There are all sorts of shenanigans going on to celebrate Arthur’s day with a hefty line-up set to play. Okay, essentially it’s probably the biggest marketing coup ever but it’s still kind of nice to salute the black stuff. Even if you’re not a Guinness drinker, you can still toast the occasion by cooking up [...]

The Bald Barista boasts bean brewing that’s better than most other beverage makers in Baile Átha Cliath. Café Darwin’s doesn’t doubt the delectableness of its own draft either. Both are situated within minutes of eachother on Aungier St. Come to think of it, there’s a lot of barber shops on that stretch too. Why so [...]

“Happy hours” were banned long ago. Ireland, apparently, was sinking into a drunken stupor of binge drinking; we needed to be be saved from ourselves. That’s why drinks industry watchdog Meas shut down Dublin pub The Portobello’s €4 a pint deal. Ok, fair enough, them’s the rules, I’ll just… But wait! Suddenly the law reveals [...]

An aunt of mine only drinks Coke. One of my 10 billion nephews refuses to drink anything but “juice”, which is actually just a sugary diluted drink like Kia-Ora, Ribena or Robinson’s. Like all the tastiest stuff, these are little more than sugar-delivery vehicles.  Loaded, overflowing, and fizzing with tooth-melting, waist-expanding, heart-killing sugar. But how [...]

Our own Maria Crispy recently attended a Smirnoff launch for CheapEats, and found out some interesting facts about how well vodka goes with limes, and also about the effect of the recession on booze: I went to a reception held by the very genial people of Smirnoff the other night, in celebration of the original [...]

Conventional wisdom tells us that people spend more on ‘vices’ during a recession, drowning their sorrows with booze, fags, scratchcards and the dogs. However it looks like things are going against conventional wisdom here (as they so frequently do) – the Irish Times has reported that alcohol sales are showing an ‘unprecedented’ fall. There certainly [...]

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a Wine Board event at the Enowine wine bar in the IFSC on Saturday, thanks to a great giveaway at Sour Grapes.  I brought my friend Clairey along.  We were both suffering from what Clairey called ‘wine flu’, which we seemed to have somehow contracted the [...]

Instant coffee is not coffee at all. For me, it’s the slug in the salad, as enjoyable as a cup of instant mud, and bearing no relation to the wholly superior whole bean. In today’s Irish Independent, journalist Tina Leonard talks to barista champions about the horrors of Carte Noire, Kenco, and the most grevious [...]

Our wino pal Lar Veale is giving away a wine-tasting course at the Wine Board of Ireland on his Sour Grapes blog this week; all you have to do to enter is to comment on the post at the SourGrapes blog (not here!).  Go for it!

Last year I tried to make some Gorse wine out of the gorgeous, yellow, coconut-scented flowers that invade the Wicklow countryside in spring time. I didn’t sterilise the bottles or use the right equipment, so the “wine”  tasted distinctly of an old drunk’s wrung-out sock. In today’s Pricewatch, Conor Pope has some helpful information about [...]