FROM THE BARLIST JOURNAL
Cocktails
In 1919, inside a café in Florence, a simple request reshaped cocktail history. Count Camillo Negroni asked for something stronger than his usual Americano. Bartender Fosco Scarselli replaced soda water with gin, keeping Campari and sweet vermouth intact. Equal parts. Three ingredients. The Negroni was born. Three Ingredients of The Negroni and Infinite Precision The […]
March 31, 2026
Cocktails
Few cocktails reveal more than the Daiquiri. Built on just three elements, white rum, fresh lime juice, and sugar, it leaves no room for error. Every decision is exposed. Shake too long and dilution overtakes structure. Add too much lime and the balance collapses into sharpness: Misjudge sugar and the drink shifts from precision to excess. The […]
March 31, 2026
History
Every gin carries a geography within it. To understand gin is to understand movement, trade, and the quiet exchange of ingredients across continents. What begins as juniper distillation in the Netherlands evolves into a global spirit shaped by empire, medicine, and adaptation. From Dutch Genever to Global Gin In the seventeenth century, distillers in the […]
March 28, 2026
Discovery and Education
France did not create just one great aged spirit. It created three. Armagnac, Cognac, and Calvados emerge from different soils, different raw materials, and different philosophies of maturation, yet all are bound by an unwavering respect for time. In each region, oak is not merely a storage. It is a collaborator. What differs is the […]
March 2, 2026
Discovery and Education
For more than three centuries, rum moved across the Atlantic in wooden hulls bound for Europe and the Americas. Barrels left the Caribbean from islands such as Jamaica and Barbados, produced at estates like Mount Gay Distilleries, founded in 1703, and later at houses such as Appleton Estate, established in 1749. Many of those shipments […]
March 2, 2026
Discovery and Education
In the wooded valley outside Sendai, Miyagikyo Distillery was founded in 1969 as the softer counterpoint to Yoichi Distillery, established in 1934. Both distilleries reflect the vision of Masataka Taketsuru, who studied distillation in Scotland in 1918 before shaping what would become Nikka Whisky. His philosophy was grounded in Scottish discipline but guided by adaptation […]
March 2, 2026
History
Long before it became the foundation of the Caipirinha, Cachaça was born under oppression. In sixteenth-century Brazil, enslaved Africans working on Portuguese sugar plantations observed something their captors overlooked. The foam skimmed from boiling sugarcane juice fermented naturally. Distilled quietly and shared in secrecy, it became one of the earliest forms of what we now […]
March 2, 2026
Discovery and Education
Scotland does not produce one style of whisky. It produces six distinct regional expressions, each shaped by geography, climate, water, peat, and centuries of local tradition. From the floral lightness of the Lowlands to the maritime depth of Campbeltown and the powerful peat of Islay, every region answers the same question differently. How should whisky […]
March 2, 2026
