Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest May 4th

Living in L.A. for more than a decade, I’ve said the phrase “Only in L.A.” about a million times. The Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest has caused me to say it again. But isn’t beer vegan you ask? Yes, mostly, for the exception of brewers that use gelatin or isinglass (made from fish swim bladders) to help clarify it or those using honey or lactose for body.

More importantly, instead of all the carnage accoutrements one normally associates with beer drinking – sausage, ribs, bacon anything, and fried chicken – no animals will suffer for the merriment of a brew-ha-ha next Saturday in West Hollywood.

Some may think a vegan beer festival is crazy, and by the photo of a few of last year’s Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest-goers, they might be. But, crazy in a good way – like as in doing your body, the planet and a few hundred animals a favor by abstaining from meat for a day.

The 4th Annual LA Vegan Beer & Food Festival will have 40+ participating brewers, both craft and mainstream brewing companies, like Dogfish Head, Ballast Point, Surf Brewing, Anchor, and Ass Kisser.

And not to worry, you won’t starve, soaking up the alcohol with merely a bag of Pirate’s Booty and carrots sticks. Some of L.A.’s finest restaurants, not necessarily all vegan, will be showing off their gourmet meatless chops. With more than 30 vendors, you can literally pig out sans the pig, of course. Roxy’s Grilled Cheese, Susan Feniger’s STREET, and the Southern Fried Vegan BBQ are just a few I’m looking forward to sampling.

No festival is complete without live tunes. Yep, you guessed it, at least one band, by the looks of their name, playing at the Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest is vegan: Vegan Boss.

The Los Angeles Vegan Beer fests starts at 1 p.m. on May 4th, but if you want to get fancy, VIP tickets include a 12 p.m entry with access to special brews. Tickets purchased in advance start at $15 for non-drinkers, $40 for general and $50 for VIP. Head HERE for tickets. A portion of all ticket sales benefits k9 connection, an experience-based program which educates and inspires at-risk teens through bonding with and training homeless shelter dogs.

Cheers to a day of honoring your love of brews and beasts!

For more info, check out their the Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest facebook page or follow them on Twitter @LAVeganBeerFest.

Vegan Beer & Food Festival, May 4th, 2013, 8950 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA

Photos courtesy of LA Vegan Beer & Food Fest

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Peruvians feel about pisco as Mexicans do about tequila – it’s a birthright, a national source of pride, and the perfect liquor of choice for ALL and ANY occasion (including breakfast). Last week, I spent a six days learning about pisco, a white spirit made from 100% grapes, and visiting Pisco Porton distillery with other journalists and bartenders.

The Pisco Sour was invented in the 1920s by Victor Morris, oddly enough, an ex-Mormon, working as a bartender in Peru. It’s rumored that whiskey was in short supply, so the popular Whiskey Sour cocktail was not available and Morris swapped out whiskey for pisco and created the national cocktail.

What’s In Pisco Sours?

A traditional recipe goes something like this:

3 Parts Pisco
1 part lime juice
1 part Gum Syrup (Gum Arabic made from trees)
1-2 part Egg White
2-3 drops of Bitters to garnish cocktail

Mix pisco, lime and syrup. Add egg white to shaker. Shake vigorously. Pour in glass. Garnish with a few drops of bitter on top of the white foam.

Rainbow of Pisco Sours

Before visiting the birthplace of both the pisco spirit and the Pisco Sour, I’d sampled and made plenty of Pisco Sours, but not like the ones I found in Peru. Many of the famous bars in Lima, like Mayta, Cala, Huaringas or Capitan Melendez, have over 40 different flavors of pisco sour cocktails. Pisco infusions are big deal there, utilizing strange and wonderful fruits and roots.

Pisco infusions at Cala in Lima, Peru

 Here’s my tribute to the rainbow of Pisco Sours you can find in Peru:

The Coca Pisco Sour in which I renamed affectionately the Cocaine Sour as it’s made with the same coca leaves as cocaine is. The drink does NOT have the same side effects as the drug.

I thought any drink made of corn, be it yellow or purple, as is the case with the Chicha Sour, would be sickly sweet. Not so. Purple corn has a tart, bitter flavor and gives the drink a gorgeous magenta color. It was one of my favorite pisco sour varietals.

Not only is the Aguaymento (Goldenberry) Sour delicious but super nutricious too! One berry has the same amount of Vitamin C as 50 oranges. Salud!

The name was so strange, I had to try it out. The Chuchuwasi Sour is made from an Amazonian root infused in pisco called Chuchuwasi. The root gives it the deep red color. When I ordered it from the menu of over 40 pisco sours at Cala Restaurant in Lima, the bartender questioned my judgement. “Very strong. You sure?” With that, I said in my 3-year-old style Spanish, “Yo me gusto muy fuerte!”

I tried the Cama Camu Sour (on the left) at one of Lima’s most popular pisco sour spots: HUARINGAS BAR. Camu camu comes from a small bushy riverside tree from the Amazon rainforest vegetation in Peru and Brazil and the fruit looks like a red/purple cherry. But it tastes a bit like passion fruit. And yes, the yellow pisco sour on the left is an official Passion Fruit Sour.

Pisco sours come in two sizes in Peru: regular or Cathedral. The pisco sours in the photo are the cathedral version. The bartender used so much Pisco (the bartender used 2/3 of a full bottle of Encanto de Campo pisco to make 2 drinks), we renamed it the Vatican Sour.

This is a regular pisco sour size. But I included it in my tribute as it is one of the BEST places to get an authentic pisco sour in Lima: Bar Capitán Meléndez. Bar Capitan serves only pisco spirits . No vodka, no gin, no whiskey here. Just pisco, over 50 kinds to choose from.

More Pisco Pow-Wow

With Love from Pisco Porton Distillery (PHOTOS)

How to Celebrate National Pisco Day

 

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Could this gag-reflex begetting trend be the new thing in cocktails? Semen cocktails? Yes, you heard me right. Paul ‘Fotie’ Photenhauer’s latest book is touting the art of man juice in cocktails:Semenology – The Semen Bartender’s Handbook.

And this isn’t the first attempt in procreating his theory. Back in 2011, he self-published the Natural Harvest: A collection of semen-based recipes
cookbook in which he states, “Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic.” Ew.

According to Photenhauer, he is promoting “learning how to mix selected spirits to enhance the delicate flavors of semen.”

As well as featuring cocktail recipes such as the Macho Mojito, Semen Hemorrhage, the Slightly Saltier Caviar and Orgasm on the Beach, he also offers helpful advice on the harvesting and storage of this “freshly harvested ingredient.”

He told SF Weekly, where the story broke: “If you want your partner to swallow, you should be willing to eat your own semen – I mean, it’s your semen.“

“Then I started thinking about it. People eat all kinds of weird shit. Eggs are the menstruation of chickens. Milk is the mammary excretion from cows. Semen is… at least it’s fresh and you know who the producer is.”

He sounds like an absolute creepy guy, right? According to Anna Roth of SF Weekly, she says Photenhauer isn’t some perv who sits around drinking semen all day—he reserves semen cooking only for special, intimate encounters with his partner.

“For me, it’s more of a fun twist to add to food, or in this case a drink. It adds a definite personal twist to it,” Protenhauer says. “I would never eat or drink semen, cooked or otherwise, from someone I wouldn’t be willing to have sex with.”

Not sure I’ll ever be testing these cocktails out, but it is trend that is inseminating the cocktail world at the rate rabbits’ procreate.

Would you be brave enough to try out semen cocktails? Wonder if Andrew Zimmern of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods will be up for the challenge?***

***UPDATE: Andrew Zimmern has answered my question today via Twitter. Would he try sperm cocktails? Here’s his answer:

 

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