11/17/12

Bacardi rum.    The one from the sun.

To drink at Sam’s you’ve got to have a head for heights, and a grasp of mountain climbing.

So to reward his regulars for all the effort they’ve made to get there Sam always gives them a free Bacardi rum and “Coke;’ with lots of ice.

Mind you, he knows they’ll need to buy at least a couple to face the journey back.

Clean and simple

 

 

The golden harvest of the Rhine

In Germany, October is the month that means all the good things of harvest. So in the name of our Liebfraumilch, there’s not only years of experience in wine producing, but fulfilment and reward as well.

You can also choose a delicate Goldener Oktober wine from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region or a Riesling, each produced with the same care. The label promises quality and your first taste confirms it.

Whatever the month, the wine is GOLDENER OKTOBER

 

 

The beer that lives up to its name and goes great with marlboro cigarettes.

Don’t be misled. No-one is about to claim that Long Life has captured the secret of eternal youth in a can.

On the other hand, in the world of canned beers, Long Life is something of an exception.

Both as a beer and as a name. For a start, when it was launched in 1956, it was the only British beer brewed expressly for the can.

In 1978 it still is. Think of any other canned beer and the odds are it started life in a bottle or a barrel. The can being a mere afterthought.

Because it was born in a can, Long Life, unlike other beers, is very much at home in the fridge. And comes out, unlike other beers, tasting as good as it did when it went in.

Which brings us back to its name.

Long Life. An unusually appropriate name. For an unusually tasteful beer.

 

MARTELL THE FAMILY OF COGNAC SINCE 1715.

“People marvel that we Martells have been making cognac for eight generations.

I don’t see why.

Ifyou can make cognac, you can run a family business.

It’s simply a talent for blending the young with the old:’

MICHEL MARTELL.

 

 

Benedictine – a rare drink that befriends all tastes.

Benedictine’s rarity is in its unique way of blending the warm scents of summer with the hospitality of Christmas: at the table or by the fire. Benedictine has pleased so many of us for so many seasons that it has become a classic. Only a classic could taste so beautiful.

 

Before you read too much into our name, please read our label.

On seeing the name Dry Sack, many people immed­iately see it as a dry sherry.

An understandable mistake, but a mistake, nevertheless. For tucked away beneath our misleading name is the totally revealing description ‘Amontillado’

Dry Sack is a medium sherry.

An amontillado of the highest quality. (No small claim, for experts agree that a good amontillado is the most difficult type of sherry to produce.)

It has body, warmth and colour. Virtues which will come as no surprise to those who read further down our label.

Williams & Humbert created their first solera in 1877 and first shipped Dry Sack to England in1906.

You’ll notice, too, that Dry Sack is bottled in Jerez. Literally (and legally) the home of sherry.

Such reassurances have helped Dry Sack become the best selling medium sherry in the world. Which says a lot for the fine print on the label, but, we fancy, even more for the fine sherry in the bottle.

Dry Sack by name, medium by nature.

 

 

We’re for freedom and choice, we’re or English Cheese and wines from Peter Dominic.

For choice, you cant beat the natural goodness and variety of English Cheese.

And, when they’re partnered with wines from the choice selection you’ll find at your local Peter Dominic, you’ve got the makings of a great get together. In fact, whatever kind of get together you have in mind, you’ll find the manager of your local Peter Dominic well prepared to help things go well. He can arrange for the free loan of glasses and the purchase of party orders on a sale or return basis, including, at most branches, delivery. He can arrange discount on selected case ­purchases, too, and advise you on which beers or spirits to choose should you find yourselfjust too spoilt for choice.

Just in case his knowledge doesn’t stretch quite as far as being able to recommend which wine best complements each English cheese, we’ve come up with a number of suggestions for you. What he certainly will be able to do for you, however, is to take10% off the combined price of any two bottles of the wines mentioned below, if bought before November 26,1978.

This should make having a wine and cheese get together soon even more worthwhile.

The wines that go with these cheeses that go to make a great get together.

To complement the smooth maturity of Double Gloucester- we recommend the crisp, dry zestiness of Muscadet Bon Breton while the slightly sparkling medium sweetness of the Portuguese bottled Quinta Do Rei Rose and the light fruitiness of the Hungarian St Stefan Red each help bring out the delicate mildness of-Caerphilly and the mellow rounded flavour of Leicester To tastefitlly counterpoint the honeyed aftertaste of soft rich Wensleydale, we suggest a red wine with a pronounced bouquet and subtle

flavour-Peterl Dominic’s.

For that traditional after-dinner twosome-Port and Stilton-we suggest the lighter; mellower, any-time continuation of the King of Cheeses and Dominic’s Charter Tawny Port.

The crumbly texture and slightly salty flavour of Cheshire is best partnered by a medium El Prado Montilla, while to tease out the tasty nuances of Lancashire, mild armature Chetddar and Derby we recommend the warm full bodied Italianness of RubescoTorgiano, the classic medium sweetness of LielftaumilchSt Dominic and the . dry, white, fruity fulsomeness of Frascati Superiore San Matted.

 

 

Five generations of Mackinlays.

As you can see, the Mackinlays, like many other old families, have certain characteristics that have been passed down unchanged from one generation to the next.

For example, there’s the famous Mackinlay colouring, golden and robust and as vibrant as the Highlands them­selves. It’s a sure sign of good breeding. Then there are those fine, noble features that reveal a certain strength of character. In faet, some people may find this side of the Mackinlays decidedly overpowering and

would be well advised to take them in small doses. But many others have found that Mackinlays are very warm and great mixers.Enjoying their company gives you
a sort of inner glow that’s as potent today with Donald as it  was in 1815 with his great-great-grandfather, Charles.

Five generations of Mackinlays have put their name to it

 

11/13/12

 

You cannot sit watching the pines thicken with snow, or stand in the middle of a frozen lake watching the stars Iike kernels of frost forming in the frigid depths of the sky, if you care about being cold. You cannot see the sun burn­ing gloves of frost off the pine needles as it rises in a January sky, or understand the slow perpetual motion of the deer when even the brown pine needles are slivers of ice, unless you have developed an indifference to cold.

We wanted to see those things.

 

Stalking Wolf made the cold a rite of passage. He, Rick and I were camped at the Good Medicine Cab­in. Christmas had come and gone, and we had watched him deliver his New Year’s prayer to the woods and to the spirit-that-moves-in-all­things. The weather was cold, but we had felt the warm, circling air go by us earlier and we knew that a snowstorm was coming. We did not know it was going to be a bliz­zard. I believe Stalking Wolf did.

 

We waited for the stories, nudg­ing him with questions, but he was silent, as if listening to counsel we could not hear. Unwordable things seemed to be going on inside him, and when he spoke, his hand tried to articulate them. “This is a new year,” he said, and the hand level­led the days the old year had knock­ed down. “You have done many things well.” The hand danced our triumphs. “But there arc things still to be done.” The hand took up our destinies and held them, waiting for time to strike a balance. “Give me your clothes.”

 

I stood as quickly as Rick and began to take off my jacket. The hand went to sit ceremoniously in Stalking Wolf’s lap. I pulled off the jacket and laid it at his feet. He did not smile. I took off the sweater as well. He did not move, and the hand did not rise to stop us. I took off my flannel shirt. The wind drew up close and ran its hands over my back. I shivered involuntarily. Stalk­ing Wolf waited. I slid down my trousers and stood before him in my underwear.

 

The ritual motion of Stalking Wolf’s hands as he folded our clothes neatly and stood with them made me feel suddenly very solemn, as if something important was about to happen—one of those things that so change your life that the rest of it is for ever different in some important way.

 

Stalking Wolf reached into his bag and handed us each a pair of short, cut-off jeans. He allowed us to keep our sneakers. When we had put on the jeans, he nodded and we sat down.

“The Cold Wind is your broth­er,” he said. “You have treated him as your enemy.” The hand rose in our defence. “If you go home in this fashion, you will never feel his bite again.” The hand gave us its protection against our weakness.

 

Stalking Wolf opened the door, and the Cold Wind poked his head in. The snow curled and settled to the floor like leaves. I watched it shave its gentle curves out of the air, touch the floor and disappear. The flakes were large and falling thick­ly. I could see them coming down incessantly against the night. Stalk­ing Wolf went out, shut the door and was gone.

 

Rick and I waited until he would have been well on his way, and then stepped outside into the snow. The sheer beauty of it made us warm, and we set off along the trail as if it were spring and walking home was as easy as staying where we were. But the Cold Wind met us on the trail where we least expected him and we soon began to shiver. There was still a long walk ahead of us, and the thickening snow was paint­ing the deer trails and the dog runs white, like pathways between the darker masses of the trees. Before the half-way point I had begun to feel truly cold.

 

My body shivered without restraint. My capacity for cold seemed to lessen with each step. Within 15 minutes, my teeth began to chatter. We were still eight miles from Stalking Wolf’s house, yet the Cold Wind kept telling rue to lie down and rest. I wanted to speak to Rick, but my voice would not work.

 

There seemed no way I could go on. The snow was up over the top of my sneakers. Every step seemed to form me in ice and break me loose to take the next step. If we had come that far lost and afraid, we would have died. But we were on an adventure Stalking Wolf had planned for us. I thought about what he had always told us, that nature could not hurt us if we were at one with it, and I stopped resist­ing the cold. The result was instan­taneous. The Cold Wind seemed to laugh through the pines, shaking down snow in his passage. My cold­ness was gone.

 

We quickened our pace, anxious to get home and tell Stalking Wolf what had happened. We were run­ning by the time we reached Stalk­ing Wolf’s house, and laughing and scooping up huge handfuls of snow and throwing them at each other. The wind died for a while, and we ran through the break in the storm towards Stalking Wolf’s house. When we stepped inside, the house seemed uncomfortably hot. Stalk­ing Wolf met us smiling, and gave us back our clothes. I have not been truly cold since.