Drinking in Paradise, island of Kauai offers more than just scenic beauty.

Manawaiopuna Falls

 It's not every day in my life that I get to see or do something special.  Familiar terrain, the common pace of life, the work routine while sustainable becomes all too ordinary and often boring. In order to break out of this mold I tend to do things that give me experiences that have to be different to all my senses.  Food and drink has provided a good outlet for that, and I discovered early on that it is more enjoyable when traveling.

So what better way to experience such a change to my senses than going to what people described to me as paradise.  Where was paradise?  I asked a few good friends I knew.  Many had said it's in Hawaii, but more specifically on the "Garden Island" as it is known called Kauai.

Kauai is one of the smaller islands of Hawaii, with a population of about 70,000 people.  It is filled with gorgeous scenery from an intense wet climate, birds and flowers full of color that you wont see anywhere else, and then surrounded by a gorgeous ocean and numerous beaches that feel like walking on the softest corn meal you have ever set foot on.

Repeated words and phrases kept coming up when I spoke with people about the place.  "Best Island".  "Paradise on Earth".  "Utopia".  "Intensely Green".  "Perfect".  Sounded like a perfect place for a vacation I thought, but what about the drink?  I of course also thought about the food (which by the way I strongly suggest you stick to lunch and street side trucks and shacks where it excels far beyond waitered table service but that's another story...), but was there good drinking also in paradise?  I am happy to report that there is.

The irony though when you first visit Kauai, is that the last thing you want to think about is food and drink.  Your senses are immediately drawn to what you see first as smells and taste take a backseat.  I also noticed that island culture here is really drawn to outdoor activity.  People are up early and in the water doing everything imaginable, surfing, snorkeling, fishing, kite boarding.. you name it.  It seemed like the last thing people wanted to do was care about food and drink.  But not our hero.  Why can't you have the best of both worlds?  And in many ways you can.

Shortly after I landed I found myself shopping for beer.  What irony and priorities huh?  

After a few short local trips it didn't take me long to find out that there was not much selection, but was happy to find that Deschutes is distributed here and was quite common.  Deschutes is one of my personal favorite breweries.  They are from Oregon and their beers are not available where I live. How nice it is to have with ample chances to get Inversion IPA and Mirror Pond while palm trees, lush beaches and perfect weather days surround you everywhere?  Pretty darn good I say, in fact I even found their winter seasonal here, but drinking a winter seasonal in this warm place during December probably would have ravaged the tiki gods and punished me in ways that I couldn't imagine.  It just seemed very wrong so I stuck with the IPA.

Besides some occasional beer found in markets, the island believe it or not actually has two breweries.  One of them is Kauai Island Brewing Company who is just outside the town of Hanapepe.

Pakala Porter

I tried several of their beers, and they pretty much pass the test for enjoyment. One of the things the brewery offers here is a pretty good selection of styles ranging from Ambers, Browns, Fruit Ales (using local Lilikoi fruit), Porter and IPAs.  Captain Cook's IPA was easily my favorite of the bunch, and while not a beer geeks wet dream, the beer has a very distinct and wonderful bursting tropical nose.  The tropical smell from this brew seemed so perfect for the islands setting.  Pakala Porter is also quite decent as well, with lots of coffee roasting rich qualities.

Not to be outdone also, is Kauai Beer Company, which is located on the Eastern area of the island in Lihue.

Kauai Beer Company's lineup

It's actually very close to the airport, so if you get a hankering for some beer right when you land, this is short drive up Rice St not far away.  The place has a classic brewery tasting room welcoming vibe, with lots of open seating, large flags hanging from the ceiling, a window that shows the breweries workings from behind the bar, and a gorgeous large piece of Norfolk pine that accents the bar.

Unlike Kauai Island Brewing, Kauai Beer Co. focuses on German styles of beer and specifically lagers.

 There are only about 5 beers in their lineup, with 2 guest taps, but it is the Munich Helles styles that the brewer here has done their best work in.  While the brewery does make a Marzen and Schwarzbier that go for malt caramel and roasty qualities, their simple take on Munich Helles with beers like Helles Swelles and Lihue Lager are just done so well.  A decent dense malt bill, with light toasty white bread finish and bakery aromas and aftertaste showcase on the palate.  They make for easy drinking and could even convert regular macro drinkers over in my opinion.

Still drinking in Kauai does not exclusively mean beer.  On a trip to a local market, an interesting product was on the shelves, a dark glowing blue labelled bottle that appeared to look like Blue Nun wine.  Going out of your way for Blue Nun in Hawaii?  Hell no!  Kauai has a local meadery called Nani Moon Mead that makes tropical honey wines.

Mead is essentially a wine like beverage derived primarily from honey.  The honey used at Nani Moon is local to the island, with many of the other ingredients being local tropical fruit, cacao, and other spices.  I tried two products one called Cacao Moon, a mead made with local cacao, vanilla beans and macadamia nut blossom honey.

Excellent vanilla notes, with some chocolate character however, it's honey character and mix of flavors seem to clash a bit for my personal tastes.  A better option I enjoyed was the Winter Sun which is made with local wildflower honey, starfruit, and lilikoi.

It pairs really nicely with food as I grabbed some local shrimp, shoyu poke, and super fresh ripe avocado.  A bit of marinating on the grill, and then just simple avocados which were in season (they were incredibly fresh and perfect), it worked as a nice fruity wine for dinner.

But life would not be complete for an island drink adventure if there was no rum.  Luckily Kauai provides this as well.  The Koala Rum company uses tall cane sugar from the islands and currently has 5 rum products.

Their coconut rum is quite appealing, not overly sweet or saccharine tasting, but comes with a great toasty and creamy flavor.  The real treat however is Koala's dark rum, which has incredible tasting flavors of coffee and bitter dark chocolate.

It was one of the more unique rums I have had, and was quite impressed how flavorful it was to just drink it neat.  Tourists and locals joined us in the tasting room with a good feel and sense of camaraderie.  "I work about 10 minutes away, and been living here for 6 years, I've never heard of this place." said one woman at the counter.  "Well come in anytime you like and have a shot with us!" said the young man behind the counter.

Now that's one great work schedule if you ask me.

So if you can pull yourself away from majestic sea turtles, helicopter tours, and suntanning on the beach, you can find inside some real treats on this Garden Island.  After all, as we shared stories of island beauty with sips of rum, beer, and mead with others in between, what better way to experience paradise?  Truly the best of both worlds.

Beer Cocktails, stepping it up with Maui Coconut Porter and Chairman's Reserve Rum

Something seems to be happening in the drink world that defies explanation.  Two unlikely concoctions, beer, and liquor (in the form of cocktails) have come to a-head on meeting in a full collision melding with craft practice.  How did this seemingly happen?

Brewers have taken the world over with interesting beer.  Revisiting old styles, revamping them, taking on new twists, and giving many things for beer geeks to salivate over.

With that, mixoligists and bartenders (can they be one or the same... sure) using their knowledge of solid cocktails, combine their smarts and find interesting ways to meld flavors, technique, and history to make something different and hopefully delicious.

Mixing alcohol into beer is really nothing new.  How many times have you heard of depth-chargers,  car bombs (or that other name that isn't so flattering), boiler makers, snakebites and so forth.  Sometimes adding things to a beer involved things that just seemed like an afterthought out of boredom, such as the stories I hear from people dunking a shot of whiskey X into a pint of brew.  I doesn't even have to be other alcohol, shandys, radlers also come to mind.

However, sometimes people put a little more effort into a good drink, and when they do the results can shine, and from that you can have a beer cocktail with true thought and great taste.

Beer cocktails aren't without their controversy either.  Some brewers cringe at the idea of a beer they concocted, slaved over, perfected after many repetitions, just to have someone seemingly pour something ELSE into the mix.  Dam them all some might say.  Others might be more flattered.  What if you could punch flavors out, enhance them, use good quality ingredients, just as the brewer intended, could it work?  For myself personally, I am on the fence, but I take exception to anyone who does things with good technique, and understanding of what came before, and those who use the right things at the right time.  A beer cocktail can truly get it right.

Pictured above is a beer cocktail developed by Gina Chersevani, and published in the Washington Post (recipe here).  In it, she uses a fantastic craft style American Porter beer made in Hawaii that I have actually reviewed before called Maui Coconut Porter.  Just toss a shot of whiskey into your glass after you pour?  Hell... and no.

In this drink, she uses classic cocktail ingredient and proportions, that enhance the character and flavor of the drink.  Chairman's rum is used, to give a molasses kick with a very dry match of the porters roast, coconut milk and sweet syrup come into the mix to pull out that coconut of the porter also, and add a sweetness not unlike a good refreshing summer cocktail.

I decided I had to try this drink out and get an idea if a beer cocktail can really deliver.  And when done right, it really shines.  There are plenty of other beer cocktails out there, and so long as they are done with thought and care, I'd love try more myself.  Check out the video below to see how I made this drink.

Cheers!

Rum punch challenge in Alexandria, brings another visit with Bacardi

 "This smells awful, what was this?... Bacardi Superior, wow shocking, and if I can help it I am never having this light rum again". - July 7th 2010 - concluding my own personal blind light rum tasting.

When I first started this blog and video channel, it came out of a necessity to really examine what I was drinking and to have some balance between seriousness and fun.  As time has gone on I've learned quite a bit, and it's always interesting to revisit past tastes.  When I think of Bacardi I can only think of one thing, and that is of course rum.  They are the largest distiller on the planet and make ubiquitous products for easy consumption in my opinion.  Most of their really good stuff is impossible to get or just flat out unheard of (I can think of ONE product).  I sort of think of them as the Anheuser Busch - InBev of the rum world.  However, I was given another opportunity to spend some more time with Bacardi in a historic setting, in what looked like an excuse more than anything to also have a good time.  It was almost 2 years since the last visit with the bat himself for me.

There was an event in Old Town Alexandria VA that was being held at Gadsby's Tavern, a historic place which was built in 1785 (with the adjacent hotel coming in 1792, check out the website link for the fabulous history of this place).  It was here that the 8th annual Rum Punch challenge was being held.  Punch?! I asked myself..  Could I go drink 6 different rum punches, complete with catered food snacks, judge the entries made by local restraunters and vote on who was the best?  I think I needed to pay a visit, as many others did the same.

I arrived with a good group of friends, was presented with a solid rocks glass, 5 tickets which represented 5 votes to enter for each punch I thought was worth it's weight in salt (or in this case rum!), and of course came with thirst and desire. With a historic setting and friends and some simple eats what was not to enjoy?  So how did the punches turn out?  They went as follows in the order I tried them.

The first one I tried was "Jones Point Punch" from the actual Gadsby's Tavern Restaurant.  Using Bacardi Select Dark, the punch didn't have the sense of dark rum to it to me.  It was memorable in how I always associated punch, kind of fruity, summery.  There was a good amount of fruit in this one, somehow it really tasted like pineapple juice too much to me.  However, as nice as it was it didn't really grab me.

Onward hoe!  For there would be much more, taking in a great open space that also serves as a ballroom.  The second punch was also with Bacardi Select Dark but went for a different angle.  The darkest of all the punches served, this was the "Queen Anne's Revenge" made by FireFlies restaurant.  Here they went for a dark molasses angle, spices, and ingredients that were often quite extensive, that many times I couldn't remember them all.  It was very much heavy on molasses, but not thick.  Burnt brown spiced edges of cinnamon, warm, charring, quite delicious.  I imagined myself having this punch nestled up in front of a fireplace on a cold winter night, perhaps not the angle we think of for punch, but it was I thought a very unique and fantastic creation.

After two punches it was obvious to me that there was some good thought that was going into these punches.  Rum punch is actually one of the classic serving summer cool downs of yore.  Much of it was consumed here in George Washington's day.

Our third contestant was Bittersweet's "Pomander punch".  After taking another happy dip, my grove started to hit, or perhaps it was the merriment of enjoying fireplace and molasses like punch tickling my fancy.  Here we dove in.  This punch out of all the ones I had, had the best smell.  The nose on this was a glorious orange and clove bouquet, hints of floral, extremely airy.  It was fairly solid in taste as well, but also kind of a classic fruity punch.  Very impressive, but.. I think I was looking for something unique.

After three punches I was beginning to think of the angles each participant was going for.  Should they go for something fruit and basic?  Or were there going to be more things challenging unexpected??

I headed to another corner and saw the "isla besos" ("island kisses"??) from RedRocks.  My eye glanced to the Bacardi Select Dark, and then saw the ubiquitous Superior.  Yeah I remember you... we didn't get along so well last time did we?  However, I was beginning to notice that Bacardi's rums mixed pretty well in punch with a slew of ingredients quite nicely so far.  Would I want to take a 80 dollar bottle of Agricole rhum and dump it in for punch?  Probably not.  The island kisses punch was.. well it was pink, and slushy in appearance.  Served with a message in the bottle (which later contained a coupon, but boy was it hard to get that message out!).  I thought I finally had some time to relax and talk to the participants, and so I began asking questions.  Before I took a sip I asked, "so what's in this?".

I got a bunch of ingredients listed that were very unexpected.  Strawberry puree, agave nectar, the two rums of course, some club soda, honey (I think?), and some jalapeno for kick.  Wait.. did he say jalapeno?

I quickly grabbed a good chug.  But I was sort of jealous that I asked what was in it before tasting, for I would have been even more surprised I do think.  Yup you heard that right, strawberry backbone with a sweet rum kick, mixing some syrup sweetness and this just right peppery green punch from the jalapenos.  Talk about a unique creation, and I DON'T LIKE STRAWBERRIES! but was VERY impressed by this one.  Someone here was making something unique, someone did some serious homework here, and everything was balanced nicely.  However, it was a big risk to make a punch like this, it was so different and was probably going to rub some people the wrong way.  This was a polarizing punch for sure.  But that's what you have to do some times you have to take a chance.  This was my other personal favorite, a summer beat the heat punch with pepper kick and fruit, just great.

Still reveling in the rum punch tales, the ice house slew that was attached to the tavern back in the day to keep the punch as cold as possible during those swampy 18th century nights, I saw a familiar sign or should I say fish, and in a punch bowl too.  Dogfish Head.  The brewery!  THE DOGFISH HEAD BREWERY IS HERE!!  I was ready to see if Sam was under the table, and my mind started racing as the beer geek in me was ready to explode out.  Palo Santo and Dark rum!  What about Noble rot and something?  okay wait a minute calm down now... I don't think punch is going to have BEER in it (not that you couldn't try), but this was a rum night dude. Then I forgot...  Dogfish makes rum!  I even remembered I have their rum at home.

The punch they offered was "Alison's Folly", a punch made with Dogfish Head's small batch Spiced Wit Rum.  I actually have a bottle of this orange peel and coriander made rum at home and it's quite nice.  I totally forgot they make spirits also besides beer, and I am also a big fan of their Honey Brown rum too.  However, the punch while certainly decent was rather basic, and not unlike the other two fruit punches I already had.  Unfortunately, those punches were also a little better than this.  The rum angle of the orange and the sense of the Wit Rum just did not come out here.  It was subtle and nice, lingering, delicious, but I knew it wasn't going to win amongst some of the other contenders.  I actually prefer this rum not to be mixed with anything.  They made a solid punch but it was not a favorite of mine for the night.

Speaking of rum, there was a new product that was being offered by Bacardi that was in two of the punches.  One was in the Pomander, the other in the next and last punch I tried the "Oak Ball Punch" with a new rum from Bacardi called Oakheart Spiced.  

I looked at the bottle, 35% alcohol (which would make it 70 proof).  The punch was pear based, and had a very large oak vanilla nose to it.  The smell was actually quite nice, with a faint caramel hiding.  Once again though with a pear base it was more of the classic fruity punch angle going on and not seeming to bring much of the taste out for the punch.

I asked a server if I could try the rum just by itself which I could.  It had that similar great vanilla nose, but even at 70 proof the rum had that harsh varnishy quality, not unlike the superior of days past, also had next to nothing texture wise.  It really did not taste good by itself.

So with all punches taken and imbibed, I had to decide on favorites.  It was clear that two punches stood out for me, and both felt seasonal.  One seemed right for winter, the other for a hot summer day.  I took 2 of my 5 tickets giving two votes to both "isla besos" and "Queen Anne's Revenge". I threw my last vote into "Pomander" mostly cause of all the other punches it has the best bouquet.

Votes were tallyed by all who attended, with a runner up and first place announced.  The runner up was....

Gadsby's Tavern and their Jone's Point Punch.

The winner of the best punch competition was:

Pomander Punch by Bittersweet.

So in the end my favorites didn't get it, but we all seemed to have a good time trying all the different concoctions.  I sat in the hallway on break and had a good chat with an older guy about the history of the tavern and Alexandria (the first place I lived in when I came to DC).  Full of tales of George Washington slept here, and ghosts that allegedly roamed the nearby cemeteries, there was good punch to be had for all who wanted.  As the town criers finished (that's our crier with a friend of mine in the photo) their announcements, we all settled home safely knowing that rum has a good place even if it is from Bacardi.

There's no question, all the punches made tonight were far better than the Cava version I made myself ;)

Gadsby's rum punch challenge offers a well planned out, executed and fun night of merriment.  Food doesn't run out, punches are out with no losers, and with it all comes with a great piece of historic setting that makes rum punch the center piece and star.  I don't think I'd want to have rum punch anywhere else in the world.