We can learn much about beer drinking from Ivan Pavlov’s drooling dogs. The Russian physiologist used whistles, tuning forks, and bells to make canines salivate in anticipation of eating. A similar conditioned response occurs on March 17. That day, drinkers wear green and reach for pints of pitch-dark Guinness. Let’s call it pack behavior.

Guinness fever runs so hot on St. Patrick’s Day that tipplers don’t bother diving into the deep pool of unique stouts. From smooth, luscious milk stouts to briny oyster stouts and the supercharged Russian imperial stouts, there are countless ways to drink dark.

Though the Irish invented the dry stout, they hardly have a monopoly on the style. Great American versions are available, from Maine-based Shipyard Brewing’s Blue Fin Stout to the Old No. 38 Stout, from Fort Bragg, California’s, North Coast Brewing.

If you like a slightly sweeter stout, look toward “milk stouts” (sometimes called “sweet” or “cream stouts”). Instead of half-and-half, the milk in question is lactose, an unfermentable sugar. When added to beer, lactose creates a fuller body and imparts a sweetness that can balance out the roasted characteristics. Wet your whistle with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and the Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro.

Similarly smooth but less sweet is oat meal stout, which is brewed with a small percentage of the breakfast friendly grain. Oats create a silky, creamy brew with a lick of sweetness. Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is a classic British example, but Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout and Rogue’s Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout are worthy brews.

Want to pair some food with your stout? Classically, oysters have proved an ideal pairing with stouts, with the briny salinity complementing the full-bodied, creamy brew. To unite those flavors, brewers have begun tossing freshly shucked oysters into brew kettles, creating complex ales like the Porterhouse Brewing Company’s Oyster Stout.

But if your goal on St. Patrick’s Day is getting pie-eyed, opt for the burly, engine-oil-black Russian imperial stout. It typically registers between 8 to 12 percent alcohol by volume, and dates back to the days of Peter the Great, who opened his nation to the West in the eighteenth century. Seeing a business opportunity, British brewers formulated beers that would appeal to the vodka loving citizens. Since standard porters would not survive the lengthy Arctic sea voyage, extra hops were added and alcohol percentages were elevated, resulting in a darkly potent brew. In recent years, American craft brewers have cottoned to this extreme style, creating winners such as Stone’s Imperial Russian Stout and Victory’s Storm King Stout, even aging them in bourbon or whiskey barrels. Crack open one of Goose Island’s boozy Bourbon County Stouts on St. Patrick’s Day, and your friends will be green with envy.

GOOSE ISLAND: BOURBON COUNTY STOUT
The imperial stout is aged in 12- to 16-year-old oak barrels once filled with Kentucky’s Heaven Hill bourbon. The result is a warming, boozy wallop, calmed by notes of chocolate and vanilla.

ROGUE ALES: SHAKESPEARE OATMEAL STOUT
Tinted like tar, the thespian-themed oatmeal stout has a terrifically luscious, creamy head and a nose of cocoa and caramel. It drinks nice and easy, offering flavors of milk chocolate, toasted oats, and a touch of hoppy bitterness.

SHIPYARD BREW ING COMPANY: BLUE FIN STOUT
The midnight-dark stout, flavored with rich malt and bittersweet chocolate, is capped by a rich beige head. It closes crisp, with a bitter, lingering aftertaste.

THE PORTERHOUSE BREW ING COMPANY: OYSTER STOUT
Ireland’s Porterhouse creates top-flight stouts, such as the dry, assertively bitter Wrasslers XXXX and this bivalve beauty. Brewed with just-shucked oysters, the aromatic stout is silky as all get-out, with a touch of brine on the taste buds.

LEFT HAND BREWING COMPANY: MILK STOUT NITRO
Bottled under pressure with nitrogen (the gas that gives draft Guinness its creaminess), this stout charges from the bottle with tons of tiny bubbles, which cascade into a thick head as sumptuous as an angel’s pillow. Expect a luscious creaminess and flavors of roasted grains and milk chocolate.

For the longest time, Johnny Schuler barely gave pisco a passing thought. Back in 1977, the successful Peruvian restaurateur and wine aficionado only used the strong, colorless South American brandy to concoct Pisco Sours, a cocktail constructed with egg whites, simple syrup, bitters, and lemon or lime juice. Pisco was for mixing, not savoring solo. But one day a colleague called him, distressed. It was the middle of a pisco competition, and the tasters were tipsy: Instead of spitting out samples, they were swallowing them.

Schuler volunteered to lend his palate. His first four samples barely merited a raised eyebrow. Then the fifth glass was poured. “I said, ‘What’s this?’ ” recalls Schuler, who sniffed the glass deeply. He took a tiny taste, then another. “It was smooth, round, and elegant,” Schuler sighs. “It was beautiful. It dawned on me that pisco was a whole world of flavors. From that day forward, I haven’t stopped drinking it.”

Despite a heritage that stretches back to the sixteenth century, when Spanish settlers devised the distilled elixir in Peru, pisco barely registers on imbibers’ radars. The oversight should soon be corrected. In recent years, top-shelf piscos have set sail from South America to the States, where barkeeps have put their spin on the spirit that looks like vodka, but boasts a multifaceted flavor and bouquet.

At New York City’s sultry, subterranean 1534, the Pisco Sour is given an Asian twist thanks to lemongrass syrup, ginger juice, and a dusting of chai green tea. In Chicago, modern Latin restaurant Nacional 27’s Chicha Sour is made with pisco plus an infusion of egg whites, purple corn, lime, and bitters. Across the country, San Francisco’s Pisco Latin Lounge mixes its namesake with everything from cilantro to absinthe to passion fruit. Elsewhere in town, Cantina serves a cavalcade of pisco cocktails, including a punch packed with crushed pineapple, citrus juice, Angostura bitters, and “secret sauce.” Consider this a return to form.

During the gold-rush era, pisco landed in California aboard traders’ vessels. San Franciscans quickly cottoned to the brandy, especially bartenders’ newfangled creation: the pineapple-loaded Pisco Punch. “It was the fashionable drink to have in San Francisco,” says Schuler, who also hosts the TV show Por Las Rutas del Pisco and wrote several books on pisco. The strapping punch ruled San Francisco bars till 1920, when Prohibition severed the pisco supply.

Nowadays, there’s no shortage. But there are crucial lessons to learn before buying your first bottle. For starters, look at the country of origin. While both Chilean and Peruvian pisco are fashioned from fermented grape juice, the Chilean version is distilled to rocket-fuel strength, usually around 150 proof. It’s then aged in wooden barrels and diluted to about 80 proof, resulting in a harsher spirit that’s typically paired with soda. By contrast, Peruvian pisco is distilled to bottle strength (around 76 to 86 proof), then sent to slumber in a nonreactive container, perhaps made of glass, cement, copper, or stainless steel. The result is a purer-tasting spirit, the unadulterated essence of grapes.

Try choice Peruvian expressions such as the silky Campo de Encanto (“Field of Enchantment”), which has a floral, slightly fruity bouquet. Also excellent are the earthy, fullbodied Macchu Pisco, which has a subtly peppery note, and the smooth BarSol—the gentle bouquet of ripe fruit is beguiling. Then there’s Schuler’s noble entry to the marketplace, Pisco Portón. “It’s a gentleman’s drinking spirit, a spirit for conversation,” Schuler says of his creation. The refined potion drinks warm and slightly raisin-sweet, filled with grassy aromas that detour to tropical fruit and chocolate. It’s a little like … well, “It’s not comparable to anything,” Schuler says. “Pisco is its own category. It’s the newest—and oldest—drink on the market.”

I fondly recall dressing as Chewbacca for Halloween when I was a child, and knocking on my neighbors’ doors. I never had to resort to tricks. I always received treats: Baby Ruths, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Nerds—enough goodies to keep me sugar-twitchy for weeks. As an adult, my increasingly furry shoulders and chest ably approximate my old costume. Yet on Halloween, I don’t dare ring my neighbors’ doorbells to beg for candy. Moreover, I’ve lost my taste for the sweet stuff. But dang it, on Halloween I still crave a treat.

Happily, the witching season is the perfect opportunity to scare up a spookily delicious cocktail. Head to a bar during October, and chances are you’ll find alcoholic renditions of candy, such as Tootsie Roll or Milky Way Martinis. The trend “taps into the kid in all of us who ate candy corn and all the sticky little things on Halloween,” says Paul Clarke, a contributing editor at drinks magazine Imbibe. But just like childhood’s Halloween-candy binge, “taking in that much sugar in a drink is not a good idea,” Clarke says. “People forget that one time they ate too much candy and barfed their guts out. They seem doomed to repeat their mistakes.” Instead, Clarke suggests dipping into the rich canon of creepy sounding cocktails. For starters, he likes a devilish libation named Satan’s Whiskers. “It’s a delightful little drink with a citrusy, sour component that’s pretty approachable,” Clarke says of the marriage of gin, Grand Marnier orange juice, and both dry and sweet vermouth. “It’s not going to pound you over the head with an overwhelming amount of sugar or alcohol.”

Equally easygoing is the morbid sounding Corpse Reviver No. 2, the origins of which stretch back to the nineteenth century. Back then, Tylenol and Alka-Seltzer couldn’t come to the rescue. Instead, barkeeps concocted morning-friendly drinks purported to revive the dead—or, at least the deathly hungover. “It’s not as potent as a Martini or a Manhattan, and even the lightest of lightweights will be able to have one,” Clarke says of the bright concoction, which is fashioned with gin, Lillet, Cointreau, fresh lemon juice, and a haunting hint of absinthe.

Following in the Reviver’s deathly footsteps is the Obituary Cocktail, which hails from that land of ghostly intrigue, New Orleans. “It touches back on the flavors we saw in the late nineteenth century,” Clarke says of the drink, whose name doubles as the moniker of a secret order of New Orleans tipplers. “Essentially, it’s a Martini with a little bit of absinthe. It’s very dry, very potent, and has an ethereal anise flavor. People who enjoy anise and the botanical complexity of gin and vermouth will love this drink.”

What if you don’t love anise and you still want to experience the Hallow een spirit? Turn your taste buds on to the Zombie, a potent brew that’s “designed to pound you into submission,” Clarke says. Popularized by legen dary California barman Donn Beach in the 1930s, the Zombie is a precisely calibrated blend of fruit juices, aromatic liqueurs, and rum, rum, rum: The original Zombie, served at Hollywood’s Don the Beachcomber, reportedly packed a whopping seven and a half ounces of hooch. While the drink lands a boozy haymaker, the fruit juices ably mask the alcohol. The result is a “complex cocktail that hits with lots of different flavors,” Clarke enthuses. “It’s incredibly delicious when mixed properly.”

Therein lies the problem. The Zombie is so brawny, yet simultaneously easy-sipping, that the original Beachcomber forbade customers from tipping back more than two of the tiki drinks—any more and you’d become as brain-dead as a ghoulish flesh-eater. Then again, maybe you should have a third. Consider it your Halloween costume.

When it comes to craft beer, it really is okay to cheat. Take it from someone who knows.
By Ben Keene

He’s made beer with cloudberries, lemongrass, and licorice root. He’s worked with archaeologists to re-create ancient fermented beverages and has traveled the world with a film crew to shoot Brew Masters for the Discovery Channel. In short, Sam Calagione, the founder and president of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware, is a visionary. Penthouse recently spoke with Calagione about cheating on your beer, the importance of experimentation, and La Birreria, Eataly’s newly opened rooftop beer garden in New York City.

What would you be doing if not for Dogfish Head?
In school, English was the only thing that kept my interest—and it’s interesting how relevant that background has been. There’s no greater work of fiction than a business plan. I’ve made a career out of turning fiction into nonfiction, so if I had to do something else, I’d be an English teacher or a creative-writing teacher.

You’ve acquired a cult following among beer drinkers. Who in the brewing industry inspires you?
In general, the Belgian brewers. They love food and having a good time, but they don’t have a wine-growing tradition. They have this awesome wild yeast flying around in the air.

Now that Dogfish is a $50 million business, do you feel pressure to be less experimental?
Not at all, but you’re right. That’s sort of an existential question. I’m proud that our beers are more diverse than they were 15 years ago. Now we truly have the resources at our fingertips to search for ingredients from around the globe. We want to celebrate the breadth of our portfolio.

After participating in trends like barrel-aging, what’s next for Dogfish? Any plans for a sour beer?
You’re right in recognizing these as trends. Barrel-aging isn’t going away. But I think our brewery was the first to bottle a sour beer: Festina Peche, a lambic-style peach beer. We’ve been playing around with sour beers for a long time. In the fall we’ll release Noble Rot. It gets its sourness from a botrytis infection. We worked with a winery out in Washington state, and I think it will be the first consumer product with the word “rot” in it.

What’s the biggest challenge for craft beer?
That’s an easy one and also a scary one: Its consolidation around the world, both in retail and in breweries. Two conglomerates sell most of the beer in this country. Frankly, something’s wrong with that picture. Every day, small brewers work hard to make sure the hundreds of other styles get a shot in the marketplace. That’s why we’re promiscuous. We all want to cheat on our beer to explore the wider world of beer.

You often encourage people to cheat on their beers. Have you had an affair to remember?

[Laughs] Let’s see…. I remember shuffling back to a dimly lit hotel room in Brussels about eight years ago. My mistress was Cantillon Kriek. I had my way with that beer all night long. Name the place you visited for Brew Masters that you’d go back to first. I’d have to say Italy. I’ve been going for years and I’ve hosted Slow Food seminars for years. They have such a distinct revolution going on over there. I say “revolution” because in the United States it’s more of a renaissance. The Italian craft-brew scene is really exciting. Craft brewers in Italy are blazing new paths, taking from their rich wine and culinary traditions. That’s why we decided to collaborate with Italian brewers for Eataly.

Let’s talk about Eataly and the new beer garden, La Birreria. What interested you in the project?
Just the opportunity to work with amazing, creative people like Teo [Musso] and Leo [Di Vicenzo] and Joe [Bastianich], who knows wine like the back of his hand. Mario [Batali] is an iconic chef. I learned a lot from those guys. That was the whole reason for working with them.

For us, it’s the opportunity to turn foodies and wine lovers on to craft beer. We’re doing an American Pale Ale with Northwest hops, but we’re adding thyme from outside Rome. So instead of dry-hopping, we’re drythyming. The thing about La Birreria is, we only have the capacity to make three beers at any given moment. I think we’ll be the only brewpub in the country where 100 percent of the beer is not carbonated. Every beer will be hand-pulled from a beer engine.

To quench your thirst in the scorching, steamy dog days of summer, you may reflexively grab an icy can of beer. Wuss. For a cooling drink that’ll heat you up—and donkey-kick you in the keister—reach for a fiery cocktail.

These days, incendiary drinks using piquant spices, chiles, and pepper-infused spirits are all the rage, and provide a belly-warming blast of booze matched by a fivealarm lip fire that’ll separate men from meek boys.

But drinking one is more than a manhood barometer. Heat and alcohol have “a natural affinity,” explains Kara Newman, author of Spice & Ice: 60 Tongue-Tingling Cocktails. “You have so many natural spicy flavors in spirits that you have the opportunity to punch up.”

Across the country, you’ll discover spicy cocktails blazing onto drink menus. At New York City’s Latintinged restaurant Yerba Buena, the zippy Poquito Picante (“a little spicy” in Spanish) amps up a blend of gin, cilantro, Cointreau, and lemon juice with muddled jalapeño. Over on the West Coast, Los Angeles’s sceney Katsuya constructs the Burning Mandarin with a blend of freshsqueezed orange and lemon juice, cranberry, Absolut Mandarin, and lip-blistering serrano chiles. But you don’t need peppers to bring on the burn. In Chicago, Indian-Latin eatery Vermilion fashions the Pani Puri Margarita by mixing heat-seeking garam masala spice with coriander, lime, mint, and a toot of tequila.

If your local saloon hasn’t jumped onto the spicy-hooch bandwagon, no worries. Swing by a liquor store for a bottle of Hangar One’s chipotle vodka, which boasts the pepper’s trademark smoky, spicy profile that grows more potent with each passing sip. If you’d like a little less smoke, Tanteo offers a terrific blanco tequila steeped with organic jalapeños. There’s a gentle, building heat that pairs superbly with the tequila’s fruitforward flavor, laying the groundwork for Margaritas with a bang. “Tequila and mezcal have a natural affinity for spice,” says Newman.

While professionally infused spirits are doubtlessly delicious, amateurs can easily create their own by following following a few simple rules. For starters, Newman says, avoid delicately flavored spirits like gin. “It has all these pretty floral flavors that don’t need to be punched up,” she says. Instead, opt for sturdier, naturally spicy liquors, such as Scotch or whiskey, or a neutral distillate such as vodka (no need to use top-shelf liquor).

To begin, pour your preferred spirit into a bowl, then slice up a single pepper (jalapeños will be less intense than a habanero or a Scotch bonnet) and add it to the liquor. “It’s best to start slowly,” says Newman, who recommends sampling the infusion after several hours. “Take a taste, and you’ll see it already has a lot of power.” If it’s not at your ideal heat level, just wait a little longer before straining the spirit and returning it to the bottle. But don’t wait too long. “If you’re looking for a more gentle flavor like fruit or a spice such as cinnamon, a days-long infusion is fine,” Newman says. “With hot peppers, you’re talking about hours, unless you want to blow your head off.”

Newman relates a tale about the Manhattan bar Black Bear Lodge, where there’s a massive bottle of tequila packed with peppers “that have been sitting inside for not hours, not days, but likely months or years.” The murky “pepper fucker,” as the infusion is dubbed, “smells nasty and tastes like liquid fire,” she says. “It’s something you drink on a dare with your buddies. You do it once and never again.” Want a spicy drink that you’ll try twice or thrice? Give this easy-to-craft Scotch Bonnet a sizzling spin.

For decades, rum has been the cheap floozy of the spirits world, a tacky booze to mix with cola or whir into an umbrella-topped libation. But lately rum—a grab bag of distilled spirits crafted from sugarcane and its by-products, mainly molasses—has rehabilitated its besmirched name. The white and spiced rums you pounded in college have been joined by oak-aged elixirs and artisanal spirits that are on par with, and sometimes exceed, more revered dark spirits. “Whiskey and Scotch converts are leading the way to the rum shelf,” says spirits expert Edward Hamilton, who runs the Ministry of Rum website.

Which rum is worth opening your wallet for? Look for rhum agricole—agricultural rum. Instead of molasses, the French West Indies’ specialty is made with fresh-pressed sugarcane juice. The result is clean and grassy, floral and citric, making rhum agricole a great drink to sip neat or in a cocktail, such as the simple lime-and-sugar Tí Punch.

Fresh rhum agricole is aged in barrels, mainly French oak, to impart the lush notes of vanilla and wood, and has a darker tint that bourbon fans will favor. After at least three years of marinating in a barrel, the agricole is dubbed rhum vieux, or “old rum.”

When buying a rhum agricole, examine the label. Numerous Caribbean distilleries use sugarcane juice, but France’s Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée certifies that only Martinique’s seven distilleries can lay claim to rhum agricole. Brands worth buying include Rhum J.M, Rhum Clement, Neisson, and Depaz, which specializes in aged rums.

While rhum vieux requires just three years of aging to earn its appellation, other rums are slumbering in oak for 12, 15, or even 30 years, making them as complex and nuanced as a snort of Scotland’s finest. In fact, Renegade Rum takes its super-rare, single-vintage rums and “enhances” them with oak-cask aging at Scotland’s famed Bruichladdich Distillery, resulting in snifter-worthy sensations best served straight—mixing would be blasphemy.

In Barbados, Mount Gay Rum makes two exceptional long-aged specimens. The Extra Old naps in bourbon-soaked oak for up to 15 years, and presents a nose of sweet fruit and oak and a zesty finish. By contrast, the 1703 Old Cask Selection—named after the year Mount Gay was founded—incorporates rums aged from 10 to 30 years; expect a nose of cigar-friendly leather and oak, and flavors that flit from bananas to candied fruit. From Guatemala, you’ll find the fab premium rums of Ron Zacapa. The distillery’s exquisitely nuanced Centenario line stars spirits aged up to 15 or 23 years, and the exemplary XO (extra old) is aged in bourbon, sherry, and wine barrels before being finished in cognac casks.

To splurge on a once-in-a-lifetime liquor, look toward Ron Abuelo Centuria. In honor of Varela Hermanos’s 100th anniversary, the Panamanian distillery released an extra-antiquated version of its benchmark Ron Abuelo rum. The Centuria is a select blend of privatereserve rums aged up to 30 years in oak barrels that once held bourbon. It’s equal parts familiar and unexpected, a tropical luxury worth savoring beneath, not with, an umbrella.

Life on Top
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc
1 ounce Maker’s Mark bourbon
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
3 dashes orange bitters
Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass. Strain over
a large ice cube into a rocks glass. Garnish with a
flamed orange peel.
Recipe courtesy of Michael Neff, co-owner of
New York City’s Rum House.

Every good foundation starts with a brick. In the cocktail world, that brick is the Old-Fashioned, a simple blend of sugar, bitters, water, and spirit that later led to the Manhattan and the Martini. In the 1800s, when men drank a whole lot more and the misguided theory of Prohibition hadn’t yet been conceived, rye whiskey was the popular choice. In those days, when you needed something hearty to brace yourself against the long, laborious days, a dash of sugar to take the edge off the whiskey, bitters to protect your stomach, and a bit of dilution to help it go down was just the ticket. If you asked for a cocktail, an Old-Fashioned is what you got. Today, that concoction is just one of thousands of mixed drinks to choose from.

Then came 1920—the dawn of the Prohibition era. Along with all the Boardwalk Empire–esque crime and glamour, there was a major bastardization of cocktails. Skilled bartenders left the country, booze was made from anything and everything, and mixed drinks were concocted simply to cover up caustic hooch. When Prohibition was repealed and the Old-Fashioned reappeared, it had the addition of muddled orange and neon-red cherries, and usually a splash of club soda. Not exactly the best way to appreciate whiskey.

But in case you missed the news flash, we’re in the midst of a cocktail renaissance. Bartenders are bringing back the classics and making them with quality spirits and realistic proportions. You can get the Old-Fashioned made the old-fashioned way: just a sugar cube, bitters, good American rye, and water in the form of a nice chunk of ice. Add a little citrus zest and you’ve got a piece of bygone times—a drink made to sip so you can shrug off the day’s stress.

“It’s the father of all cocktails,” says Michael McIlroy, a longtime bartender at New York City’s cocktail mecca Milk & Honey. “It’s also how I judge new whiskies when I try them. If it makes a good Old-Fashioned, it’s worth while.” While the standard choice is rye, any quality whiskey can make a solid drink. Bartenders’ love for the Old-Fashioned has led not only to the use of other spirits, but to the birth of new cocktails. A Oaxaca Old-Fashioned uses mezcal and reposado tequila with agave nectar as the sweetener, and the Benton’s Old-Fashioned at PDT (Please Don’t Tell) in New York City uses maple syrup and a baconfat-washed bourbon. McIlroy and his co worker, Richard Boccato, spun the classic into the American Trilogy, using orange bitters, a brown-sugar cube, and equal parts rye whiskey and Laird’s bonded apple brandy.

The point of the original—and the cocktails it inspired—is to highlight the spirit without overwhelming it, and though the combination of bitter and sweet adds a bit of complexity, the spirit is still the backbone of the drink. While the current trend is for flavors and infusions to run amok in cocktails, this one keeps it simple in the best way. But in case you need another reason to stir up this classic masterpiece, take McIlroy’s advice: “Every Old-Fashioned you drink makes life a bit better.”

OLD-FASHIONED
Ingredients:
• One sugar cube
• Two healthy dashes of
Angostura bitters
• Two ounces rye whiskey
• One solid piece of ice
Combine all ingredients in a rocks
glass and stir. Garnish with a lemon
and orange peel, squeezing the
citrus oil on the drink first.

As a journalist whose beats are beer and booze (i.e., a professional drunk), I spend most eves nose-deep in a pint, then pass the daylight hours by writing about last night’s bender. It’s a lovely, well-lubricated existence, provided I have a steady supply of aspirin.

Thus, when my girlfriend, Jenene, and I go on vacation, we select cities with great drinking cultures—say, microbrew-mad Montreal or winesipping Paris. “Work is pleasure, and pleasure is work,” I’ll explain, buying flights before she can protest. But last summer, Jenene wanted to visit a country that’d make any drinker cringe: Morocco, where Islamic law has declared alcohol haram, or forbidden.

“Baby, this sounds like hell,” I protested of her planned ten-day trip. “I haven’t gone three days without a drink since I was 18.”

“You could stand to sober up.”
“But—”

“I’ve always dreamed of going to Morocco,” she said, her forceful tone making it clear the issue wasn’t debatable. “I invited Bati and Emily”—our married Parisian pals—“and they’re going to meet us in Marrakech. Book the flights.” I did as I was told, then secreted a flask of potent, peppery Rittenhouse Rye in my suitcase. Inside the hot, dry land, at least I could stay a little wet.

We touched down in Marrakech one Saturday around 4 P.M., with the temperature cresting triple digits. After checking in and meeting up with Bati and Emily, we departed to Djemaa el Fna. Come dusk, the Moroccan metropolis’s central square brims with snake charmers, henna artists, and makeshift food vendors hawking everything from diced lamb face to snails to sizzling Merguez sausage.

“I’d kill for a beer,” I told Bati, snacking on a spongy, fatty chunk of lamb udder—another local delicacy.

“We should be able to find some,” he said, pointing to his Lonely Planet guidebook. My eyes bulged like a cartoon character’s. “Didn’t you read the guidebook?” No, I’d spent the flight in a pharmaceutically assisted slumber. Bati sighed. French colonialists, he explained, introduced brewing and winemaking to Morocco in the twentieth century. Drinking culture took root, aided by a nifty loophole that permits non-Muslim tourists—and less pious Moroccans—to purchase alcohol. But it wasn’t as simple as hitting a 7-Eleven. Unlike ad-splashed American liquor stores, Moroccan alcohol shops keep their consumables hidden behind curtains and blacked-out windows, with nary a neon sign.

“There’s beer here—we just have to know where to look,” Bati proclaimed. Easier said than done. We spent hours scouring Marrakech’s storefronts until salvation arrived in urgent whispers. “Beer wine, beer wine,” a skinny man hissed, like a dodgy drug dealer.

Our eyes locked. I nodded. Like bloodhounds, we followed him as he quick-stepped down cramped alleys and past rug vendors to the Dar Nejjarine restaurant. We climbed a windy staircase to the rooftop where, beneath a starry blanket, musicians strummed string instruments and backlit whiskey bottles glowed like heaven. We settled onto embroidered pillows and ordered local brew Flag Speciale, served aside tangy olives.

“Now this feels like vacation,” Bati said as we sipped the light, bubbly forbidden fruit. Forbidden fruit, as everyone knows, always tastes sweetest.

Was scoring alcohol always such a cloak-and-dagger operation? No; our quartet discovered that serendipity also plays a role when we rented a car at Marrakech’s Avis outpost—located doors from a corner shop that, to our surprise, sold wine and liquor. Inside the cramped closet, we bought Taounate anise liqueur and a cabernet rouge Cuvee de President, which we took to the mountain town of Aït Benhaddou.

At the airy hotel Defat Kasbah, our waiter, Hashid, happily uncorked our wine, a young, minerally red. “I do not drink alcohol,” he professed, echoing a common sentiment, “but I don’t care if you do.” We capped off dinner with the anise liqueur, warming and aromatic. From the mountains, we buzzed west to the Atlantic coast fishing town of Essaouira and, on our hotel concierge’s tip, had dinner at the alcohol-serving Les Alizes Mogador. To accompany the sardine and goat tagines, we split Morocco’s Bonassia cabernet sauvignon. Unfortunately, the wine was tinny and lacked complexity, a recurring problem with Moroccan vintages.

Before departing, we tried to find a liquor store amid the mess of mint sellers and olive vendors. After a fruitless hour, we gave in and let a guide locate the shop where we should’ve expected it—outside the walled city, in an unmarked tiled storefront. After purchasing more wine and smoky, potent fig eau-devie (brandy), we cruised to seafaring Oualidia’s Restaurant Les Roches—“the Rocks,” referencing the nearby craggy formations.

As we sat in the restaurant, empty save for a singing parakeet, we asked if we could uncork some wine. “If you wish,” the mustachioed owner replied. While he loaded a bucket with ice and played Bob Dylan records, I retrieved our wine from our lodgings, located at a second-rate tennis club. “Don’t let anyone see you bring that in,” the night attendant said. “The owner could get into trouble with the police.” Heeding his warning, I snuck in with ninja stealth.

The police left us alone as we feasted on citrus-tinged goat and fish, paired with Ksar rouge—a plummy, pleasant Les Celliers de Meknes offering—and La Gazelle de Mogador, a sweet, if innocuous white. It was a serene eve, contrasting our experience in Casablanca the next night. Humphrey Bogart’s famous Atlantic Ocean–fronting city is crowded and chaotic, with traffic-jam exhaust covering the town like a filthy blanket. But the silver lining: Outside the walled medina quarter, numerous mirrored storefronts housed shabby saloons, such as Bar Sans Pareil.

The smoky dive, the sort found in faded Midwest factory towns, was cleaved in half by a rickety wooden divider. Molelike burn marks pockmarked red plastic tablecloths, and every man—and several luridly painted ladies, whom Jenene swore were prostitutes—guzzled green bottles of cheap-as-water Stork. We followed suit, sipping the light lager and snacking on freshly boiled chickpeas sprinkled with cumin and salt—a bar nibble worth transplanting to the States. No snacks, much less bars or booze, were found at our last stop in medieval Fes. Alcohol’s absence was especially glaring, since festivities were expected.

“How can I celebrate my 30th birthday without a drink?” Bati bemoaned as we wandered the twelfth-century city’s streets, as narrow and winding as The Shining’s hedge maze. We found tanneries and chicken butchers, but not a single warm beer. As Bati moped, a brainstorm struck: Concealed in my suitcase was my last-gasp flask. “Back to the hotel,” I commanded. I purchased a fistful of fresh mint from a street vendor, then sparkling water from a corner shop.

In our room, I produced the silver flagon. Bati’s eyes lit up like Christmas. I muddled the mint, topped it with amber whiskey and bubbly water—a makeshift mint julep. “Happy birthday,” I told Bati, as we toasted to a taste of home far away.

What took so long?” That’s what Bill Samuels Jr., president of Maker’s Mark Distillery, said about the resurgence of America’s whiskeys. Partly due to the red-hot cocktail scene, and partly because people have finally realized American whiskeys are as worthy as any import, homegrown brown booze is flying off liquor-store shelves. Adding fuel to this fire, the Maker’s Mark folks are adding something new to the market.

The company’s use of red winter wheat (as opposed to rye) in its mash results in the smooth, dis tinct profile that bourbon lovers are fanatic about, but Samuels knew that drinker’s palates have been evolving toward the bold and spicy. Samuels wanted to make a bourbon that would move both the brand and the category forward, without moving too far from the foundation product.

Maker’s 46 is the result of the project, in which master distiller Kevin Smith sought to expand the distillery from its singular mission. The epiphany came in realizing they had the basis of their next innovation already in-house. A decision was made to finish the standard Maker’s Mark bourbon in barrels that would “ramp up the nose and lengthen the finish, but avoid bitterness,” according to Samuels. Enlisting the assistance of their barrel maker, Independent Stave, the perfect result was reached in test barrel No. 46. Ten staves of the original barrels were replaced with seared French oak staves, which adds tannin, along with complex spice, vanilla, and caramel notes.

After maturing in their usual new American oak barrels, a select batch of Maker’s Mark is placed into the No. 46 barrels. The bourbon is aged there several more months, until Smith thinks the batch has reached perfection. He says Maker’s 46 “is spicier and has a more intense aroma than Maker’s Mark. It has rich caramel and vanilla flavors, and even at 94 proof it’s soft enough to hold on the tongue.” The full-bodied bourbon is so smooth that Samuels prefers it with just a couple of ice cubes.

Although Smith and Samuels were confident in their quest for a bourbon breakthrough, they needed the seal of approval from their Maker’s core. Last April, almost 4,000 of their most loyal customers were brought into the Kentucky distillery for a first taste. After an overwhelming thumbs-up, Samuels knew 46 was ready to start the trek across the United States.

But while they already consider Maker’s 46 a success, don’t expect the company to abandon its small batch processes to start churning out new portfolio additions. Samuels is open to expanding the line again, but “in another 52 years—the time it took between my parents’ creation of Maker’s Mark and our first product innovation: Maker’s 46.”

THE PERFECT 46
2 ounces Maker’s 46
1/2 ounce Punta E Mes vermouth
1/2 ounce Dolin dry vermouth
2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters
2 dashes Angostura orange bitters
Combine all ingredients in a mixing
glass with ice and stir. Strain into a
rocks glass filled with fresh ice.
Recipe courtesy of Village
Whiskey, Philadelphia.

Tonic: This Brooklyn, New York, creation prides itself on its Peruvian quinine and use of agave instead of the standard corn syrup. It’s lower in calories than its peers, but built to be crisp and refreshing. To preserve the bubbles, each bottle is made to create one drink. $8 per four-pack.

Fever-Tree: The first choice of Martin Miller, the subtle citrus notes support gin ideally. It’s all-natural, made with the highest-quality Indian quinine for a genuine bitter edge, and has no artificial aftertaste. $6 per four-pack.

Stirrings: The newest offering boasts “champagne-like” bubbles. Following the all-natural trend, the company uses cane sugar and Cinchona-bark extract in their light and bright mixer. $5 per four-pack.