Americans’ thirst for cocktails is boosting US sales of the bitter red aperitif that defines the classic Negroni.

Campari toasts US cocktail’s renaissance - FT.com:



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The herb-infused cocktail is popping up everywhere from Manhattan’s Lincoln Ristorante, where customers can design their own mix of spirits, bitters and vermouths, to Jasper’s in San Francisco, which serves the cocktail on tap from a keg filled with Campari, gin and sweet vermouth – the original recipe.

The beer drinking decline continues in an Australia sobering up

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week show that on a per capita basis there were 9.9 litres of pure alcohol available for consumption per person in 2012-13, 1.6% less than the amount in 2011-12 (10.0 litres) and 8.2% less than 2007-08 (10.8 litres). As a standard drink consists of 12.5 mls of pure alcohol, this is equivalent to an average of 2.2 standard drinks per day per person aged 15 years and over.

The long term trend:

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The long term decline is he result of a dramatic fall in the consumption of beer. The volume of beer available for consumption decreased 1.8% between 2011-12 and 2012-13, from 1,762.4 million litres to 1,730.1 million litres. The volume of full strength beer decreased 2.4% while low strength beer decreased 9.4%. Mid strength beer recorded an increase (up 3.7%).

In terms of pure alcohol, consumption of beer has more than halved since the peak in the mid-1970s, and is now at the lowest level since 1945-46.

For wine, there has been a steady increase in people’s consumption over the long term but recently this trend appears to have plateaued, and in fact, per person consumption of wine has decreased slightly over the past three years.

Ready-to-drink beverages have also seen a drop over the past five years, while consumption of spirits has remained relatively steady,

(b) includes rtds

Bill Gates enters the fake meat market

Fake Meats, Finally, Taste Like Chicken - NYTimes.com:

"Demand for meat alternatives is growing, fueled by trends as varied as increased vegetarianism and concerns over the impact of industrial-scale animal husbandry on the environment. The trend has also attracted a host of unlikely investors, including Biz Stone and Evan Williams of Twitter, Bill Gates and, most recently, Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong magnate.

“I’ve tasted a few,” Mr. Gates wrote in a multimedia piece on the Beyond Meat investment that was posted to his blog, “and they’re very convincing.”"



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Do you take notice of on-line restaurant reviews? Then here's some advice

When you read a restaurant review on TripAdvisor or its equivalent, look carefully at the date it was written. And if you come across a negative review and try and remember what the weather was like at the time. Why? Because a study of nearly 1.1 million reviews of 840,000 restaurants over nearly a decade shows that if the weather was uncomfortable the comments were more likely to be cruel than kind.

The researchers, Saeideh Bakhshi, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology; her husband, Partha Kanuparthy, who works for Yahoo Labs; and Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at the university, found that the most negative reviews were written when it was colder than 4C degrees or warmer than 38C (40 and 100 degrees on the fahrenheit scale), or if it was raining or snowing.

Ms. Bakhshi will present her findings next week in Seoul, South Korea, at the International World Wide Web Conference and in an interview with the New York Times said that some regions of the United States were more prolific in their online reviewing habits than others. Restaurants in the Northeast and on the West Coast were reviewed more than those in the South or the Midwest. Predictably, urban areas with a higher level of education and income tended to participate in online review sites more often.

Among the other findings:

People who waited a long time for a table in busy cities were more forgiving than those who waited in smaller communities. And sushi restaurants were consistently rated higher than hamburger places, the researchers said, showing that ambience and a higher meal cost could produce better reviews.

“That speaks to the perception of price,” Ms. Bakhshi said. “Places that have nice ambience and are listed as romantic or trendy or more expensive, the rating is higher.”

… The team found that Seattle, as a whole, tended to offer lower reviews than many other cities. Sunny San Diego had the most five-star reviews.

To reach their conclusions the authors created analytic computer models based on data from several sites, including TripAdvisor, Foursquare and Citysearch.

Restaurants and bars - new clients for political consultants?

Want Guns With That? Chefs Find Politics Hotter Than Kitchen - From NY Times 

As the position restaurants hold in American culture grows, so too does the list of issues on which chefs are asked to make a stand. Refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, requesting that a woman not breast-feed at the table or trying to prevent a diner from wearing a gun can have serious business implications. “It’s almost like restaurants have to have a political strategist on board now when they put together their marketing plan,” said Andrew Freeman, a San Francisco-based consultant to the restaurant and hotel industry.

What's in a name? Well the French men at Margaret River want one

Wine industry to endorse names - The West Australian:

Margaret River's wine industry is set to enter a new era based on harsh commercial realities after a crisis meeting sparked by a legal dispute over rights to the historic Wallcliffe name. 

The industry is set to ratify the names commonly used to describe sub-regions in Margaret River and to establish clear rules on branding and labelling for the first time. The issue of whether Wallcliffe survives as one of those sub-regions remains unresolved after the biggest gathering of producers in more than 10 years. 

Emotions ran high yesterday as more than 50 producers met behind closed doors over French-owned Cape Mentelle's pursuit of exclusive rights to the name Wallcliffe, which has been part of the State's history since the 1800s.

What makes a good sushi chef?

BBC News - My Day: Japanese sushi chef Yosuke Imada:

Yosuke Imada is among Japan's most renowned sushi chefs. Mr Imada, 68, heads Kyubey, a family-run sushi restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo, with branches in Osaka and four major hotels.

What makes a good sushi chef? The most important thing is spirit. You need to understand that you never graduate, you never stop learning, not until you die.

I have been working for more than 50 years. I made sushi yesterday - and I know that today's sushi will be better than yesterday's. It's an endless process. Skill and experience are important but ultimately, your spirit is the most important ingredient.

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