Ever wonder what happened to the dogs that were taken away from NFL star Michael Vick after he was convicted of dog fighting?  They’re still alive and recuperating, according to this Nashville Examiner article.  They’re at a shelter in Utah called Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.  They have become poster children (poster puppies?) of the animal rights movement, and their image has been licensed by Caravinis Winery to create a wine called “Vicktory.” Individual bottles of the 22-bottle set cost $40, and the entire set plus two extra bottles commemorating Best Friends’ 25th anniversary, can be had for $672.  10% of the proceeds will be used to fight for animal rights causes.

Be sure to pick up some glasses from Mid-South Alcoholic Supply to use to celebrate the “Vicktory” for animal rights.

It may look like a port and smell like a port and taste like a port, but under new European Union rules, a wine can’t be called a port unless it was made in Portugal.  However, California’s Peltier Station Winery found a loophole.  Rather than calling its wine a port, it labeled the wine “USB,” and on its website, it even referred to the wine as USB Port wine, according to this wired.com article.

Be sure to enjoy USB Port in one of our many fine wine glasses.

If you’ve ever thought about hosting your own wine tasting, this article from the Visalia Times-Delta/Tulare Advance-Register will help get you started.  The first order of business, the article says, is to stock up on wine glasses (Mid-South Alcoholic Supply can help you out with that), because some tasters prefer a new glass for each wine.  The article also offers advice on picking a theme for the tasting, but the most important advice is “keep the focus on your passion, and it will come through in the party.”  For example, if you have a love of Italian wines, make those the theme.

The article also talks briefly about appetizer pairings, and about selecting the wines themselves, and bagging them if you want to do a blind tasting.

You can even show off different types of wine openers and corkscrews in the tasting.  Mid-South Alcoholic Supply can help you with that too.

At Mid-South Alcoholic Supply, we’re a big fan of seasonal beers.  About a mile down the road from our World Headquarters is a little sports bar called Calhoun’s that just put Blue Moon’s Full Moon Winter Ale on tap.  What does it taste like?  We couldn’t tell you, because we’re too busy working on their $1.50 PBR every time we go in there.

Fortunately, we found this article which has lots of good information on seasonal beers.  It has lots of good information on Christmas beers, which are just now being tapped at many bars.  It goes on to list seasonal beer styles for spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Be sure to enjoy your favorite season in one of our many fine beer glasses.  Over 1700 to choose from!

One of our favorite sites, Lifehacker, has a video that shows you how to open a beer bottle with a ring.  As a bonus, the article also contains links that will teach you how to open a beer bottle with a car door, a piece of paper, or another beer bottle.

After you get your beer open, be sure to pour it in one of Mid-South Alcoholic Supply’s many fine beer mugs.  Over 400 to choose from!

The Toronto Globe and Mail recently interviewed Ryan Jennings and David Steele, author of two cookbooks, Cooking with Booze and the newly-released Entertaining with Booze.  “There are flavors in alcohol that you can’t find in your spice rack,” comments Jennings, giving the example of Jagermeister, which is distilled with about 50 different herbs and botanicals.  In the books there is a recipe for Alsatian Choucroute Garnie, a soup with sauerkraut, smoked sausage, bacon, and parsnip.  Other recipes include mojito lamb popsicles, and a cucumber sandwich in which the cucumbers are marinated in gin.  There’s also tequila strawberry shortcake, baby back ribs marinated in Jack Daniels, lamb tagine enhanced with port, and pumpkin and coconut mousse flavored with candied ginger and coconut rum.

These are two of the many fine books you can find in the bookstore at Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.

James Bond is best known for ordering vodka martinis “shaken, not stirred,” but did you know that the vodka martini was not 007’s original drink?

This Canada.com article introduces the Vesper to a new generation, a drink Bond “invented” in the very first novel in which he appeared, 1953’s Casino Royale.  In the book, 007 orders a dry martini in a deep champagne goblet, then explains how to make it: “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

The article goes on to note that the original Vesper, named for Bond’s treacherous lover in the novel, is nearly impossible to re-create because gin and vodka were stronger in 1953.  However, it does offer a recipe for an updated version of the Vesper.

Shake your vesper in a high-quality cocktail shaker from Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.

Quick post today, but it’s a good one:  Here’s a recipe from our friends down under for a drink made with vodka, brown sugar, crushed lime, and mint.  This cocktail “will get your dinner party off to a flying start,” according to the creator of the recipe.

If you need tools to crush the ingredients, don’t forget that Mid-South Alcoholic Supply sells bar sets.

We at Mid-South Alcoholic Supply are lucky enough to have our World Headquarters located less than half a mile from the home of one of the teams in the NBA, so getting to games is a piece of cake.  However, buying beer once at the game is not so much fun.  For $7, you get a draft beer that would sell for maybe $3 in a neighborhood bar.  With 48 minutes, plus timeouts, plus halftime in a pro basketball game, all that drinking can get expensive.

We have a product that can help out.  The Deluxe Beer Belly is a concealable beverage container that straps onto your back and wraps around your stomach.  Concealed underneath a shirt, it looks like you have a beer belly - no one suspects that you’re actually carrying a wearable flask that can hold up to 80 ounces of your favorite beverage.  It fits waists up to 42″ in size, and comes with a bite valve for hands-free drinking.  This is an investment that will pay for itself many times over if you frequent places that overprice their beers.

This Esquire article gives away the trick bartenders use to make cocktails truly unique and memorable:  They rinse the inside of the glass with booze before pouring the cocktail.  In particular, the writer discusses adding a little something extra to the classic Manhattan cocktail by rinsing the glass in single-malt scotch whisky before mixing.  He gives a recipe for a Firefighter’s Manhattan, and discusses other liquers that can be used for glass rinses as well.

You can try out this bartender’s secret in our martini glasses to mix a Manhattan or other magnificent cocktail.