"Charles Baker" news and stories

• Sommelier Charles Baker takes the singleton approach to winemaking, using a single vineyard, grower, and varietal to produce his distinct Riesling.
• Toronto bakers and sweets experts put their love of bacon on the line and whip up porcine cupcakes, chocolate, mints and even crème brûlée.
• Quebec is home to Canada's most flexible and creative beer brewers, such as the divine Unibroue and St. Ambroise.
• In beer-fixated Toronto, cocktail lovers are trying to get some respect for their creative libations.
• Recipe: Pasta with Kale, Chickpeas, and Parmesan
• You don't have to buy pre-made pretzels anymore: Auntie Anne's now offers pretzel kits so that you can reproduce that addictive aroma at home.
  

Long before there was a Kevin Bauch circumnavigating the globe to cure his thirst, there was the inimitable Charles H. Baker, author of my current favorite cocktail book The Gentleman's Companion - Being an Exotic Drinking Book or Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask.

Charles H. Baker Jr. (December 25, 1895 - November 11, 1987) was a true bon vivant who spent most of his adult life traveling the globe, collecting food and drink recipes, the most famous of which being his chronicles on cocktails. Many of those recipes found in this book are seeing new light today at some of the best bars in the world.

If the book only contained recipes, it'd still be an important work in the field of bar manuals. What sets it apart is his prose, at once exotic, irreverent, funny and deadly serious about accuracy. Baker's wonderfully evocative introductions to his drinks alone make it impossible for me not to reach for my cocktail shaker.

Here is his introduction to a drink now finding it's way onto classic cocktail bar menus:

REMEMBER the MAINE, a Hazy Memory of a Night in Havana during the Unpleasantness of 1933, when Each Swallow Was Punctuated with Bombs Going off on the Prado, or the Sound of 3" Shells Being Fired at the Hotel NACIONAL, then Haven for Certain Anti-Revolutionary Officers.