Awesome Drinks

Whether you’re home-distilling spirits or just want to add some dimension to store-bought drinks, these coils of charred oak are a great way to add flavor and depth. They’re small enough to drop through the neck of a 750ml bottle, and their spiral design maximizes surface area for the best flavor. Sold in packs of one, two, or four.

Junipero Gin’s juniper-berry-blue bottle hints at the botanicals inside: juniper, coriander, cubeb, grains of paradise, lemon peel, orange peel, orris root, cassia bark, cardamom, orange peel, aniseed, and angelica root. Junipero pioneered the American craft gin movement, distilling in small copper pots at 98.6 unfiltered proof.

Whether or not you golf, nothing beats a cocktail at the 19th hole. The Pebble Beach Whiskey Wedge Rocks Glass by Corkcicle perfectly chills your favorite spirit without diluting its flavor. Just put the etched rocks glass and clever silicone ice form in the freezer to make a slow-melting wedge that leans on one side of the glass.

With wildfires ravaging the US West, Colorado’s Wild Barn Coffee is donating 100% of their profits on National Coffee Day, 9.29.20, to the GlobalGiving CA Wildfire Relief Fund. Wild Barn’s organic Nitro Cold Brew is spiked with two antioxidant superfoods: goji berries and cacao nibs. Sold in 6- and 12-packs.

The #1 bar in Victoria, BC and one of Canada’s 50 best, the gorgeous Q Bar at the iconic Fairmont Empress is a wowser. Equally stunning is its magical signature drink which changes colors from bold indigo to soft pink. Canada’s oldest craft distillery, Victoria Distillers, created indigo Empress 1908 Gin to do the trick.

Despite its low alcohol content and questionable flavor, White Claw spiked selzer has become something of a cultural phenomenon. Now you can enjoy the delightful citrus fragrance without the hangovers with this lemongrass candle from Meriwether. It’s made from an upcycled can and hand-poured soy wax.

Raise a glass to help local bars during Negroni Week. Through 9.20.20, Campari will match donations up to $200K to support unemployed bar workers. Others are donating a share of sales, like Cocktail Kingdom’s finger stirrers, Kegworks kits, Shaker and Spoon, Minibar delivery, and Campari purchases via ReserveBar.

Fans of classic whiskies from the American South take note: southern Australia nabbed a gold medal at the 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competition for Starward Two-Fold Double Grain Whisky, the first widely available Aussie whisky brand in the US. The easy-drinking spirit is known for its unique maturation style in red wine casks.

A.H. Hirsch Reserve 16-Year-Old has been called “the best American bourbon ever produced.” So where does a great distiller go from there? Back to fundamentals, with selected whiskey expressions like The Horizon Straight Bourbon Whiskey, a balanced 92-proof blend of two straight bourbons, perfect neat or on the rocks.

Boxer and MMA fighter Conor McGregor stepped into the whiskey-making ring in 2018, near his hometown of Dublin. He and an ex-Bushmills manager crafted nearly 100 blends before debuting this KO formula. Proper No. Twelve is a proper Irish spirit made with the traditional triple-distillation method in copper pot stills.

Japan has distilled shōchū for 500 years, with iichiko setting the gold standard, but iichiko Saiten is a new kind of higher proof shōchū made specifically for mixology. Co-created with U.S. bartenders, the clear, pot-distilled spirit is rich in citrus, melon, and pepper notes, derived from two-row barley and fermented koji.

Gold-medal winning Woodford Reserve straight bourbon whisky is full of flavor, with hints of sweet aromatics, spice, fruit, flowers, grains and wood. Just the ticket for refreshing bourbon cocktails like the Old Fashioned, Mint Julep, and the summery Porch Swing cocktail, characterized by its use of lemon, honey and peach tea.

Light up your evening and easily identify your beer can with Nite Ize’s illuminated SlapLit drink wraps. Their neoprene insulator wrap keeps drinks cool and palms dry, and a their slap-bracelet inspired center band glows in one of three colors thanks to LED tech.

One of the world’s favorite cocktails is the classic Dark ‘n Stormy, created in 1920s Bermuda when British Navy officers used Goslings Black Seal Rum to spike their seasickness cure: ginger beer. A century later, the drink gets its own holiday; June 9, 2020 is the first official Dark ‘n’ Stormy Day. Celebrate with the official recipe.

Cinco de Mayo is one of America’s favorite holidays, but contrary to common belief, it is not Mexican Independence Day. That treaty was signed August 24, 1821, a date commemorated by Tequila Corralejo. Their Extra Añejo 1821 honors valiant heroes with 100% blue agave, double-distilled in copper, and matured in oak for 36 months.

Colorado’s Strongwater creates award-winning bitters from ingredients like turmeric, cinnamon, orange peel, clove, cherries, and lavender. They’ll give your next cocktail added dimension, flavor, and aroma. The set of five 3oz bottles is on sale for a limited time from Touch of Modern. Strongwater also makes a 1/2oz sampler.

Sempli’s leaning glass carafe is designed to infuse spirits with fruits, vegetables, and spices, imbuing them with new depth, flavor, and character. The 13 oz vessel comes with a perforated infusing tube for ingredients, and a rubber stopper. Once infused, simply remove the tube, and decant straight from the bottle.

Starbucks brings their popular nitro cold brew coffee to grocery and convenience stores. The ready-to-drink 9.6oz. cans infuse the drinks with nitrogen microbubbles as soon you open them, and come in unsweetened black, dark caramel, and vanilla sweet cream flavors.

Sun’s Tea’s glasses feature a double-walled design to help insulate their contents, keeping your spirits cooler longer, without hiding what they look like. Perfect for sipping whiskey all night long. Includes two 9 oz. glasses, each made from lead-free borosilicate glass.

We love a good sippin’ bourbon as much as the next guy, but whiskey also goes great with mixers. Amy Zavatto’s colorful book is filled with 100 great drink recipes, including the perfect versions of classic cocktails, and drinks grouped by sweet, savory, spicy, sour, and other flavor profiles to suit every taste.

After a long day at work, it’s nice to take the edge off with a little booze. But where did humans get the idea to ferment spirits and drink them in the first place? TED-Ed presenter Rod Phillips looks back on the 7,000+ year history of alcohol, which like many things, appears to have its origins with ancient Chinese civilizations.

Funny lady Mindy Kaling has put her wit to work writing holiday messages for top-shelf Johnnie Walker Blue Label.Choose from several engravings including “Damn, someone made the nice list.” Grab one at MindysBlueLabelHoliday or the Johnnie Walker Holiday Pop Up at Brookfield Place in NYC. Free shipping with the code MINDY.

A newborn rum is here, pa rum pum pum pum. Crafted by Trinidadian entrepreneur Marc Farrell – a former Starbucks VP and a Harvard, Cambridge, and MIT grad – his Ten to One rums challenge perceptions of tropical spirits. Light and dark expressions blend premium rums from the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados.

“World’s Best Martini” award-winning AK’s Gin is by Master Distiller Kirsty Black, named Scotland’s Young Scientist of the Year for her part in making GMO-free “field-to-bottle” Arbikie the world’s first climate-positive distillery. Founded by the Stirling brothers on their family’s farm, the Highlands distillery honors their father, AK.

What do we want? Drinks! When do we want them? NOW! Fred’s clever cocktail picks let you protest your desire for booze with amusing slogans like “Garnish Drinks Not Wages” and “Four More Beers!” Sold in a set of 24, with two of each design.

Heavensake sake is a Franco-Japanese marriage made in heaven. Award-winning sparkling wine maker Régis Camus teamed with Japanese brew-masters to artfully blend sake for Western palates with three elegant expressions: Junmai Daiginjo, Junmai Ginjo, and Junmai 12. Like delicious revenge, they’re best served cold.