Pictured: Lakefront Brewery
I'm always on the lookout for new alcoholic beverages, and there's certainly no shortage of products hitting the market. Here are some I'm most excited for; hopefully you'll find a new favorite too.
All Together Now Hopfenweizen
This new brew is a collaboration beer between Lakefront Brewery and Great Lakes Brewing, two of the Midwest's best breweries. It's a limited, draft only release that's being brewed especially for Great Taste of the Midwest, a ridiculously popular beer and food festival held in Madison each summer. Tickets have long sold out for the event (as they always do in spring), but you can get your taste of All Together Now at a pre-party event in Madison. The classic rock-themed Rigby Pub and Grill will be hosting the event starting at 10 a.m. August 12th.
The beer is a light, hoppy wheat ale in the hefeweizen tradition. It's got fruity apricot and orange aromas from Great Lakes' experimental Yellow Sub hop blend. Combine Yellow Sub hops with The Rigby Pub, and it only makes sense to continue the Beatles theme, which is what inspired the name All Together Now.
Plantation Stiggins' Fancy Pineapple Rum
I have found my new go-to tropical rum. When you think of pineapple rum, you probably think of some sticky sweet, artificially flavored junk that you drank way too much of in college. This Plantation rum is about as far away from that as you can get. Take a high-quality dark rum and infuse it with fresh pineapple rinds for a week, the flesh of the pineapple for three months, then blend them together and barrel age. The result is a sophisticated, clean pineapple flavor with huge hits of spice and vanilla from the aging. The aroma is out of this world, and I can attest it smells just like a pineapple upside down cake. It's got limited availability, but right now you can get it at Discount Liquor and some area Sendik's.
White Claw Hard Seltzer
I guess it was only a matter of time before someone decided to make “hard water.” With the popularity of flavored seltzer soaring, including as a mixer in alcoholic beverages, it makes sense to just combine the seltzer and alcohol into one product from the beginning. There are three flavors: lime, black cherry and ruby grapefruit. All have a high carbonation, almost no sugar and 5% ABV. They go down easily, especially on a hot day, but they lend themselves to mixing as well, especially the lime. Black cherry was a little bit artificial tasting, almost like Kool-ade. Grapefruit reminded me heavily of grapefruit soda instead of actual grapefruit juice. Regardless, these are refreshing and make for interesting cocktails.
St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur
Believe it or not, it's going to start getting cooler out soon, and along with fall comes all the “spiced” everything. I love fall and all those cinnamon flavors, so this Spiced Pear Liqueur is right up my alley. It begins its life as pear brandy to which pear juice is added, bringing the ABV down to just 20 percent. Cinnamon and clove make the aroma smell just like mulled cider or apple pie, with a flavor that lingers with sweet fruit. Because of the low ABV, this makes a great sipper or mix it with bourbon in cocktails.
Black Husky Brewing
OK, so technically this one isn't just one drink, it's a brewery. But it just opened this week, too late to have put it in my last openings roundup. You've been able to get Black Husky (please try to ignore the Comic Sans website) brews on tap at some bars around Milwaukee, but now they've moved their entire operations to 909 E. Locust in Riverwest. They've expanded their brewing capacity and opened a tap room, where you can sample anything from their signature pale ale and Sproose Joose IPA, to a 8.5% ABV Three Scrutineers tripel. The tasting room is open at 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.
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