments in Pretty Things’ Once Upon a Time project. They hail from old London brewery Barclay Perkins and are brewed from recipes for the same beer, made 107 years apart, using historically accurate conditions. That could account for anything from wartime grain shortages to antiquated manufacturing processes.

Pretty Things co-owner Dann Paquette said in a recent telephone interview that the project aims to explore the history of beer – and to show just how fluid it really is.

“We always assume what our grandfathers drank was equivalent to what their grandfathers drank, but that’s totally not true,” he said.

Pretty Things, already known for creativity in modern brews (e.g., Jack D’Or and Baby Tree), has been working with Amsterdam-based beer historian Ron Pattinson to recreate the right brewing conditions as faithfully as possible in order to turn out their X Ales. More…

Rieslings and Gewürztraminers (photo: Katie White/PRK)

Call me crazy, even out of touch, but I associate wine with rolling hills and dusty cellars instead of modern technology.

However, at Wine Riot Boston, last weekend’s three-day wine tasting party at the Park Plaza Castle, photo booth flashes, a DJ and even a Smartphone app were artfully paired with reds and whites from around the globe.

Wine Riot is one of several events hosted by California-based organization Second Glass, which welcomes those intimidated by the complexities of wine to taste and learn in a fun, relaxed environment. And by fun, I mean carnival-like fun. There were blue and white awnings, tall stilt-like signs highlighting the region in which you were presently immersed (South Africa? Oregon? Bordeaux?), neon signs, local food vendors — e.g., Upper Crust Pizzeria and Cow & Crumb Baking Company – and even a fake tattoo stand. All of these ringed the room, providing respite from the Riojas.

Attendees, mostly in their twenties and thirties, could hop from one continent to another or spend half an hour in the Loire Valley (like this girl here), sipping and chatting with different wineries. (Tyler Balliet, Second Glass president and co-founder, encouraged the “unexpected questions”– even ones as simple as ‘What is Burgundy?’). More…

Photo: L. Marie/Flickr

People go nuts over Peeps this week — ’tis peep season, after all.

But if you really want to go wild, Shauna Seaver’s book Marshmallow Madness! is your ticket to sugar heaven. Seaver spoke with Here & Now’s Robin Young about making marshmallows at home and the sticky, sugary-sweet varieties (oreos? Liqueurs, anyone?) you’ll find in her book. Here & Now invited its own tasters to the studio to see how the homemade varieties compared to store-bought. The average age of the tasters is 9.5 years old, but they sound like pros. Listen to the story.

If you want to stick with a basic peeps recipe but get a little fancy on the outside, Boston blogger and sweets diva Buttercream Blondie has posted Glamour Peeps 2.0 —  her own recipe and tips for making peeps at home, complete with DISCO DUST!!

As Seaver warns, ‘This is candy we’re making. Not breakfast.’

The Avignon (Photo: Susanna Bolle)

If you read PRK regularly, especially Susanna Bolle’s posts on Boston’s cocktail scene, Jackson Cannon’s name will be familiar to you. As familiar, say, as that classic cocktail he likes to make — the Jack Rose.

Today on Radio Boston, Cannon will be talking with co-hosts Anthony Brookes and Adam Ragusea about the cocktail culture in Boston. The launching point is tonight’s Mad-Men inspired cocktail competition, a “mashup” being hosted by The Hawthorne on Commonwealth Ave., where Cannon manages bar. To this master mixologist’s mind, the Mad Men era of the 1960s was not exactly a hey day for cocktails.

Listen to the interview.

Perhaps there’s no holiday more closely associated with the consumption of beer than St. Patrick’s Day. Too often, however, the beer consumed is of a quality not worthy of the patron saint of Ireland.

In honor of Saint Patrick, we thought we’d go beyond watered-down green beer and get some tips for matching strong beer with hearty Irish food, as well as some general ‘rules of thumb’ for successful beer pairing.

I talked with Julia Herz, a beer sommelier (the official term is Cicerone) who also directs the Craft Beer Program at the Brewers Association. Here are her suggestions for combining Irish dishes and craft beer. More…

Sam Treadway of Backbar (Photo: Susanna Bolle)

It takes a lot to lure someone away from a tropical paradise. For Sam Treadway, it took a bar, specifically. Meaning, the prospect of founding and running his own craft cocktail bar and essentially starting from scratch.

This time last year, Treadway was living in Hawaii, dreaming the dream and minding the bar at a new hotel. Then he got a call from the people behind the Journeyman restaurant in Union Square. It seemed they wanted to start a bar in the space behind their restaurant and needed someone to run it. A friend had recommended Treadway, a veteran of both Eastern Standard and Drink.

“I got really excited, when I talked to them, because I realized that I’d have a place to pretty much do whatever I wanted, and it’s in my hometown — I couldn’t say no. It was pretty much the only way that you could get me to move back from Hawaii,” he says with a laugh.

The bar that he created in concert with Journeyman is Backbar. With it’s cool, somewhat idiosyncratic industrial design (and happily notable lack of TVs), low-outside speakeasy-style profile, it doesn’t look or feel much like any other bar in the city. More…

Photo: SteveR-/Flickr

Kathy Gunst
Resident Chef, Here & Now
Cookbook author, blogger

You can make reservations. Many will. But why do so many people think that sitting in a restaurant on one of the busiest days of the year, eating from a set-priced (read: overpriced) menu is the way to spell L.O.V.E.?

Don’t get me wrong. I love going out to eat and exploring menus and seeing what chefs are cooking. But there are two days of the year when I just won’t go out — New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day.

I know that Valentine’s Day is a great day for restaurants to generate business in an otherwise slow February. But all those tables for two with red roses and hearts everywhere just doesn’t appeal. Not to mention all that über-rich food and overpriced chocolate desserts. No thanks. I prefer to stay home and cook for the one I love.

Light a fire. Light a candle. Forget about cream sauces and wild mushrooms. Serve a delicious winter salad made of spicy greens, arugula, tiny sweet, juicy sections of tangerine and winter nuts glazed with maple syrup. Pan sear local fish or roast a chicken stuffed with lemon and herbs. Mash some winter root vegetables like celery root or parsnips (with a touch of crème fraiche). Keep it simple.

Photo: Kathy Gunst

But when it comes to dessert you really don’t have much choice. Valentine’s Day and chocolate go hand in hand like St. Patrick’s Day and corned beef and cabbage, Passover and matzoh, Thanksgiving and turkey. It’s just the way things need to be.

When it comes to chocolate, let’s just say there is no better way to celebrate than with chocolate and sea salt.

I promise: you don’t have to be an accomplished baker to pull off a tart combining these two ingredients.

Go ahead, eat this tart. And tell me you’re not in love. (Recipe after the jump.)

More…

Gibson with homemade cocktail onions (Photo: Susanna Bolle)

The cocktail onion is a humble thing. It may be a bar essential, but it’s one that regularly gets short shrift. Honestly, if plucked unceremoniously out of a jar, such onion can be pretty unpalatable. But a good cocktail onion can be a beautiful thing, transforming a run-of-the-mill martini into an extra-special Gibson. And the tastier the onion, the tastier the final drink will be.

The true glory of a Gibson was first revealed to me when I tasted a particularly nice rendition at Eastern Standard. Yes, the vermouth and the gin were both great, but it was the crunch of the delicately vinegary house-made cocktail onion that truly put the drink over the top. Recently, my love for the Gibson was rekindled at Backbar in Union Square, where it was served with a jewel-like pickled red onion. My drink was as pretty to behold as it was pleasurable to sip.

Inspired by that Backbar Gibson, I decided to try my hand at making cocktail onions at home when I saw a bag of pearl onions at the grocery store last week. As it turns out, this is not difficult. After all, pickling isn’t rocket science. The hardest thing is peeling the onions and, if you’re really wanting to keep things simple, you can even use frozen ones.

What you do need to do is choose your recipe wisely and be prepared to make some modifications to get the onions of your dreams. More…