You probably have noticed by now that we have a lot of new faces regularly posting on the Mutineer blog. We recently recruited [read: brainwashed] some young, fresh and talented fine beverage revolutionaries to “Join The Mutiny.” And instead of letting these wild kids hide behind their tiny avatars, we decided to put them in the spotlight.

Erin Jimcosky is Mutineer Magazine’s Food Editor and resident expert on cooking with booze. When she’s not being forced to slave over recipes for the magazine, Erin tempts our ravenous appetites with her creative culinary concoctions at The Endive Chronicles.

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The mission of Mutineer Monday is to advocate and promote the fine beverage industry by challenging the masses to “Join The Mutiny” and raise a glass (whether it be alcohol or non) to igniting and inspiring a fine beverage revolution!

Each week, we reach out to our readers, our Twitter followers, our Facebook fans, our contributors, our favorite bloggers and writers, and even our own team — asking everyone to share how they will be partaking in Mutineer Monday. To participate, all one needs to do is indulge in a delicious fine beverage (or two or three) and leave a comment on our blog, on our Facebook wall, or give a shout-out on Twitter using the hashtag #MutineerMonday (and #JoinTheMutiny if you have enough characters). And if are feeling particularly ambitious, feel free to do all three!

Each Monday, Mutineer salutes some of our fellow fine beverage revolutionaries who have joined the mutiny. Raise a glass (and a fist) in the air and toast them with us! Viva La Fine Beverage! Continue Reading »

The Charleston Tea Plantation, located on Wadmalaw Island in the lowcountry of South Carolina, is the only working tea plantation in the United States. Growing over 320 varieties of the Camellia Sinensis plant (originally brought over from China in the 1700′s), the tea garden produces both black and green teas.

Despite their deliciously libacious start in China, the plants didn’t successfully produce tea here until 1888, when Dr. Charles Shepard founded the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville, South Carolina. But when Shepard died in 1915, his formerly award-winning tea bushes grew wild. It wasn’t until 1968 that the bushes were transplanted and took hold on a former potato farm on Wadmalaw Island, transforming the land into a place for experimental tea research. In 1987, a third-generation tea taster named William Barclay Hall purchased the land and converted it from a research and development property into a commercial business. The Charleston Tea Plantation was born. Continue Reading »

Philadelphia, oh Philadelphia.

Instead of going after illegitimate black market companies who are stealing American tax dollars, Philly has decided to target bloggers. Yes, folks. I said bloggers.

According to the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, blogs qualify as legitimate businesses and are subject to the same licensing laws required for any business located within city limits. And no matter how great or little the profit, Philly wants its cut from the blogging community. Continue Reading »

There are over 1500 breweries, 6000 wineries, and more than 100 micro distilleries in the US. What more could anyone ask for in the land that practically rains down alcohol in the streets?

How about some hard cider?

During the time that our founding fathers were setting up shop here in these great states, President John Adams was known to claim that cider (before the distinction of hard and sweet) made for “an exceptional breakfast drink”. As it was between 3-6% abv at the time, it made for an ideal family beverage and, oftentimes, replaced water. As the German settlers began to immigrate over, beer quickly became the reigning popular drink. Post prohibition, cider struggled to retake its foothold in American drinking culture.

Until now, that is. Continue Reading »

Some Notre Dame athletes really embraced their Irish side on Friday, July 16th when 11 of them were busted for underage drinking.

According to ESPN.com: The son of former Notre Dame standout Joe Montana was among 11 Fighting Irish athletes arrested on misdemeanor charges of underage drinking at a party Friday night.< !–more–>

A total of 44 people were arrested after city police responded to a call about a fight near a roadway and discovered the party, said St. Joseph County Police assistant chief Bill Redman.

Two non-athletes face a misdemeanor charge of providing alcohol to minors. The arrests were handled by state excise police, who didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on Saturday.

Worst case scenario has the athletes spending 30 days in jail, but like that’s going to happen. They’ll be back to doing keg stands and slurping Jagermeister shots out of the finest cleavage South Bend has to offer.

Arch-Nemesis No More! Steve Heimoff Goes From Foe to Friend of the Mutineer: A Retrospective

If this were a comic book series, this would be “Steve Heimoff #20″, because a quick search on the Mutineer Blog will bring up no less than 19 posts involving Steve Heimoff.

But this post is different. This post is the epic installment that marks the moment that The Mutineer and Steve Heimoff cease to be arch-nemesis and become allies…or that moment happened sometime last week I think, but it is today that we chronicle the event on the Mutineer Blog. Continue Reading »

The study from AlixPartners includes lots of epic graphs, like the one seen here, which clearly explains everything…

Global Business-Advisory Firm AlixPartners conducted a poll of 1,000 consumers in February 2010 as part of a study to gauge the consumer market for fine beverages. The report isn’t encouraging, saying that about 20% of non-alcoholic beverage companies and 35% of alcoholic beverage companies are in danger of going under over the next two years. That isn’t good news for sure, though it seems to be something of a misleading statistic given the ambiguity of it. Continue Reading »