Unless you were cooler than I was—which is a distinct possibility—your formative drinking years involved quite a few artificial ingredients and embarrassing choices. My early experiences with alcohol included a lot of fake fruit flavors and the occasional Zima. If peanut butter and jelly vodka had existed back then, I would have been all over it. 'm reminded of those days whenever I taste a mass-produced, flavored spirit. Even some of the high-end flavored liquors like candy and chemicals to me. If you want a flavored spirit that doesn't have a fake taste to it, you'll have a hard time finding it at the store. More

Our man Michael Dietsch already offered up a great guide to the spirit's history and production process, so you're practically an expert now—except the only bottle on your liquor cabinet is cheap mixto left over from last year's Cinco de Mayo celebration. Looks like you're ready to try something new—maybe even sip a little silver tequila on its own to see what this agave business actually tastes like. But which blanco tequila is best? Here's are a few of our recommendations. More

The characters in HBO's Entourage seem to really like Avion tequila. (Perhaps they like it a bit too much—a few too many shots almost cost Vince a role in a movie.) And in real life, Avion Silver won Best Unaged White Spirit award at the most recent San Francisco World Spirits Competition. So my curiosity was piqued. Is the Entourage boys' tequila any good, or is this stuff just popular because of a pretty bottle (held up on television by a pretty actor)? More

When it comes time to unwind, I usually reach for domestic drinks. Bourbon, American gins, and our amazing wealth of microbrewed beers are high on my list of go-to tipples. But every now and then I get adventurous, and yearn to explore an exotic destination. These 3 bottles offer a trip around the world—no passport required. More

Our trek through the world of spirits takes us today to Western Mexico, more specifically to the state of Jalisco and the mid-sized town of Tequila. Perhaps for some of you, the very sound of the word tequila makes your stomach churn and your cheeks flush with shame, but there's far more to this beverage than shot after shot at a college bar. More

When someone talks about the proof of a spirit or liqueur, what's that person talking about? The proof of a spirit is measured by taking the percentage of volume of alcohol in the spirit, and doubling it. So a spirit with 44% alcohol by volume (or ABV) is an 88-proof spirit. Why does proof matter? Read on, friends. More

The language of vodka marketing tends to focus on purity: virgin wheat, quadruple-distilled-through-diamonds. (I'm not exaggerating about the diamonds, I promise.) Vodka companies usually want you to know that their vodka tastes like...well, nothing. Not so with the latest product from Karlsson's—they've just released their first commercially available vintage vodka, which is made entirely from the 2008 crop of 'Old Swedish Red' potatoes. More

Cachaça—Is it rum, or is it not rum? Last week's encyclopedic guide to rum sparked some discussion in the comments about whether or not cachaça counts as rum. Before we tackle the question, I'll explore what cachaça is, how it's made and aged, and what it generally tastes like. More

January 15, 1919. North End of Boston. A large tank holding 2,300,000 gallons of molasses bursts, flooding the streets at 35 mph. The sticky wave plows through men, women, children, and horses. The molasses flow is strong and swift enough to knock down buildings and even buckle an elevated railroad, knocking a train off its tracks. The great Boston Molasses Disaster claims 21 lives, not including horses and dogs, and injures 150. And yet, when rum was dubbed kill-devil, I don't think this is what its critics had in mind. More

Q: What do a Native American medicinal herbal drink, lebkuchen, and a legendary (if possibly apocryphal) tea brewed by Benjamin Franklin have in common? A: They've all served as the inspiration for unique and exciting liqueurs from Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. More