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🇨🇳 What to Drink in Shanghai: A Sip-by-Sip Guide to Shanghai’s Drinks Culture
Shanghai is a BIG place. Roughly 25 million people live within its city limits. By comparison, New York City — the largest city in the US — has about 8 million people. That should give you some idea of the scale of this place. It’s massive. We only had a couple of days in Shanghai,…
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🇰🇷 What to Drink in South Korea: A Sip-by-Sip Guide to Korean Drinks Culture
Every country has a national drink. Korea has a national drinking system, and the difference matters more than you’d think. Spend a few days in Seoul and you’ll notice the drinks arrive with rules attached — who pours for whom, which hand does the pouring, and when you’re allowed to make eye contact with your elders.…
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🍵 Understanding Matcha: Japan in a Bowl
Truth be told, I’m not much of a Starbucks girl. I might go half a dozen times a year, almost always when my daughter is with me, which should tell you a lot about who’s driving that bus. And I always order the same thing: the green tea (matcha) Frappuccino. It’s been my go-to, guilty…
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🇯🇵 Understanding Shochu: Japan’s Best-Selling Spirit You’ve Never Heard Of
The Japanese have been making shochu for about five hundred years. That sounds ancient, until you remember that sake has been around for at least 2,000 years. By Japanese drinking standards, shochu is practically a startup. Shochu’s origin story is different, too. While sake grew up around gods, emperors and temples, shochu grew up in…
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🍶 Understanding Sake: The Drink That Explains Japan
Sake has been part of Japanese life for more than 2,000 years, which makes determining exactly who invented it a little like identifying the first person who looked at grapes and thought, I wonder what happens if I leave these unsupervised in a bucket. What began with rice, water and fermentation became something much bigger than…
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🇯🇵 What to Drink in Japan: A Sip-by-Sip Guide to Japanese Drinks Culture
If you want to understand a country, don’t just visit its museums. Go stand in the drinks aisle of the nearest grocery store. Watch what everyone else is drinking. Order something you’ve never heard of. I’ve spent more than twenty years studying wine and spirits, and whenever we travel, I am obsessed with what I…
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🥂 In Defense of the Drink: Resisting the Cult of Clean Living
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I love a good drink. I’ve spent over two decades studying wine and spirits, working in the industry, and tasting my way across the globe. Drinks are woven into culture, history, and ritual – and I am completely here for all of it. Over the past decade…
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Introducing: The Weekly Twist
If you’ve subscribed to my blog for any amount of time, you know I have things to say. A lot of things. Possibly too many things, depending on who you ask. Ken would probably say too many things. For a while now, the blog has been my outlet – travel stories, drinks culture, the occasional…
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🍷 🇭🇺 What to Drink in Hungary: A Guide to Hungarian Drinks
We spent four days in Budapest before our Danube River cruise, which gave me plenty of time to investigate Hungary’s drinks culture. And Hungary gave me plenty to investigate. So, what do Hungarians drink? Start with pálinka, the country’s famously potent fruit brandy, Unicum, the bitter herbal liqueur Hungarians inexplicably keep drinking on purpose, and some…
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🍷 🇹🇷 What to Drink in Istanbul: A Sip-by-Sip Guide to Turkish Drinks Culture
I’ve been studying wine and spirits for over two decades. Whenever we travel, I’m obsessed with what I call drinks culture — what a country’s drinks reveal about its people, history, and habits. I’ve been known to order several drinks off a menu – just so I can taste them. And I could spend hours in the…
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🍷 🛳️ What to Drink on a Cruise: A Sip-by-Sip Guide to Mediterranean Drinks Culture
Cruising is a double-edged sword. One of the things I like most about cruising (well, the two cruises I’ve been on, anyway) is also one of the things I like least. Cruising give you an opportunity to see many different places, and you only have to unpack once. Huge plus for me. But (and it’s…
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🍸 What to Drink in the Baltics: A Guide to the History of Baltic Drinks Culture
Vodka Anthropology: Drinking Habits and Traditions Under Soviet Rule in the Baltics I’ve been studying wine & spirits for over a two decades. One of the things I’m most interested in when we travel is what I call cocktail anthropology – what can you learn about a country through their cultural drinking habits and traditions.…