Live! NOT from New Orleans!

Howdy, folks, it’s Dietsch, from A Dash of Bitters. I am bitter, dammit, so very, very bitter. Why? Because most of my boozy friends are in New Orleans right this bloody-mary minute, enjoying Tales of the Cocktail. Or the Monteleone’s pool, depending on how motivated they are to sit in sessions.

Bastards!

So how am I filling the time I would have spent drinking at 9:30am and waiting for 20 minutes to crush myself into a crowded elevator with 47 drunks? Pretty much the way I spend every day–drinking at 9:30am and fantasizing about being crushed in an elevator with 47 drunks.

But seriously folks!

I do have a couple of liquor samples to try out this week. The first is Root. It’s a new artisanal spirit from the Philly art collective Art in the Age. Inspired by old recipes for root tea, Root is not a root-beer liqueur as such; it’s spicier than that, and not as sweet as root beer or birch beer. Judging by the botanical blend its marketing literature touts, it’s also apparently more complex than a root or birch beer. It’s distilled by Modern Spirits out in California, working with Art in the Age’s Stephen Grasse, who helped market Hendrick’s Gin and Sailor Jerry Rum in the United States. Oh, by the way, if Root’s as good as it sounds, expect to see it on bar menus at cocktail palaces across the country, from Drink to Bourbon and Branch.

The other is Xanté, a liqueur made of cognac, pear, and vanilla. Xanté is only new in the sense that it’s never been marketed in the United States until now.

I don’t really know what either of them taste like because I haven’t tried them yet. Stay tuned to A Dash of Bitters for more.