The Sparkling Side Of The Original Fruit: Comsi Comsa By Sauvage Apple Sparkling Wine

I can think of no other American state, other than New York, that has an 'upstate'.  Then, even if there is a locally known upstate region, there is none more heralded than New York's upstate.  Like moths to a flame, when the seasons change from sunburst & saturated to earthy & mild, the public can be found collectively flocking to this land of kaleidoscopic leaves and harvested crops as age-old as the birth of this nation.  One can't imagine the Fall in upstate New York without scenic drives, pumpkin patches and of course orchards of apples that have served to become the official pet-name for the state's most infamous city.  So as one looks forward to savory pies, caramel-dipped delights and spicy ciders, there's one new thing to look forward to that's as appropriately delectable as any MacIntosh, Honey Crisp or Red Delicious alike.

That thing is wine.  Not hard cider, not ale, but wine.  A satisfying wine that has lovingly grown out of the quaint town of Oneonta and made from the same championed apples littering the hilly landscape.  The undeniably tempting fruit has found its way into becoming a perfectly produced sparkling wine in the hands of the brilliant camp at Sauvage.  Think more high brow than cider and certainly more palatable than anything you'd just think to nurse for hours out of heaviness or potency.  The lovely Comsi Comsa by Sauvage Apple Crisp is an all-natural, gluten-free and kosher apple sparkling wine that achieves its proper wine labeling by boasting a 12% alcohol by volume.  Made from locally-sourced apples for a great carbon footprint and freshness at start of production, it's entirely produced on Sauvage's self-owned farms.  Just as quaint as its Oneonta, NY birthplace is the fact that this unique wine is produced in small batches to ensure more handling and control of its robust flavor profile.  What you're left with is quite soothing with its blend of various apple varieties in expert artisanal hands.

So just what are you left with?  I recently had the distinct pleasure of sampling Comsi Comsa by Sauvage Apple Crisp at a private tasting and was immediately struck by some key things.  This wine is incredibly clean and smooth with both a sweetness and subtle dryness that hit the palette and balance each other so harmoniously.  I was hit by a realization that I was tasting something unique on two ends.  The purity of fresh apples come through loud and prolific while the seasoned slight roll of dryness creates a pleasing depth that rounds out the sip to leave you wanting more.  It's almost as if the bubbly crisp zip of this apple sparkling wine produces an herbal spiciness that satisfies and electrifies the tongue all at once while relaxing the brain without a cloying sweetness or overpowering dryness.  From the dazzling coppery golden color to the pleasant fresh-cut apple fragrance, the effervescent Apple Crisp is a really gold-star creation for Comsi Comsa by Sauvage.

For those of you reading this who get transplanted when enjoying a great wine, consider, when I tell you, that I instantly saw myself around friends enjoying amazing conversation during a perfect brunch.  Appropriately mellow enough to allow you to enjoy your sip without thinking twice about taking another, Comsi Comsa by Sauvage Apple Crisp is a platform foray into apple sparkling wine contentment.  The official launch date is November 15 so now is the time is mentally bookmark, gear your tastebuds and pre-arrange brunch dates among your cohorts in anticipation of this launch.  For more information on Comsi Comsa by Sauvage Apple Crisp and the regional distributors and local availability of it up to and after its launch please visit www.DrinkSauvage.com.  Apple-picking and how you choose your form of apple just got that much more exciting.

www.DrinkSauvage.com

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Dave White

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A Work In Progress Kicks It With The Kinfolk: Kinfolk X Carhartt WIP Pop-Up

It seems that with the fast-paced tone to life in general nowadays there seems to be a constant desire for the next, the new & the noteworthy before the now, the current & the happening even has time to peak.  Understandably so, since Tribeca and Tokyo learn the same things at the same time and move on to the next things in routine time-zoned fashion.  From a fashion & retail standpoint, the Winter and Summer collections may set the tone, but the deliveries in between are those collective stylish shocks that keep the quarterly earnings heartbeat pumping.  Wonderful undertakings like pop-up shops and collaborations to keep fashion relevant, exciting and fresh are very modern ways to keep up with a quickened fashion cycle, to keep older brands relevant, to create foot traffic for brick & mortar locales and keep the public's vulture-like culture-hunger tempted.

With that in mind, a great stop for you this week would be at Kinfolk.  Fresh off their latest collaboration with The Gap, they've got a brand new in-store pop-up of limited edition items with the workwear staple Carhartt WIP in their Williamsburg, Brooklyn location and on their website now.  The pop-up merges Kinfolk's streamlined and fresh urban mobile aesthetic with Carhartt WIP's simple and ruggedly minimal workwear for a generation of moderns who connect with everything from bicycle & skate culture to Americana sportswear.  Check out the chill workshirts, tees, outerwear and trousers that walk the fine cool line between workwear and streetwear and take in the curated cycle-culture niceness that is Kinfolk.  The Kinfolk X Carhartt WIP Pop-Up will be up and running for the next few weeks at the shop @ 90 Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn NYC and online here.

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Dave White

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Good Food Sets The Mood For Getting Fresh: Dave's Gourmet Pasta Sauces

Cuffing season ushers in a series of questions.  One may ponder whether a bar hop or a scroll through the cell's log could produce a swaddling night turned into a cozy morning or a tipsy evening turned into a hungover midday.  Should it be a 'Netflix and Chill' or 'Firestick by the Fire' kind of evening?  Do you make reservations then retreat back to your place or rely on your skills in the kitchen to make spooning that welcomed retreat?  Well, I say flexing your culinary skills could lead to cuffing and more.  Sometimes a simple and well-executed meal full with a full flavor profile can be magical and make all the difference between spending the evening wrapped in their arms or wrapping your arms  around the throne.  Over the top is not necessarily the best.  Strong and rustic can be effective and satisfying.  For example, a nice toasted crusty French bread dusted with rosemary, garlic & olive oil, a buttery smooth fettuccine and a deliciously fresh pasta sauce can create quite an impressive evening.  Plus, it doesn't take long to make such a tasty prequel to an evening of canoodling and cuffing when a company like Dave's Gourmet has done 1/3 of the heavy work for you.

A pasta sauce can take time and effort which is why it's so amazing that one of my go to company's for hot sauce and just recently, overnight oats, now have pasta sauces under its belt.  The Speciality Food division of Dave's Gourmet has pasta sauces with flavors like Roasted Garlic & Sweet Basil, Red Heirloom and Butternut Squash that are all gluten-free, excellent sources of Vitamins A & C and contain ingredients that you can actually pronounce.  I tried the Roasted Garlic & Sweet Basil the other night with a simple fettuccine and I was very content with now natural and fresh it tasted.  A lot of times, jarred sauces go heavy with contents and wind up having a sugary or paste-like flavor.  The natural acidity of the tomatoes in this sauce was perfectly balanced with the natural cane sugar & sweet basil and overall the sauce had a nice chunky texture to where the garlic and tomatoes were actually visible.  

Another thumbs up for Dave's Gourmet and the brand's efforts to keep food that is good for you more palatable and in its natural form.  For more on these pasta sauces head on over to their site here.  Dave's Gourmet's Pasta Sauces are now available on their site and at your finer local groceries and supermarkets.

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Dave White

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I Rant, You Read: The Motley Crew Of Men At The Lunch Table

Have you looked around lately?  Men seem to have collectively gone through an all-life crisis.  While yes, the teens still dress like teens and swear by sweats and streetwear to the letter, there seems to be men in their 30s and 40s who share in that same swearing.  There are professional seasoned men who have their tailors right up front on their speed dials just as there are junior dandies in their 20s who comb TopShop and Zara for bespoke-looking blazers on a budget.  An interesting phenomenon are those men who should be going through midlife but who are turning back the hands of time in the gym donning flimsy tees and thigh-hugging denim that have seemingly changed places with young waifs who dress in oversized tailored trousers, learned balmacaans and rubber sole heavy generic-looking trainers.  The idea of dressing like how you feel as opposed to what you do has affected the 25 year old CEO and the 45 year old tech entrepreneur alike.

The on-going liberation of menswear has to do with the quick-pace of modern society that has systematically sped everything up and redefined the depth of acceptance in of everything from information absorption to job tenure to popular culture.  Liberation may be too "burn a bra" kind of word; let's say reformulation instead.  With seemingly the wrong people wearing clothes deemed right by people uptown and people downtown alike, it's almost as if current menswear is saying 'get beneath the clothes and you may find a credibility to choices behind the clothing.'  Simply put, clothes no longer only make the man when the man of choice could be wearing a three piece suit or a track suit.  

Think the punk rocking hip hop vibe of Migos together with the nattily tailored vibe of NBA ballers on their way into a game together with the driven young gamer programmer in sweats and sock-sneakers together with the conscious tree-hugging gym-to-street muscly fitness rat.  Examine the lanky un-metrosexual goof getting the vixen, nerd-culture coolness, trainer-life as everyday life and rappers bedecked out as the modern day rockstars.  We are living in a culture where age is becoming as welcomingly fluid as gender.  We are walking through the age of 'sheeple', mavericks and influentials where consistently looking at the body and its adornment instead of demanding, seeking and having the courage to show depth can prove fruitless.  Perhaps an oversized hoodie, dad-coat ,  ortho-trainers and slouchy trousers hiding the body makes one observe harder or dig more earnestly for depth.  Maybe a room full of fit bodies, deep v's and biker jeans causes an immunity that makes one hold onto words of depth more than biceps, or so it should be.  There is such a cross mash-up of ages, cultures and challenged & redefined masculine standards that had to change since times changed.  The interesting thing about how fashion defines the time in which we live and decipher how we wear what we wear is that you never know who is going to gravitate to what & when and then the why's can range from wanting to belong to the collective to very personal individual needs.

It's safe to say that the provocative as well as what's age-appropriate, masculine, strong and generational have been redefined.  Blame the pace of modernity, blame the drinking of the collective Kool-aid being drunken, blame information overload OR accept modernity as a vital fact of life, accept walking to your own beat as a sweet life soundtrack and accept that sometimes picking and choosing the information you learn and absorb can be the difference between the awkwardness of being a nerd and hulkiness of being a gym-head.  However, accept that if you own it, both can be just as alluring.

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Dave White

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Lessons In The Sauce: Drink Like A Bartender Book Review

I'm not embarrassed to tell you that my self-bartending history has gone through quite questionable phases.  From almost getting thrown down the stairs at a house party in Astoria after mixing the devil's soup in a 32 ounce sized fast-food cup to sharing a subway bench one New Year's morning with a hobo after delving stomach-empty into a Hennessey-heavy pour your own libations affair, I've learned drink-mixing the hard way.  However, I never wanted to be a bartender, but do enjoy spirits so much so that alcohol-wise I want to at least know my ass from my elbow lest I wind up drunk on either after a night of foolish imbibing.     

The years have matured me and while I now know the my tolerance levels much more than I did 20 years ago, there's always room for improvement.  Enter Drink Like A Bartender by Thea Engst and Lauren Vigdor, 2017 (Simon & Schuster) which not only seeks to make ordering easier for the modern drinker, but also offers to put a cool ease back into how you order by shedding light on many things you may order or never had the wherewithal to try ordering.

Drink Like A Bartender aims to give you insight from the opposite side of the bar.  The book has a delightful air of humor to its delivery of the chock full information for everyone from the Norm of 'Cheers' to the sheltered virgin at her first dive bar.  I think a good way to look at this book is as part   handy-sized encyclopedia, part textbook, part recipe book and part satyrical reference guide to the world of choices behind the bar, on that restaurant menu and out in that vineyard.  In a great modern fashion, Engst and Vigdor aim to give their seasoned veteran bartender POV's to categories of spirits, beers and wines and some histories, hints, tips and opinions involving subcategories of each.  They've also included perspectives from bartenders all over the country on personal pet peeves, individual drinking insights and suggestions on how not to sound like an idiot when ordering.  However, don't think of it as condescending, but rather see it as ways in which a guest can better enjoy their drinking experience by trying new choices, finding new ways to enjoy familiar drinks and quite possibly maximizing flavor while saving dollars.  With the tips learned, impress, and the cash saved, tip your bartender!

Drink Like A Bartender is available now on Amazon.com

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Dave White

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