Red, White and Booze

What to Eat and Drink this 4th of July

This weekend is July 4th and there's no better way to celebrate America's 239th birthday than by eating and drinking! Here's our quick guide to what you should be feasting on this weekend.

Fresh Food from the Market:

Classic Potato Salad
Mango Chicken Salad
Mediterranean Tuna Salad
Roasted Red Peppers
White Bean Salad
Cucumber Tomato Salad

Snacks for the BBQ:

Yucatan Organic Guacamole, Emerald Valley Organic Salsa, Food Should Taste Good Blue Corn Chips, Uncle Harold's Blue Corn Chips, and Grateful Harvest Caesar Dressing




The Perfect Cheese Plate:

Four Fat Fowl St. Stephen Triple Cream, Mike's Hot Honey, Rosemary Cranberry Pure Flats, Manchego, Prima Donna, and Dalmatia Fig Spread 

Great Drinks:

Blueberry Mint Mojito

Try our take on this classic Mojito for a refreshing, fruity twist on an old favorite! 

Blueberry Mint Mojito

8 Blueberries

1 Slice of Lime

4 Mint Leaves

6 Ounces of Txakolina or Vinho Verde Wine (You Can Substitute Pinot Grigio)

Crush the blueberries, lime and mint and then add in the wine. Enjoy over ice!

Mija, Sangria (Closest to Homemade)

Mija Sangria is a fresh and natural bottled sangria made with 100% real fruit juice for a true homemade taste. Crafted without artificial additives or preservatives, it's packed with antioxidants from the juice of popular super fruits including pomegranate, açaí and blood orange. Mija comes in a reusable flip-top bottle, making it the perfect on-the-go beverage.

Red, White and Blue Prosecco

Nothing is more refreshing on a hot day than Prosecco. For a fun 4th of July variation, try these red, white and blue ideas.

Red: 1oz Monin Watermelon Syrup, 4oz Villa Chiara Prosecco

White: 1oz Monin Mojito Syrup, 4oz Villa Chiara Prosecco

Blue: 1oz Monin Blueberry Syrup, 4oz Villa Chiara Prosecco

Artisanal Premixed Gin & Tonic and Vodka & Tonic

Relax this weekend with these delicious premixed cocktails. Don't work this weekend, drink! Berkshire Distillery makes their own artisanal tonic water and then mixes it with either their Gin or their Vodka to make a super smooth treat. Just serve over ice with a lime!

Good Wine in a Can?

Yes, I know what everyone is thinking, we are crazy to recommend a wine in a can. However, not only is this the first wine to be put in a can, but it is also delicious. The only caveat is that you have to put your pinky in the air when you sip from the can! Absolutely perfect for camping, the beach and the boat!

Best Wine Preservation System

If you are like us then you hate opening a bottle of wine to enjoy a glass with dinner only to find that the next day it is not as good or worse that it is vinegar within two days. Now we believe most bottles are single serve but there are many times when you want to open a second bottle for one more glass or you want to open a really nice bottle on Friday and enjoy it next week as well.

We have been searching for years to find a cheap and effective solution to this problem. We liked the wine bottle pump systems but they don't last long. The argon gas preservers are the best but they are very expensive. During our search we came across this fairly new company called Vin Edge. Their inexpensive and easy to use system impressed us so much that we now use it to preserve our wine tasting bottles so they stay good for up to 2 weeks. Here's the details:

Screw It (Why Screw Closures are Better Than Corks for Wine)

If you have been following our blog as of late, then you read last week about how the beer industry is changing its views of cans vs bottles. We have now seen many more consumers change their view in favor of craft beer in cans as opposed to the long held belief that bottles are better. If you missed it, then check it out here.

The wine industy has been going through the same arguments for years over the use of cork vs stelvin closure (screw caps) to close a bottle of wine. Below is a very cogent argument for all of our wine geeks from one of our favorite sources of information, Wine Folly. Check out all their great content here.

Which is better: corks or screw caps? If you say corks are better, you’re both right and wrong. The truth is, the worldwide demand for wine (and corks) is growing, so we should get familiar with the future of wine preservation. Take a closer look at why corks and cork alternatives are nearly identical in terms of their ability to store and age wine. Then preview some alternatives to wine storage to get you thinking about where the wine world is going.

Corks vs. Screw Caps

Corks

Corks have been the preferred choice for closing wine since the beginning of modern Europe in the 1400’s. Why? Well, cork bark is one of the few natural products that is malleable enough to hold the contents inside a glass bottle. Glass bottles became more popular to store wine during this very same era.

Fast forward to today and there are a unique set of pros and cons to natural cork:

The Pros of Corks:

1. A Natural Renewable Resource

2. Historically Preferred 

3. Longterm Aging Proven

The Cons of Corks:

1. Expensive (2-3x)

2. Limited Natural Resource (Running Out)

3. 1-3% Affected by TCA ‘Cork’ Taint

4. Variable Quality

5. Natural Corks Breathe at Variable Rates

Screw Caps and Cork Alternatives

Screw caps have only been used in wine since 1964, but they’ve rapidly become a large share of the market. If you ever travel to Australia, you’ll notice that screw caps are on nearly every single bottle in the country. The reason cork alternatives have became so popular is because of a period of decreased quality cork manufacturing during the 1980’s. Basically, winemakers were tired of getting low quality corks that would cause TCA ‘cork’ taint, so they switched.

Besides screw caps (made of metal and plastic), there are several ‘fake’ corks made from plastics to plant-based polymers.

Today, the pros and cons of several cork alternatives look like this:

Cork Alternatives: Pros

• More Affordable Option
• No TCA ‘Cork’ Taint
• Longterm aging studies have shown positive results
• Screwcaps are easy to open

Cork Alternatives: Cons

• Some cork alternatives don’t breathe
• Mostly Made From Non-Renewable Resources
• Recyclable but Not Biodegradable
• Variable Manufacturing Quality
• Associated with ‘Cheap’ Wine

But aren’t corks better because they ‘breath’?

The longtime argument that corks are better because they breathe has been dispelled as ‘breath’ is now emulated in both screw caps and cork alternatives. Today you can buy screw caps with calculated levels of ‘oxygen ingress’ overtime. Ironically, real corks are actually quite variable with their oxygen ingress rates.

Are you saying that screwcaps are better than corks?

Not at all, although for most applications cork alternatives are better simply because of the quality for the price. I challenge you the next time you buy an affordable wine at the grocery; more often than not it won’t be a 100% natural cork. Instead the bottle will be closed with a technical, agglomerated and colmated cork, which are low quality alternatives to natural cork. These sub-par products are also just as unreliable with their likeliness to cause cork taint.

100% natural corks are one of the only options that are a true renewable resource but because of their high price tag, most are reserved for wines in the $30+ bottle range.

The bigger picture problem: glass is heavy

As wine becomes consumed on a more day-to-day basis, looking for alternatives to glass will become more important. There are so many wines on the market today that really aren’t meant to age for more than a year. These wines could easily be offered in polyethylene, cans or even cartons. Alternatives like these won’t affect the flavor and are often much lighter weight, a reduction in carbon emissions for shipping.

Of course glass will always have a place with wine enjoyment, but it’s okay to have a daily drinker out of a box or a can. As more great value wine producers look for alternatives, perhaps we can all support them in their efforts to clean up the waste in the wine world.