GWPR Select National Press

June 16, 2017
Circulation: 255,000

Award-Winning Indian Whisky, New Bourbon, Scotch and More

Susannah Skiver Barton

When we gave Amrut Spectrum our World Whisky of the Year award in 2016, the Indian single malt
wasn’t yet available in the U.S. But as of this month, that’s no longer the case—though the limited-edition
whisky will still be tough to find. There are plenty of other new whiskies to try though: a brace of unique
ryes from Woodford Reserve (available at the distillery only), bourbons from Redemption and George
Remus (both made at MGP Distillery), single-cask scotches from the Exclusive Malts, and two bottled in
bond whiskeys made by Laws Whiskey House.
GEORGE REMUS BOURBON

Style: Straight bourbon
Origin: Indiana
Age: 4 years old
Proof: 47% ABV
Price: $45
Release: June 2017
Availability: Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and
Minnesota

Need to know:
Named for an infamous Prohibition-era Cincinnati bootlegger, George Remus
Bourbon is a high-rye blend of bourbons all aged for at least four years. It’s made at
MGP Distillery in Indiana.
Whisky Advocate says:
MGP acquired the George Remus brand from Cincinnati-based Queen City Whiskey Co. last year, but the
liquid itself hasn’t changed at all—since MGP was supplying Queen City with whiskey all along.

December 17, 2017
Circulation: 880,000

30 Most Exciting Food Cities in America 2017

Meredith Heil

It was an incredible year for dining across the U.S. in 2017. With chefs from New York, Chicago and San
Francisco moving to smaller markets like Denver, Raleigh, Seattle and Charleston (among others), culinary
innovation is booming in cities big and small. But which food town had the biggest growth spurt this year?
For one final look back, we've asked editors around the country to make a case for the city they believe
had the biggest year in food by assessing the number of exciting new openings, award recognition and
national media attention. Then we let some of the top food media brass weigh in on which locales were
most exciting. Don't see your pick on the list? Let us know in the comments.

No. 28: Kansas City, MO

Kansas City has had quite the year. After garnering five James Beard nominations, the oft-overlooked
Missouri metropolis took home some major awards: The Rieger Hotel’s subterranean Manifesto added
Outstanding Bar Program to its list of accolades, fine-dining destination Bluestem, helmed by French
Laundry vet Andrew Longres, picked up an Outstanding Restaurant nod (as well as a Zagat 30 Under 30
National honor for bar manager Andrew Olsen); Best Chef: Midwest went to Patrick Ryan of Port Fonda
fame. Other noteworthy openings included world-class cocktail bars like the epically swank Monarch Bar
and Swordfish Tom’s, a speakeasy-style cocktail den from seasoned barkeep Jill Cockson; EJ’s Urban
Eatery, a hit meat-and-three by chef John Cedric Smith, who cut his teeth at Tom Colicchio’s Craft in NYC;
and ex American Restaurant executive chef Michael Corvino’s highly regarded brasseries and music venue,
Corvino Supper Club & Tasting Room. And with new places opening every month, KC is moving away from
its rep as a BBQ mecca and into the spotlight as one of America’s most exciting up-and-comers.

—Meredith Heil





October 23, 2017
Circulation: 13,561

The Monarch Bar Takes Flight in Kansas City with a Double-Smoked Cocktail

Amy Cavanaugh

Kansas City has a thing for monarch butterflies. Huge numbers of the butterflies migrate through Kansas
City each fall on their way to Mexico, and the name is attached to a coffee shop, Monarch Coffee; a former
baseball team, Kansas City Monarchs; and The Monarch Bar, a cocktail bar that opened this summer. Led
by Bar Manager Brock Schulte (The Rieger), the menu gets inspiration from the butterfly migration, as each
section traces various flight paths and uses that geography to inspire the “flavors and seasonality” of the
ingredients in each cocktail.
One cocktail representing the Heartland Path, which includes the Kansas City region, is Silver Dollars and
Half Light Skies, made with applewood-smoked J. Rieger & Co. Whiskey, Yunnan black tea-infused
Tabacal Rancio, barrel-aged cream soda reduction and No. 22 Boondock bitters. The drink uses multiple
ingredients from the area, and is presented with a sugar disc across the top of the glass that traps smoke
in the glass. Upon service, Schulte breaks the sugar with a tiny hammer so it shatters into the drink and the
smoke wafts across the bar. He spoke with us about how it comes together, his perspective on cocktails,
and the ingredients he's excited about now.

What’s your drink-making philosophy?

Personally, I think that if you’re coming up with a
brand new cocktail, you’re kind of crazy. People
have been making cocktails for the last 250 to
300 years, and punch even longer; to say you’re
going to make a brand new cocktail that nobody
has ever had before is insane to me. I think that
you can change cocktails or do different
techniques to make a cocktail yours. I believe
you should have some type of cocktail in mind,
whether it’s a Manhattan or Collins, or old
fashioned, a jungle bird. Is it tiki, is it stirred?
From there, we try to incorporate seasonality or
the type of spirits we want to use. From there on,
it’s really about texture. Once we have a
balanced cocktail, we’re going to try to alter the
texture at least once, to give the impression of
layers of flavor that aren’t there, or add layers of
flavor that you couldn’t get before, such as the
smoke on top of the Silver Dollars and Half Light
Skies. The smoke on top is to give that three-
square-foot area around the glass barbecue
smoke. But also, as the sugar falls into the glass,
it melts into the cocktail, so as it warms up, the
cocktail becomes thicker. Other texture things
we use are fat washing, carbonation, aquafaba
instead of egg whites, the list goes on. Basically,
we try to add as many layers of flavor and
different textures as we can without making the
cocktail seem silly or have a thousand
ingredients in it.

How did the Silver Dollars and Half Light Skies come together?
In Kansas City culture, smoked liquor has always been super popular. We have a few different smoked
liquors on the menu. Applewood-smoked whiskey is one of my favorite flavors. It’s a sweeter smoke, so it’s
hard to overdo. With hickory or cedar, over-smoking makes it unpalatable. So this cocktail is good for
anyone who likes Manhattan-style cocktails or anyone who wants to try a smoked cocktail for the first time
because it can be light or heavy depending on how much smoke we put on top. We pre-smoke the entire
cocktail beforehand, and the garnish is fresh applewood smoke that we trap with the isomalt glass on top.
Julie Ohno, who works at the Rieger, makes No. 22 Boondock bitters, which are toasted pecan and walnut.
Because we use J. Rieger & Co. Kansas City whiskey, which has two percent 15-year oloroso sherry added
to it, I wanted to play off that sherry a little more, so instead of vermouth, I use rancio. It doesn't have overly
amontillado sherry-like flavors, but it’s really rich with a nice body. I infuse it with Yunnan black tea, which
lightens it up a bit. It brings everything together, including the sherry finish on the whiskey and toasted
walnut and pecan bitters.

The sugar glass across the top traps the smoke, and you mentioned that it also changes the texture of the
drink. How do you make it?
We were just making basic hard candy, but that’s a little tougher to regulate. So I talked to a pastry chef
here and he turned me onto isomalt. Basically, you have to have a sugar and an inverted sugar to create
what we’re trying to do, and isomalt is an inverted sugar that allows us to make these way faster and more
consistent. [The sugar] makes the drink just a touch sweeter. It would have to sit there for a long time to
notice a lot of sweetness. We serve the drink neat and as it warms up, the sweetness kind of dies a little
since bitter flavors can come out. It becomes a little bolder; now that the smoke is all gone away, the smoke
in the cocktail plays a bigger part.

What’s an ingredient or spirit that you’re really into right now?

I really enjoy black garlic. We have black garlic in the Wobbly Line
[which is made with three different styles of rum and madeira]. I first
tried black garlic in an aïoli with a Wagyu steak at the American… I was
really confounded by it and loved how deep and umami and rich and
salty and savory it was. I tried to put it in cocktails for a year and a half
and failed. I went back to the original way he served it, as an aïoli. An
aïoli is rich in oil, so fat. I was thinking, 'What do I like to use that’s rich
in fat?' Greek yogurt kind of dinged. So I tried it and it was delicious. If
you think about sour-style cocktails and add cream or milk to it, it would
make it richer. It wasn’t too far a stretch to use yogurt. I garnish the
drink with black lemon, which we grate over the top. I really like citrus
ash in cocktails. It’s sustainable—we use the fruit for peels for a garnish
then juice it and put the juiced hull in the oven at 400 degrees for an
hour. It completely burns out and then we put it into a Vitamix and get
this nice citrus ash that’s super fragrant. You can do it with Buddha’s
hand, grapefruit, Meyer lemon, key limes. You can use anything with a
rich oil content that won’t bake away but will concentrate.

August 23, 2017
Circulation: 150,000

Insider Guide: Pairing Wines with Tough Vegetables

Liza Zimmerman
Some of life’s most delicious vegetables are challenging to pair with wine. This is in great part because of
their intense flavors and sometimes bitter qualities. Great spring and summer produce—such as asparagus
and artichokes—have long been among the hardest to match up with the right wine.

I often adhere to the grassy-on-grassy pairing idea. So, bring on the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, some
of them smell like the field they were grown in and pair nicely with similar earthy vegetables. Otherwise it
might be a pairing of opposites: i.e. those big, broad Chardonnays with lots of oak that might balance out
the bitterness found in some vegetables.
ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT
“Vegetables can easily be thought of as one of the toughest pairings because it’s not very often that they
are the star component of a dish,” says Kelsey Alt, the wine director at The Rieger in Kansas City. “There
are a variety of wines that can be suitable for vegetable pairings, from whites to reds and even most dry
rosés.”

“The trick,” she adds, “is knowing how to play those wine styles off the flavor components of each vegetable.
For instance, many dry [or sec] styles of Chenin Blanc play really well with mushrooms. The weight of the
wine, along with the high acid and strong mineral components, can usually hold up to something as earthy
and meaty as a mushroom.”

Also the type of vegetable you want to eat should be paired with a wine of similar weight and style. “The
biggest overall characteristic of great wines to pair with vegetables is typically a lighter-body style, whether
red or white. The biggest exception I have found, however, is Roussanne and Marsanne,” she shares.

KEEPING IT LOCAL

We have long had a saying that what grows together goes together in the wine world. It is hardly a new
take on pairings, but it still works well. “Most wine and food that grow in the same region will traditionally
work well together in a wine pairing. For example, Ratatouille is a traditional Provençal vegetable dish that
goes perfectly with [local] Cinsault,” she notes. While, “Greek Salads with their use of tomato and fresh
herbs tend to go very well with the native Assyrtiko grape: a bone-dry white wine with pronounced acidity
[great for tomatoes!] and a flinty minerality,” says vegetable expert, Alt.

I couldn’t agree more. One of my favorite pairings is Sangiovese, either Italian or domestic, with tomato-
based dishes. That should come as no surprise since Italy is home to abundant plots of Sangiovese as well
as lots of delicious tomatoes.

“Another big component to look for is how the vegetables are prepared. Any type of cooking technique is
bound to change the flavor profile of the vegetable and this will affect what wines you choose to pair,” says
Alt, and she’s so right.

She goes go on to note that, “Roasted nightshades, such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplants tend to go
very well with Mencìa, the red grape found in the Bierzo region of Spain. This wine has a light body similar
to that of Gamay, but with a spicy back palate that achieves harmony with those roasted styles.” Not
surprisingly the Spanish eat a lot of nightshades so there’s no surprise to that pairing.

For the really tough cookies—like artichokes and asparagus—Austria’s Grüner Veltliner is Alt’s new go-to
wine. “It has a pronounced backbone of acidity that can stand up to such strongly flavored vegetable fare,
as well as what most describe as a ‘white pepper’ note that accompanies those meaty vegetal flavors. I
also think traditional, well structured styles of Pinot Blanc, like those coming out of Alsace, can stand up to
the plate.”

I just can’t wait to cook up some of those greens I just got at the farmer’s market!

May 18, 2017
Circulation:190,000

A Journey to the Heart of Rias Baixas

Mark Angelilo

Have you ever tasted ten wines in sixty minutes? In my experience this
is one of the best ways to get a crash course in a grape or region. You’ll
come away with a wealth of understanding and ready to learn even
more. I shared this kind of tasting experience with Advanced Sommelier
Jill Zimorski plus several hundred wine writers and wine lovers during
our Rías Baixas Albariño virtual tasting. We tasted a special collection
of ten Rías Baixas Albariño highlighting three of the region’s five sub-
regions. In the hour-long discussion we unpacked a lot about Albariño,
a very old grape variety with Galician roots. Albariño vines once grew
wild in Galicia which is a really good indicator of the vines’ provenance
and age. Can you imagine finding wild Albariño growing along the road
in lieu of, say, dandelions? Nowadays Albariño is expertly cultivated by
some of the best winemakers in the business. Albariño is one of the
most sought-after white wines in the United States and a favorite of the
somm set thanks to its ripe fruit, mineral freshness, and marine notes.
This is a place, and a grape, you’ll want to know more about.

About Rías Baixas

Rías Baixas is a bastion of white wines in a country dominated by reds. It is unlike any other wine growing
region in Spain. Its northwestern coastal location creates humid conditions which are perfectly suited to
the thick-skinned, disease-resistant Albariño grape. The landscape of Rías Baixas is comprised of ocean
inlets called “rias”. Some say they look like the fingers of a hand. The region’s rolling hills, lush greenery,
and granitic sandy soils deliver aromatic wines alive with an ocean influence you can’t find elsewhere.

Drinking lots of Albariño from Rías Baixas is a great way to fine-tune your palate. I’ve always been struck
by the classic peach, apricot, and sea spray notes in these wines, but a keen palate will detect
differences between sub-region, vintage, and producer. In this respect Rías Baixas Albariño is perfect for
all types of wine drinkers – from the most casual to the most serious. It’s a delicious drink, but it also can
make you think.

Winemakers in Rías Baixas are dedicated to craft. They individually create wines true to their desires. As
a result, no two Albariño will be exactly alike. We tasted ten different interpretations of Rías Baixas
Albariño in three separate flights based on sub-region.

Flight #1: Val do Salnés

Val do Salnés is known as the birthplace of the Albariño grape. It is the oldest sub-region with the
greatest number of wineries. It is also the coolest and the wettest of all sub-regions. A glass from Val do
Salnés is likely to deliver Albariño in a classic style: stone fruit, apricot, peach, with a touch of wet sand
and saline.

Condes de Albarei Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $15

Vionta Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $15
Martin Codax Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $16.99
Pazo Senorans Albariño Rias Baixas 2016, SRP $25

Flight #2: Contado do Tea

This sub-region is furthest from the coast and therefore quite warm compared to the other sub-regions. Its
name translates to “The County of Tea”, a reference to the river Tea which is a tributary of the Miño River.
Warmer temperatures can make for extra ripe fruit that packs a punch.

Pazo de San Mauro Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $17
Señorío de Rubiós Robaliño Albariño Rias Baixas 2016, SRP $18

Flight #3: O Rosal

This sub-region rests on the Portuguese border. Warmth is moderated by the nearby coast. Here the
vines ring around the Miño river, and many vineyards are carved out of terraced clearings on south-facing
hillsides.

Valminor Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $18.99
Bodegas Terras Gauda Abadia San Campio Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $19.99
Altos de Torona Albariño Sobre Lias Rias Baixas 2015, SPR $14
Santiago Ruiz Albariño Rias Baixas 2015, SRP $20