Innehållsförteckning för The Spirits Issue 2021 från Sunset

Every year an esteemed panel of professional tasters convene to sample the abundant and diverse spirits being produced by top distilleries throughout the West and beyond. They sniff, sip, ponder, and eventually anoint a select group as winners of prestigious Sunset International Spirits Awards. To coincide with the announcement of the winners—and to celebrate the ongoing evolution of excellentvodkas, gins, whiskeys, tequilas, mezcals, rums, and more—we’ve compiled some our best spirits content to give you the ultimate buying guide and how-to manual to make the most of your home bar. Cheers, Join the Sunset Community Write to us, tweet us, or tag us on Instagram; we promise we read each and every one of your comments. facebook @sunsetmag @Sunset pinterest.…

How to Happy Hour with Cheese Kiri Fisher of The Cheese School of San Francisco (thecheeseschool.com) worked with Laura Sanfilippo and Cappy Sorentino of Duke’s Spirited Cocktails (drinkatdukes.com) to create a can’t fail cheese and cocktail pairing party menu with these principles. Lavender Spritz Pour 2 oz. Cocchi Americano, ½ oz. fresh grapefruit juice, ½ oz. fresh lemon juice, and 1 dash Scrappy’s lavender bitters into a Champagne flute. Top with 2 oz. chilled soda water and 1 oz. chilled cava or other dry sparkling wine. Garnish with a grapefruit twist. Pair with: Cypress Grove Purple Haze chèvre from California, which plays off the lemon and grapefruit juice. “Citrus and chèvre are almost always a happy pairing,” says Sanfilippo. Spiked Shandy Combine 1 oz. Buffalo Trace bourbon, ½ oz. Carpano…

The satyr has stolen the show. See him gambol amid a crowd of high-rollers and Shakespearean understudies, as if this were Barbados, not a mountainside just past Park City, Utah. This is not a climate that calls for dressing up like a woodland nymph. Yet the enterprising attendee at High West’s hilltop distillery has wrapped a set of vines around a pair of minimalist briefs to fete the late-November release of A Midwinter Night’s Dram, one of the year’s most anticipated whiskeys. He’s one of hundreds thronging the distillery, many of them similarly attire d. Some have even flown out on private planes just to score a case or two of the prized bottles. Midwinter is a fireplace sipper, the result of aging the distillery’s Rendezvous Rye in port barrels…

FRANCOPHILE Inspired by the iconic outdoor furniture of Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens, this super sturdy bar cart comes in a rainbow of colors and will look right at home in most any decor. $1178; fermobusa.com MID CENTURY With sleek mid mod lines and brass accents this throwback cart is the ideal perch for your Old Fashioned makings and vintage cut crystal decanter collection, but its sustainable wood construction is entirely contemporary. $299; westelm.com TROPICAL Keep the vacation vibes going year round with this Kingsley trolley bar cart that conjures up beach breezes and Mai Tais for days. Made with handwoven rattan, it’s an elegant addition to your patio or living room. $795; williamssonoma.com…

Did you know that up to a quarter of a cocktail can be comprised of water once you’re done with all the shaking and stirring? Yes, dilution is the secret ingredient in many a fine drink and if you use just any old ice that’s been sitting in your freezer or came out of your ice machine two weeks ago you’re doing a disservice to all that top shelf liquor you just put in your cocktail. Enter top shelf ice, which you can make at home with filtered or bottled water and Williams Sonoma’s vast range of silicone ice molds that come in custom shapes and sizes for high balls, low balls, and everything in between. Don’t want to dilute that small batch bourbon? Opt for a reusable whiskey stone…

Nowhere is the western whiskey boom more diverse than in the Bay Area, where dozens of distilleries have sprouted seemingly overnight. Pop into St. George Spirits just off the barracks-lined waterfront in Alameda, California, and you’ll find Lance Winters, owgner and a West Coast whiskey pioneer, ensconced in the belly of a yawning former naval hangar. Winters comes to life poring over the rows and rows of experiments piled high in his laboratory. The place looks one click shy of a movie set. Amid a replica of a shoe from director Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, gallons of a distilled mezcal not available to the public, and a jug of distilled tree-ripened guava sit stashes of liquid history dating back years. “When we make whiskey, we’re making a statement about…

It’s a wonderful wide wide world of spirits in the west, and each year we host the Sunset International Spirits Competition to steer you to bottles worth seeking out. We assembled an esteemed panel of judges (albeit virtually due to COVID-19), and tasted our way through hundreds of bottles that collectively represent what’s being distilled throughout the west and beyond. Whether it's whiskey, bourbon, rum, liqueur, or gin, one and all they embody what spirits lovers want most: incredible flavor, the highest production standards, and, above all, deliciousness. Cheers to the winners! JUDGES FOR 2020: Natalie Dale, Head Distiller Great Women Spirits Jeff Duckhorn, Head Distiller Purple Ziggy Eschliman, the “Wine and Spirit Gal” Tara Heffernon, Buyer/Owner Dukes in Healdsburg Jason Jorgensen, Head Distiller/Owner Alley 6 Timo Marshall, Head Distiller/Owner…

Sure you could get some kitschy three piece vintage-style shaker, a Tiki themed mixing glass, or a “home bartending kit” from any number of companies who will also happily sell you a sofa, but you’re not going to see any bartenders using any of this gear for a reason: it’s usually not the most efficient way to get a drink from bottle glass and it’s not necessarily built to last. Fortunately, pro-bartender supply house Cocktail Kingdom has put together a true professional-grade cocktail making kit that has all the tools you need to efficiently mix up round after round of drinks in perpetuity and in style. $139.99; cocktailkingdom.com 1. JUICER A heavy duty essential for making batches of lime or lemon juice. 2. BARSPOON Use for stirring drinks, tasting for…

Matt Hofmann drags his hand through a thick sheaf of heritage barley, the plump kernels straining their stalks with nutrients. It’s harvest time here in the bucolic Skagit Valley, and the Master Distiller of Seattle-based Westland Distillery 70 miles to the south is surveying a bumper crop of experimental heritage grain that you might—if you’re lucky—be able to taste in about a dozen years. “Most Scottish distillers say that barley doesn’t matter,” says Hofmann, who spent three years learning from Scotland’s finest. “But that’s okay, because we’re not trying to replicate what they do. We’re trying to make whiskey authentic and truthful to the Pacific Northwest.” Whiskey, on paper, is remarkably simple: Grains are steeped in hot water to turn starch into sugars, and the resulting porridge-like “mash” is combined…

Natalie Dale is the distiller behind some of the most compelling spirits in the West and this year’s winner of Best Distiller of the Year, an honor bestowed on the maker of the spirits with the highest overall score. As head distiller at Great Women Spirits, she has created award-winning gin, whiskey, brandy, and other eminently sippable and mixable bottlings, each named after a pioneering woman from history. The Great Women portfolio includes spirits such as Ada Lovelace Gin, made with a blend of California and Mediterranean botanicals, and produced in honor of the first computer programmer, as well as Dorothy Arzner whiskey, aged in charred oak, cut with Napa spring water, and named for the first woman to direct a sound film. Here’s a peek inside the decorated distiller’s…