It is pronounced AH-sigh-EE, according to Zola. And it’s probably at a bar near you. It is a small, black-purple berry common to Brazil.
Distilled Resources was first off the mark, with VeeV acai spirit, in 2006. The back label says “The acai berry is thought to be the world’s preeminent superfruit … blended with … prickly pear and the acerola cherry.”
The idea was good enough that Anheuser-Busch followed in 2007, with PomaAcai. It is a pomegranate and acai berry flavored vodka, made in collaboration with USDP of Minnesota.
Not to be outdone, Absolut came along in 2008 with Absolut Los Angeles. It is acai, acerola, pomegranate & blueberry flavored vodka. It is of course made in Sweden, though another place is featured much more prominently on this label. It can be difficult to predict when this will and will not be allowed. We doubt TTB would allow Absolut Napa.
Undercover Investigation, Shut-Down Ale
This beer defiantly celebrates the 2005 investigation and shut-down of the Lagunitas Brewing Company. After a two-month undercover investigation, the California ABC ordered the Petaluma, CA brewer to shut down for 20 days. The ABC found evidence of pot smoking on company premises.
The label packs a lot of good writing, and a good story, onto a small label. Tony Magee, the company founder, and a former reggae musician, wrote the label:
We Brewed This Especially Bitter Ale In Remembrance of the 2005 St. Patrick’s Day Massacre And in Celebration of Our 20-Day Suspension. … Whatever. We’re Still Here. … The extra large B. Franklin said it well that you can tell the strength of a society by the paucity of pages in its book of laws. Today we are all surrounded by … laws that make large and small criminals of us all.
Many thanks to Lance M. for bringing this label to our attention.
What's Your Poizin?
It is no surprise that the anti-alcohol forces of yore regarded alcohol beverages as a poison. Professor Hanson confirms that the Prohibitionists “taught that alcohol was a poison.” More recently, this 2008 lawsuit is replete with allegations that MillerCoors is selling poison. But it’s quite another thing when the purveyors themselves brand their products as Poizin. The above is a Sonoma County Zinfandel from Armida Winery. A second example is Poison Wild Berry Schnapps Liqueur, approved in 2002. These are not to be confused with Christian Dior Poison Eau de Toilette, or this.
Contributor Lance M. weighed in as follows:
This Poizin, thankfully, will not kill you (well unless you are irresponsible and consume more than your fair share). Armida’s packaging of their Poizin is designed to draw your eye. The bottle is black with a red skull and crossbones prominently portrayed on the front of the label. The wine contained is a 2004 Zinfandel, though they continue to produce it on a regular basis, and other years are available.
The thoughtful play on the words poison and zinfandel instantly draws your attention to it. There is some well written dark imagery of a supernatural winemaking process on the back label, that concludes with “Poizin, the wine to die for.”
The “Reserve” version of the wine is packed in a pine box fashioned like a casket which has the logo on the lid. In addition, the Reserve version also has the neck of the bottle dipped in red wax. The wine itself is actually very good and true to the Zinfandel pallet; The Wine Spectator gave the 2006 version an 83. The bottom line, not only do you get a nice wine, but a collectible bottle as well.
Does this at long last answer the question at upper left of Liqurious?
Livestrong Wine: Lance on Lance on Wine
Lance himself brought this wine to our attention. It happened to be reader Lance M., but we thank him just the same; he noted as follows:
Lance Armstrong has made great strides with his charitable Lance Armstrong Foundation (Livestrong). Now, he has taken one more stride, with Livestrong wine. The bottle has the famous yellow band with Livestrong prominently displayed across it, and a note from Lance.
The note gives a good summary of the Foundation’s goals and ideals, as on his website: “We believe that unity is strength, knowledge is power, and attitude is everything.” According to the label, the wine is a 2004 Napa Valley Red Wine produced and bottled by TNVR.
TNVR (or The Napa Valley Reserve) is a community of members who have access to an 80 acre ranch in the Napa Valley. The Napa Valley Reserve is owned by Bill Harlan, and allows members to make their own private label wine. According to its beautiful website, the expert staff from Harlan Estate Winery monitors not only the vineyards, but also the winemaking process. It grants people the luxury of being involved in their private label production as much as they are interested, with the added benefit of experts to guide them. If the wine turns out anything like that from Harlan Estate, it will be top quality wine.
You wouldn’t expect anything less from Lance Armstrong or Bill Harlan, would you?
Bouquet: Hibiscus, Lilac and Jasmine
To round out a week of flowers, here we have an ale made with hibiscus flowers, a wine made with lilac flowers, and an ale made with jasmine flowers. Rosee d’Hibiscus, above, is made in a Montreal, Canada brewpub. It is a wheat beer and its “rose colour comes from the hibiscus flowers added during the brewing process. The aromas and flavour of this tropical flower are very prominent …”
The lilac flower wine is made by Maple River Winery in Casselton, ND.
The ale brewed with jasmine flowers is made by New Belgium Brewing Company of Fort Collins, CO. It goes by the name Avatar Jasmine IPA.
Another Flower: Wet Hops
On Monday and Tuesday we brought you flowers in the form of rose liqueur and elderflower liqueurs. Without further ado, we wanted to bring you the most commonly used of all the flowers used in alcohol beverages. But we didn’t wanted to bring you just any hops. So here we bring you wet hops. Sierra Nevada makes Wet Hop Ale. In a video and on the label they explain that it:
… was the first American beer ever brewed with 100% fresh-picked “wet” hops. In just one day, we harvest hops in Yakima, WA, ship them that night to our brewery in Chico, CA and then rush them into the brew kettle … This extraordinary effort creates a beer with unmatched aromatics of pine and citrus … that hop fanatics like us dream of all year.
Hops are the female flower cones of the hop plant (Humulus lupulus). They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, and also in other beverages and in herbal medicine. The first documented use in beer is from the eleventh century. Hops contain several characteristics favorable to beer, balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness, contributing flowery, citrus, fruity or herbal aromas, and having an antibiotic effect that favors the activity of brewer’s yeast over less desirable microorganisms. … Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers all around the world, with different types being used for particular styles of beer.
