Cheers to Virgo SZN
Tequila travels, the beer-inspired cocktail trend, and the return of [beer] Tarot!
August was a month! I’ll keep this short as more details are likely planned for upcoming stories at varied publications—watch this space, I guess?—but the headlines for August travel were my visits to the Tequila Corralejo distillery + hacienda, and to Grand Junction and Denver for all things beer. The Corralejo trip was a dream and I can’t recommend enough a visit to Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende. Stay in the gorgeous Hotel Villa María Cristina with views from every corner (it’s a five-star hotel you can get very not five-star deals on!), get incredibly creative yet simply delicious cocktails at the charming Parlamento bar, ride a horse through the cobblestoned streets of San Miguel with Coyote Canyon Adventures, eat at The Restaurant, and definitely get to the Corralejo hacienda for a tour—there’s so much history there, it’s about way more than tequila. Which, I mean, is also a quite the draw.
I also got the opportunity to visit Grand Junction and the Denver area on a couple of assignments—stay tuned!—as well as some general meeting and greeting in the eternal pursuit of widening my pool of brewery sources for stories. These stories will be publishing soon, so in the next issue I’ll get more into what I got up to and the rad breweries I visited.
Beer and Cocktails: A Strengthening Partnership
It’s not that there’s no precedent for beer and cocktails having something to do with each other beyond sharing real estate on a bar menu. Last year, I wrote about a whole bunch of cocktail-inspired beers for Food & Wine, like Partizan Brewing’s Negroni Red IPA and White Negroni Saison, Firestone Walker’s Gin Rickey gin barrel-aged blonde barleywine, Sierra Nevada’s Old Fashioned barrel-aged red ale, and Allagash’s Day’s End boulevardier-inspired ale. A lot of the people who make drinks are into, well, drinks, of all sorts. Brewers also find inspiration in spirits and cocktails, distillers in beer, bartenders in all of the above. Flavor is flavor, interesting ingredients are interesting ingredients, and trends are trends.
But lately, I’m definitely seeing a stronger showing of the friendship between beer and cocktails, in more creative—and well branded—ways. Case in point: Tip Top is on its third release in its Kindred Spirits Series, in which a brewery creates a beer inspired by on of Tip Top’s canned cocktail recipes. This just got started in June: WeldWerks brewed up an imperial sour ale aged in gin barrels, inspired by Tip Top’s Bee’s Knees; the beer recipe incorporated juniper berries, lemon syrup, honey, and lactose. Then came CosmoALE from Holy City Brewing, a blonde-ale homage to Tip Top’s Cosmopolitan. Now we’re getting the Naked & Famous Fizz hard seltzer from Green Cheek, crafted to capture Tip Top’s tipple by the same name with agave, alpine and aperitivo bitters, and smoked citrus. That sounds effing delicious.
It looks like collabs from Revolution and Creature Comforts are still to come, per this Brewbound coverage. I think this series is super smart on both Tip Top and the participating breweries’ accounts. They’re reaching into each other’s audiences with accessible entry points, opening beer drinkers up to cocktails and vice versa. And, of course, for the younger generation of imbibers, this kind of cocktail-beer-and-even-hard-seltzer connection is tailor-made for their lack of category loyalty. You like agave spirits, herbal notes, and citrus flavors? Here, try that profile as a cocktail or a hard seltzer, depending on your mood and the occasion. It’s a “choose your own adventure” for boozy flavor combos.
We also have Philly’s Sacred Vice Brewing doing some top-notch intriguing stuff blurring the beer and cocktail lines—I am personally dying to try the “Mlíko Americano”: Fernet, sweet vermouth, and rhubarb bitters topped with the foam of their Czech-style lager from a Lukr. This is a seriously cool upgrade for the arguably dusty canon of beer cocktails. There’s also a bar in Jersey City, Maxwell Alley, serving up the “India Pale Ale Cocktail,” a drink inspired by but involving no actual hazy IPA. It’s a London dry gin infused with hops—which they plan to change seasonally (very rad!)—plus an acid-adjusted tropical juice of guava, orange, and pineapple and a grapefruit oleo saccharum. Sounds like a gorgeous hazy, frankly, and the dedication to the beer’s inspiration down to changing up the hops is impressive.
And most recently: I just stopped by one of my favorite local beer bars (who also serves spirits) Owl Farm, and they’ve got a signature martini on the menu: London dry gin, beer eau de vie, cider eau de vie, vermouth, and hop bitters. Can confirm, it’s delicious, a true celebration of beer’s flavors in martini form with hoppy citrus and a rounded, malty quality. This whole beer-cocktail connection feels stronger and more sophisticated than ever before.
Updates, Work, Promos & More
Since we last caught up, I wrote about the rise of savory spirits as well as the intriguing flavors modern producers are expressing with eau de vie for Alcohol Professor.
I took yet another step along the road to disappearing entirely into an exclusive plants-meet-beverage-alcohol beat with a piece for Food & Wine I was thrilled to write, hearing from experts on how anyone can start their own mixology gardens.
I worked on a bold, shocking, controversial (do @ me, I welcome your dRaMa!) round-up of the real best beer cities in the United States for Inside Hook. Also for Inside Hook, I interviewed Ken and Brian Grossman to celebrate Sierra Nevada’s 45th anniversary, and also heard from a few awesome brewers on how the iconic brewery has inspired them.
I dove into the different options breweries have explored for launching in-taproom coffee programs, and also into best practices for beer collabs, both for Brewing Industry Guide.
And I covered the fascinating ways American distillers are working with prickly pear cactus for Craft Spirits & Distilling.
Just a reminder that my consulting services are officially up and running! If you are a publicist looking to up your press release game and better target certain writers and outlets, get at me. If you are a brewery, distillery, bar, or any other kind of beverage brand or business who needs to start getting some media attention but doesn’t have a huge PR budget or extra hours in the week, get at me—ditto that if you want an impactful blog or newsletter for your business. And if you’re starting out or refreshing your skills as a freelance writer, I’m here for you, too. I’ve got consulting sessions and services here, and supremely handy downloadable guides here.
In honor of Virgo season, I’m offering a promo. If you’re running a business and would like to channel some “back to school” vibes by learning more effective PR and media strategies, freelance writing tools and practices, etc., use code VIRGOSZN when you purchase any consulting service, throughout September!
That’s not all! I’d love to build some community around the Hugging the Bar podcast, and reviews, ratings, and follows are instrumental for this. If you rate and review the podcast, shoot a screen grab over to courtneyiseman@gmail.com an I’ll send you a coupon code for 20% off any of the downloadable guides!
Speaking of the podcast, I’m over the moon thrilled to announce that the third episode drops today, with the incredible Stephanie Grant. Stephanie is a James Beard Award-nominated writer, has appeared on Imbibe’s 75 People to Watch list, and has worked her storytelling, copy, content, and branding magic for numerous heavy-hitter breweries and brands. Under She Loves Craft, she consults businesses on shaping their stories, broadcasting them, and engaging and maintaining wide audiences with approachable methods. I wanted to get into how she does all of this with some tangible takeaways for you brands and businesses out there, and frankly, I wanted to dish on some shared pet peeves Stephanie and I have, like bad brewery websites. They are the easiest fixes and make such a difference in helping people find you and, you know, give you money! Listen in here on Apple Podcasts.
Drinks Tarot
It’s the return of beer Tarot! But different! Frankly, I wanted to revive this but I need more options beyond beer—what could better reflect ~these times~, right? Just a reminder that you can still grab my Beer Tarot Zine over at Bean to Barstool!
I pulled the Seven of Cups.
Cups is the suit of emotions, relationships, and intuition. This card in particular speaks to new opportunities as well as illusions. If you look at the card, you’ll see that these goblets runneth over with both clearly desirable stuff—ooh, pretty jewels—as well as snakes and dragons. What we have here is an exciting declaration that choices, opportunities, and exciting new paths to things you want may be arriving in your life, but at the same time, be careful what you wish for and remember not everything is what it seems. Before you pursue a goal, think about what that goal really means, whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be, if it actually would make sense for your life. If you think on it and decide that ambition is truly worthwhile for you, then this card has good news: Things may be shifting around right now to place that finish line closer within reach for you. It can be dizzying, overwhelming, and even fun to suddenly be presented with different opportunities. Just be careful, don’t dive into any of these new shiny objects without some consideration, and then you can head down the path that makes sense for you with confidence.
This card made me think of one of the best new bars I’ve visited in quite some time, Junebug in New Orleans. They’ve got a really exciting cocktail menu packed with intriguing cocktails that are creative but not just for the sake of being so—they’re also delicious and accessible. It may be hard to choose a cocktail, just like our cloaked protagonist on the Seven of Cups card seems feel it is to choose a goblet of opportunity. But that consideration I suggested you give any pursuit you’re presented with? You can indulge in that at Junebug. Their spirit-forward sippers also come in lower-ABV long-drink form, and even in shooter form under a “Play the Samples” menu section. When I visited, we sipped on a few shots before committing to full-size cocktails, and it was such a fun bar experience. I knew I was going to like what I ordered, and I also got to try just a little bit of a couple things outside my comfort zone. This menu format is giving Seven of Cups energy in its promise of excitement balanced by an encouragement to think and sample first.