What is Tuaca January 31, 2019

On one of the higher liquor shelves of the bar, we have a bottle of an amber colored liqueur with an interesting name. And for many days I wondered what exactly was Tuaca. I finally got around to cracking open the bottle and giving it a try. Now before I give you my impressions, I wanted to go into the background on what Tuaca is.

Very simply put. Tuaca is a blend of Italian Brandy, Mediterranean Citrus and Vanilla Spice whose roots can be harked back to the era of the Italian renaissance. According to the Tuaca website:

Legend has it that the liquid was first blended to commemorate Lorenzo de Medici. Remembered as The Magnificent, Lorenzo ruled over Florence, Italy in the 15th century and was a generous benefactor to artists who ultimately defined this remarkable time. The resulting recipe created in his honor has since survived more than 500 years.

The fine brandy used to make Tuaca comes from a town east of Roma named Anagni, known for producing some of the finest grapes in Italy.

Those de Medicis sure knew how to live life to the fullest in 15th century Italy. Now let's fast forward to modern times. Also according to the Tuaca website:

In the 1930s, brothers-in-law Gaetano Tuoni and Giorgio Canepa recreated the recipe and named it Tuaca, a combination of their last names. And During World War II, American servicemen stationed in Livorno, Italy discovered the unique flavor of Tuaca and searched for it, albeit in vain, upon their return to America. In the late 1950s, an astute importer from San Francisco brought Tuaca to the United States to begin its reign as the perfect spirit to turn an ordinary night into one you will remember forever.

Tuaca is listed as a blended Brandy on the website while on the bottle it is listed as a Vanilla Citrus Liqueur. Regardless of its classifcation, Tuaca is 35% ALC/VOL aka 70 proof. Here is a little hitch to Tuaca. We apparently have a bottle of Tuaca before it changed ownership.

According to the article Sazerac gives Tuaca new recipe and design by Amy Hopkins from The Spirits Business dated May 18, 2017:

Tuaca Originale Liquore Italiano will once again be made with imported Italian brandy and infused with Mediterranean citrus and vanilla spice to offer flavours of “caramel, citrus, dried fig and honey”. Previous owner Brown-Forman used California brandy to create Tuaca.

So for the sake of this post, I am profiling the Tuaca that was sold by Brown-Forman. Getting that out of the way, what did I think of it? Just one word: Delicious!!!

I tried it three different ways: as a sipper, on the rocks and in my hot coffee. My preferred way is to have it on the rocks. I like it nice and cold. I find it not to be too sweet and I immediately get the citrus on the nose and the vanilla and caramel flavors aren't overbearing and are very smooth and silky on the palate. I found it to be ok straight up at room temperature and didn't really like it in my coffee. Now I was having it in a cup of shitty instant coffee so maybe that had something to do with it.

The Tuaca website has a number of different cocktail recipes that you can try Tuaca in. I would recommend that you simply have it on the rocks if you just want to have a dessert in a rocks glass.

So come on through to Finns Corner (660 Washington Avenue, Corner of Bergen Street Brooklyn NY) on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and I'll serve you some Tuaca on the rocks or in your favorite cocktail. See you soon.

Until Then Keep Drinking,
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Happy Birthday to Telly Savalas and a look at Biancosarti Blonde Amaro January 21, 2019

Today marks what would have been the 95th Birthday for beloved Greek-American actor Aristoteles Savalas, better known as Telly Savalas. Telly starred in one of the popular crime shows of the 1970's entitled Kojak and starred in such movies as The Dirty Dozen, In Her Majesty's Secret Service and Kelly's Heroes to name a few. Telly also starred as a spokesperson for a number of spirits throughout his acting career.

Back in 2012 I highlighted Telly Savalas (and other actors) who were spokespersons for the Black Velvet blended Canadian Whisky in the posts The Gook and the Duke and a Black Velvet Too and Black Velvet Whisky Ads. With it being his birthday today, I wanted to look at another spirit that he was a spokesperson for: Biancosarti Amaro. Never heard of Biancosarti Amaro? Well, neither have I. But here is what I found out about this brand.

Biancosarti Amaro traces its roots back to the 1880's having been created by Bolognese distiller Luigi Sarti and his family. The amaro, which is under the Campari Group, is known as "The Vigorous Aperitif" and is described as followed on the Biancosarti wepage:

Biancosarti is an aperitif renowned for its vigorous flavor. The clear, brilliant color liquid is fresh and elegant. Its delicate and delicious flavor is truly unique and derives from a secret mixture that unites the soft aroma of rare herbs, spices, and flowers with the intense character of rinds and roots.

The article Biancosarti: The Genepy Hybrid of Luigi Sarti from the Sole-Agent website goes into more detail about the Biancosarti Amaro:

Biancosarti was a rectified macerated spirit that lay halfway better (between?) a vermouth and a bitter, thud spawning the category: amaro bianco. (Higher ABV of 35%, full bodied unlike many white vermouths of the time, no barrel aging). Primarily flavored with orange, chamonile, Artemisia, cardamom and gentian root there likely another some 15+ botanicals used as well in its early iterations. 

Bombings of Bologna during World War II would cause the distillery to be destroyed in 1943. The distillery would be rebuilt after the war and would be sold to the Bols Wessanen group in the 1970's and later to its current owners The Campari Group in 1995. Biancosarti's main market is Italy. Here is one of Telly's commercials for Biancosarti:

I guess I'll have to keep my eye out in my travels to see if any of the bars I come across have some Biancosarti available. Until then, I'll leave you with this photo of Telly Savalas. Happy Birthday Telly and may you continue to Rest in Peace. Who Loves Ya, Baby!!!

Until Then Keep Drinking,
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Happy Birthday to George Burns January 20, 2019

Happy Birthday to George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996)

Until Then Keep Drinking,
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The Birds 1963 Part I

Today's SiscoVanilla at the Movies post is Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds (1963) which was loosely based on the story of the same name by British author Daphne Du Maurier.

In the movie, socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in San Francisco and travels to his hometown of Bodega Bay where the birds in the town slowly start to act in a weird manner. What I love about this movie is that Hitchcock never tells us why the birds start to flip out and attack the townsfolk. Instead of today's horror and thrillers that spoon feed you every detail, Hitchcock leaves it to the audience to decide why the birds act the way they do in the movie. But enough about plot points, on to the liquor references.

While the scenes in the restaurant are chock full of liquor references that are relevant to 1963, I want to leave those for the next post since there is a whole lot of information to cover. For this post I wanted to focus on the scene after Melanie meets Mitch, his mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) and his younger sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) for dinner. Daniels is renting a room at the home of schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) and returns there somewhat despondent. When Hayworth asks Daniels if her reason for being down had to do with Lydia, she offers her some Brandy.

As the ladies talk about Mitch and his mother, the plot thickens when it is revealed that Annie was previously involved with Brenner. At this point both ladies have themselves some brandy to commiserate about Mitch and Lydia.

I look at the bottle that Annie pours from and immediately I note that it is a bottle of Hennessy Cognac.

For those of you who aren't knowledgeable in Cognac terminology and history, Cognac is Brandy but only those distilled in the Cognac region of France can be called a Cognac. If this particular spirit is distilled anywhere else in the world it is generically referred to as a Brandy. Now I partly cover the history of Hennessy in my post on The Boondock Saints (1999) which was dated January 28, 2014. But for this post, I find that I don't recognize the bottle that Annie pours from.

From my research it would seem that this particular bottle of Hennessy is known as the Hennessy 3 Star Cognac. Now I'm not sure whether this bottle is the 1940's bottling (left) or the 1950's bottling (right.) As you can see from the image of the two bottles that can be found on the Cognac Exchange website, the 1940's bottle doesn't have the one extra label on the bottom of the bottle that can be found on the 1950's bottling.

Now I don't know if that has to do with the market that the bottle was originally sold in or if all bottles had the bottom label. The bottle isn't seen fully in the movie with the exception of a rear label and a side view of the top label that has the three starts and the main front label.

Either way, the ladies are having themselves a quality spirit.

That Mitch must really be something as we see Annie drifting away with her smoke and her brandy as she listens to Melanie accept Mitch's offer to come to young Cathy's birthday party that Annie will also be attending.

And speaking of Mitch and the party, the next scene unfolds at the party and Mitch is with Melanie along the hills above from where the party is being held. Smooth as Mitch is, he has two cool looking stemless cocktail glasses and a small glass jar of what seems to be a pre-made cocktail.

A Martini perhaps?  We'll never know since right after this the proverbial shit hits the fan when the birds start to flip out and go after the party-goers. And with that we'll end today's post.

The next post will focus on a plethora of 1960's era spirits that can be found in The Tides Restaurant. Most of them would make Dan Draper of Mad Men fame proud to imbibe in.

Until Then Keep Drinking,
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Ballantine Ale Ad from the New York Times December 23, 1937

Hey peeps. Hope the New Year is working out well for you. Still on the "New Year, New Me" tip? Its a New Year for me but as with the last few posts, I'm still chilling out in 1937. December 23, 1937 to be precise. This time I'm profiling a beer that at its peak was the third largest brewer in the US. But for those of us who grew up in NYC in the late 1980's and early 1990's, this beer was one of the 40oz beers that you could find in the local bodegas. This beer is Ballantine Ale.

If you grew up in Astoria during the 1980's and 1990's you would have spent many a day and night hanging out at the Astoria Park strip cracking open 40's of "Old E" aka Old English 800, Colt 45, St. Ides and Ballantine Ale. But at the time I had no idea that Ballantine Ale had quite the pedigree. Actually even now I didn't really know about how long Ballantine's Ale has been around aside from the old school pictures of Ballantine Ale being advertised at Yankee Stadium.

So let's take a page out of my Alter-Ego HistorySisco and dive head first into the history behind Ballantine Ale.

Ballantine Ale was brewed by the P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company which was founded in 1840 by Scotsman Peter Ballantine. The brewery was located in one of the brewing meccas of the United States: Newark, New Jersey.

The Ballantine brand proved to be so successful that a second brewery was built in Newark. As with all the major beer companies in the United States, Prohibition proved to be difficult to navigate. The Ballantine company was able to do so by producing a number of different products just to stay afloat. When the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution repealed Prohibition, the Ballantine breweries jumped back into action.

Beer and Baseball went hand-in-hand (and still does) and it was no less for the Ballantine brand. As shown above, Ballantine Ale was the official beer sponsor of the New York Yankees with legendary Yankees announcer Mel Allen belting out "Its a Ballantine Blast!" when the Yankees would hit one out of the park.

They would continue to sponsor the New York Yankees until the end of the 1966 season.  By this point the writing on the wall was visible for the Ballantine brand.

By 1972 the brand was sold to the Falstaff Brewing Corporation, who in turn sold the beer to the Pabst in 1985. At some point the original recipe for Ballantine Ale was lost. Pabst would still make the beer in a similar fashion as the original and relaunched the brand in 2014.

Now for the benefit of you fine people, I've decided to go out and find myself a Ballantine Ale to sample. What did I think of it? Check out the video from my YouTube Channel:

Ballantine is just your ordinary beer. No more, no less. And that's it. See you in Brooklyn at Finns Corner (660 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.) 

Until Then Keep Drinking,

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Bass Pale Ale Ad from the New York Times December 23, 1937

Happy New Year 2019 to one and all!!! While it is the year 2019, I am still stuck in the year 1937. As with my last two posts, I am looking at ads from the December 23, 1937 edition of the New York Times and found a couple of interesting beer ads that I wanted to profile in the next few posts.

For those of you who don't know, I have an ongoing beer tasting series on my IG-TV channel entitled The SiscoVanilla Beer Chronicles. Very simply put, I find a beer and taste it and give my impressions on it. Not anything fancy. Just honest straight talk for good or bad. On to the beer of the moment: Bass Pale Ale.

My friend Pete likes to describe Bass as being the most perfect beer. He often laments that you can't find Bass much anymore. I have to be perfectly honest, I find that coming across a bar that pours a draught of Bass is hard to locate. When I started bouncing in the mid 1990's, you could find Bass Ale on tap in many a bar in NYC. Now? It seems like only the old school Irish pubs carry it. I guess you can also find it in what some bars that old school New Yorkers refer to as "The Disneyworld of Irish Pubs" that can be found near Madison Square Garden and Rockefeller Center.  But walk into your regular corner pub and you might not see that tap with the distinctive red triangle with the word Bass in red underneath. We're not talking about a fly by night beer brand here folks.

William Bass started brewing his namesake ale in 1777 in the town of Burton-upon-Trent, England. One hundred years later, Bass Ale could be found not only throughout the British Empire but in other places around the world. To show how popular and well known the Bass brand name was, the distinctive red triangle of Bass Brewery was the first trademark to be registered with Trade Mark Registration Act 1875. Also take a look at Édouard Manet 1882 painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère:

The scene of the painting is located the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris, France. As you can see, there are two bottles with the distinctive red triangle to both the left and right of the lovely bartender.  But by the beginning of the 21st century the Bass brand in flux. 

The brand was bought by the Belgian brewing company known Interbrew, now known AB-InBev. British anti-monopoly rulings forced the separation of the brand name from the product itself. Interbrew kept the Bass brand name while the brewery being sold to Coors UK. The license to brew Bass was then given to Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries PLC, Bass was being brewed in England and in the U.S. among places but neither one was brewed in the same manner as the original Bass Ale. All this convoluted mess makes it hard for someone to get themselves a proper Black and Tan (Guinness and Bass.)

But hopefully the announcement from this past November that Bass would be reintroduced to the UK and brewed in England as an "Imported Ale"😕🤔😖 as a 5.1% ABV beer at the Samlesbury, Lancashire Brewery and sold in selected pubs. For more on this I recommend you read the article Bass Ale is back. I wish I were more delighted by British beer writer Pete Brown. He's not too keen on the "return" of Bass Ale to the UK. Read his post for more in depth information on what has happened to Bass and what is to come. 

On my end, I guess I'll have to wait a bit before getting myself a proper Black and Tan for my SiscoVanilla Beer Chronicles posts. 

I have a couple more beer posts in the queue in addition to some new Movie and TV booze posts. Keep an eye out open for those. See you in Brooklyn at Finns Corner (660 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.) 

Until Then Keep Drinking,

#SiscoVanilla

#SiscoVanillaisStepping

#SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

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