This Week in the Blogs

• Erik Ellestad of the Savoy Stomp presents the Gin Fix and discusses how the Bramble is a modern modification of it. He also continues on with his tales of service industry insight.
• The Pegu Blog’s Doug laments the passing of Christopher Hitchens and includes many of his boozy words of wisdom like “Cheap booze is a false economy” and “It’s not true that you shouldn’t drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain.” Doug also wishes us a happy holiday season and shares links to his favorite Egg Nog recipes from around the blogosphere.
• SeanMike, one half of Scofflaw’s Den, gives a year end wrap up including announcing his co-blogger Marshall’s engagement, a summary of the Drink.Write event earlier this month, and expresses concerns about the proposed SOPA act.
• The RumDood Matt Robold interviews Dave Stolte about his new book Home Bar Basics. The book can be summed up as an “authentic, practical, no bullshit” approach to home drink making and a valuable resource for the home bar.
• Matt Rowley of the Whiskey Forge relates a boozy game called Snapdragon where the goal is to extract raisins from a puddle of flaming spirits; having played this before, I can vouch for its entertainment value! Matt also describes the curious citrus fruit, the Paw Paw, including intriguing aromatic details about the tree itself.
• The Cocktail Virgin/Slut, Fred Yarm, writes about his trip to Misty Kalkofen’s new bar, Brick & Mortar, including the nonwaterized grappa and Campari Bullet for Fredo and the Cardamaro and Old Tom Gin Teardrop. He also shares a mezcal drink from Deep Ellum called the Wayback. For drinks that he had in, Fred relates the tropical Rye Manhattan called the Martinique, a tequila and absinthe Mule called El Burro, and a 19th century Brandy Nog called the Requiem.
• Camper English of Alcademics had a few articles published this week including one on instant infusions in Tasting Panel magazine, and two drinks in FineCooking including the Genever and spice Tackler and the cachaca and ginger Fifth Season. On his own blog, he reviews the Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook by by Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin, presents the new winter drink menu at Los Angeles’ 1886, and describes the molassesy Mexican mascabado sugar.
• A Jigger of Blog’s Matt Hamlin expounds on the range of holiday libations before focusing in on Glogg and providing a delicious recipe for it from Dan Searing’s The Punch Bowl.
• Finally, Michael Dietsch of A Dash of Bitters offers up another Cocktails 101 lecture on SeriousEats on Christmas Drinking Traditions including Wassail (and a recipe for it).