DRINKING STORIES

When you buy a premium vodka today, you’re actually paying a premium for the choice of water used to dilute neutral grain alcohol.

During prohibition, a neutral, "flavorless" spirit gave rise to cocktail culture as vodka didn’t mask light, flavorful mixers like noxious "bathtub gins".

In 1863, the phylloxera blight was introduced in France, and in little more than a decade it destroyed 90% of Europe's grape-growing industry.

We are inadvertently limiting wine diversity through a slow, dollar-fueled genocide of many lessor-known grape varieties.