What makes Champagne so romantic? It may simply be that the form of intoxication associated with bubbles is uniquely titillating. Giddiness rather than wooziness. Champagne, the region, is at the 49th parallel, the same latitude as Vancouver’s, the northernmost extent of wine production. It may be that there is some sympathy between the grapes and us, owing to their endurance of the chilly and damp climate of northeast France and our own resolve to face down the February gloom with at least one evening of candle-lighted intimacy.

You could easily choose a Mediterranean wine for Valentine’s Day and fantasize an escape to the Riviera. But I for one prefer [...]

How have you been celebrating National Bourbon Heritage Month? Probably by drinking a lot of whiskey, plus the usual parades, fireworks, sending roses to all the people you threw up on, etc. So although this weekend is the final weekend of Bourbon Month, I want to show you how to make bourbon an even more integral part of your life all year long. No longer should you feel limited by the amount of bourbon you can drink, because you can also be eating it in every meal, including breakfast. Tie on your apron, here comes a bunch of ideas!

The slide into winter, with woodsmoke curling in the air and the last vivid leaves clinging to the branches, doesn’t necessarily evoke the usual menu of rum cocktails. The mai tai, the daiquiri, the hurricane—they each want a fruit garnish and a tiny parasol. Yet on the cusp of our annual remembrance of the nonviolent collaboration between European settlers and American natives, rum is in fact the perfect commemorative liquor.

When the New World turned out to be devoid of commodities, the colonists turned to tobacco and sugar (brilliant!) to make their stakes worthwhile. Remember the “Rum Triangle?” It was the delightfully efficient trade circuit whose corners were sugar, [...]

Because I live in a college town, the back-to-school season gives me one awful flashback after another. The sidewalks are a cringe-worthy pageant of undergraduates reenacting the libidinous idiocy of my own youth. It’s not unlike re-reading the middle chapters of Brideshead Revisited each fall, if Waugh had added in sorority girls. Though autumn may evoke spiced cider to the innocent of heart, to me it's the season of the margarita—the season of puking on a bouncer and getting kicked off public transit late on a Sunday (yes, Sunday) night. Over the past 15 years, I have gradually reclaimed my ability to have a healthy, adult friendship with tequila, [...]