Tag Archives: happy hour

Happy Hour: La Fiera

Posted on March 8, 2025 | 1 comment

Again, with these kinda brutal weeks. Is Mercury in retrograde or something?

Joking. Not joking. Totally kidding. But really. What. Is. The. Deal.

I feel I’ve earned a glass or three of the 2011 La Fiera Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. You have, too.

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Bonus: You get to look at my Junior League cookbooks.

So, it’s my impression that Abruzzo, a region of Italy, is known for producing cheap wines. The quality has dramatically improved over the last ten years, but the prices remain the same, so “d’Abruzzo” is a good code word for “not at all bad for rock-bottom prices.” For $7.50, I walked out of my new favorite wineshop, Greenhaus, with a new lease on life. It does every last thing you want your table wine to do:

  1. It goes great with food.
  2. It is tasty.
  3. You are excited to drink it.
  4. If you hate it, it was only a couple bucks because it’s just Tuesday and it’s not like your boss is coming over for dinner or something.

Check, check, check, and check. This is a light-bodied, warm, fruity, big wine that doesn’t waste a lot of time with subtly. The sour cherries are right out there in front, and you know what? I like that. This isn’t the fanciest wine, but it’s the best thing ever for a weeknight dinner.

And you can drink the whole bottle and be out less than the cost of a draft beer at some of the nicer places.

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Happy Hour: Rowan’s Creek bourbon

Posted on March 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

Fun fact: I got my master’s degree in bourbon. That is both a true fact (diploma currently at frame shop) and a useful one. It also means that you must, at all times, take my word on bourbon. I’m going to talk a little trash for a sec. Is your favorite bourbon Maker’s Mark or Woodford Reserve? That’s nice. To quote Macklemore, I call that getting tricked by a business. Maker’s and Woodford have their places and are both quality products, but you’re paying for their marketing. They’re young bourbons, aged just a couple years, and you’re paying a premium price. You could be drinking a 12 year for less than half the price. Also, “small batch” is a completely meaningless label. I could throw a “small batch” label on a bottle of Kentucky Tavern and no one could say a damn word about it.

Okay, I’m off the soapbox. I really do believe the best bourbon is the one you like the best, but it makes me cuh-ray-zee when people won’t try something new because they’re sure a four-year-old bourbon with a certain label is better than…say this one:

Please ignore the Comic Sans label and trust me.

So this is Rowan’s Creek. It runs you about $35 a bottle and has distribution in most states. It’s a 12 year, and is a Kentucky Bourbon Distillers product. A fun fact about Rowan’s Creek is that it takes its name from Judge Rowan’s farm, the very farm that Stephen Foster‘s My Old Kentucky Home is allegedly about.

ANYWAY, now for the stuff you care about! One of my buddies described it as “velvety” (this may or may not be the same guy from last week, to remain anonymous), but I would lead with maybe…fragrant? Odoriferous, to me, connotes that it smells unpleasant, but it really is one of the nicest-and-strongest smelling bourbons on the market. You get a ton of fruit and spice in every sip, and the flavor lingers with you for quite some time. It’s a medium-bodied bourbon for sure, so I would enjoy it before dinner, not after. After dinner, you’ll be a little wine-drunk and maybe considering pie, so this is not for then. You want to taste all the pears and honey and lemons, plus the usual leather/oak/vanilla stuff you usually get.

Give it a shot! There’s a greater-that-fifty-percent chance that you can purchase this fine, fine product in your state. Let me know what you think.

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