DC Wine Lovers Demand Flavor: 1000 Stories Wines delivers with Bourbon Barrel Aged Zinfandel
At 1000 Stories Wines, they share that same bold roaming spirit, which is why each of their wines tell incredible stories of exploration and discovery.
In every bottle thy hope you’ll find journeys, encounters, people and places—stories that stoke the roaming spirit in all of us so that once your grass of wine is finished, you set out once again to create the next chapter in our stories.
Margaret Leonardi from 1000 Stories Wines
Today we’re talking with Margaret Leonardi from 1000 Stories Wines. The below conversation has been editing for length and clarity. For the full, unedited version, check out our FlavRReport YouTube channel.
Just to get to know you a little bit better, can you tell us more about what inspired you to get into the wine business?
Margaret Leonardi: I’m originally from an organic dairy farm in Northern California, so just the county north of here. We’re in Mendocino County. I’m from Humboldt County, so just the closest wine growing region from home. The wine industry is so much more glamorous and romantic than the dairy industry. I’ve been making wine since 2009. Now my whole life is the wine industry.
My husband is a winemaker too. We live in a vineyard. We’re in the middle of harvest right now. We’ve been harvesting for over a month now. We’ll harvest hopefully through Halloween.
How’s it going this year? Are the grapes looking good?
Margaret Leonardi: Pretty average yields. It’s a little later as a whole than normal harvest. Not noteworthy, but maybe a couple of weeks depending on the region, the variety. It’s tasting good. The chemistries are nice. Good acids. So far we’re happy but we’re only halfway done.
The brand is called 1,000 Stories. On your website it mentions each of your wines tell incredible stories of exploration, discovery. Where does the idea of stories come from?
Margaret Leonardi: There’s a lot of stories around how we came up with the name and how we got from point A to point B, but everyone has their own rendition, which is just ironic that it’s 1000 stories. Our consumer is adventurous, and likes to roam and wander and connect with people. So all those people, each adventure you go on, and each new connection you make, you have new stories, and you have new stories to share, and you can share our wines together.
You mentioned the word “explore”. Up in your area is Yellowstone National Park, and a thousand stories that you guys partnered with Yellowstone Forever.
Margaret Leonardi: That’s a new partnership for this year. The official non profit partner with Yellowstone, and their main focus is bison conservation. With our label, our mascot is a bison. The partnership promotes bison conservation, make sure their population is safe and healthy.
It’s a beautiful design. Tell me about how the bottle itself was created and how you decided what should be on that bottle?
Margaret Leonardi: We have three SKUs that are bourbon barrel aged. Our first is the Zinfandel, the OG of the portfolio, this came out first and then in the Bourbon Barrel Age side, we also have a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Red Blend.
Then we have an American Barrel Aged section that’s Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, so not Bourbon Barrel Aged, just American Oak. That would be used for normal winemaking, and then we have our newest corn sku, it’s a Sauvignon Blanc, and this is just stainless steel and some concrete aging.
The Bourbon barrel aged [popularity] has grown. We have customers who want more diversity, more variety. So we’ve expanded the set.
On the Zinfandel [label], we have our mascot the bison. Another noteworthy thing with this is on the Zin, because it was our first.
Each time we get bourbon barrels, we go through a 3rd party broker. So we’re not working directly with any distillers. We have a mix of the distilleries these bourbon barrels are shipping to us from, so they’re all different.
We’re filling finished Zinfandel in these barrels and then we taste each one.
Some can be really bourbon-y, really potent. A lot of fresh dill. Some can have less bourbon influence and it’s more smoky, toasty.
So we have to really craft each one. We’re tasting a bunch of lots and crafting the blend for the finished product.
That’s when we decided to put the batch number [on the bottle]. Because as a whole, the backbone of the wine tastes very similar, but there are some little minute differences. We wanted to convey that to the consumer with the batch number because you can tell [each bottle] tastes a little different.
Bourbon barrel has become very popular. How was that method chosen at your winery?
Margaret Leonardi: It was a practice from the original winemaker, the founding winemaker, Bob Blue, who just retired a couple of years ago.
We were innovating, thinking of new wine ideas, and this is a practice that he used 20 plus years ago. [Back then] French oak wine barrels were pretty pricey, like a luxury commodity to use. So he was looking at different alternatives to age his wines here at Fetzer.
He had this idea. Bourbon and whiskey barrels were cheaper.
We bought some bourbon barrels and tried it. We were like, we should bottle this, not blend this into a bigger portion. This should be its own bottle. That was in 2014, our first vintage.
I started with the company in 2015. I was here at the beginning, so I saw some of the evolution and then Bob has retired and he’s passed the torch to Sebastian and I.
Let’s talk a little bit about the different varietals. The process, the styles aromas, flavor notes.
Margaret Leonardi: The first original Zinfandel is our classic. I say classic because Zinfandel’s kind of an American grape variety, it’s very Americana. It goes with our whole spirit of the brand, and It’s what Mendocino County and Mendocino is known for.
We grow really great Zinfandel’s up here, it’s a nice and warm climate. We’ve also expanded, now we’re sourcing some of the fruit from Lodi as well, which is also a really great growing region for Zinfandel. They’re also known for their Zin.
It’s blended with some Petite Syrah. Just to give the color a little more enhancement. Some more tannin structure. We want the whole backbone of the blend to be bold. You’re supposed to match the bison. Big style, bold characteristics. We pick them when the fruit is really ripe. It’s pretty hot. Then we finish it in bourbon barrels and we can use a little bit of American oak, French oak in there too, just to give it some oak enhancement. Usually around 15 percent alcohol in the finished product.
The unique part of the Zinfandel itself is the blackberries. It’s really juicy, some cranberry and then the bourbon barrel aging process is just where you get some like dried herbs, oregano, thyme. Toffee characteristics from the toastiness of the bourbon barrel itself.
The point is to have a really strong wine. We want to have a really strong wine. We don’t want it to waft bourbon and we don’t want the bourbon to sit on top of the wine. We want them to be really integrated and just like a finish, not overwhelming or overpowering.
It’s very well balanced. Were there any challenges in finding the balance or was it pretty straightforward?
Margaret Leonardi: It’s not pretty straightforward. We wish. The barrels coming from the distillers can vary. They can be emptied the week before [and be very fresh]. They can be emptied a month [and be less fresh]. So how much has evaporated, how much has been absorbed into the wood. Those are unknown factors. So it’s a bunch of trial and error. So it’s fun, but it’s a lot of work. We want some consistency, but we want a little bit of difference.
You’ve mentioned Sebastian Donoso. Tell us about him. How the two of you balance roles.
Margaret Leonardi: He’s the winemaker for the Bourbon Barrel Aged Wines. Before we were both collaborating with Bob, it was more like a team effort. When Bob stepped down, we also had the new American Barrel Aged Pinot and Chard and the Sauvignon Blanc’s brand new.
Sebastian took the Bourbon Barrel Aged because he was working on those more, and then I took the other half. We work together.
Before we move on, I don’t want to forget the Sauvignon Blanc. Process, styles, aromas, the taste?
Margaret Leonardi: This just came out in April of this year so I’m really excited. I think it’s still working its way across the nation, but I’m really happy with this wine. I really like the way it came out and I got to make it from scratch. I made exactly what I wanted. It’s nice when you make something that you really like to drink too. The fruit that we source for this comes from the majority from the Arroyo Seco region, so down Monterey, central coast of California, which is just a really nice growing region, Bay Area influence. Warm days and then cool evenings. A little bit comes from just up here in Mendocino County. Then the rest is from Lodi.
A unique thing is it’s blended with 10% Viognier. The Viognier is an ironic blender for Sauvignon Blanc, but it’s like in the spirit of things bold, I have this Viognier that I really like. It’s really concentrated, ripened flavors. A lot of peach and nectarine flavors, so I thought it could be really interesting in a Sauvignon Blanc.
I fermented them separate and then blended this percentage in there and It’s really interesting because the Sauvignon Blanc has a little bit of grassy, grapefruit, citrus aromas,
The Viognier twist makes it almost a little floral, but you get those white peach, stone fruit flavors pop a little more because of that Viognier.
It’s all stainless steel, fermented and aged, so it has no oak contact. I do some concrete eggs. I think it enhances the texture and makes it a little more mineral-y.
Are you a foodie? Can you please suggest some really delicious dishes that pair with these bottles?
Margaret Leonardi: That is a nice thing about our portfolio expanding, because before we had the three reds. So it’s similar food pairings. Now that we’ve expanded, we can have almost a wine for any dish. The Zinfandel and all of the bourbon barrel aged wines go really great with barbecue or smoked meat, ribs, red meats. It’s a good “occasion wine”, right? If you’re going to a friend’s house for a barbecue or somewhere where you want to grab a bottle of wine, but you aren’t sure what – it’s a crowd pleaser, it’s a perfect conversation starter. Sporting events soccer games, Super Bowl, that kind of thing.
Then the Sauvignon Blanc pairs well with oysters, light sauce pastas, cream based pastas. It’s also great just appetizer wine. I think the Viognier is different. It is fun to start with it. So if you’re coming over and not sure what to open or if you’re having a dinner party, it’s like a great wine to kick off the night with.
You can explore it and then it transitions well with food, especially as it warms up a little.
Where we can find you follow and find that all this stuff both to buy as well as on social media
Margaret Leonardi: The brand as a whole is available through our website. They’re also available at any grocery stores around the whole country.
DC gets Flavor: Chilli No. 5 Unveils Hunted Alba White Truffles for Limited Time
Chilli No. 5 launches a new batch of 50 bottles of magnificent White Truffle Hot Sauce to compete with Truff, the industry leader and USA truffle sauce master.
The only difference is Chilli No. 5 ses real white truffles from Alba in the Piemont and has won the Great Taste Award in 23.
Priced at £25/30€/$ per 100ml, it solidifies its position as one of the priciest and fanciest hot sauces in the global market.
Every October, Chilli No. 5 founder Rumble Romagnoli visits Alba in Northern Italy to hunt and handpick white and black truffles that are used to make a yearly batch of the Chilli No. 5 White Truffle Hot sauce.
Truffle Hunter – Renzo, and Lagotto Romagnolo truffle dog – Charlie
The team has a dedicated Truffle Hunter – Renzo, and Lagotto Romagnolo truffle dog – Charlie to find the best truffles in the world. They also benefit from access to the truffle forest that has belonged to Renzo’s family for generations.
“Truffles are like diamonds. They cannot be made.
You have to find them.
Rumble Romagnoli
founder
“…Each one is unique. Close your eyes and bring the forest to life with this uber-umami white truffle sauce unmatched so far in the industry.” – Rumble Romagnoli founder says.
Romagnoli adds “You can understand that no expense was spared in sourcing the finest white truffles, carefully handpicked to ensure their unparalleled quality and aroma. Blended with a mix of fresh mushrooms such as Porcini, Ceps, Chantrelles, Girolles, and Morilles, this creation is a true culinary gem.”
According to the Great Taste Award Judges “It becomes clear very quickly that this sauce has been made with real skill. The truffle is very much present but tamed at all times. The additional mushrooms combine for a really characterful sauce that offers umami in spades but has some acidity, tang and sweetness too. On top of all this artistry, there’s the late and subtle arrival of chilli heat to round it all off. This is a very complex sauce, but very accessible too.”
This unique White Truffle Hot Sauce will be a versatile addition to kitchens, grills, and BBQs all over the world used not only as a condiment, but also as marinade, and a BBQ sauce. Traditionally, truffle is used on plain pasta, risotto, or grilled meats to enhance the complexity of this unique flavour. The intoxicating aroma and robust, earthy flavour of white truffles create a truly sensory experience that will transport you to a world of culinary luxury.
Chilli No. 5’s White Truffle Sauce is a limited-edition offering, available for a limited time as only 50 bottles are produced each season. This new batch left the Chilli No. 5 kitchens today, so don’t miss the opportunity to add this rare delight to your upcoming culinary repertoire.
Chilli No. 5’s White Truffle Sauce is the perfect choice for discerning home cooks, food enthusiasts, and those seeking to impress guests with a touch of decadence. Whether you’re celebrating a special occasion, hosting an intimate dinner party, or simply indulging in a gourmet home-cooked meal, this sauce will leave a lasting impression.
This limited-edition White Truffle Hot sauce goes with everything and is perfect for a chilli sauce gift in its designer sustainable packaging.
To explore the rich flavors of Chilli No. 5’s White Truffle Sauce and elevate your culinary creations, visit Chilli No. 5’sWebsite.
French Bloom Delivers Flavor and Elegance to DC without Boozy Battles
You want to celebrate. You want to “pop the cork”, enjoy the flavor, but you don’t want the after-effects. The drunkenness. Certainly not the hangover. And women? Of course there needs to be ways to elegantly celebrate even (and especially) during pregnancy. Imagine a pregnant-friendly wine?
It’s a situation that should have been solved already. But now it has and with style. It’s a subtle, elegant, flavorful answer.
French Bloom Re-Invents the Game
Now everyone can share “moments of pleasure” as their website mentions. French Bloom’s organic de-alcoholized chardonnay and pinot noir, alcohol-free French sparkling cuvées combine French tradition with innovation.
French Bloom Co-Founders Maggie Frerejean – Taittinger and Constance Jablonski
The Team Behind French Bloom
Maggie Frerejean – Taittinger and Constance Jablonski bring different and complementary skill sets. Equally important, they bring the desire for the vision and the motivation for innovation.
Through their innovative and female-founded brand, French Bloom gives an alternative and inviting drink to those wanting to celebrate elegantly and differently, making the most of the precious moments shared with friends and family.
If the names sound familiar, Constance is a globally-working fashion model you’ve seen representing Estée Lauder and countless luxury brands.
Maggie is director of the Michelin Guide and married to Rodolphe Frerejean-Taittinger, chief executive of Champagne Frerejean Freres.
Carl Héline, the former head of Champagne Krug, joined French Bloom.
Let’s Taste French Bloom
Le Rosé
Pale pink in the glass. Rose petals, freshly picked red currant, raspberry aromas on the nose. Indulgent white peach notes on the palate. Elegant. The organic French grapes give a nice acidity. Well-balanced complexity of minerality and freshness. Tartness and a rounded balance on the finish.
Certified Vegan- Organic- Halal
0.0% Alcohol
Pregnant-friendly
Low Calorie
Sulfite-Free
No preservatives
No sugar added, 4,2g/ 100ml
A blend of de-alcoholized organic French Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines, organic grape juice, Gensac spring water and natural organic flavors such as lemon.
Le Blanc
Organic French Bubbly, 0.0% Alcohol
Medium golden amber in the glass. Minerality and pear aromas on the nose, that just keep opening and opening. Pear, banana, melon, white flowers. An explosion of complexity on the palate. As the flavors open, Granny Smith apple, spicy citrus. A full-bodied mouth with a luxurious, zesty finish that keeps going.
De-alcoholized organic wine, organic grape juice, French sparkling Gensac spring water, organic lemon juice, organic natural flavors.
Below, Alexander and Monica Howell visited for a conversation about family, flavor, health benefits and the magic of honey.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, unedited conversation on the FlavRReport YouTube channel.
My understanding going back to the beginning is, this whole company was a COVID baby, meaning the idea of it launched during the pandemic. Is that accurate?
Alexander Howell: So I’ll give you a bit of a backstory. We had, like you said, started around the boom of COVID. During that time with all the sickness going around, one of the things we decided to do was to figure out how we can stay healthier and keep the entire family more healthy during that entire time.
One of the things we decided to do was to cut out a lot of white and processed sugars because it’s the cause of a lot of health issues, cancers, things of that nature. After that we [realized] we can’t just not have any type of sweetener at all. We’re not that strong.
We went across a couple of different sweeteners. We tried agave, we tried monk fruit. We tried all those, [but] they didn’t hit the spot for us.
Then we were at a farmer’s market [and] tried some raw honey. Once we had tried that, it’s like the entire world just opened up for us because.
We started researching it more and found out there were tons of health benefits tied into raw honey itself.
Once we started consuming it ourselves, we felt the changes. A lot more energy naturally, our skin started looking a lot better, our hair started looking better. Then we decided instead of keeping this a family secret, we can share it with the world.
Monica Howell: So I’ve got a slightly different angle on it. Everything Alex said is definitely true. Pre COVID, I had always been an entrepreneur at heart, always dabbling in something, always doing a little side things. They say you have to have multiple streams of income.
So I was always looking for the next best option. Prior to COVID, I was creating body butters and detox masks and sugar scrubs; and just looking for things that were positive for your skin in a natural manner. Honey was one of the ingredients that was always on my shelf.
[Honey] is one of those ingredients. It’s a wonderful connector. I had really only ever thought of honey as this thing that was on aisle number eight of the grocery store always next to the maple syrup. A condiment to get with your fried chicken.
But once I started having success with personal skin care, the products that were most sought after, that had the best outcomes for my skin all had honey in them.
During COVID, we just really started to come together more, having more conversations. Bringing together the things that we were doing individually as a group and kind of figuring out
We started minimizing ingredients. Looking at that 20 line ingredient list on the back of everything and saying what can [remove]?
Something you both touched on was the zero to one aspect. Talk a little bit about the process from idea to reality.
Monica Howell: So for me, it was checking boxes. Throwing something on the wall and seeing what sticks, that old spaghetti adage.
There’s so many layers, so many things that I wasn’t aware of honey as a whole.
Figuring out how we could integrate this into our lives, and then how we then convert that and transition that into something that was revenue generating, seeing there was a niche.
We started with friends and family. Letting people that would trust us, try things out.
A lot of the response was ‘I don’t like honey’ or ‘I already have sugar. I don’t need to do this.’
But we said, it’s open your mind, let’s look into something a little different. Let’s consider it in a different way and move forward from there.
One thing that I think stands out for us is the fact that everything that we do, all the honey options that we have available are all beneficial in some way, shape or form. You get the benefit of those things that are being infused into the honey. So everything is purposeful.
Everything added is to expand the benefits of the honey into something beyond.
Each honey is different, with different infusions. We call them varietals. Essentially a varietal is a honey that the beekeeper and the farmer have integrated hives into that particular crop. The honey has a flavor and nuance. Then we have our infusions.
Local honey is where I go. That’s all I want. Our local [honey] in Maryland is not the same local that’s in Texas. What’s local to California is not what’s local to Utah. What’s local to Utah is not local to Maine. But when you look at it, all those honeys have a slight variance and nuance in flavor because of what’s being pollinated.
Our plants aren’t the same here as in Hawaii. So when you say I enjoy wildflower, the enjoyment of your wildflower might taste completely different than what I’m used to because of the plants that are growing. It doesn’t necessarily all taste the same.
When you started with this idea, were you aware of the different varietals, the regions and how that affected honey?
Alexander Howell: We definitely didn’t know how intricate and how deep this kind of rabbit hole of honey goes. It’s a very nice and very informative learning experience for two reasons. One, just so we are aware of the benefits and can tell our family, but also so we can now have those kinds of conversations with our customers.
Monica Howell: Even something as a variance from season to season. Literally your spring honey can be a completely different product from your fall [honey] and your winter honey.
The amount of moisture that’s in the air, that can even be from location to location. April showers bring May flowers. Those April showers are happening, there’s a ton of moisture in the air. And then when you’re getting into the fall, you’re having the bees that are pollinated when you’re getting into the fall, there’s a variance in that same region.
That same area has shifted the temperature. You’re just coming out of 90 degree weather. There’s still flowers out. But the pollination process that’s happening, the bees are what they’re collecting now, it can be different.
In the U. S. alone, there’s over 300 different types of honey. Over the world, there are thousands.
The interesting thing is when we’re bringing those varietals together in one place, you actually taste them side by side, [you can taste and notice] there are definite differences that you may never [have noticed otherwise] .
Someone says, “I don’t like honey. I say, “Well you haven’t tasted my honey.”
They find out, they dont like wildflower from North Carolina, but they love sage from California or macadamia nut from Hawaii – it’s amazing.
You’ve both mentioned farmer’s market experiences, sampling and buying. Let’s talk a little bit about those experiences.
Alexander Howell: As far as farmers markets goes, we’ve gotten the entire spectrum of reactions – ‘Oh, this is some of the best I‘ve ever had in my life’, or ‘This is nasty’
I appreciate either side of the spectrum, it’s just very honest and blunt. In person, you get to actually see that emotion, you get to see that interaction, you get to not only see what they think but maybe they brought a friend or a family member of theirs – their husband, their wife, their kids, their dog.
We get to see what your dietary needs are, your favorite flavors, your favorite vegetables. If you have a health issue, what type of things we have that could possibly help.
It’s even as simple as someone getting a gift for somebody who’s a pescatarian who likes to cook so, ‘What do you have for this?’
And I can then give them a whole range of stuff [to browse].
Monica Howell: We’ve been selling at farmer’s markets for 2.5 years. By far, it is my favorite. People who grew up going to farmer’s markets. Beekeepers that have grown up in their Grandma’s backyard.
We always get somebody that says, ‘Oh, my grandma had honey. And I’m already familiar.’ I always challenge them to taste something that’s a little different,
We get people who are extremely health conscious. They are looking for natural options.
On your website, there’s a lot of products What are the major categories and what are one or two or three that you really want to highlight that are currently available?
Monica Howell: We do some switching out from season to season, but for the most part, 25 items. A combination of the varietals and the infusions.
We’ve got an amazing macadamia nut honey that comes from Hawaii. You get a honey that has a certain butteriness to it, a nice weight to it. A little nuttiness at the end. It’s amazing in coffee. It’s amazing on top of a banana bread, really good in yogurt. Also good to cook with.
Our blueberry is from Maine. A little bit of a nuance of that blueberry flavor. It’s a little sweeter than some of the other honeys. It’s amazing on bakery goods and breakfast. So instead of using traditional maple syrup, we’re using the blueberry honey on a Belgian waffle on a pancake. Amazing on yogurt and things like that.
Then we’ve got our infusions. So the infusions essentially are different botanicals using a particular honey.
I’m using an extra white honey from Iowa. If you’re looking on the spectrum of honey, not only does honey change area to area, there’s water white honey, all the way down to your dark amber honeys. So there’s an entire rainbow of different types of honey, based on what’s being pollinated and what’s growing.
Your darker honeys have more of a molasses flavor, probably 10 – 20 x the antioxidants that you’re getting then like a water white honey. But when we’re considering what to use to infuse, I’m usually going with that lighter honey.
Our elderberry honey is super important. We’re taking a ground elderberry from the actual berry, not the elderberry flower. And we’re grinding that up and then infusing that into honey over a period of time. That allows you to then take that elderberry on a regular basis, either in as a sweetener for your tea or actually adding it into a yogurt.
Alexander Howell: Some of the things that I like to highlight, because I’m a foodie, I’m always trying to find honey that would elevate the taste.
One of those is Hot Honey. Anything from chicken, to beef, to pork, to seafood, to shellfish. I love it all. One specific thing is strawberries. It sounds a little out there, but it’s amazing.
And also the vanilla. I love it on my baked goods, banana breads, cornbread, really good on cinnamon rolls. Instead of the sheet icing I’ll put the honey. Even simpler like a latte or a cup of tea. Put some of your pancakes or crepes.
It’s the two different honeys on two different ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day they both serve their purposes
Monica Howell: We are working with a few bartenders and mixologists that have taken our honeys and creating mocktails. Super fun.
One thing to acknowledge, the audience is a large majority of our conversations are wine based. So it’s with winemakers and chefs.
Do any of these honeys pair better with any specific kinds of varietals of wine?
Alexander Howell: One of the best ways I do like to enjoy wine with honey is charcuterie.
Monica Howell: Charcuterie and honey go hand in hand. It’s like a whole little puzzle of delicious-ness.
I like Merlot. Something becoming more popular are meads. So mead is wine essentially made with the foundation of honey versus grapes. There are a lot of brewers that are starting to play with mead. So you’ll find mead in all different varietals, some that very much tastes like wine and some that tastes closer to beer.
We’re not necessarily pairing the wine so much with the honey as helping the person that’s hosting the event, creating that perfect board, that perfect accompaniment to it.
What’s the best way to learn more about you? Website, social media? How can we follow you more?
Monica Howell: Definitely the website is the easiest way. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. The unique feature of what we do in-person. That’s the benefit of coming to see us at a farmer’s market. We also are actually on a couple of stores in the local area, local by design, which is an Annapolis mall in Annapolis, Maryland, where our product is available on their shelves.
Below, Alexander and Monica Howell visited for a conversation about family, flavor, health benefits and the magic of honey.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, unedited conversation on the FlavRReport YouTube channel.
My understanding going back to the beginning is, this whole company was a COVID baby, meaning the idea of it launched during the pandemic. Is that accurate?
Alexander Howell: So I’ll give you a bit of a backstory. We had, like you said, started around the boom of COVID. During that time with all the sickness going around, one of the things we decided to do was to figure out how we can stay healthier and keep the entire family more healthy during that entire time.
One of the things we decided to do was to cut out a lot of white and processed sugars because it’s the cause of a lot of health issues, cancers, things of that nature. After that we [realized] we can’t just not have any type of sweetener at all. We’re not that strong.
We went across a couple of different sweeteners. We tried agave, we tried monk fruit. We tried all those, [but] they didn’t hit the spot for us.
Then we were at a farmer’s market [and] tried some raw honey. Once we had tried that, it’s like the entire world just opened up for us because.
We started researching it more and found out there were tons of health benefits tied into raw honey itself.
Once we started consuming it ourselves, we felt the changes. A lot more energy naturally, our skin started looking a lot better, our hair started looking better. Then we decided instead of keeping this a family secret, we can share it with the world.
Monica Howell: So I’ve got a slightly different angle on it. Everything Alex said is definitely true. Pre COVID, I had always been an entrepreneur at heart, always dabbling in something, always doing a little side things. They say you have to have multiple streams of income.
So I was always looking for the next best option. Prior to COVID, I was creating body butters and detox masks and sugar scrubs; and just looking for things that were positive for your skin in a natural manner. Honey was one of the ingredients that was always on my shelf.
[Honey] is one of those ingredients. It’s a wonderful connector. I had really only ever thought of honey as this thing that was on aisle number eight of the grocery store always next to the maple syrup. A condiment to get with your fried chicken.
But once I started having success with personal skin care, the products that were most sought after, that had the best outcomes for my skin all had honey in them.
During COVID, we just really started to come together more, having more conversations. Bringing together the things that we were doing individually as a group and kind of figuring out
We started minimizing ingredients. Looking at that 20 line ingredient list on the back of everything and saying what can [remove]?
Something you both touched on was the zero to one aspect. Talk a little bit about the process from idea to reality.
Monica Howell: So for me, it was checking boxes. Throwing something on the wall and seeing what sticks, that old spaghetti adage.
There’s so many layers, so many things that I wasn’t aware of honey as a whole.
Figuring out how we could integrate this into our lives, and then how we then convert that and transition that into something that was revenue generating, seeing there was a niche.
We started with friends and family. Letting people that would trust us, try things out.
A lot of the response was ‘I don’t like honey’ or ‘I already have sugar. I don’t need to do this.’
But we said, it’s open your mind, let’s look into something a little different. Let’s consider it in a different way and move forward from there.
One thing that I think stands out for us is the fact that everything that we do, all the honey options that we have available are all beneficial in some way, shape or form. You get the benefit of those things that are being infused into the honey. So everything is purposeful.
Everything added is to expand the benefits of the honey into something beyond.
Each honey is different, with different infusions. We call them varietals. Essentially a varietal is a honey that the beekeeper and the farmer have integrated hives into that particular crop. The honey has a flavor and nuance. Then we have our infusions.
Local honey is where I go. That’s all I want. Our local [honey] in Maryland is not the same local that’s in Texas. What’s local to California is not what’s local to Utah. What’s local to Utah is not local to Maine. But when you look at it, all those honeys have a slight variance and nuance in flavor because of what’s being pollinated.
Our plants aren’t the same here as in Hawaii. So when you say I enjoy wildflower, the enjoyment of your wildflower might taste completely different than what I’m used to because of the plants that are growing. It doesn’t necessarily all taste the same.
When you started with this idea, were you aware of the different varietals, the regions and how that affected honey?
Alexander Howell: We definitely didn’t know how intricate and how deep this kind of rabbit hole of honey goes. It’s a very nice and very informative learning experience for two reasons. One, just so we are aware of the benefits and can tell our family, but also so we can now have those kinds of conversations with our customers.
Monica Howell: Even something as a variance from season to season. Literally your spring honey can be a completely different product from your fall [honey] and your winter honey.
The amount of moisture that’s in the air, that can even be from location to location. April showers bring May flowers. Those April showers are happening, there’s a ton of moisture in the air. And then when you’re getting into the fall, you’re having the bees that are pollinated when you’re getting into the fall, there’s a variance in that same region.
That same area has shifted the temperature. You’re just coming out of 90 degree weather. There’s still flowers out. But the pollination process that’s happening, the bees are what they’re collecting now, it can be different.
In the U. S. alone, there’s over 300 different types of honey. Over the world, there are thousands.
The interesting thing is when we’re bringing those varietals together in one place, you actually taste them side by side, [you can taste and notice] there are definite differences that you may never [have noticed otherwise] .
Someone says, “I don’t like honey. I say, “Well you haven’t tasted my honey.”
They find out, they dont like wildflower from North Carolina, but they love sage from California or macadamia nut from Hawaii – it’s amazing.
You’ve both mentioned farmer’s market experiences, sampling and buying. Let’s talk a little bit about those experiences.
Alexander Howell: As far as farmers markets goes, we’ve gotten the entire spectrum of reactions – ‘Oh, this is some of the best I‘ve ever had in my life’, or ‘This is nasty’
I appreciate either side of the spectrum, it’s just very honest and blunt. In person, you get to actually see that emotion, you get to see that interaction, you get to not only see what they think but maybe they brought a friend or a family member of theirs – their husband, their wife, their kids, their dog.
We get to see what your dietary needs are, your favorite flavors, your favorite vegetables. If you have a health issue, what type of things we have that could possibly help.
It’s even as simple as someone getting a gift for somebody who’s a pescatarian who likes to cook so, ‘What do you have for this?’
And I can then give them a whole range of stuff [to browse].
Monica Howell: We’ve been selling at farmer’s markets for 2.5 years. By far, it is my favorite. People who grew up going to farmer’s markets. Beekeepers that have grown up in their Grandma’s backyard.
We always get somebody that says, ‘Oh, my grandma had honey. And I’m already familiar.’ I always challenge them to taste something that’s a little different,
We get people who are extremely health conscious. They are looking for natural options.
On your website, there’s a lot of products What are the major categories and what are one or two or three that you really want to highlight that are currently available?
Monica Howell: We do some switching out from season to season, but for the most part, 25 items. A combination of the varietals and the infusions.
We’ve got an amazing macadamia nut honey that comes from Hawaii. You get a honey that has a certain butteriness to it, a nice weight to it. A little nuttiness at the end. It’s amazing in coffee. It’s amazing on top of a banana bread, really good in yogurt. Also good to cook with.
Our blueberry is from Maine. A little bit of a nuance of that blueberry flavor. It’s a little sweeter than some of the other honeys. It’s amazing on bakery goods and breakfast. So instead of using traditional maple syrup, we’re using the blueberry honey on a Belgian waffle on a pancake. Amazing on yogurt and things like that.
Then we’ve got our infusions. So the infusions essentially are different botanicals using a particular honey.
I’m using an extra white honey from Iowa. If you’re looking on the spectrum of honey, not only does honey change area to area, there’s water white honey, all the way down to your dark amber honeys. So there’s an entire rainbow of different types of honey, based on what’s being pollinated and what’s growing.
Your darker honeys have more of a molasses flavor, probably 10 – 20 x the antioxidants that you’re getting then like a water white honey. But when we’re considering what to use to infuse, I’m usually going with that lighter honey.
Our elderberry honey is super important. We’re taking a ground elderberry from the actual berry, not the elderberry flower. And we’re grinding that up and then infusing that into honey over a period of time. That allows you to then take that elderberry on a regular basis, either in as a sweetener for your tea or actually adding it into a yogurt.
Alexander Howell: Some of the things that I like to highlight, because I’m a foodie, I’m always trying to find honey that would elevate the taste.
One of those is Hot Honey. Anything from chicken, to beef, to pork, to seafood, to shellfish. I love it all. One specific thing is strawberries. It sounds a little out there, but it’s amazing.
And also the vanilla. I love it on my baked goods, banana breads, cornbread, really good on cinnamon rolls. Instead of the sheet icing I’ll put the honey. Even simpler like a latte or a cup of tea. Put some of your pancakes or crepes.
It’s the two different honeys on two different ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day they both serve their purposes
Monica Howell: We are working with a few bartenders and mixologists that have taken our honeys and creating mocktails. Super fun.
One thing to acknowledge, the audience is a large majority of our conversations are wine based. So it’s with winemakers and chefs.
Do any of these honeys pair better with any specific kinds of varietals of wine?
Alexander Howell: One of the best ways I do like to enjoy wine with honey is charcuterie.
Monica Howell: Charcuterie and honey go hand in hand. It’s like a whole little puzzle of delicious-ness.
I like Merlot. Something becoming more popular are meads. So mead is wine essentially made with the foundation of honey versus grapes. There are a lot of brewers that are starting to play with mead. So you’ll find mead in all different varietals, some that very much tastes like wine and some that tastes closer to beer.
We’re not necessarily pairing the wine so much with the honey as helping the person that’s hosting the event, creating that perfect board, that perfect accompaniment to it.
What’s the best way to learn more about you? Website, social media? How can we follow you more?
Monica Howell: Definitely the website is the easiest way. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. The unique feature of what we do in-person. That’s the benefit of coming to see us at a farmer’s market. We also are actually on a couple of stores in the local area, local by design, which is an Annapolis mall in Annapolis, Maryland, where our product is available on their shelves.
DC Foodies: Chilli No 5 ‘Sauce of Life’ Brings BIG Flavor …and Superfoods to Your Next Meal with an unmistakable spicy hit, combined with superfoods & health supplements.
Providing the flavorful gourmet vegan chilli sauces & gift sets using the most natural & healthy ingredients.
Chilli No 5 Brings ‘Superfood Sorcery’ and Big Flavor
Delivering the best range of your favorite international flavors of chilli, marinades and BBQ hot sauces.
Co-founder Rumble Romagnoli joined me for a conversation about food, family, making chilli healthier and bringing their award-winning chilli sauce to the masses.
Chilli No. 5 Co-founder Rumble Romagnoli
The below conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, un-edited conversation at our YouTube channel.
When you think about hot sauce, can you tell us about a celebration or a memory, something in life that inspired you to get so excited about hot sauce?
Rumble Romagnoli: Yeah when we’re smaller and we’re in the kitchen, it’s such a magical experience, isn’t it?
I had a real Italian Nonna so an Italian grandmother who always had bubbling pots and pastas and, Mules and fish and meat. My mother and my sister; so great moments as a child cooking in the kitchen and then out on the dining table with all the family.
It was great and now I love cooking and it makes me really relaxed. Just zoning out, cooking for the family, growing my own vegetables, chilies and then gathering around tables with friends and family just to enjoy. And that’s really where this all started.
What does day to day life look like for you. How did you decide to split up some of that time with a hot sauce endeavor?
Rumble Romagnoli: You remember COVID wasn’t really a nice time for anyone. We were there in a small apartment with lots of small children. It was chaos.
We couldn’t see our friends. We couldn’t see our family. They were all over the world and it was desperate times. So I suppose setting up Chili No. 5 was all about this kind of wanting to get back together with people enjoying moments and being together, sharing and getting fresh, healthy food and not lining up in the supermarket.
Chilli No 5 Brings ‘Superfood Sorcery’ and Big Flavor
A lot of chefs who I was very friendly with all had lost their jobs. I was like, Hey, can you make sauce? They’re like, yeah, of course I can. So that’s how it all started.
And we started trying out new flavors and we love world cooking. So that’s how Chilli No 5 started.
From your Chilli expert point of view, what should someone look for on a label that lets us know this is a quality chilli sauce?
Rumble Romagnoli: I think you guys are better at it than us to be fair. You’re fanatics; incredible.
I’m not a real expert. I just love creating great food for my family and friends. And we’ve tried to make… The best world hot sauces but they’re not going to blow your head off. It’s not really a hot sauce. They are chilli sauces.
Chilli No 5 variety of flavors
What I think you should be looking for on the bottle is: great ingredients, as many as you can get. No numbers, no coloring, no baddies.
I’m looking for just superfoods and anything that’s gonna make me glow.
In my world, when I think of chili sauce and hot sauces, I don’t always think of superfoods.
Tell me a little bit about where the idea came from to so strongly cross over superfoods with chili.
Rumble Romagnoli: I love spice and tingling on my tongue and that kind of rush you get from that spice and hot. The hot sauce or the flakes or the chili oil. My wife loves to be healthy. Happy wife, happy life they say, so I just combined.
I was doing something more spicy and she says, why don’t you put some good stuff in there? And I’d been reading a lot about Guana ginseng, maca; and all of these are in our sources. These are natural supplements that you buy in the shop. You have some of that and it really picks you up, increases your concentration, which I need for long days. I need more energy. I’m getting older. So I was like, hey let’s just put them in the hot sauce and then you got the best of both worlds. So that’s the superfood sauce or superfood sorcery we like to say.
That was all my wife’s doing to be honest.
I feel like a lot of chilli sauces are just gunk. When I think superfoods, I think health. Is your Chilli No 5 a health food?
Rumble Romagnoli: Absolutely. I’ll pick out one of these bottles.I wouldn’t say a healthy hot sauce. I would say a hot sauce full of healthy ingredients because you never know there are some sugars in here and you never know what people will find healthy or not healthy.
But we’ve got in this Jamaican jerk, which is great on a barbecue chicken as a marinade as a condiment as a barbecue sauce. We’ve got fresh red onions, fresh spring onions. Chilli No 9 chili. Fresh chilies, which are all really healthy for you. There’s ginger. There’s garlic. There’s lemon. There’s lime. There’s agave syrup.
We tried to tone down the sugar but keep it a little bit sweet, apple cider vinegar, we’ve got, extra virgin olive oil. It goes on black garlic, thyme, nutmeg, allspice, black pepper, guarana, maca, Ginseng, l arginine. It doesn’t stop. That is packed to the rims, full of healthy ingredients.
We’ve tried to put the healthiest ingredients we could find and make it as tasty as possible using these ingredients and authentic to Jamaica and their jerk sauce.
It’s a sauce packed full of healthy superfood antioxidant ingredients and that’s maybe why it’s winning all these awards for taste.
Because bottom line is it has to taste nice before being healthy.
Nobody wants a science flavored chili. So I agree with that. Let’s talk about some of your favorite flavors.
Rumble Romagnoli: It’s hard because we have over 15 sources. But one of my favorites which you’d probably love as well is the Mexican Fury. My sister lives in Guadalajara in Mexico. She left the UK and went all around South America and ended up finding a lovely guy and settled down there.
Mexican food is fantastic. It’s just really great. Full of flavors and all sorts of different ingredients that we can’t grow in the UK or in Europe. You guys have got such great weather down there in the South, Miami, Florida. Texas, Mexico between the South of the U. S. and the North of Mexico.
So you’ve got the jalapenos which are just incredible. We’ve got all of these beautiful chilies, the habanero come up with an automatically smoky flavor when mixed with the red peppers, the tomatoes, the red onions. They fuse this on the palate to really pair very well with chicken, prawns, tacos, burritos or even egg for breakfast or pancakes.
The Mexican Fury is a really good one. We won 16 awards for different sauces. I love chipotle, anything smoky in our Louisiana barbecue. We’ve tried to tone down the sugar, add a bit of cognac whiskey, bourbon whiskey. We’ve added the classic American ingredients in there to make a kind of healthy style Louisiana barbecue.
Then the harissa is a great one. It’s really popular. it’s North African full of caraway seeds, cumin seeds, olive oil, lots of of incredible deep ingredients that really sit on the back of the tongue. There’s lots of ingredients there that kind of bring your food to life.
We want to bring life and energy into a barbecue situation, dinner with granny, breakfast before work, sandwich on the bench in Manhattan.
Tell us a little bit about the competitions you’ve entered.
Rumble Romagnoli: We were only a year old and we’d come up with these sauces and we’d thought they were good. The founder Chef Colin and then we had a team of chefs working in our London kitchen and our South of France kitchen and we entered the Great Taste Awards.
These are quite big awards in the UK but it’s international awards where all kind of fine foods, gourmet foods are tested by panels of hundreds of judges. It’s quite a strict competition.
So first year we came in and we won seven stars for 11 products. We’re very happy. It was incredible. The Jamaican jerk really got a good one. The heavenly Harissa came in very well. Our chilli oil called Pizza Pizzazz.
Our chili flakes are all fresh and lovely coming from all sides of the world. Carolina Reaper, the Scorpion, the Habanero, the Ghost, the Number 5 chili from India.
We watched and read all of the judges’ comments and we’re so thankful that they really detailed about acidity, balance, flavor structures.
Then we reworked it. We played around with ingredient quality, we changed vinegars slightly, the cooking process. We started baking the vegetables, the peppers, the onions, the red onions. The tomatoes really started getting more flavor. We put in a bit of olive oil at the start to get the flavors moving around.
Then we came in this year with 13 awards out of 16. With our 7, that makes 16 of our total products have won awards by the Great Taste Awards.
We want to create the best chilli sauces on the planet. That’s my mission.
How is Chilli No 5 going to grow and evolve?
Rumble Romagnoli: It’s happening quite quickly and we have a B2C strategy and service strategy.
We want to have the most delicious sauces in every category. We’re just working on each recipe and we think if we make the best sauce, people are going to love the best sauce, and then they’re going to buy the best sauce.
A bit like Apple, just make the best products and people just keep buying them We’re getting into big stores in the UK, placements in Monaco.
We are in lots of great high end butchers, delicatessens and it’s going really well.
So we’ve got this B2B strategy. We need to impress the professionals. We’ve impressed the people who love healthy lifestyle, love delicious sauce, gourmet. But now we have to impress the industry.
Obviously coming to America is the big move.
Tell us all the ways we can learn more about Chili No. Tell us your website, social media.
We’re also quite present for hot sauce gift sets. We do five or six incredible hot sauce gift sets which are collections of the sauces. And we’ve got mini little minis and you can make your own you can personalize because we’ve got 15 sauces.
We’re very big at Christmas. Very big at Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and we will send the sauces over to you guys in the states. No problem. If anything breaks, if anything’s damaged, we will refund you and resend you the sauce you ordered because that’s the least we can do.
Halloween Cocktails: Spooktacular Black Salt garnish for monster-inspired crafty cocktails
Just in time for your spooky get-togethers and Día de los Muertos celebrationsTwang, a purveyor of Mexican-inspired food- and beverage-enhancing products, has released their brand new Twang-A-Rita Black Salt!
Perfectly curated for the season of shadows, it’s an enchanting black-colored salt that’ll cast a spell on your tastebuds. And as Dia De Los Muertos approaches, let our Black Salt pay tribute to the elegance of the holiday, garnishing your celebratory drinks and dishes with a touch as beautiful as marigolds on a moonlit altar.
Cheers to spirited sips and otherworldly adventures!
You can buy the Twang-A-Rita Black Salt here, each 4-ounce bag of Twang-A-Rita Black Salt is $4.00. Twang has shared the following fiendish cocktail recipe that is perfect for all you goblins and ghouls.
Monster Margarita Recipe
Serving: 1 cocktail
Ingredients
Twang-A-Rita Black Salt
2 ounces of tequila
1 ounce melon liqueur
1 ounce lime juice
½ ounce agave syrup
Honeydew melon
Blueberries
Preparation
Rim your glass with Twang-A-Rita Black Salt
Fill serving glass with ice
In a cocktail shaker add tequila, melon liquor, lime juice and agave syrup. Shake for 10-15 seconds
To garnish, scoop small balls out of honeydew melon
Place a blueberry in the center of each melon ball to resemble an eyeball
Skewer the melon eyeballs onto a cocktail stick and enjoy!
To learn more about Twang Beer Salts, visit twang.com. Stay up to date with Twang’s new releases by following along on Instagram and Facebook.
Horror Movie Night Cookbook written by Richard S. Sargent
Author Richard S. Sargent joined me for a conversation about food, cooking, horror movies and Halloween. The below conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, un-edited conversation at our YouTube channel.
What inspired you as far as horror movies go? What’s your all time favorite horror?
Richard Sargent: Wow, that’s a tough one. Yeah, so I would say my all time favorite horror movie is Scream. It’s what got me into diving deeper into horror. My mother actually got me into horror when I was a kid, we would watch a bunch of the old ones after school and that sort of thing, but as I started to discover the newer ones on my own, Scream was the first one that really showed me that there’s more to horror than just blood and boobs.
You’re a filmmaker, an artist, an author, many things. Tell us a little bit about your journey
Richard Sargent: I went to school for theater and film and acting. As most people do New York or LA, I chose New York. I did that for a while. I did a couple of my own indie horror films as well. And then as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
As a side project, because you have to have a side project when you’re trying to break into that field. I thought I love cooking. I love experimenting. I love being creative. Let’s take some culinary classes. So I was gifted some culinary classes and it was really great. And I thought, okay, great. Now I’m going to go work in a kitchen. But the more I thought about that, I realized I would hate it if I had to do it as a day job. I would hate cooking. I put that on the back burner and focus more on the theater and film and all that.
And just kept plugging away at that. When I moved to the West Coast, I became artistic director of a couple of theater companies and had some plays published, that sort of thing.
So my writing and my directing was starting to take off a little bit. I had a little more free time to go back to the cooking thing that I was looking forward to doing. And the way this came together is that I was doing a play with some friends and we were chatting we actually were doing the play, The Woman in Black, and we were chatting about horror and horror films and they felt the way I felt about them initially, that they’re all just and I just couldn’t have that.
I’d seen so many great ones that have changed my life and had so many positive messages. Because horror movies are basically about the outcasts winning. I felt like I’ve been an outcast my whole life, so I could really connect to them. So I started showing them the ones that I thought were important.
I started with my favorites and then dug deeper into the ones that I felt. Told really great stories and had really great messages through these horror movie nights where I would pair an appetizer, a dinner and a dessert, each with its own movie and we would do three movies a night and we would do this every couple of weeks.
Can you talk a little bit about this book’s undertaking and 1-2 lessons that you learned from that process?
Richard Sargent: Absolutely. Yeah, it really was an undertaking. When I started these nights, these horror movie nights myself I just thought they were going to be fun. I just thought we were all going to have a good time.
Then about halfway through, maybe about five or six nights in, my friends were all like, what are you going to do with this? I’m like, what do you mean? We’re just having a good time. And they’re like, no, other people are going to want to do this. I’m thinking about what can I do with this?
Maybe I can start an event service and cater these nights myself? But ultimately I chose to do a book because it’s more accessible and it’s more fun. You get to do it in your own home and invite your friends over and it makes for a much more fun evening. Once I decided that it was going to be a book, it took about two years to compile it all into book format. Retake some pictures, that sort of thing, get it all ready for my copy. So I self published it two years ago and then it got picked up.
So the version that you have and that we’re talking about today is the version that Ulysses Press put out about another year or so later.
So it was about a five year process from the first horror movie night, all the way to the book that, that we’re talking about today.
If I have any tips for people, find what makes your idea stick out. What about your idea do people want to know, be authentic about it and just keep plugging away at it.
You’re going to get frustrated. Move on to another project, take a walk, do something else. And come back when the inspiration strikes, but never force anything. That’s my big thing. You can’t force inspiration or you’re not going to end up with the best product that you could possibly have.
From the five years ago first draft to Ulysses Press version now, how close is the finished product compared to your original vision?
Richard Sargent: It’s very close actually. A lot of things that were changed were just improvements on the pictures. Things are worded differently, more clear, more consistency throughout the book.
Ulysses was really great with the editing process. They kept a lot of what I wanted to do with the book and the whole spirit of the book.
There’s millions of horror movies out there. How did you go from a million down to 60?
Richard Sargent: It really had to just speak to me. It had to be bigger and better than the average horror film. Or at least I had to view it that way.
I studied horror and I studied film throughout my life. I can grasp the difference between your average horror film and something that’s trying to influence the viewer in some way. And those are the ones that I tried to put into the book. I know that 60 is not a lot and that’s why there will be more books hopefully.
I thought it would be a fun start to break newbies in. So rather than just hitting every classic that you can think of: Exorcist, Jaws, I picked a lot of classics and mixed them in with some newer things that had more up to date themes and up to date comments on society, like The Conjuring and The Descent, movies like that.
Not everyone seeing this is a huge horror movie fan. Can you give us any tips or ideas about what makes a really great horror movie?
Richard Sargent: I think it all starts with the characters which then reflects on the script. So if it’s a really well written script, it has characters that A) you care about and B) are telling a story within a story, basically, by living through their story, they’re telling us how we should be living our lives. Of course, we know that because of Scream and movies like that, we know the rules of horror.
Don’t don’t say “I’ll be right back” and all that kind of stuff.
But beyond that, there are things that make a horror film great. It’s a lot of really great being on the side of the outcasts. So if you think of movies like Frankenstein a lot of people will say that the monster is the monster, but the monster is not the monster. The society not accepting the monster Is the real monster.
That’s a film that tries to show us how to accept people who are not like us. Some people may say that science is the monster. I am not that kind of person. But, there’s the commentary in that film too, that maybe we shouldn’t do everything that we are able to do with science.
For queer culture and women’s rights we have films like Hereditary that dive into dealing with grief.
As long as your characters are doing something important, they’re not just playing with a Ouija board, or running into a shed full of chainsaws. As long as they’re making smart decisions,, I think it elevates it to the next level, movies like The Exorcist, obviously, more recently, I thought Barbarian just from last year was outstanding, just in that way of telling the story, that was creative to me.
Ones that stick with you forever. Jaws, a lot of people didn’t want to go in the water after that.
We have a very dinner party kind of an audience. Do you have a favorite kitchen gadget?
Richard Sargent: Yeah, so I had to cook these meals. There were actually some other recipes that I worked on too, for these films that I didn’t put in the book. Everything is trial and error in the kitchen. So I cooked several of these many times until I found the right measurements of everything.
It was a long process in the kitchen, but a fun one, of course.
Maybe it makes me basic, but my favorite kitchen gadget is the slow cooker because you can do so much with it and you can step away from it and work on other things while your main meal is sitting there for hours.
Are there 1-2 recipes in the cookbook that you want to point out?
Richard Sargent: As I like to start any meal, let’s start with dessert. I would say I’m super proud of the pavlova from Cabin Fever, if you’re familiar with the movie. The dish is called The Close Shave, and it is a pavlova with Chantilly cream inside and berries on top, berry compote on top, and it just drips through a bloody wound.
I’m pretty proud of that one, and I got a lot of great feedback. I still have my friends from that horror movie night talking about it all the time.
Another one I’m super proud of is the paella from Broken Lizard’s Club Dread, which is an overlooked horror comedy. Basically, Coconut Pete runs this party island and he has his own special paella, Coconut Pete’s paella, which I tried to recreate with his secret ingredients and I thought it came out pretty well, so I’m pretty pleased with that one as well.
Let me see, appetizers. One that was fun was just coming up with the popcorn for Scream. I tried a bunch of different flavors and a bunch of different ways of doing it and it’s one of the ones that I feel is a recipe, but also a hack. An easy way to pop bagged popcorn and put flavoring on it.
It’s a good one to show that anybody can do what’s in this book. You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to be able to create what’s in this book, recreate it.
When the book first arrived, I was sitting in a room with teenagers and as old as people in their 70s, so it’s quite a range and we were all having fun with it.
As an author, as a creator, how does that make you feel? Was it designed to be a communal experience?
Richard Sargent: Putting things out there always makes me nervous. The feedback that I’ve been getting, hearing people, seeing pictures from people doing their own horror movie nights or just recreating the recipes or just on podcasts and things talking about the clever titles and all that kind of stuff it just makes me feel so good because I was worried that maybe this is just a “me” thing, like I’m just this weirdo super into horror and food. It’s good to know that I’m not. The whole horror community, the whole film community is into something like this.
They they can entertain, they can bring their own friends over. They can be the star of their own show. It speaks to everybody.
Since you are the Horror Movie Night Cookbook expert, can you give us some tips and advice for our next movie night?
Richard Sargent: I’ve done horror film nights where we just all get together and we eat the food and we watch the movies.
I’ve done one’s where we play extra games other than the drinking games. We have costume contests. It’s really how far you want to go into it.
But I would say start early if you’re going to use some of the recipes in this book, start early because there are many things that could go wrong especially if you’re not used to cooking and there are things that could go wrong, things that could burn things that might not set the way you want them to.
Have extra ingredients on hand.
If you don’t like a movie that the recipe is paired with, think about how that recipe could go with another more you like more?
Have fun with it and try it all.
How can we elevate the experience to a Superbowl Sunday level?
Richard Sargent: Definitely add costumes. Decorate. Fog machines are always fun. Pick the ones that pick the recipes that can make it a more social evening. Maybe ones where you add your own stuff to them. Like the one for Cujo is like a burrito bowl, essentially, so that people can add their own ingredients to it. That gets people up and mingling and having a good time, definitely play the drinking games, but be careful because the drinks are strong.
It’s Halloween season right now. When is the best time of year for the Horror Movie Night Cookbook?
Richard Sargent: All year. There’s no set time. Horror has so many stories to tell. A lot of them are very important that you can watch them all year round.
Get in that spirit all year round. I think that people don’t give horror the credit that it deserves. There are a lot of great films out there that even people that don’t love horror will like. Those are the ones I think we should be talking about. Horror should always be part of the conversation.
A lot of horror films are set throughout the year, so if you wanted to do a horror movie night for Valentine’s Day, you’ve got plenty to choose from, It’s not just for those of us that like to get dressed up one day a year. It’s all year round.
As we wrap up, any final message you want foodies or movie lovers to know about you or this book?
Richard Sargent: I would just want them to know that I really did put a lot of thought and heart into everything that they see in this book. I really didn’t just say, Oh, wow, let’s come up with some gimmicky-looking cookie or something. These aren’t decorations. This is real food and real thoughtful recipes that are inspired by things that happen in the film, things that they eat, things that they do, places they go. For example, in The Descent, they are supposed to be spelunking in the Appalachian mountains. So I used a local dish from the Appalachias as that recipe. These are not just Halloween decorations. These are actual recipes that you can enjoy any time of year. But watch the movie too. So yeah, I would just want people to know that don’t expect cutesy little Pinterest ghost cookies. That’s not what you’re going to get. You’re going to get real recipes like you would in any cookbook. This just has the horror edge to it as well.
Where can we learn more about you? Tell us the website, the social media
Richard Sargent: The book can be found at any local bookstore or online Barnes Noble, Amazon.
If you want to learn more about me, or just maybe get bonus recipes every now and then on my Instagram you can follow the Horror Movie Night Cookbook Instagram, or my own personal one, @rsargent83.
Tell me what you like. And if you host your own, tag me in that sort of stuff. I’d love to see how your recipes come out, what you would change. I’d love feedback. If you do try any of this, please contact me online and let me know what you liked and what you didn’t.
Style, Flavor, Awards: DC’s Favorite New Wine Jøyus non-alcoholic wines has a Secret. Not just for #SoberOctober, but its award-winning tastes help you celebrate all year-long.
Jøyus non-alcoholic wines not only taste like wine, but great wine. With the industry awards to prove it.
Recently I sat down with Jøyus leader Jessica Selander.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can find the full, un-edited conversation on our YouTube page.
Can you give us a personal story, maybe that includes the celebration of wine, if you have one?
Jessica Selander: The story is very personal and the funny thing is I get so nervous before talking about things because when I started Joyus, I did not originally [think about] doing things like this, being so face forward.
I thought I would create a product that I was really excited about. Eventually I came to realize, how do I do that without telling the “why did I do it?”
The whole reason that Joyus exists and it influences everything I do is because I’m sober. I quit drinking alcohol 17 years ago now, which just feels like a fantastical amount of time.
For me, it’s been very rewarding. I’m very glad about it. But it was definitely something that was really hard and very personal. It wasn’t something I shared about publicly. So that’s also why this is a journey of getting comfortable talking about my sobriety, my recovery.
I like the taste of wine. I like beautiful glasses. I like the smell of wine. I love the community and people; and hanging out and celebrating. It literally says ’let’s celebrate’ on our bottles. How great sparkling is for summer, but sparkling is such a happy thing.
You know what I mean? Something good happens in your life and people are like, let’s celebrate. Let’s pop some bottles. New Year’s Eve is such a beautiful idea of let’s start over. Whatever happened last year, whatever terrible things went down, there’s a brand new year.
It’s a new idea that we can celebrate either that past year that was good or celebrate the potential of a new year. That’s going to be better and that’s sparkling.
And for me, I didn’t have any options.
I started Joyus nine years ago. People ask me how long the company’s been around and we launched about two years ago. So it took me a very long time to figure it out, to save up the money to do it because as you can imagine, nine years ago, people thought it was crazy.
They’re like, ‘That’s a terrible idea. Nobody wants that’. And I’m like ’I want it’.
Having quit drinking, I had a lot of friends that also didn’t drink. I had a lot of people in my life too, who were just light drinkers – could give or take alcohol. Then I have two kids and there’s a huge percent of the population that quits drinking for nine months [because they’re pregnant], sometimes even longer.
You can get into medications, you’re not supposed to drink on it. Anxiety medication, not supposed to drink on it. Heart medication, cancer treatments. There’s a lot of medical stuff too, that you could go down the list.
So I get a lot of people now who are like, ‘Oh, it’s not alcoholic. It’s trending.’ And that’s a thing now.
Early on in my sobriety, I actually used to drink a lot of soda pop out of glass bottles, and then eventually discovered non alcoholic beer.
Non alcoholic beer is definitely having a really cool movement right now. There’s so many different options for non alcoholic beer, but the beer has always been around.
I was like, this exists and it tastes like beer. What’s up with non-alcoholic wine?
There was one sparkling [non-alcoholic wine] in the entire country and that’s all you could find. There was one white and there was one red and that was it.
For me these options were really sweet. They were very affordable, which is nice, but they didn’t have the complete experience that I was going for. I wanted non alcoholic wine that tastes like wine.
I wanted something that I could bring to a gathering and bring to a get together and have it feel appropriate and look appropriate and just look like everybody else’s [alcoholic] bottles. Smell like everyone else’s bottles that you just wouldn’t even know that it was non alcoholic until you saw it on the label. And that’s what I did.
So after trying to find it for forever, eventually I was like, I’m going to do it myself. And I had no idea that this whole sober curious, non alcoholic world would take off like it has at exactly the right time.
So part of me is very frustrated that it took so long. But part of that too, it was like saving up the money to start the company.
This is a bootstrap company. I like making my own decisions. A side effect after getting to this point is I’m 100% in control of all the decisions, which also means that I can control the quality because [it] is incredibly expensive to make.
Let’s talk about your sober story. What it means to you, how you got there, what your mission is, how that helps others.
Jessica Selander: So for me, I can’t drink alcohol. What happens when I put alcohol in my body is that I make decisions I don’t want to be making.
I tried a lot of things. I tried cutting back and it didn’t work. I tried replacing [the drinks and that didn’t work].
My life became pretty chaotic.
I stopped drinking and once I get my life in order, then everything will be fine. I can drink again.
Then after not drinking for a period of time, I was like, Oh, you know what? There’s actually something to this and it’s something deeper and it’s probably the best thing I ever did, honestly, in my life.
I would not be the person I am today on the inside if I had kept drinking.
I have a wonderful spouse and I’ve got amazing kids and I’m able to be a parent and be a person and do that clear eyed and there’s a lot of my upbringing was not the most positive.
Sober curious, it’s a hashtag now.
I’m not saying alcohol shouldn’t exist. I’m not that kind of person whatsoever.
On a personal level it is so exciting to see other brands pop up. The first time I tried non-alcoholic tequila, it blew my mind. It was amazing. The spirits are interesting because some people build it up from science and some people are de-alkalizing; taking the alcohol out.
So that’s the really interesting thing about this. Normally spirits are completely separate from wine, which are very separate from beer, but in non-alcoholic, we’re all in the same swimming pool and everybody’s doing it differently and everybody’s got their own take and you can try one non-alcoholic whiskey and it’s incredibly different from another one.
Community not competition is one of our core values. Normalizing non drinking is a big one. It’s not necessarily replacing alcohol either. I’ve talked to people in the wine industry who are very offended by the idea of non alcoholic wine. I’m like no, it’s backwards. You’ve got it backwards. Non-alcoholic wine is a love letter to wine. You love wine so much that you still want to have it. You just can’t have this one piece that’s in it [the alcohol], but I want everything else.
I want to cheers that glass with other people. I want to drink that red with a really strong stinky cheese. I want to pop that celebratory cork. I want to Rose all day. I just can’t.
I think that wine is very important culturally. It’s so interesting historically. The process is this fascinating mix of art and science. I love everything about it. Getting deeper and deeper into it too, because I want Joyus to be around for forever and I want to make the best possible non-alcoholic wine.
There’s so much stuff to perfect that I could spend the next 50 years just working on non-alcoholic red – period.
You mentioned you’re seeing other competitors in the marketplace. How many different ways are there to make non-alcoholic wine? Are some ways higher quality than others?
Jessica Selander: I can give tips. Our wine is a dealcoholized or alcohol removed wine, which means it’s gone through the whole winemaking process.
It’s aged, it’s fermented, and then we have removed the alcohol from it. Our bottles also say it’s non alcoholic. Sometimes you’ll see a bottle in the store and it just says non alcoholic on it. It doesn’t say dealcoholized or alcohol removed. They’re interchangeable. That means it wasn’t fermented.
So if you’re looking for a wine that is really going to taste like wine or have that fermented taste, look for dealcoholized or alcohol removed.
[Look at the label on the bottle] look for dealcoholized or alcohol removed, because it could say that it’s a non alcoholic red or a non-alcoholic grape [varietal] and it might just be a juice, that hasn’t been fermented or ages but comes in a wine bottle.
What are your goals in the present moment and in the near future to help your company continue to be a leader in the industry?
Jessica Selander: I think goals are accessibility. Normalizing sober drinking. Making [non-alcoholic bottles] easy to find. We do ship off our website, which is great. We’re shipping from Seattle. We ship everything ourselves. If you’re out East, it’s going to take four or five days to get to you.
Also starting to talk to restaurants, getting into more restaurants is a big one. I’ve had anniversary dinners with my spouse and I’m drinking an Arnold Palmer.
I’m calling restaurants and I’m calling grocery stores and they’re still really skeptical that it can be good and that people want it.
Do you think it’s just audience reaching out? Is there a tipping point?
Jessica Selander: Yes, that really helps having people being in a restaurant and saying, “Hey, what do you have that’s an alcoholic?” Because restaurants are saying nobody’s asking for it.
Here I am double digit sober and I had never gone into a restaurant and asked for it.
I would look at the [menu’s] non alcoholic section, which is always juice, soda pop, iced tea and stuff. If it’s not on the menu, I would never ask them for anything. Here I am for over a decade, not telling them that I want this thing. So we started doing more education on social media and online.
If you walk into a restaurant, ask them “What do you have that’s not alcoholic?”
Just pregnant people alone. There’s a large percentage of the population.
Is there science that says a pregnant woman can drink this and have zero concerns?
Jessica Selander: Yes. So this is super interesting. In the United States we’re the most strict in terms of alcohol. If you go to the UK, they have different, actually higher limits for how much alcohol can be in something. The US’s rules come from prohibition when you can’t sell, make, transport alcohol.
The government said once it gets under 0.5%, it’s not alcohol anymore. So that’s where that number comes from and sometimes people see it and say, “Oh, there’s a little bit of alcohol in this.”
There was a study done in Germany where they tested a lot of grocery store items. What they found was there’s a lot of stuff in our grocery stores that had a little bit of alcohol in it. Very ripe bananas, which we feed to toddlers have some alcohol in them. Orange juice is another one.
American hamburger buns. But it also makes sense, bread, yeast and we have more sugar in our products, right? Bread actually has more alcohol than people realize.
Let’s talk about your wine’s flavors and aromas and the winemaking process to get there.
Jessica Selander: I knew what I wanted and I was incredibly picky about it.
We launched with the sparkling white and the sparkling Rose’ and people were asking for a Rose’ with no bubbles.
I thought it would be easy. It was not easy.
Stills are very different from sparkling. I’m a balance of “I know what I want. I’m going for this thing and very focused”, but then I’m also balanced with listening. So we do a lot of focus groups. I do want feedback. I do want opinions.
We were working on it. Everyone’s saying it’s good, it’s great. But I didn’t think it was good enough. We were supposed to launch it in summer and I pushed everything back. Back to the drawing board.
What if we did this? What if that? Talking to people, reading science and chemistry books
Was it like working for the right blend?
Jessica Selander: It’s tweaking so many different things and pieces in the blend. But it doesn’t always work out. If you tweak a blend, sometimes other notes will come forward that you’re not expecting, or sometimes you’ve diminished things that you didn’t intend to diminish.
The still Rose is a great example, it didn’t have that click and so I just kept working on it. And that’s the one that won Double Gold and Best in Class in the San Francisco International Wine Competition, which is one of the biggest and oldest blind tastings in the world and the biggest and oldest blind tasting in the U.S.
Can you share any details and lessons you learned taking on the world of winemaking?
Jessica Selander: There’s so many things. We’re not just making wine. We’re wholesale, we’re distributing, we’re direct to consumer. We have so many different facets.
I could talk for hours about how our wines are very low in sugar and they don’t have the alcohol in them. So our [bottles] probably freeze easier than anything else on the market. So shipping during the winter.
I’ve had conversations with other non alcoholic people too. Everybody’s doing it differently and that’s the hard part too, where I feel like there’s a solution for every problem.
We’ve gotten better and better at winter shipping, but it’s not quite there yet. Figuring out what can we ship in that’s going to have thermal protection, but isn’t going to contribute a ton of garbage. We’ve got the most eco-friendly, innovative winter shippers. They’re made of corn.
They’re expensive as hell, but it’s better than styrofoam. We have to keep everything under 50 pounds for UPS and 12 bottles of sparkling is 51 pounds in these corn shippers.
That thermal protection is still not enough, so we added heat packs.
Let’s talk about your wines.
Jessica Selander: We have four varietals. We’ve got our sparkling white, a sparkling Rosé. Still Rosé, a Cabernet Sauvignon. I love our red a lot. The reds are hard. They’re the most complicated; red wine has the highest alcohol content to begin with.
What flavor notes should we be looking for?
Jessica Selander: It’s definitely an American Cab. More fruit forward. It’s not grape juice. It’s fermented, it’s aged in American oak so you’ll get some green-ness to, like forest floor. The longer it’s been open the more tasting notes you’ll get. I like it more and more throughout the week because the fruit notes settle down. Black currant, cherry, some leather
The still rosé, watermelon, a nice floral to it.
Sparkling rosé. Slightly floral. Some orange blossom to it. Blackberry, but some people say raspberry. Some people say strawberry. They’re very summery
I think sometimes tasting notes feel in excess because we all taste things very differently.
Our audience is foodies. Let’s talk a little bit about some of your favorite meals that you think would pair that your favorite pairings with your wines
Jessica Selander: I bake. I come from a big family, so I can pretty much cook anything.
I heard someone say one time that baking was more science. And cooking was more art and I do agree with that.
Let’s talk about the wine competitions. How you see them, what the experience has been like, and of course, what their results have been.
Jessica Selander: I did not know that competition was as big of a deal as it is [which was a blessing]. So what happened was I was beating my head against the wall being like, “They taste like wine!” And my brother said, nobody believes you. You have to enter them into wine competitions. You need to prove to them in their own landscape that you belong there.
So, here’s this competition. The first one, the sparkling rosé won gold and sparkling white won bronze.
Then I looked deeper into what the competition was [and realized it was the acclaimed San Francisco International Wine Competition & World Spirits Competition ]. It was a blessing because I think I would have been scared to do it. Then [next year] I do it with the Still Rose and the Cab. Then hearing back, you’ve got the highest a non-alcoholic has ever gotten and you’re Still Rose is the best non-alcoholic wine of any varietal entered from all over the world.
I was only wondering if it was even going to place, and here it ends up winning the best.
I was at a grocery store [today] I’ve been trying to get into for two years where the head buyer won’t even try it. So it’s [frustrating] but the more of these awards that we stack up, at some point in time they have to not ignore it. They’ll be like, Oh, this is a real thing.
We haven’t [hit that goal], it’s not normalized yet. We’re in over 300 stores and in almost in every state.
If you want more non-alcoholic near you at a restaurant and grocery store, what are the step-by-step, simple direction
Jessica Selander: This is super easy for people.
So if there’s a grocery store or a local market that you shop at already, you just go into the wine department and say, “Hey, what non-alcoholic wine do you have?” And let them know you want it. Verbally say it
It’s the same thing in restaurants. I do it myself now too, where I get the menu and I’m not seeing what the stuff on it. And I just ask and say, Hey, what non alcoholic stuff do you have?”
Tell us how we can learn more about Joyus. Shopping and following on social media.
And on the website, there is this Find Joyus store finder map. So you can look on there and find us closest to you and working hard to add new stores pretty much weekly and email, email us. There’s a contact form on the website. Email. If you’re like, Hey, there’s a store by me. I want them to carry you. Email us. And we will call them and we will try, we’ll do our best and we’ll call them again three months later and we’ll call them again.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary, commemorating a quarter century of Joie de Vivre in Vietnam.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza is delighted to commemorate a significant milestone this October with the celebration of its 25th anniversary.
Drawing inspiration from local Vietnamese culture and traditions while embracing life with a French zest is what the hotel successfully stands for a quarter century.
Daniël Stork, Consul General of The Netherlands, Mario Mendis, Sofitel Saigon Plaza GM and guests
Since its establishment in 1998, Sofitel Saigon Plaza has consistently delivered a 5-star luxury experience marked by heartfelt service and hospitality excellence in the heart of Ho Chi Minh.
Globally acclaimed through the decades, Sofitel Saigon Plaza has welcomed dignitaries and political figures, from the former French President Francois Hollande to the US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Ambassador Lesly Benoit of Haiti performing with Jazztown
On October 5th 2023, Sofitel Saigon Plaza hosted an enchanting Anniversary Dinner at its opulent Diamond Hall in presence of Mrs Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel.
Maud Bailly, CEO of the Sofitel, M Gallery & Emblems Worldwide
At this extraordinary soirée, the hotel had the privilege of hosting esteemed guests, ranging from international diplomats and government officials to renowned celebrities, CEOs of prominent corporations, and dedicated Heartists (Accor team members) who have passionately served Sofitel Saigon Plaza for over two decades.
Chef Kieko Nagae
The honoured guests were thus invited to enjoy a sumptuous six-course dinner crafted by Michelin-star and celebrity chefs from Asia and France. This exquisite evening was topped off with spectacular performances blending these two cultures. To mark the occasion, Heartists whom are within the property since the opening have been highlighted and recognized for their exceptional commitment and remarkable work.
“Founded almost 60 years ago, Sofitel was the first French luxury hotel brand to develop an international network of hotels and resorts…
Maud Bailly
CEO of Sofitel
“…Each of the establishments now artfully blends the French art-de-vivre with the essence of the local destination, offering chic design, the best of culinary arts, and exceptional personalized service. The 25th anniversary was truly an illustration of the cultural link between France and Vietnam, exemplifying the symbolism of the Sofitel logo, which signifies the seamless blending of French and local cultures. Over these two and a half decades, we have not only celebrated the excellence of Sofitel but also the enchanting partnership of Saigon’s vibrant spirit with the elegance of French heritage. At Sofitel, we want to inspire people to celebrate life and its beauties with joy, impertinence, and, most of all, pleasure! This celebration embodies the essence of our vision, where the rich traditions of Saigon meet the sophistication of French savoir-faire, creating a world of endless delight and unforgettable moments”, commented Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel.
“It is a privilege to be part of an establishment that has redefined luxury, elegance, and service in Ho Chi Minh City. Our gratitude goes to our valued guests, passionate team, and partners who have been unwavering supports in this journey. This anniversary not only pay tribute to our past but also reaffirms our dedication to offer unforgettable experiences to our guests in the future”, said Mr. Mario Mendis, General Manager of Sofitel Saigon Plaza.
Michelle Wee- CEO Standard Chartered Vietnam – Madame Trang Le R- Counsel General Daniël Stork of The Netherlands
The festivities will continue during the 5th Saigon Gourmet Week, taking place from October 6th to 8th at Sofitel Saigon Plaza.
Event Curator and Producer Tracie May-Wagner
This event promises a delightful array of culinary experiences, including immersive cooking classes, exclusive lunches and dinners, and an unforgettable brunch featuring renowned chefs.
Phoung Nam Art Theater
The lineup includes Sébastien Voelker (French Pastry Chef), Truc Dinh (Vietnamese Chef), Shozo Tsuruhara (Japanese Chef), Victor Savall (Spanish Pastry Chef), Sakal Phoeung (French-Cambodian Chef), Keiko Nagae (French-Japanese Pastry Chef), Vuong Vo (Vietnamese Chef), Adrien Guenzi (French Chef), and French Michelin-Star Chef Thierry Renou.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza
Sofitel Saigon Plaza harmonizes the sophistication of French art de vivre with the vibrancy of local Vietnamese culture, delivering a luxury hospitality experience enriched by genuine heartfelt service. Conveniently located in a tranquil enclave on Le Duan Boulevard, Sofitel Saigon Plaza places you in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City’s business, cultural, and shopping district.
The hotel boasts 286 rooms and suites adorned with refined décor and deluxe amenities, a fitness center feauring advanced exercise equipment, and an outdoor swimming pool with breathtaking city views.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza also features five dining establishments serving local and French cuisine, seven polished meeting rooms, and an opulent ballroom equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, making it the ideal destination for business, leisure, meetings, and gatherings.
Sofitel Hotels & Resorts
Sofitel Hotels & Resorts is an ambassador of modern French style, culture and art-de-vivre around the world.
Established in 1964, Sofitel is the first international luxury hotel brand to originate from France, with more than 120 chic and remarkable hotels in many of the world’s most sought-after destinations. Sofitel exudes a refined and understated sense of modern luxury, always blending a touch of French elegance with the very best of the locale.
Sofitel also includes a selection of heritage luxury hotels under the Sofitel Legend banner, renowned for their timeless elegance and storied past.
Some notable hotels in the Sofitel portfolio include Sofitel Paris Le Scribe Opera, Sofitel London St James, Sofitel Dubai The Obelisk, Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan, Sofitel Mexico City Reforma, Sofitel Legend Santa Clara Cartagena, Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi and Sofitel Ambassador Seoul.
Sofitel is part of Accor, a world leading hospitality group counting over 5,400 properties throughout more than 110 countries, and a participating brand in ALL – Accor Live Limitless – a lifestyle loyalty program providing access to a wide variety of rewards, services and experiences.
New York Wine Studio starts classes this October in NYC, Wine Expert Alan Tardi reveals why you need to Enroll
He’s worked as a chef, a restaurateur, a sommelier, a consultant to some of New York City’s biggest and best fine dining restaurants. He’s also written for magazines and publications, such as Wine Spectator, Wine and Spirits, Decanter, of course, the New York Times.
Today Wine Expert Alan Tardi visits us for a conversation about NYC, restaurants, Italian wine and his new classes starting this fall (October) at New York Wine Studio.
As a get to know you question for everyone out there who loves food and wine and spirits, but they don’t necessarily know your background so much.
You’ve been in the wine world, the hospitality world, the restaurant world for many years. Tell us about a celebration in your life that inspired you to join these industries?
Alan: Sure. First I should say that, when you introduced me, you said I was a chef and a restaurateur and all that’s true. But before I was a chef, I was a cook. And actually before I was a cook, I was a dishwasher. I took a little bit of a break from college and went to Europe and traveled around and then came back and wanted to come visit my sister in New York City.
And so I did. And I ended up staying. And at a certain point, I thought okay, I’m going to go back and finish my undergraduate degree, but I also want to get a job. So I walked into a place that could have been a shoe store or whatever. A gas station. But it happened to be a restaurant.
One of the new, the first restaurants in this area called Tribeca, when it was just starting to take shape and walked in there and said, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a job.’
The person who was in the back that they sent me back to talk to in the kitchen was washing the dishes. And he said, Yeah, I’m the owner. You want to wash dishes? Yeah, sure.
So I started washing dishes there in this restaurant. And then after a while I would, I became a bus boy on the floor. Then when I would come into work, oftentimes the kitchen was a little bit behind. So I would help them out. I ended up going to the kitchen while I was going to school at the same time.
For me, it was a job and while I was going to college in the village after my classes in the evening, I found this tiny little restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in the village called Chez Brigitte.
It was like a counter basically, they had two little tables on the side, but there was a counter there with maybe eight seats. And there was this French woman named Brigitte who was cooking food back there. I started to go there, so I didn’t go home by myself and have supper.
I started to get half bottles of wine from a nearby wine shop and took it to this place, Chez Brigitte. I spoke French. I was talking to the woman cooking there.That was a celebration for me, and I was there all by myself. I would go there after, after my schooling before I went back home.
So that was like a celebration. I would go there two or three times a week. And that was my own sort of really like dining. But it was very casual. It was an open kitchen. But that was my celebration factor. And then after I finished my degree I thought I’m actually into cooking.
I was cooking in this restaurant in Tribeca. And so I went and knocked on the door of a little restaurant in Soho, which was called Chanterelle. It was a legendary restaurant for about 25 years. And the woman, the manager, the wife of the chef, Karen Weltuck, and David Weltuck was a chef.
She hired me. I was the third person. Before that, there were two people in the kitchen. I became the third person in the kitchen doing Garde Manger. Then after six or nine months, I was promoted to he sous chef. So I went from a Garde Manger to the sous chef in this really legendary restaurant.
So that was my celebration.
The fact that you grew up behind the scenes in the back of the house makes me curious.
For a couple – whether it’s a date night, an anniversary or a business dinner,
do you have any tips for how to take that fine dining experience and make it really truly memorable
Alan: First of all, we talk about fine dining. To me, sometimes you have the best experiences in a very simple, very unpretentious place. When I was working at Chanterelle, I was there for a little over three years. Every August, the restaurant would close for the month and most of the staff would go off on a gastronomic tour.
I went with some of my colleagues to France two years in a row. We would go through all the three star Michelin restaurants. At that time, you had to write a letter in French asking for a reservation at a certain time.
You had to reserve ahead of time because you had three star Michelin restaurants, highly sought after. Three or four days a week we would be eating in these fancy restaurants, sometimes lunch and dinner. It’s crazy. But there would be the down days too, right?
When you’re just traveling somewhere, you’re going to a different part. Some of these meals were amazing, that it was a whole new world for me. You get the menu, all the service and the cheese and the wines and everything. It was a great experience.
On the off days, you would just find a place to eat. And sometimes we would go to a little aubergine. I remember one in Normandy, walking into this place. It was just a few doors down from where we were staying overnight, waiting for our next kind of big meal. We went to this little aubergine and they had the most banal dish, trout almondine, right?
Trout almondine. It was in Normandy, however. There were women in the kitchen, not men, and usually in these three star restaurants, it was all male at that point.
I realized that some of those down meal nights and simple places, they had no stars at all. You had amazing food.
The meals were on the same par as some of the best three Michelin restaurants I had. So that was an important distinction for me to make. When you’re talking about how to really create – whether it’s in a very simple environment or kind of more fancy – how to really make it special. I think it has genuinity.
Just being what you are and trying to take care of your guests as best as you possibly can. That can really make it very special. You need to have good food, you need to have good wine, you need to have good service. All of those factors play in. But the most important thing is really trying to take care of your customer.
And I think you can do the same thing at home, your customers, whoever’s coming to your home and you’re going to offer them something and you want to try to make it as special as you can, even if it’s just hamburgers, but that can be really great and memorable.
We’re going to stick with the restaurant for a second, but move toward the wine list.
What are some tips for someone who wants to have a nice bottle out at dinner and they just don’t even know where to start?
Alan: That’s a great question. When I had my restaurant I decided to take a certain approach to the wine program, which was to find the best regional wines that would really best accompany the food.
Many of them were wines that people were unfamiliar with, they were just not among the top 10 that people would go to automatically. This is some years ago when a lot of the wine lists in the restaurant were the most famous ones you see all over the place because people are comfortable with that. So sometimes it threw people off and they would ask questions. What is that? Don’t you have this other one that’s very popular and all over the place?
No, but we have this and – we didn’t always say this – but it’s actually much better and it costs less.
So people would try it. They would take a leap of faith and for the most part they always loved the wines, and they went very well with their food. Not only was I the chef and the owner but I was also the sommelier as well.
We tried to train the staff very well about the wines and inform them. We had monthly tastings with them so they could taste the wines.
If people were really interested, I would come out of the kitchen and explain, make a suggestion based on what they said they liked. Sometimes it’s very difficult for people to explain what they want, so you have to read into that a little bit, but it’s something that really worked.
I know you love Italian wine, you’re an expert in Italian wine. Are there some Italian wine regions that deserve more attention?
Alan: Absolutely. I love wine from all over the place. Initially I spent time in France, delving into the wine regions there and they’re amazing and superb. When I was working at Chanterelle after the two first years going to France and the three Michelin restaurants, the third year I said maybe I’ll go to Italy and just try that out.
When I actually went there, it totally blew my mind. We rented a little house outside of Siena and explored the area. We went to a fantastic restaurant and it’s still in existence, La Chiusa, in a tiny little village called Montefollonico.
That really blew my mind completely. Because it was in an old olive oil mill, outside of this tiny little village up in the hills. The food was both very traditional and also very kind of cutting edge. They were trying to expand a little bit, but there was a really great balance of that. I actually went back there to do a stage, a summer stage working in the kitchen.
What really blew my mind was the fact that everything there was local. It was right, very close to Montepulciano and I would go walk in the vineyards. A lot of the food they got was made from grapes in the vineyards outside the restaurant. And the cheese was the pecorino.
The cheeses in Tuscany were made locally and everything was from that particular area. This was long before farm to table.
So it was a tremendous experience and that was just the beginning because Italy has 20 different regions, each one of them very different.
We think of Italy’s being old, the ancient Romans and the Etruscans. That’s true. But Italy is a country just a little bit more than a hundred years old. 150 years old. It was formed in 1861 bringing together the Italy that was once where it was fragmented after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Up until that point, you had all these different city states that had their own language, their own identity, their own cuisine, their own architecture. And while it’s been now collected into one country, each region is very independent and different from one another.
It’s changing a little bit now. At one point the dialects were very strong. When I moved to Piemonte. In the village where I lived for over 12 years, when I moved there in 2003, most of the people – who are over 50 years old, spoke Piedmontese as their first language. They had gone to school, so they learned Italian, but they spoke Piedmontese whenever they could.
In Italy there’s an incredible diversity of different places within the country. And it goes into the wine. The wines are very different. The grape variety, there are more grape varieties in Italy than most any other place.
I appreciate how you fit all these areas together: the wine, the food, the identity of the people themselves. When people Google you, they can find a lot. Your videos, your books, your webinars.
What do you think is a tip to being a great speaker when it comes to food, wine, travel, these types of genres?
Alan: I feel like I’m very humble, especially when you’re talking about wine, there’s always something new to learn and it never really stops. So I’m learning too, as I go along..
I approach it as I want to learn about something myself. Then I want to explain it and talk about it to other people and fill them in on it as well, because it’s exciting for me it might be also interesting and exciting for other people.
The other thing is really trying to share that information in a meaningful way. I’m not trying to be an expert. I just want to share that excitement that I’ve felt myself.
Tell me how your background and the learning we’re talking about informed your decision to launch the New York Wine studio?
Alan: As you alluded to, I’ve been teaching for quite a while. All these things just happened almost organically. I didn’t say I’m going to become a restaurateur or a chef. I just started. From there, I really got interested in wine because there’s a very strong correlation between wine and food.
I got really interested in wine. I was doing a lot of panel tasting with Wine and Spirits magazine, whose office was very close to my restaurant. Josh Green, the editor there and a friend of mine for quite a while. At one point he said, Hey, do you want to write an article? I said, sure. So I started writing for them a lot and it just went into other venues as well.
Teaching is the same thing. I started giving presentations at wine conferences like Society of Wine Educators annual conference I started teaching around 2015 for the Wine Scholar Guild. I was teaching for about six years.
I’ve been doing it in many different forms. Italian Wine Scholar. French Wine Scholar and Spanish Wine Scholar as well.
I thought maybe it would be a good idea to offer this program, the IWS, Italian Wine Scholar program, in New York City. No one is doing it here. Why? Why is that? So rather than doing it online, I thought it would be really great to do it in person. Where you can actually interact with the students that are there rather than just having them in the background on a computer from many different places in the world.
So I wanted to offer that along with wine because that’s a very important component. Obviously, if you’re talking about wine and explaining different Appalachians and different growing areas and different winemaking traditions, it’s good to be tasting the wines while you’re learning about that.
I came across a place that was willing to host these presentations, a beautiful wine tasting area, right in midtown Manhattan, close to Grand Central.
In addition to the Italian Wine Scholar Program, to start things up, do four individual classes that are theme oriented.
Is it fall and spring, or what’s the schedule?
Alan: Right now we’re going to be starting this fall beginning in October, I want to ease into it. I’m not loading up an entire schedule of things, but I’m going to be offering part one of the Italian Wine Scholar program, because There are two parts to this certification program.
The first part of the Italian Wine Scholar program will be this fall. Six 3-hour sessions live in-person with wine once a week during October and November.
Then to add something else, in the evenings, we’ll be doing four courses. One in October, two in November, and one in December. Two hour courses with wine, as well, and they’re not regionally driven, they’re thematically driven.
The first theme class is going to be: the many faces of Sangiovese because Sangiovese is a grape variety, Italy’s most widely planted grape variety, and of course it’s very closely tied to Tuscany, where there are at least five major appalachians that really focus on that grape variety.So we’ll be showcasing 10 different San Gervasio based wines. Five of them from Tuscany and then other San Gervasio based wines from other regions that, that really featured that like Umbria and Marche and even up in the north, Romagna, which is part of the Emilia Romagna region. Emilia and Romagna are completely different places.
There will also be individual classes on volcanic wines, Appassimento wines, which are wines that are made from grapes that have undergone this drying process.
Then also sparkling wines, which I’m a big fan of. My second book was about champagne and I’m really deeply into champagne. It’s going to involve sparkling wines from three different countries.
It sounds like this might be the most in-depth Italian class you can find in Manhattan.
Alan: To be careful, I would say it is “one of”, the most comprehensive program in Italian wine anywhere.
This program has not, has never been offered in New York City. It’s kind of a first time for that. It’s very comprehensive. It covers all 20 regions, all of the significant Appalachians and there are many of them.
All of the significant diverse grape varieties and I say significant because it might even be a little bit more now in the Italian National Register of Grape Varieties. Many people think that there are more than 2,000 different grape varieties. They just haven’t been genetically defined before.
Because it’s so deep with knowledge, it’s great for trade. New York City is a huge foodie and restaurant dining scene.
Alan: If you want to have all these post nominal certifications, that’s good. Nothing wrong with that. The most important thing, however, of course is knowledge and understanding. that you can use if you’re in the trade.
The understanding, the awareness of wine that you can then transmit to your customers in a restaurant or to your customers in a wine shop where you’re selling to.
It’s a very comprehensive program, but you don’t have to be in the trade to do it. There are a lot of people who are just really fascinated and interested in wine. This is certainly a great comprehensive program for people who just are really fascinated by Italian wine and they want to learn more about it.
What are the goals for the New York Wine Studio? What’s the future for you? What’s the future for the studio itself?
Alan: For me, it’s this and I’m very excited about it. I like this sort of counterpoint between the really focused credential certification course with an exam at the end, and then the other ones that are more mixing it up and comparing / contrasting these different wine regions.
Next spring I plan to do Italian Wine Scholar Part Two. There’s also an introductory course, used to be called Italian Prep, now I think it’s called Italian Essentials. It is for people who aren’t ready to jump into a whole certification program with all that detail, but it’s an introduction to Italian wine.
I would also love to do the French Wine Scholar, along with some additional classes in the evening.
Tell us where we can find more. Websites? Social Media?
Alan: Check out the website www.NewYorkWineStudio.com. It talks about the programs, the IWS program with the schedule mapped out and the four individual classes.
