The Eggnog-Malasadas Amalgamation: A Match Made in Paradise

Christmastime is here. Chaos has commenced. While there is a dollop of happiness and cheer, most of us experience anxiety levels rise to troublesome levels. Malls are gridlocked with frantic patrons finalizing their holiday lists. Christmas pageants, school recitals and office parties fill an already brimming schedule. Family gatherings are ... well ... filled with family. Feuds are foreordained.

In a season indelibly marked with stress and busyness, we can all relate at times to Charlie Brown's holiday melancholy monologues. But we have an effective countermeasure that poor Charlie Brown did not: alcohol.

This season, assuage the holiday anxiety with a remedy of equal potency. Crack a few eggs, break out the liquor, and mix up a batch of the quintessential Christmas beverage: eggnog. Looking for a pairing partner for your nog? Hawaii has the perfect sweet companion. So grab a glass and read on!

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The Ho-Lee Alliance: Ho Farms and The Pig & the Lady Present a New Farm-to-Table Paradigm

The Pig & the Lady, located in Honolulu’s Chinatown district, has developed a steadfast following for its unique Vietnamese-inspired menu, whimsical personality and family narrative. Chef de cuisine Keaka Lee has elevated the original concept with elegant fusion dishes that emphasize local ingredients and fresh, vibrant flavors. Keaka’s style focuses on a seasonal menu that highlights the restaurant’s affiliations with the community. For Keaka, strong relationships between chefs and farmers are central to achieving a sustainable, effective local food network. Chefs and farmers partner to provide a complete farm-to-table culinary experience. 

This symbiotic relationship was on display when The Pig & the Lady joined forces with Ho Farms, a family farm located on Oahu’s North Shore, to host a collaborative six-course farm-to-table dinner with wine pairings designed to stimulate conversations about food, community and culture. Sounds informatively tasty.

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The Barley-Confection Synthesis: Tips for Pairing Beer and Halloween Candy

All Hallows’ Eve is fast approaching. An exorbitant trove of candy has been procured; the front yard is decorated with fiendish skeletons, gravestones and zombies. Perhaps you will be chasing around a few moppets veiled as Minions as they traverse the neighborhood streets in diligent search of sugar-coated treats. Alternatively, your evening responsibilities may include staying at home and doling out confectionary delights to ghoulish passersby. In either case, and with all of these painstaking Halloween preparations, it may have been easy to overlook one inexorable fact: you are destined to possess a large candy cache come All Saints Day. The confection inundation dilemma: what to do with it all? Fear not; there is still time to plan appropriately.

This week our expert beer panel hits the sweet spot with ten spooky beers that will pair brilliantly with your leftover Halloween candy. So dig through that candy bowl, extract the preeminent confections, and let’s get to work.

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Musings by the Snifter: An Autumn Whiskey Primer

Autumn has arrived. Welcomed brisk morning air, fall colors, flavors and smells. Unwelcomed pumpkin spice lattes, leaf peepers and premature Christmas paraphernalia at Costco. But the best of all: whiskey, the illustrious beverage of my noble Scotch-Irish heritage. Smoky, caramel, dried fruit flavors and alcohol that warms the palate encapsulates the quintessential autumn beverage. As autumn descends, this post ensures that you are primed and ready for whiskey season.

Whiskey is more than just a tasty inebriating beverage; it is an elicitation of time, place and people. Place evidenced by terroir, climate and agriculture. Distillers use and adapt to what is around them. People influence the final product through economic considerations, cultural traditions, and distilling practices that impart exclusive flavors. This autumn whiskey primer presents a narrative of whiskey and its famous regions in this context. Hopefully, it has you reaching for a glass …

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Reflexiones por el Cristal: An Ode to Spanish Wine and Cheese

This week on the blog, an Ode to Spanish Wine and Cheese.

Wine and cheese, the Spaniard's way

Two more formidable companions?

I could not say
 

Spanish affinage and phenolics pair with precision

Refreshingly devoid of all

Antagonizing French derision
 

With a diverse medley of type and taste

Join the vinous jubilation, with haste!


For this week’s musings, a humble tribute

To España - ¡salud!

Okay, that was painful. I absolutely loathe poetry. Enough vexing shenanigans; on with the post.

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The Vinous-Maritime Equation: Tips for Pairing Wine and Seafood

The azure blue waters of the Pacific, calming breezes and slack key music, and a sunset dinner complete with the day's fresh catch and a glass of wine to pair. But what fish? And what wine? These answers can be surprisingly elusive.

With an abundance of fresh seafood in the Pacific waters surrounding the islands, Hawaii’s culinary traditions have naturally focused on the generous assortment of the region's oceanic offerings. Quintessential Hawaiian dishes, such as grilled tako (octopus), poke, garlic or coconut shrimp, lomi Salmon, and steamed fish are common at every family potluck and beach picnic. With such a diversity of textures and flavors, wine pairings can be correspondingly diverse. Finding the right match is not always an elementary task.

This month’s Veritas Wine Club, led by Tiffany, our spirited and capable sommelier, sought to provide a few basic wine and seafood pairing tips, utilizing items easily found at any local market.  

To stay on theme, I offer a few wine and seafood pairing tips of my own before we turn to this month’s lineup and find out what the Tchin Tchin gang brought to the table. So climb aboard, we'll search for pairings on every shore.

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