As I launch into my 36th year on this planet (don’t even get me started about my lifetimes on other planets), I’d like to take a moment and say thanks for all the great friends I am fortunate to have in my life.  I salute your humor, irreverance, loyalty, wit, charm and passion.  Continue to [...]

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Spawning from the viral video, Shit Girls Say (or was it Shit My Dad Says on Twitter?) we’ve now seen an endless slew of snippet videos hit the web like Shit College Freshman Say, Shit Black Girls Say, Shit New Yorkers Say to Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys. It’s only right that the cocktail [...]

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  I’d like to officially welcome these fine specimens into my collection.

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We figured with the baby only a few weeks away, we better get in as much wining, dining, cocktailing and beering as we can.  So, we hit up Julian Medina’s latin joint, Coppelia, last week and I was stoked to see a nice cocktail program in play. But to get away from the booze for [...]

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Being pregnant sucks.  Well, let me rephrase that…being pregnant is beautiful…but not being able to savor the fine intracies of a well-balanced cocktail blows goats.  But rest assured, ladies-of-the-bump: a good mocktail can satisfy that craving, and not leave you with a sauced fetus. We recently checked out the new Astoria haunt, The Astor Room.  [...]

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I have to admit, I don’t understand white whiskey.  As someone who oversees a bar program, I find myself confused as to how it fits into the mix.  Is it a sipping spirit?  Can it stand on its own?  Or is it simply something bound for a cocktail and that’s the end of it? To [...]

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First Friday night in the new apartment.  Still surrounded by a sea of boxes but after a long work week and late nights of cobbling together furniture, it’s time to put the dogs up and kick it Repasado style.  ¡Salud!

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Yesterday, on a fine November day in Brooklyn— as the temperature soared to nearly 70 degrees and our sun-deprived flesh once again met it’s warm rays— twelve competitors stepped behind the bar of the Clover Club to do battle. Brandishing their Sherry-filled libation armaments, they let loose for a panel of esteemed judges and a crowd [...]

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Just two weeks ago, I wrote about the mesmerizing hike along the cliff that connects the towns of Monterrosso and Vernazza in Italy’s Cinque Terre.  Yesterday, I froze as I read the disturbing news on Rick Steves’ website about the natural disaster that befell the area last week: “…with a freakishly intense rainstorm — like [...]

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Cream of Asparagus soup, Breuckelen Whiskey on the rocks, Anthony Bourdain on the TV.  All served on a Wine Spectator placemat.

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I was fortunate enough to lead New York Post writer, Chris Erikson, through a tasting last week in anticipation of NY Cider Week; we had a blast (final article above–click to enlarge). Over the course of two hours, I poured eight different hard ciders from around the world and circled back to illustrate how the [...]

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There is a hiking trail that skirts the cliffs between the town of Monterrosso and Vernazza in the Cinque Terre region of Italy’s Ligurian coast. Taking approximately two hours, its winding path hugs the coast line of the Meditteranean and bobs and weaves through olive groves and steep vineyards. To this day, it is one of the most beautiful [...]

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We descended on the house like General Patton’s Third Army, and quickly fanned out to our battle stations. The grill, the kitchen, the bar; each was quickly manned.  I took to the jiggers and the citrus reamers; I was now in charge of keeping the group primed and oiled with libations.  A misstep at the [...]

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Water rations: check.  Food rations: check.  Aviation cocktail rations: check.  Just another lazy Saturday at the Flaherty household.

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The other day, while crushing the exercise bike at my grimy Queens gym—our little foray through Europe packed on 20 pounds of food and drink goodness; do you have any idea how many calories Czech Ghoulash topped off with a liter of Dark Lager packs on?? So shed the blubber, I must—I stumbled upon my [...]

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