Left to Right: Willie Ramos (judge), Joe Fairchild (planning committee), and Juan Coronado (judge).

Ah, Kona, Hawaii. You may think its a sleepy little Kailua town on the big island of Hawaii. But, think again. Once a year the quiet town of Kona on the island of Hawaii gets transformed into a Mai Tai mecca at the Don the Beachcomber Mai Tai Festival, sponsored by Bacardi. With top mixologist talent showing up from all across the state, and international participants and judges, this island village goes all out. For this year’s second annual crowning of the “Master of Mai Tai”, the event held at the Royal Kona Resort‘s Mai Tai Bar stepped it up a notch with an oceanside concert headlining with Third Eye Blind, food booths and a barbecue tasting contest, live music by local entertainers Henry Kapono of Cecilio and Kapono, and Eric Gilliom of Barefoot Natives, and a nice ten thousand dollar cash prize for the winner. Continue Reading »

What the world really needs is a fine beverage institute (Mutineer Academy, anyone?) where people can go and research ways to revolutionize the fine beverage industry. Case and point: Kirk Spahn + Trenton Ulicny, two American entrepreneurs that transformed a grad school project into a revolutionary fine beverage brand worth millions. But, it didn’t happen overnight.

“It took TY KU years of dedicated exploration to source the purest waters, exotic superfruits and finest teas. These exceptional ingredients are masterfully combined to create a refreshing citrus taste that proved to be well worth the efforts.” — TY KU website.

The first product they launched was TY KU Premium, a unique blend of premium Asian sake and soju with soft citrus, fresh melon, teas, and botanicals — packaged in the world’s only illuminating bottle. Yep, that’s right. The bottle actually glows. FTW! Continue Reading »

The Loire Valley Wine Bureau is hosting an all out Muscadet Month in the city of Seattle. Muscadet, originates from the city of Nantes in the West Coast of the Loire Valley, which has a lot in common with its sister city of Seattle. Both are coastal and known for their shellfish. It only seems fitting to bring the Loire Valley “oyster wine” over to Seattle to match with the bountiful offerings of its local oyster farms. Muscadet is an undisputed perfect pairing for oysters, and will be the feature at 18 Seattle area restaurants from September 15th to October 15th. Continue Reading »

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.

Better known to the fine beverage community as Hoptopia, Lee Williams has taken the beer blogging world by storm since he founded his site, just under a year ago. Lee currently authors the weekly Mutineer Blog column, “Craft Beer Radar.”

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 »

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.

Impressionable minds beware, Arianna Armstrong is more than just a wine and food vixen, she is an expert of mind manipulation and slight of hand, as evidenced by her Bachelors in Theatre and Film and super fancy Masters degree in Psychology. She is the Madam X of all things food and wine in Los Angeles, CA.

Continue Reading »

Michael’s Mina’s RN74 San Francisco

Michael Mina, American celebrity Chef of Egyptian origins, plans to bring his RN74 restaurant concept to the Seattle Area. RN74, a French themed restaurant located in San Francisco, will likely be given a slight Northwest twist, featuring local and sustainable ingredients. Michael Mina employs one of America’s most highly regarded Sommeliers, Rajat Parr, as company wine director. With such celebrated talent at the helm, you can be sure RN74 will bring both award winning food and wine to the flourishing Seattle restaurant scene in the Spring of 2011. You can follow Raj Parr tweets about wine via @RN74, as well as their newly established Seattle account @RN74Seattle.

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 »